Weekly Update - Week of November 12th

Dear First Grade Families,

We had a very busy 3 ½ day week!

We changed up our schedule a bit this week, so that we have writing in the morning instead of after lunch.  It was a bit of a change for all of us, but I think it will be a positive one!

We are also trying to roll out centers and small group work during reading workshop time.  This week, we did a word sort as a group.  We each got a different color crayon to “scribble” on the back of our sorts.  We also learned how to do a “speed sort.”  We also did a “roll and write” with sight words.  The students will get individual word sorts in the future when they are more familiar with the process of sorting words.  We will also learn about our listening center, poetry center, and special activity or art center.

This week in reading…

*We continued our Word Detective unit.  We have been on the look out for “unusual suspects” (i.e., contractions and compound words) and vowel teams.

*We will start our next unit “Readers Have Big Jobs To Do” after Thanksgiving break.  The focus of this unit is decoding, fluency, and comprehension.

This week in writing…

*We continued working on our non-fiction unit.

*We learned the steps to writing a non-fiction book.  Think of a topic, plan (say the information across your fingers, draw), and write the words.

*We’ll continue working on writing non-fiction when we come back with a focus on teaching our readers more and more by adding details in our pictures and words!

This week in math…

*We used the number line to solve subtraction problems with unknowns. 

*We will continue working on using the number line to add and subtract, as well as skip count.

*We will have our unit 3 assessment after Thanksgiving break.

We read a lot of great books this week, including A Turkey For Thanksgiving, 10 Fat Turkeys, Thanksgiving is Here, and The Thankful Book.  We’re also reading the last book in the Tales from Deckawoo Drive series:  Eugenia Lincoln and the Unexpected Package.  (We’re only on chapter 2, so no spoilers!)

On Thursday, we had our field trip to the Seacoast Science Center.  Thank you to everyone who volunteered and made our fun day possible! The students had lots of time to explore and had a presentation where they learned about mussels, sea stars, lobsters, barnacles, etc. 

On Friday, we had a 2-hour delay.  We had a busy, busy day and didn’t get through half of the activities I had planned, but what can you do? It is fall in Maine! (Or is it winter?) The students enjoyed a PJ and Popcorn day! We also did lots of “ketchup,” played a math game, cleaned out our book bins, and put our poem “I’m Glad I’m Not A Turkey” in our poetry binder.  Our poem after Thanksgiving is called “Turkey Trouble” and it is about being sick of eating turkey leftovers.  I think all of the students will really enjoy it!

Some reminders…

*Book order was due today, but if you need more time, I can wait until Sunday to put the order in!

*No school next week! Happy Thanksgiving!

*PLEASE be sure to send your child with snow gear on days when there is snow on the ground.  Students are not able to go on the playground unless they are wearing snow pants and boots (if there is snow on the ground!)

*At school, students are asked to put their mittens on last so they’ll be able to zip their own coats.  Please try to reinforce this at home!

*During snow season, students will need a change of shoes EVERY DAY! Snow boots track mud and water into the classroom and they’re also hot and uncomfortable.  In the past, students have kept their sneakers in their cubby, so that they don’t have to pack them each morning.

*Please encourage your child to be independent with their snow gear.  At school, we don’t have a lot of time to get dressed for recess after special (~5 minutes).  So, students will need to be independent and efficient!

P.S. Thank you for coming to conferences! I was able to meet with everyone in one way or another and it was great getting to talk to you about your child’s progress! Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions or concerns.

My daughter ran her first 5K this week for Girls on the Run! It was chilly, but fun!

Weekly Update

Dear First Grade Families,

We have finished up another busy week! Next week will also be another busy, short week! It's hard to believe we're approaching the 50th day of school!

We learned about Veterans Day.  We learned what a veteran is and why we celebrate Veterans Day.  We also learned a song called "See the Veteran."  The students really enjoyed this song and were singing it a lot throughout the school day! The students were eager to share about the veterans in their lives.  I shared pictures of the veterans in my family.  Two of my grandparents (my grandmother and grandfather) were in the Army and served in World War II, one of my grandparents was in the Air Force, my brother served four years in the Coast Guard, and my husband was in the Army National Guard for 4 years.  He was deployed to Iraq from March 2006-March 2007. 

Mary and Arthur Gallant - Army 

*Fred Fowler - Air Force

Matt in Iraq 

*A friend of Matt's was making a children's book for his niece's school.  Hence, the teddy bear!

This week in reading, we continued our Word Detectives unit.  We learned that Word Detectives...
*Break the ending off the word, solve the beginning, and put it back together.

*Look out for vowel teams (i.e., ee, ea, ai).  We learned that "when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking and it usually says it's name."  This works in words like steal, pain, and boat.  We also talked about how there are always exceptions to the rule like GREAT! Word Detectives have to be FLEXIBLE!

*Look for parts of words or "chunks" they know.  We call this strategy "Chunky Monkey."  The students are excited to find small words within bigger words and word family chunks to help them solve tricky words!

*We also continued to look out for tricky beginning sounds -- blends and digraphs.  The students highlighted these in their poems AND were excited to see them in their math journal this week!

This week in writing, we took a couple of days to wrap up our small moment (narrative) unit.  We learned that small moments START, STAY, and END in the same place.  The students were also challenged to write two small moment stories this week that were easy to read.  It is great to see their progress since the beginning of the school year! We also started our non-fiction writing unit.  The students will be writing "all about" books or "teaching books" about topics they are experts in!

To break up the writing units, we did a SUPER fun project called "Disguise a Turkey."  We read the stories "Turkey Trouble" and "Turkey Trick or Treat."  The students were then given a turkey and told they had to disguise it to keep it safe for Thanksgiving.  The students could disguise their turkey to be anything they wanted using many different colors of construction paper.  Their creativity was amazing! We had lots of super heroes, princesses, Fort Nite characters, a pirate, a little brother, and even some Pokemon characters.  I'm told they're super strong....

Some of our turkeys in disguise.  I will need to get a picture of the other turkeys next week!

This week in math, we continued working on addition and subtraction strategies.  The students also were also given a large number of erasers and asked to estimate how many they had and then work as a group to count them and record the actual number.  The students also had to count all of the chair legs in the classroom.  This was a big task! We had counts ranging from 45-89.  The actual number of chair legs was 88! One students, Evelyn, was right on the nose!

This summer, I was on the hunt for these "hashtag" blocks in the Target Dollar Spot.  The other day, I stumbled upon some and bought FOURTEEN packs! Yesterday, the students had some time to experiment with the blocks at their table spots.  They had a lot of fun!

Looking ahead to next week...

*No school on Monday, 11/12

*Parent-teacher conferences on 11/14

*Field trip to Seacoast Science Center 11/15 (I will send home information for chaperones on Tuesday)

*No school week of 11/19

Weekly Update

Hello Everyone!

I cannot believe that it is already November! Sorry that it has been a couple of weeks since the last classroom update.  We have been very busy, having lots of fun, and working hard! 

Reading

A couple of weeks ago, we started our new reading unit.  It is called “Word Detectives.”  The students have been learning strategies to solve tricky words.  These strategies include all of the strategies they learned in the first reading unit (building good reading habits) and adding new strategies to solve “even harder words.”  First graders are learning to integrate meaning (what makes sense in the story?), structure (what sounds right?), and visual information (what looks right?). We have also used our knowledge of snap words (sight words) to help us read new words.  We’ve learned to look at a word and think, “Do I know a word that looks like this?” Students are also breaking words into smaller pieces.  One of the MOST important jobs word detectives have is to TRIPLE check a word and think, “Does it look right? Does it sound right? Does it make sense?” Next week, students will be learning more about looking closely at the beginning of words, looking at the end of words, and looking out for “unusual” suspects (i.e., compound words or contractions).  Book bags will start coming home VERY soon! Sorry for the delay!

Writing

We have continued working on writing small moments.  We have been focusing on making our writing “easy to read” by writing neat, using spaces, and stretching words to include LOTS of sounds! Next week, we will focus on ZOOMING IN on small moments.  Students are very enthusiastic about writing, but some have been writing about BIG ideas rather than small moments.  When we wrap up our small moments unit, we will move onto writing “all about” books.  This is such a fun unit and I think the students will love it!

Math

We started a new unit in math.  We have been focusing on solving word problems and showing our thinking using pictures, counters, and number sentences.  A big part of first grade math is explaining our thinking in writing and discussions.  For example, “I know that 7+3=10, so 10-7=3” or “I started at 7 and counted up 8, 9, 10.”

Halloween

We had a wonderful time at the Halloween parade! After the parade, we enjoyed a special snack.  Thanks to everyone who donated and made our celebration possible! We also played Halloween Bingo and Pin the Nose on the Witch! We had a lot of fun with that! We also made a scarecrow that could move... many students had their scarecrow doing the "floss," watched “Cat-in-the-Hat Knows A Lot About Halloween” with Mrs. Yurick’s class.  On Wednesday, we wrote about our night Trick or Treating and watched “Room on the Broom” in the afternoon while enjoying Pirates Booty! 

Conferences

I sent home a Parent Conference Feedback form.  Please take a few minutes to fill it out and send it back! I look forward to meeting with everyone! Please e-mail me if there are any issues with scheduling.

Field Trip

We will be taking our field trip to the Seacoast Science Center on Thursday, November 15th.  Please remember to send the field trip form and money back by November 5th.  We are all set for chaperones at this point.  There will be other opportunities to chaperone throughout the year!

Book Order

I sent home November’s book order.  It is due back on November 16th.  Last month, I was able to get LOTS of new books for our classroom library thanks to bonus points earned! Thank you so much!

First Grade Week #4

Dear First Grade Families,

We’ve wrapped up another busy, fun-filled week in first grade!

Reading

-When good readers come to a tricky word, they check the picture and get their lips ready to read the word! We met two Beanie Babies this week that help us remember these strategies:  Eagle Eye and Lips the Fish!

-We learned that good readers look at all parts of the word! Our friend Stretchy Snake helps us remember this!

-We learned that good readers think about what looks right and makes sense in the story!

Writing

-We learned how to bring our stories to life by making our characters think, feel, talk, and move!

-We also practiced telling our stories in “itsy bitsy” steps and using transition words like “first, next, then, last.”

Math

-We wrapped up Unit 1 and took our first math assessment.

-We started Unit 2, which will focus on addition strategies.

-We learned about the “turn around rule” or the commutative property.

-We practiced counting on.

-We practiced navigating the 120s chart.

-We learned some new games:  Roll and Total and Rolling for 50.

Science

-We continued learning about apples and the apple life cycle this week.

-We learned about Johnny Appleseed.

 -We did an apple taste test on Friday.  The students sampled Macintosh, Honey Crisp, Golden Delicious, and Granny Smith.  The class favorite was Golden Delicious and the runner up was Honey Crisp!

Our poem of the week was “Johnny Appleseed” – Ask your child to sing it to you!

Some reminders

-Picture day is October 3^rd

-No school October 5^th (Staff Development Day)

-No school October 8^th (Columbus Day)

-Book bags will start coming home shortly!

-Please return Federal Aid forms ASAP!!

Donors Choose

*The students LOVE the Hokki Stools in our classroom! I have posted some projects on Donors Choose to get additional stools for our classroom.  I have posted them as several small projects so that they have a better chance of getting funded.  Please consider sharing these projects with friends and family! Getting the word out truly helps! These stools are AWESOME for helping students get the movement they need! Donors choose has helped us get many of the flexible seating options we have available in our classroom!

Wiggle While We Work Part 3 <--Click here to view the project!!! 

And as always....some pictures!

Federal Aid Forms

Dear First Grade Families,
Please remember to return your Federal Aid forms as soon as possible!
Please return them even if you are not a military connected family!
Thank you!
-Kristen Greene

Weekly Update #3

We had another busy week in first grade! The students have continued getting to know each other, practicing our classroom routines, and diving into first grade academics.  We had a busy, fun week! Some of the highlights this week were:  2 fire drills, the super rainy day, seeing squirrels in the garden, and who can forget when the water didn't work for a couple of hours in the middle of the day! What an adventure!

This week in Reading...

• We continued learning about building good reading habits.  We talked about how good readers read MORE and MORE and keep track, good readers set goals, and good readers reread to see more! We practiced this habit using the book Goodnight Moon.  Can you believe that we never noticed the mouse on each page and that the book had rhyming words? I encouraged the students to use this strategy in the books in their book bins.  We've really been practicing setting up our reading mats, setting a goal and keeping track, and staying on task during reading workshop.  Next week, we will pick our reading spots!
• Next week we will start discussing good habits for solving hard words.  I am excited to introduce these strategies to students!

This week in Math...

• We practiced tracking data and putting it into tally charts.  We graphed animals with wings/no wings, what type of bottoms students were wearing (shorts, pants, skirts), and we also practiced making tally charts playing Rock, Paper, Scissors!
• The students had a math exploration lesson where they explored base-10 blocks, geoboards, pattern blocks, and took a math assessment in small groups.
• We played math games today!

This week in Writing...

• We discussed the steps of writing small moment stories.
• We discussed the difference between a watermelon story and a "seed" story.  For example, "our day so far at school" is a watermelon story, but playing ZAP! with a friend is a seed story.
• The students completed a writing prompt for a beginning of the year writing assessment.  (Lots of assessments this week!)
• We talked about strategies for spelling tricky words (i.e., stretch out the sounds, use words you know to help you).
• We started trying out different writing spots in the classroom (i.e., lap desks, wobble stools)

Below are some pictures of students in action and some of our anchor charts.  I hope you enjoy!

Here are the steps to writing a small moment story.  Think, plan, write.  

Here is the first anchor chart for our reading.  We're working on building good habits to grow our reading muscles!

We reviewed rhyming.  Students were each given a picture and had to find the person who's picture rhymed with their picture.  We also generated more rhyming words.

Here is our poem of the week.  This week, we searched our poem for "snap" words (sight words), punctuation, and worked on reading it smoothly.  

Here is our schedule for wiggle stools (Hokki stools).  The students LOVE them and look forward to their day!

Writing workshop!

Using the lap desks.

Using the floor table.

We're learning about apples.  We made a diagram of an apple tree.

The students spent a few minutes browsing the books in our library and using our "reading buddies." We also practiced putting books away in the correct bin!

Some reminders:

• Picture Day - October 3rd
• I will send out a Sign Up Genius link in the near future for parent-teacher conference sign ups

As always, please feel free to e-mail me with any questions or concerns!

Have a great weekend!