Happy Friday everyone! We finished off the week by continuing to explore Main Idea. We read another book called Kinds of Art to look for the important details. See if your child can tell you about the book (a paper is coming home today with the important details from this book on it). Next week we will do different activities to show that we understand the main idea of a story.

We introduced the friendly letter into our writer’s workshop routine this week. We also practiced editing and revising, since that can be tricky sometimes! Next week we will begin a new unit of writing! We’ll be writing stories with problems and solutions!

We practiced adding large numbers in math this week! We did this by putting out the coins we would need to buy the items and then adding the coin amounts up. Some children are adding the tens and ones to get the answer as well! We are just exploring this concept in first grade. In second grade, they will build on this skill.

Next Monday will be day 6. School is in session on Thursday, April 1st, but we will be off  Friday, April 2nd and Monday April 5th.

Thank you to everyone who donated tissues and pencils! We’re in good shape for a while, but I will always take more donations if you were still planning on doing that! Thanks and have a great weekend!

Happy Spring! We came back to indoor recess today! Oh well, I guess we have to have rain to keep things growing!!

We were busy growing our minds in class today! Now that our reports are done in writing, we are going to spend a week revisiting what a good writer’s workshop should look like! We reviewed how writing buddies should help each other. The rest of the week we will revisit how to edit and revise our stories.

In Core we are continuing to talk about the main idea of a story. Today we learned that the title of the story and the important details help us know the main idea. We will read several stories this week while we practice this skill together.

Our new sort this week for word work focuses on short vowel sounds again. The families are: ag, eg, ig, og, ug. Notice a pattern? Have fun creating real and make believe words using these families. Need some ideas? Look in the newspaper or magazines for these words. Make the words with playdough or pipe cleaners. Use shaving cream to write the words and then easily erase to make new ones!

Please look for your assigned conference time to come home tomorrow. I forgot to send them home today!! Sorry! Please check the time and then return the form to me as soon as possible. Thank you!

We have a normal homework schedule this week! Math Monday-Thursday, Word work-Monday and Wednesday, Reading- Tuesday and Thursday. Thanks for helping with the homework! Have a wonderful evening!

It is another beautiful day! I did notice “cirrus” clouds in the sky today though! See if your child can point one out to you! We made a fun art project that involved three types of clouds: cirrus, cumulus and stratus. Ask your child what each one means!

We took a hard math test today! It really worked our brains! Next week we begin unit 8 which explores fractions, mental math, and money.

Our reports are done! They turned out so cute! You won’t want to miss them when you come to conferences in April!

Please remember that tomorrow is school store. Next week we will have a full week and be back on track with our homework schedule. Monday will be gym!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Spring is in the air! Hope you are able to be out this evening and enjoy the nice weather! The sunny skies forced us to change our science plans, but it was worth it! We read a book about clouds instead of going outside to observe them. See if your child can name the three clouds we learned about today (cumulus, cirrus, stratus). We’ll be spending the week discussing them more.

Next week we will begin taking turns being “The Meteorologist of the Day”. Look for more information about this coming home soon.

We are continuing with Main Idea and details in Core. This week we will decide if details are important or unimportant.

We are a bit behind with our reports! This week we will finally get to publishing! They will be up for display during conferences.

Our new sort includes the following word families: ad, ob, ab, and ed. See what words you can make together at home.

Please note that the homework schedule is off a bit this week because of the four day week. We will not have math homework the rest of the week due to our unit 7 exam. Word work books came home tonight and will come home again on Thursday. A reading book will come home Wednesday.

Tomorrow is picture day! It is also day 4. Friday is school store! Have a wonderful evening!

Happy Monday everyone! What a beautiful day!

Flat Stanley’s are arriving daily! Feel free to send Stanley back this month. They will be hanging in the hallway during parent-teacher conferences in April, so you will have a chance to see all of them!

This week we will revisit complete sentences while we are editing and revising our animal reports. We should finish our reports this week.

Our new sort in Work Work this week has “an”, “in” and “un” word families. See what words you can create with those at home.

Today we made “plane” shapes out of straws and twistie ties. Plane shapes are flat. When we start talking about 3-D shapes we will discuss how the flat sides of those shapes are the “plane” shapes. Feel free to send in objects for our shape museum!

In science today we did some fun experiments with water, a cup and a paper towel to show that air takes up space. See if your child can tell you about the experiment.

Tomorrow is day 5-library day! Just a reminder that we will be walking to the public library on Friday!

Have a good week!

We’ve had a busy week this week! We are happy to welcome another new student to 1-B-Aisha! We’ve had four new students this year-all girls!

We started a new unit this week on shapes. This is one of my favorite units! We’ll have fun learning about 3-dimensional shapes. Ask your child to tell you about the fun game “Make My Design.”

In word work we are working on new word families with the goal of using all the blends we have learned over the last month or so to make new words with the word families. This week’s families are “at”, “ot”, and “it”. See what words you can make at home!

In Core we have begun a new unit on Main Idea and details. We read The Important Book to launch this unit. Ask your child about the story.

Tomorrow is Spirit day! Please wear those spirit colors! March 12th is a snow make up day and it is also our walking trip to the public library. March 19th will be school store.

Enjoy this wonderful weather!

I’m sending the blog early because I will not be at school tomorrow! Hopefully the storm will not come and we will be open though!

We wrote our topic sentences for our reports today. Ask your child what she/he wrote. Tomorrow we will put our notes onto our drafting paper to begin the rough draft.

In Core we are making a book that tells us all about Northside. We are working in cooperative groups to write about each part of the school. We should have a close to finished book tomorrow!

We will be taking our unit 6 math test on Monday and Tuesday, so there will not be math homework those two nights. We also did not have math homework this evening.

Tomorrow is library day, so please make sure the library books are in the back packs tonight!

Next Tuesday is Dr. Suess’ birthday. To celebrate we will be doing lots of Dr. Suess activities. If you have any Dr. Suess books at home, feel free to send them in that day.

Have a great evening!

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you had a better weekend than I did! It took me 4 days to get over that stomach bug! So sorry to miss Open House. I hope you enjoyed seeing your child’s hard work!

This week in Core we will be creating our own non-fiction class book as a culminating activity to our text feature unit. It should be fun! In writing, we are working on our animal reports. We are doing actual research in non-fiction books! Sometimes I marvel at what we are asking first graders to do!

In word work we are exploring the long vowel sounds. We will be looking at a different vowel every day this week.

We are also learning about some famous African-Americans this week in celebration of Black History Month.

Mrs. Topper will be in tomorrow. Be sure to ask your child what she shared with them! She always has a great lesson!

This week we hit two difficult topics in math: quarters and digital time! Do not expect your child to master digital time at this point!  Remember that Everyday Math introduces children to a concept and then revisits it at a later time!  To help with quarters, please practice counting by 25′s.

Thanks for all your help! Have a good night

It was so nice to have a full day of school today. We got a lot of great learning in today! We continued to work on our published stories. You will get to see them this Thursday evening when you come to Open House!

We also used a checklist today to help us determine the author’s purpose for writing a book. Ask your child what things we looked for to help us figure it out!

We worked on those tricky function machines today! Did you know that sometimes we have to figure out the input number? To do that, we have to do the opposite of the rule! Yikes! Don’t worry-it will make sense to them eventually!

Ask your child one fact they learned about George Washington or Abe Lincoln today. We will continue to learn more about them as the week goes on.

Please note that I sent the same words home this week in the word work booklet. Please do a normal Monday night activity with the words. Also, please note that you do not have to send in two quarters as the math homework states. We have plenty of plastic ones to go around!

Let’s hope for only a dusting of snow tonight!

It was nice to be back in school today! I missed all my first grade friends! Thank you to all of the parents who helped make our Valentine’s Day party a success! It is so much fun watching the children open their valentines and enjoy the party!

We practiced our math facts today and we also started publishing one of our stories. Beyond that, this week was not very productive due to the snow and two-hour delays!

Monday will be a school day! It will be cycle day 2. We are scheduled to walk to the public library on Wednesday, but I believe Mrs. Stoner is going to come to us! Much safer than walking around big piles of snow!

Thursday night is our Open House. The children will be thrilled to share their work with you that night! Plan on coming anytime between 6 and 7.

Have a wonderful weekend!