Dr. Seuss Fun!

Greetings 1st Grade Families!

Just a short post highlighting our past Star Student, Character Champion, and Dr. Seuss Week.  Next week the library is organizing some fun Dr. Seuss Activities, including fun dress-up days! Below is the schedule:

Monday - wear green

Tuesday - wear as many colors as possible

Wednesday - crazy socks

Thursday - stripes or polka dots

Friday - cozy and comfy gear 

Meet Leah

Leah was recently our class Star Student!  Leah wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up, but I think she should seriously reconsider a field in teaching!  Leah loves the Bison and her new basement bedroom!  We loved learning all about you, Leah!

Did you hear the news?  Bo was this month's Character Champion for our class.  It is no surprise as Bo is a calm and respectful member of our classroom.  What was a surprise was that his big sister Jada was also a Character Champion this month!  What a coincidence!

Upcoming Reminders:

February 28, March 2, March 6: Parent Teacher Conferences

March 3: Buckle Up Presentation from Fargo Public Health

March 13-17: Spring Break

March 15-24: Items for our Carnival Basket (Family Fun Night Theme) can be brought in

Spring is in the air?

Wow!  It sure feels like Spring today!  I hope you are enjoying these nice days, while they last!  Winter will return at the end of the week, so please continue to send winter gear.

We had a blast on Valentine's Day with a simple day of Valentine stations, science experiments and games.  Check out the kiddos in action!

Has your first grader told you about our special classroom guests?  We welcomed Victoria Smith, an NDSU student in her sophomore year, to our classroom for a 40 hour practicum.  Ms. Smith is enjoying seeing first graders in action.  She is reading and playing math games with students.  Ms. Smith will continue to be with us on Tuesday and Thursday mornings for a few more weeks.  Students also began Junior Achievement.  This year Junior Achievement is being taught by VCSU Juniors.  We are lucky to have 3 students teaching our students each Wednesday for five weeks.

We celebrated another birthday this month!  Happy 7th Birthday, Pyper!

A Peek at the Week

Reading: This week we will finish reading about a trip to the moon.  The students will also read a biography on Mae Jemison and locate text features within the text.  Students acted as reporters last week, interviewing an imaginary astronaut.  They practiced asking and answering questions with this task.  Students will learn about compound sentences this week in grammar and /ee/ and /ea/ vowel teams in phonics.

Math: In math students are working on addition and subtraction to 20.  We recently learned the doubles, doubles +1 and making 10 strategies.  We have been caught singing our "Doubles" rap, and Mr. Carlson even came in to watch us in action!

Science: In science we are learning about the sun.  Students practiced making shadows last week with flashlights, recording their observations in their science notebooks.  Next week we will learn about sun safety.

Writing: Would you rather swim in a pool of snakes or spiders?  This is just one of the opinion questions that was posed to students during an activity titled "Would you rather?"  Students are working hard on writing a paragraph (that's right, a paragraph) piece stating their opinion with supporting reasons.  They are so proud of their 5-6 sentence paragraphs, and so am I!

Upcoming Reminders:

February 20: No School for Students

February 21: 1st Grade Flag Presentation

February 24: AMVETS Coloring Contest Due (optional)

February 28, March 2, & 6: Parent Teacher Conferences

March 3: 1st Grade Buckle Up Presentation (School Nurse)

100th Day, Kindness Week & More!

Wow!  It has been a whirlwind of a week!  We had a blast celebrating the 100th Day of School in 1st Grade.  Students participated in various stations that all revolved around the number 100.  We counted by 1's, 5's, and 10's and used our grouping strategies to make 10.  We had so much fun celebrating together!  If you haven't yet done so, check out the photos from our day in this short video!  My favorite day was once again a success!

Kindness week and Valentine's Day are just around the corner!  This year's theme is all about using superpowers to spread kindness around Washington.  Students will be introduced to the week tomorrow morning at an all school assembly.  Students are encouraged to wear silly socks tomorrow to celebrate the day!  Other events will take place during the week and I will send reminders as needed.

Our class will celebrate Valentine's Day on Tuesday, February 14.  A letter came home last Friday with our class list.  Students may bring a Valentine and small treat/toy to share with their classmates.  If you are unable to get Valentines, please let me know so I can provide your child with some.  Don't forget the special teachers in our building, especially Mrs. Hartje and Mrs. Lovelace, the wonderful paraprofessionals that work in our classroom each day.

Conference schedule forms will come home tomorrow.  It is hard to believe we will meet for the second and final time in just a few weeks!  I'm so excited to show you all of the progress your child has made!  If your time does not work, please let me know!  I am happy to schedule an alternative time.

The Reading Medalist Program continues this month.  I am so impressed with all of the reading that has already taken place.  If you are having trouble finding books at your child's level, send me a note and I'll bag up several for your child to read at home!

Over the course of the past couple of weeks, we celebrated some birthdays!  Happy Birthday Emily and Gabrielle.  Happy 1/2 Birthday Anthony!

Meet Saad

Have you met Saad yet?  Saad is a great kiddo in our classroom.  He amazes me everyday in his knowledge, especially in the four languages that he speaks (WOW!).  He loves sports and his brother and sister.  Saad has big aspirations to become an engineer someday.  Keep dreaming big Saad!  You can do anything you believe!

Saad leads calendar math.

Meet Ethan

We learned more about Ethan this past week, too!  Ethan is special because he has a twin sister, Emma, who is in Mrs. Elkins' class.  Ethan is quite the hockey player and loves showing off his big muscles in class!  He makes everyone smile and laugh with his charming personality.  Ethan's personality shines big in 1st grade!

Ethan leading show and tell!

January came to a close and we also honored Leah as the Star Student for the month.  Leah was praised with entering 1st grade daily with a smile on her face, ready to learn.  Way to go, Leah!

A Peek at Our Week

Writing: Students are working hard to wrap up our How to Writing unit.  We are using the Seesaw App to record the students reading their stories.  The recordings will be on display at conferences.  Bring a device with a QR reader to hear your child read their story!

Reading: Students are being introduced to more complex spelling patterns and verbs in reading.  This week we will learn about the verb, to be (is, are, was and were) as well as silent digraphs like gn, kn, and gh.

Math: Students will participate in several math assessments to prepare for report cards.  Following this, we will begin our next unit in math on addition and subtraction to 20.

Science: We will finish our study of matter in science this week.  Students will be challenged to change a solid (ice) to a liquid.  Did you hear about our gas experiment?  We went outside and used antacids to create gas in a bag.  

Upcoming Reminders:

February 6: Crazy Sock Day (Kindness Week)

February 8: Junior Achievement Begins (VCSU Students Lead)

February 9: Washington Spirit Day

February 10: Cozy and Comfy Day & Book Orders Due

February 14: Valentine's Day Exchange

Thank Goodness for 30's!

The melt is finally on!  If your weekend has been anything like mine, I have been busy chipping away at the ice on my driveway.  With all of the melting, that also means wet and messy snow pants and coats.  The first graders have been working hard to position their winter gear in the lockers for adequate drying - boots on the floor and snow pants and coats hanging on individual hooks.  The lockers tend to get a bit smelly if the gear is all balled up on the bottom.  With the warm temperatures, we snuck in an extra recess on afternoon last week.  How could I pass up upper 30's temperatures and sun?

Meet Skyler

Last week Skyler was our wonderful Star Student!  Skyler is one of the most hardworking 1st graders you will meet!  He always keeps a huge smile on his face and never gives up.  Skyler loves anything to do with Pokemon!  He knows much more about the characters than I do and has an extensive collection of cards at home too!

A Peek at Our Week

Reading: In reading we have been working hard on story sequence.  The students know that good readers think about what happens next in a story.  Additionally we have been working hard on reading and writing words with wh, ch, and tch digraphs.  

Math: We just wrapped up our study of 2D ad 3D shapes in math.  Below students describe shapes to their partner without seeing.  Their partner was challenged to make the same arrangement with only their descriptions of sizes, colors, vertices, edges and sides.  Our next unit focuses on place value to prepare students for addition of numbers beyond 10.  I am so impressed with just how fluent students are becoming in their math facts.  Don't forget to return the Unit 4 Math Test that came home last week.  Check out some of our Daily 5 Math action below!

Science: In science we are busy learning about matter.  Students are busy trying to figure out of Oobleck is a solid or a liquid.  This week we will experiment with gasses using antacid tablets.  Wish me luck!

Upcoming Events:

January 26: Steam Night at Washington

February 2: 100th Day of School (Letter to come home tomorrow!)

A little Cosmic Yoga!

Happy New Year!

Welcome back and Happy New Year!  We jumped right back into school on Tuesday preparing for the second half of the year. We began our morning with a quick review of school rules and routines and updated our class rules.  We wasted no time at all as on Tuesday morning, students completed the AIMSweb assessments.  I also have been busy completing some mid-year assessments in the classroom.  It is a great time to see just how far students have grown and make plans for new teaching.

You may have noticed on the calendar that the "Reading Medalist" program begins on Monday.  If you have had a 1st grader at Washington in the past, you are already familiar with this program.  An information packet and the first recording form will come home on Monday.  There are a few changes to the program, so please keep the packet handy for all of the rules and requirements.  If you were wondering where the January Book-It log is, there isn't one.  I will use the Reading Medalist tracking forms to award pizza coupons too.  No need to record books on two forms.

We celebrated two birthdays this week in 1st grade!  These cupcakes aren't helping with my New Year's resolution!  Happy Birthday to Jocelynn and Bentley!

A Peek at Our Week

Reading: We began Unit 3 in reading with the story At Home in the Ocean.  Students are working to identify the author's purpose while reading.  Additionally, they were introduced to proper nouns.  In phonics students are working on writing words with the digraph th.

Math: We began our geometry unit in math this past week.  Students were introduced to plane shapes and began to understand the defining attributes of each.  Next week we will work with three-dimensional shapes.  Addition and subtraction are reviewed daily and I am seeing huge gains in fact fluency as of recently!  The students are working really hard at Daily 5 Math too.  We just recently introduced some Everyday Math Games on the computer as well as Math with Partner.

Alexis and Sam play building towers to work on addition.

Saad uses the Everyday Math website.

Finn plays Rocket Math on the iPad.

Bo completes his math notebook (independent practice).

Pyper and Gabrielle make shape monster at math with teacher.

Science: We finished learning about seasons very briefly this week.  Next week we will begin learning about the states of matter.  We'll start with a fun Oobleck experiment that is sure to be exciting!

Writing: In writer's workshop we are working on our "How To" texts.  We had quite the lesson on adding details to our writing while the students instructed me in how to make a jelly sandwich.  They learned that they leave out quite a few details, such as spreading the jelly from the knife onto the bread.  I played it up and we were all giggles as I spread the jelly jar on the bread!

Upcoming Reminders:

January 10: Washington Skate City Night

January 10: Reading Medalist Begins

January 13: Popcorn Sales

January 13: Book Orders Due