Thank you so much to our parent volunteers who made our holiday party so much fun!

This week we did lots of “finishing up” activities. We published our shape books! I was so excited by their cute booklets! I hope you enjoy them as much as they enjoyed making them!

We also read our instructions on how to make a snowman to each other. As we read them, the listener used playdough and built the snowman following the written instructions. It was neat to see all the little snowmen! The children wrote great instructions.

We finished our unit 4 exam on Monday and Tuesday. The children did great on it. If your looking for something to do during down time next week, practice addition facts to 10! Rolling a dice twice and adding the numbers together is a fun, easy way to practice.

Have a wonderful holiday and a relaxing time with your families!

We must we be getting closer to Christmas! There is an air of excitement in the classroom! We enjoyed a visit from Mrs. Stoner today. We loved that her coming over saved us from walking in the cold over to see her! She read several Jan Brett books and the children enjoyed making gingerbread people.

We worked on writing numbers up to and past 100 today. Two of the children made it past 200! We will continue to explore 3 digit numbers throughout the rest of the year.

Today we sorted our solids in a game called “Guess My Sort”. Students worked in teams to pick a property by which to sort the solids. We walked around the rooom and tried to guess how each group sorted. The easiest to figure out? Those that sorted by color! The hardest to figure out? Those that sorted by floating/sinking.

Tomorrow is the second round for the H1N1 vaccinations. We’ll do our best to help your little ones through it! They did so well the last time!

Have a great evening!

Happy Monday! We had a great day today! We continued our work with instructions by doing our prewriting for “How to Make a Snowman”. Tomorrow we will write the instructions. Later in the week we will try out our instructions by using playdough to make the snowmen!

We learned how to tell time to the quarter hour today! This is a tough concept. Most first graders do not master this until second grade. You can practice with a play clock or if you catch the time on the quarter hour at home, point it out to your child.

We sorted our solids one more way today. We used a magnet to see which solids were attracted to the magnet. We had a few surprises along the way. Ask your child about them.

We have our trip to to the library Wednesday. Please make sure your child dresses warmly. Library books for our school library are due that day as well.

Have a good evening.

We had a fun day today. I’m sure your child told you about making snowflakes! It was quite an event! We made snowflakes to answer our essential questions in writing: How and why do I write instructions. The children were quite surprised yesterday when I told them to make snowflakes and I didn’t give them any directions! Today, we wrote the directions and found it much easier to make them when we followed those written directions!

In Core, we practiced listening for the literary elements while we read books to each other. The children had characters, setting, problem and solution written on cards and held them up when they heard one of the literary elements in the story.

Adrien was our star of the week. He wants to be many things when he grows up!  Caden was the social skill star of the week.

Monday is cycle day 3-gym! On Wednesday we will be walking to the public library. Please dress your child warmly! Thanks!

Have a great weekend!

We had an energy-filled day in 1-B today!

We completed our retellings today and shared them with each other. Now we know several ways to show someone we understand a story!
(illustrate, retell, explain, discuss)

We completed our types of sentences flip books. You will see them at home this week. A fun activity in the evening would be to create a list of more sentences for each part of the flip book!

We measured objects to the inch today. Homework requires the paper ruler that came home with your child tonight!  Have fun measuring!

We sorted our solids in science today by the properies of rolling and stacking. Ask your child which solids did what!

Our browsing day for secret shop is tomorrow. Children may return on Thursday to purchase items. Tomorrow is also day 5. Please make sure the library books come back! Thanks so much and have a great evening!

We must have worked really hard today because I am exhausted!!  I think the children are too!

Congratulations to Emma for not only being our student of the week, but our social skill star of the week as well!  Emma wants to be a nurse when she grows up!

In Core we worked on one more way to show we understand a story by beginning an accordian retelling book.  Next week we will finish the booklets and then use them to retell the story Frederick.

In writing we added an exclamatory sentence to our flip books.  We are writing up a storm in Writing Workshop!  You should see the children writing and then helping each other revise and edit their work!  It is something to see!  Ask your child what story he/she is currently working on in class.

In math we subtracted numbers using a number grid to help us.  We also began working on addition facts for 6 and 7 by playing two-fisted penny addition. 

Next Monday is cycle day 4.  Library class is on Tuesday.  We will be back to a normal schedule for homework next week with math sheets Monday through Thursday, reading books on Tuesday and Thursday, and word work journals on Monday and Thursday.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Today we began working on a flip book in writing to help us remember the three kinds of sentences: Telling, asking, and questioning. I taught them the “fancy” word for a telling sentence: Derogative. See if your child remembers it! We have been making sure our writing has punctuation in it as well!

In Core today, we illustrated the characters, setting, problem and solution to a story to show that we understood the story. Ask your child about the dog liking just one of everything!

In math we had fun measuring things with a cut out of our traced foot. Then we cut out the “standard” foot to discover it was better to measure with a standard tool. Have fun measuring your feet at home tonight!

We began our Solids and Liquids unit yesterday. This week we are observing the properties of solids.

Tomorrow is Spirit Day! Have a great evening!

It was great to see everyone again today! We started the day with our book buddies coming for a visit. We are all doing a great job working on our fluent reading!

In Core we learned that there are several ways we can show we understand a story. They are: illustrate, discuss, retell, and explain. This week we will explore those options with different fun activities. Comprehension is the most important part of reading! If the children don’t understand what they are reading, they are actually doing something we call “Word Calling”. These activities will help to make sure that comprehension is there!

We began a new unit in math today:Measurement. We will be exploring thermometers, non-standard and standard units of measure, and time to the quarter hour. Tonight’s homework is two sided!

Your child came home with the sticker about our class book. Please send in the paper and the envelope whether or not you choose to purchase a book. Thanks! It is absolutely adorable! I encourage you to get one! Our class gets a free copy if everyone turns in their forms!

Have a good evening!