Pumpkin Fun and Much More!

Good Evening,

Wow, what a week!  I am exhausted but feel wonderful about the learning and fun that took place this week.  It was pumpkin week and we had lots of fun exploring pumpkins through science, math, and literacy.  Thank you so much to everyone that shared pumpkins!  A few wonderful parents planned and chaperoned our class party.  That's right, they did all of the work!  The kiddos had a great time!  There were so many pictures from the week and party festivities I decided to share them through a little slideshow!  Click here to see it!  Enjoy!

We also had the October Character Champion Assembly.  Five students in our class were recognized for demonstrating the weekly words, with one student highlighted as our class' Character Champion for the month.  Congratulations to all of our students.

Cooperation: Adrien

Respect: Colton

Politeness: Tinah

Golden Rule: Olivia

Our Character Champion for this month was Aubrey.  I shared how Aubrey has been extra helpful with a few recent guest teachers.  They both commented that she was helpful, kind and caring.  Way to go Aubrey!

Conference Notice will go home on Monday.  Please return the forms as soon as possible.  If your scheduled day or time doesn't work, please let me know and we can adjust.  I am more than happy to schedule a before school or alternate day conference if needed.  

The November Calendar has been placed in your child's G.O. Book.  Please check it for important dates including a few none school days and an upcoming field trip.

We had two birthdays this past week.  Happy Birthday Hazel and Aubrey!   These two girls were both pretty in purple on their special days!

A Peek at Our Week

Reading: We are finishing up our third unit in reading next week.  The students have learned some important skills such as identifying a central message, recalling story events, and comparing two pieces of literature.  A key piece to 1st grade reading is grammar and conventions.  Don't worry if your child doesn't quite seem to understand nouns, verbs, adjectives, or pronouns.  We will spiral through the parts of speech and continue learning about them this year.  I will say, this is always one of the hardest skills for my first graders each year (understandably).

Math: We took our Unit 2 Math test last week and you were able to view the results.  Math tests are still new to 1st graders since they did not take them in kindergarten.  The "writing" component is quite challenging at this time of the year as well.  I am trying to keep the students positive and remind them to simply try their best.  You will be amazed to see some of their math thinking strategies that they were already able to share!  We took the Cumulative Assessment on Units 1 and 2 this week which I will share with you at conferences.

Writing: We are busy writing our Opinion, Blue Ribbon Papers.  Students are busy "judging" their own collections and writing about them using the word "because."  We added this word to our student dictionaries because it is "so long and so hard!"  

Upcoming Reminders:

November 2: Book-It Due (Optional)

November 10: Book Orders Due

November 11: No School

Have a safe and Happy Halloween!  It looks as though the weather will be nice on Saturday and Sunday!

Fall Break and a Little Rest

The students are busy at art class with Mrs. Dronen so I am able to blog a bit about our last couple of weeks and some exciting upcoming adventures in 1st grade!  I will apologize now, this is going to be a long one (lots of photos)!  I hope you enjoy these extra couple of days off.  We will be celebrating my son, Carson's 6th Birthday on Friday!

Last week brought a fun opportunity to do a few projects, science and social studies with Columbus Day.  We began the day with an anchor chart to look at the students schema, or background about the holiday.  Aside from "he was a boy" and "he had a ship" the learning that would occur was all going to be new!  We read several books about Columbus, watched a couple of animated clips and explored using mini-books to learn about Columbus.  The students then played a Columbus Day math game with their partner.

Tinah and Nico play Columbus Day Roll and Cover BUMP.

The highlights for the day were probably the snack and boat races.  Check out some photos below to look at our fun!

Columbus Boats

Chace and his Columbus Boat Treat. 

Aubrey preparing for her boat race.

When the day was through, we went back and added to our anchor chart (their schema is inside the bubble) and added.  Look at that new knowledge!

We also celebrated Aiden's Birthday.  Happy Birthday Aiden, we loved the Donuts!

This week we traveled by bus to MSUM to Fuego Tropical, a steel drum presentation.  The presentation was packed with over 850 1st graders.  The students sang and danced along to music from all around the world.  As usual, the students were well behaved, responsible and attentive.

Check out that dancing!

A Peek at our Week:

Reading: We are busy in both whole group and small group reading.  By now you are seeing lots of books coming home with your child.  They are reading more fluently and beginning to monitor and self-correct when reading.  I can't wait to share their progress at conferences.  Students are learning about several parts of speech like proper nouns, verbs and adjectives.  Today we practiced using commas in dates by acing as "Comma Cops."  Next week we will read The Recess Queen, a darling story, and use it to identify the main idea and key details.  We will also use adjectives to describe a character, Mean Jean.

Math: Addition and Subtraction is our focus in math currently.  Students are using drawings, objects and equations to solve problems.  If you were wondering if I planned to send home the Math Home Links, I had decided NOT to.  I just feel there is enough homework coming home.  Students are playing "games" to learn important skills and I am meeting with two small groups daily to boost addition and subtraction fluency.

Writing: Did you read your child's information book?  All students presented an information book to their audience (our class) last week.  They were fabulous for only 35 days of school!  We are slowly moving towards writing opinions.  A letter accompanying a bag will come home with your child today asking for a "collection" to be brought to school.  Our first lessons in opinion writing will involve students judging their own personal collections.  Please help your child find a collection of 5, similar items to bring to school on Monday.

Upcoming Reminders:

• Happy Birthday Hazel - October 25
• Happy Birthday Aubrey - October 28
• Reading Raider Tic-Tac-Toe Due - October 28
• Learn Not to Burn Firefighter Visit - October 29
• Character Assembly - October 30 @ 9:00 
• Fall Party - October 30 @ 1:30 - No costumes please!
• October Book-It Due - October 30

Thank you for all of the pumpkins!  Enjoy your long weekend,

Horned Lizards, Jackrabbits, Blue Footed Boobyies and Scorpians Galore!

Good afternoon!  I will just blog briefly today about our week.   We had the opportunity to write and draw about animals we have been learning about in both science and reading.  After reading, What Do You Do With a Tail Like That? students drew a picture and wrote about an interesting animal.  Each of these animals have a special body part that helps them move or survive. These are a few exemplars I selected to share with the class.  Aren't theses just great!

These (above and below) are horned lizards who squirts blood out of their eyes.  GROSS! 

This is a scorpion with stingers.

This is a jackrabbit that uses its ears to stay cool.

This is a blue-footed booby that dances.

In math we have been learning about addition.  Students were human models in the communicative property.  They learned that in addition, the order of the addends does not matter, the answer will always be the same.  In other words, 2+3=5 and 3+2=5.

Upcoming Reminders:

• Weekly Word Writing is due every Friday.  We had 14 students participate this week, let's shoot for 16 next week!  
• The Reading Raider will be due on October 28.
• Book Orders are due on October 12.
• We will celebrate Aiden's Birthday on October 14.

Enjoy the warm weather this weekend,

Daily 5 Math

Okay, okay I know you are getting tired of hearing me say how amazing my class is, but they are!  I am always telling parents and other teachers how lucky I am, and it's true!  It is time for you to understand why!  Last week I began talking about Daily 5 Math to my students.  I explained that Daily 5 Math looks a lot like Daily 5 Reading and we have to learn the rules and routines before we can start it.  We spent a little time in math each day last week reviewing rules and learning about a few activities.  Fast forward to Monday of this week and the 1st graders were eager to give it a try.

Daily 5 Math is similar to Daily 5 Reading in that it provides me with the opportunity to work with students individually or in small groups while the other students are quiet and actively engaged in purposeful activities.  Eventually, students will participate in Math with Self, Math with Partner, Math on Computer, Math with Teacher and Math Journals.  For now, they have just learned about Math with Self and Math Journals.  Below you will see a few photos of students trying some of the Math with Self activities including Geoboards, Roll and Color, Roll and Count On, Dice in a Dice Addition, Addition Towers, and Tangrams.  In total, we have 10 different activities available right now.  It might look like playing, but each of these activities have students working on a variety of mathematical skills.

Now the really neat part about this all!  Watch and see just how quiet my room is during these student-led activities below.  WOW!  Have you ever seen so many six and seven year olds working so quietly?  Don't try to turn up your volume, that is really what the room sounds like!  You can only year a few dice being tossed and some unifix cubes being snapped.

 

I'll post a short weekly update at the end of this week.  For now, thank your child for being so amazing and working so hard in 1st grade!