Mystery Reader

We have another Mystery Reader coming on Thursday! The first two clues are:

 

I have naturally dark, curly hair.

I love to go for long walks (when it’s not hot and humid outside!).

Weekly Update

Hello Families,

I am amazed that we have almost completed another month of school. This year is going by very quickly and our first graders have grown up in so many ways. J

Math

We are working on comparing and ordering numbers to 100. We have also started using greater than (>) and less than (<) symbols. Our lessons this week included adding and subtracting 1 and 10 more to a 2-digit numbers, using comparison symbols, and filling in missing numbers on a 100 chart.

Reading Workshop

Great readers use their five senses to visualize text as they read. We have been reading and visualizing more poetry this week. We really emphasized adding more details to our mental images in our minds and on our paper. Ask your child about child about the poem, “The Sleepover.”

Writer’s Workshop

We are starting to talk about our first grade research project. Each child will be researching an animal of his/her choice. If we do not have books at school on the chosen animal a different animal needs to be chosen or resources may be brought from home. These resources need to be for children, because they will be doing the research independently. We will complete an animal research report as a class before they will begin their own project.

 

This Week I Really Learned!

Thank you for writing to your child each week. We really do enjoy hearing all of the letters written each week. I am only able to check some letters each week. If your child’s letter is not adequate you are more than welcome to have him/her re-write it at home and/or write a letter back to your child stating expectations for next time. J

Word Workshop

We learned about the long e sound spelled with ee and ea.The children know that there aren’t rules for many of these patterns. They know that reading more will help identify the correct spelling by how the word looks when tried a variety of ways. J

Grammar

We learned about adjectives that compare. (Fast – faster – fastest) Have your child look for these in his/her reading material.

Other

Tissues

We are on our last 3 boxes of tissues. If you have an extra box you’d like to send, we’d be very thankful! Thank you for those that have already come in! J Also, thank you to all of the families who sharpen pencils for us! I can’t tell you how much it helps us out every day. J

Water Bottles

Please remember that water bottles may only contain water. If you would like your child to drink something other than water at snack, please send a small amount (no more than 6 ounces) of a beverage that does not contain sugar. I’ve asked the students to bring their water bottles to school empty and fill them with water in the morning. I’m hoping this will eliminate the bathroom “emergencies” we’ve been having lately. Thank you very much for your help with this! J

Report Cards

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about your child’s report card. I would be more than happy to answer them. J

Have a wonderful weekend!

 

 

Our Mystery Reader Revealed....

Mrs. Kuester was our March Mystery Reader! We loved hearing "The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig."

 

 

Happy Birthday

 

 

 

Carter! 

 

 



3rd Mystery Reader Clue

"I love to garden."

Mystery Reader Coming Soon!

 Our March Mystery Reader will be here on Friday! This person has left a few clues for us?

 

I love to run.

I love to swim.

 

Check back tomorrow for the 3rd clue!

Lost and Found

These are our classroom lost and found items. Please let me know if any of them belong to your child. I will send them down to the office at the end of next week. Thank you!

Weekly Update

Hello Families,

It felt great to have another full week of school. We are back to a consistent routine, which really helps our learning. We are fortunate enough to have a student from The College of St. Scholastica completing a 30 hour field experience in our classroom. Ms. Jessica Madsson spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday mornings with us this week. She is assisting with small groups and some one on one teaching during reading, math, and word work. She will be with us 7 more mornings. It’s a great opportunity for everyone! J

Math

Tens and ones was the theme again this week. We learned how to write numbers in expanded form. (47 = 40+7) We also learned how to write numbers is different ways. 47 can be 40 + 7, or 30 + 17, or 20 + 27 or 10 + 37, or 0 + 47. This concept was very tricky. Any extra practice at home would help. J We ended the week with our assessment on tens and ones. Next week we will begin a unit on comparing and ordering numbers to 100.

Reading Workshop

Great readers use their five senses to visualize text as they read. We have been reading and visualizing more poetry this week. Ask your child about the following poems: “Spring the Season of Joy”, “My Neighbor’s Dog is Purple”,  and “Shhh! They are Sleeping.” We are collecting our illustrations and will put them together in a book of “Our Mental Images.” These will be completed and sent home at the beginning of April

Writer’s Workshop

We wrote about somebody who means more to us than gold. These were sent home earlier in the week. I hope you enjoyed reading them.

 

This Week I Really Learned!

Thank you for writing to your child each week. We were not able to write out letters this week with all of the Valentine’s festivities. Feel free to have your child write a letter to you at home and/or write to your child anyway. J We added a sentence to our letters this week. Each child needed to start his/her letter with, “This week was ____________________.”

Word Workshop

This week was all about the long o sound. We practiced reading and writing long o words with vowel teams: oa, oe, ow. We also learned a unique syllable for the long o sound which is “old.” Of course we didn’t’ forget the long o sound can also be spelled with an open vowel like in the word no. The children know that there aren’t rules for many of these patterns. They know that reading more will help identify the correct spelling by how the word looks when tried a variety of ways. J

Grammar

We had lots of fun identifying adjectives in our morning messages this week. We are getting pretty good at this! Adjectives describe a noun. Make sure your child can identify the adjective and the noun it describes. (The new, red car is mine. New and red are adjectives describing the car.)

Other

Tissues

We are on our last 3 boxes of tissues. If you have an extra box you’d like to send, we’d be very thankful! Thank you for those that have already come in! J Also, thank you to all of the families who sharpen pencils for us! I can’t tell you how much it helps us out every day. J

Water Bottles

Please remember that water bottles may only contain water. If you would like your child to drink something other than water at snack, please send a small amount (no more than 6 ounces) of a beverage that does not contain sugar. I’ve asked the students to bring their water bottles to school empty and fill them with water in the morning. I’m hoping this will eliminate the bathroom “emergencies” we’ve been having lately. Thank you very much for your help with this! J

Report Cards

Report cards are being sent home with students today. If I did not receive the envelope back from trimester one, I placed the paper report card in your child’s take home folder. All other report cards are in the envelopes. You may keep the report card, and send the envelope back signed at your earliest convenience.  A blank area means it was not assessed this trimester. Some students were re-assessed on some skills that were taught first trimester. These grades are reflected under second trimester.  Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions. Standards based reporting is new to us all! I’d be happy to help explain more. J

Have a wonderful weekend!

 

Weekly Update

 

Hello Families,

We made it through a full week of school with no late starts, early outs, or cancellations! It felt good to be in a normal routine, and it seemed to keep the children engaged and on task. We had a very productive week with lots of new learning!

Math

Tens and ones was the theme this week. We completed 4 different lessons on the meaning of tens and ones. We know how to write in expanded form, write the number from a picture, and draw a picture to represent a number. Good practice for home is to ask your child how many tens and ones are in any given 2 digit number. You can also give your child a number in expanded form and his him/her to tell you the number. (50 + 2)

Reading Workshop

Great readers use their five senses to visualize text as they read. We practiced visualizing a day at the beach before we tackled visualizing text. Next we practiced visualizing a page from “Mailing May,” and we finished the week visualizing two different poems, “Green Giant” and “Dirt on My Shirt.”

Writer’s Workshop

We finished our personal narratives and did a fun opinion writing activity. Ask your child about “Duck or Rabbit.” J

This Week I Really Learned!

Thank you for writing to your child each week. We were not able to write out letters this week with all of the Valentine’s festivities. Feel free to have your child write a letter to you at home and/or write to your child anyway. J We added a sentence to our letters this week. Each child needed to start his/her letter with, “This week was ____________________.”

Word Workshop

We learned two more ways to spell words with long a. These are vowel teams ai and ay. We know that ay comes at the end of a word and ai comes in the middle. Sometime a long a word is spelled with a vowel consonant silent e. There is no rule for this. The children have learned they have to try both ways to see which looks right, and they’ll get better at this the more they READ! J

Grammar

We practiced contractions with not again this week. We emphasized using doesn’t and don’t correctly.  We know to use doesn’t with he, she, and when naming objects and to use don’t with we, they, and I.

Other

We are on our last 3 boxes of tissues. If you have an extra box you’d like to send, we’d be very thankful! Thank you for those that have already come in! J Also, thank you to all of the families who sharpen pencils for us! I can’t tell you how much it helps us out every day. J

Have a wonderful weekend!

 

 

 

Weekly Update

Hello Families,

Welcome to March! Thank you for taking the time to attend your child’s conference. I enjoyed talking with you about your child’s progress in 1^st grade! JWe have survived two more weeks of unexpected snow days, late starts, and early releases. I hope this all is behind us, but I have a feeling we haven’t seen the end of it yet. In addition to the change in school schedule we’ve had a fun couple of weeks celebrating Winter Fest.  I hope your child enjoyed this fun celebration.

Math

We finished our unit on Counting and Number Patterns today. Your child should be skip counting by 2, 5, and 10 and identifying even and odd numbers up to 100. We also learned about ordinal positions (1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd…) and making numbers 11 to 20. Reviewing that any number 10 – 20 is 10 and some ones is great practice. Your child should be able to say that 16 is 10 and 6 etc.

Reading Workshop

We finished our questioning unit today. The last couple of weeks we’ve been asking questions about biographies. The students were particularly interested in the Ruby Bridges story. Please continue the conversation at home as you read the article about her in one of the Scholastic News articles that was sent home today. We will practice visualizing when we return from spring break. Please continue to encourage your child to ask good questions using our good question words: who, what, where, when, why, and how.

Writer’s Workshop

We are working on an independent personal narrative. Each child will need to write three chronological events and a conclusion sentence about something they will always remember. These will be shared at conferences. First grade writing expectations at this time of the year are:

Proper spacing between letters, words, and sentences

Capital letters at the beginning of sentences

Capitals letters for proper nouns

End marks

Sight words spelled correctly

One syllable short vowel words spelled correctly

Words with beginning and/or ending blends and short vowels spelled correctly

Open vowel words spelled correctly

CVCe words spelled correctly.

These skills are done in isolation beautifully! J Now we need to get it to transfer over to their writing.

 

This Week I Really Learned!

Thank you for writing to your child each week. We were not able to write out letters this week with all of the Valentine’s festivities. Feel free to have your child write a letter to you at home and/or write to your child anyway. J

Word Workshop

We have learned several new diagraphs that past couple of weeks. Your child should be reading and spelling words with th, sh, ch, and wh digraphs. We know that wh and th each make 2 sounds. A strategy is to try both sounds when decoding an unknown word and see if it makes sense.

Grammar

We practiced using the present and past tense of see and say correctly.   

***The Scholastic News articles are being sent home for extra reading material over spring break. They are not required to be read, but most students enjoy the articles and most can read them independently.***

Have a wonderful spring break and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone in a week!