January 26th

Hello! What an eventful morning we had! The kids came in pretty excited about our fresh snowfall. Please try to remember to send extra socks and mittens in backpacks as many kids are complaining about being wet.  Oh, the joys of winter :)

Upcoming Events:

Friday, January 29-6:00-7:30 New Directions/EQ Dance-More information to come home soon!

Tuesday, February 9th-11:30 Dismissal

Friday, February 12th-Valentine Celebration-A note will come home soon with student names and more details.

Thursday, February 25th-11:30 Dismissal

Friday, February 26th-No School

Monday, February 29th-Melodies and Masterpieces Family Night-5:30-7:00-Night includes a short concert put on by New Directions Students. Look for more info to come home in a few weeks.

Curriculum Updates:

Readers' Workshop: This week in reading we will continue to focus on making sure we understand what we're reading. We'll keep track of who's talking, make sure we understand the words we read, use all of our strategies to keep our reading going quickly, and work on ways to make our reading sound smooth and fluent. We have also been working on setting our own goals as readers and working hard to accomplish those goals. 

Writers' Workshop: This week our opinion writing will take a turn as we begin to write book reviews. We'll use everything we know about opinion writing so far (tell an opinion, give reasons and examples, make comparisons, tell a small story, add a catchy introduction and say good-bye) to write book reviews. As we write reviews, we'll learn how to give sneak peak summaries spilling the beans, using conjunctions in sentences (and, but), and using speaking skills to give oral book reviews. We've read so many great books this year, now we can tell our opinion about them and convince others to read them!

Word Study: New word wall words for this week are: that, best, will, they, saw.  These words will be assessed on Friday, January 29^th.

Math Workshop: This week we are starting a new unit in math.  This unit extends strategies from our last units for unknown partners in addition and subtraction situations.  The methods for finding totals and differences within 10 are used in this unit for totals within 20.  We will use the strategies of counting on and making a ten.  We will access prior knowledge of strategies and apply them with numbers greater numbers.  This week we will be solving teen addition problems with unknown partners (Sam had 6 balls. Molly gave her some more. Now she has 15. How many did Molly give her?), and teen subtraction problems (Sam had 16 legos. She gave 8 to Molly. How many does she have left?)

Science/Social Studies:  This week we will be continuing our families centers to help us learn more about families today and long ago. In our centers we will learning what kinds of things families do, where people go and what they do, how are families the same/different long ago compared to today, and creating collages of things we enjoy to do with our families. 

As always if you have any questions, let me know.

Samantha 

January 19th News

Hello,

Last week marked the end of the second quarter. First graders have grown so much this year. Report cards will be coming home Monday, January 25th. What a great way to celebrate all the gains your child has made so far this year. 

** For one of our centers in Social Studies we will be cutting pictures from magazines.  If you have any old magazines that you don't mind donating to our class please send them to school.  Thank You!

We are having a lot of fun celebrating New Directions so far this week!  Hopefully you will be able to join us tonight or Thursday night!  Here are some serious and silly pictures from crazy hair/hat day! 

Upcoming Events:

Monday, January 18th-Friday, January 22nd-Celebrate New Directions Week

Tuesday, January 19th-5:30-7:00 PM Spaghetti and Art Night

Wednesday, January 20th-No School

Thursday, January 21st-6:00-7:00 PM-Gym Night-No RSVP necessary

Friday, January 29-6:00-7:30 New Directions/EQ Dance

Curriculum Updates:

Readers' Workshop: 

We are continuing to add new tools to read hard words. Today we tried sounds many ways to figure out words because some words sound different than they look. We need to try sounds several ways until the word sounds right. We will also work on reading the words we know is a snap, and only slowing down to read a word when we have to so our reading sounds as smooth as it can be. Thursday and Friday we will focus on using tools to understand our books. We'll work on rereading if we don't understand something, and make movies in our minds to picture what's happening.

Writers' Workshop: We are continuing to work on our reviews. Students have been reviewing toys, restaurants, games and many other favorites. We will be learning more details we can add to our reviews to make them even more convincing. We'll add small moment stories that fit with the topic of our reviews, come up with ways to hook our reader into reading our reviews, write catchy conclusions to tie our pieces up and work with our partners to give our writing check-ups, making sure our writing is easy to read.

Word Study: No new words will be coming home this week. We will be spending time studying letter combinations and different sounds they can make (ie -ed can make the /t/, /d/ and /id/ sound).

Math Workshop:
We're finishing up our work with 2 digit numbers. We'll spend some time comparing 2 digit numbers, deciding which one is more and which one is less and practice using the appropriate symbols: < > =. We'll also spend some time practicing using 2-digit addition, focusing on using tens and ones to add 1-digit and 2 digit numbers. At the end of the week we will be focusing on mathematical practices, including making sense of problems, reasoning, and using words and models to back our thinking. 

Science/Social Studies:  We spent some time learning about Martin Luther King Jr. yesterday. This week we will starting our families centers to help us learn more about families today and long ago. In our centers we will learning what kinds of things families do, where people go and what they do, how are families the same/different long ago compared to today, and creating collages of things we enjoy to do with our families. 

Stay Warm! 

As always, let me know if you have any questions. 

Samantha

January 12th News

The cold is officially here and so is inside recess!  Many lego creations and art projects are being created this week.   We are hoping it will warm up at the end of the week.  We have been busy starting lots of new units and we are also focusing on mid year reminders of classroom and hallway behaviors.  It's hard to believe that we are half way through 1st grade!  

Reminder: Yearbook order forms are due back by Jan. 22nd. 

Upcoming Events:

January 15: Early Dismissal
January 19: Family Night (Spaghetti and Art, 5:30)

January 20: No School

January 21: Gym Night 6-7 p.m.

January 29: NDLC/Quinney Dance 6:00-7:30 p.m. 

Curriculum Update: 

Reading: This week in reading students will think about what is happening in the story to help them problem solve a difficult word.  They will also work on listening carefully to consider what word might come next and thinking "What kind of word might fit here?" We will be looking closely at words towards the end of the week looking at different parts and recalling words that look similar to help us solve them.  An example is using the word bake to help us solve bakery.  I am continuing to meet with students to do our mid year assessment and we have had many mini celebrations as they are all growing so much as readers! 

Writing:  We are continuing to write opinions.  This week we will become review writers, writing about anything and everything: toys, restaurants, video games, the works..  Review writers not only share their opinions but also persuade others to share their opinion.  Students will have to use their persuasive voice by writing as though they are talking right to their reader and offer important information.  We will also make comparisons and include why their topic is better or worse than others.  At home you might have conversations about your favorite restaurants, movies, restaurants, vacations, or even games to support this work at school.

Word Study: The new words this week are: with, this, over, very, want.  Please continue to study reading and writing these words at home.  The words have become a little trickier to spell correctly and might need a little more practice!  

Math: In Math this week we are focusing on adding with tens and ones or both.  Students will need to look closely at the numbers to notice place value.  Some examples of the problems that we will be solving are:

3+2= 5

30+60= 60

30+6= 36

When adding mixed equations we will be using the counting on strategy or drawing pictures.  Some examples are:

28+5=

28: 29, 30, 31, 32, 33. So, 33 is the answer.  

Social Studies: This week in social studies we are continuing our Family unit.  We went on PebbleGo yesterday to learn more about families and compare now and long ago.  We will be reading and doing some writing about reading with the book My Family Community and at the end of the week we will begin our centers. Below are some pictures from our work on ipads! 

As always if you have any questions, let me know!

-Samantha 

January 5th

Happy New Year!
Well winter is finally here!  Most students have been doing a great job of getting their snow gear on quickly and being able to keep track of everything.  Make sure to label everything...including snow pants.  Also, it's a good idea to send an extra pair of socks to keep in their locker during this wet weather.  Thank you for your help!

As we move towards January, New Directions begins to think about enrollment for next year. We have several informational sessions scheduled during the month of January for any families who would like to learn more about New Directions for their child. Word of mouth is the best way to spread the great things happening at New Directions, so if you know of any families who would be interested in sending their children to New Directions, here are the dates of our upcoming information sessions:

Tuesday, January 5th-6:00-7:00 PM Info Session at New Directions

Thursday, January 14th-6:00-7:30 PM District-Wide Info Session held at Tanner Early Learning Center

Tuesday, January 19th-5:30-7:00 PM-Spaghetti and Art Family Night

Wednesday, January 20th-10:00 AM-noon-Open House at New Directions

Monday, January 25th-6:00-7:00 PM-Info Session at New Directions

Families can also call Mrs. Frischmann at 766-6116 to set up individual tours of our school. 

Upcoming Events: 

Friday, January 15: Early Dismissal
Tuesday, January 19: 5:30 p.m. Family Night (Spaghetti and Art Night)
Wednesday, January 20: No School
Thursday, January 21: Gym Night 6-7 p.m.
Friday, January 29: NDLC/Quinney Dance 6-7:30 p.m.

Curriculum:

Readers' Workshop: We started our new unit yesterday, Readers Have Big Jobs to Do: A focus on fluency, phonics and comprehension. This unit will focus on having students take on the important jobs a reader needs to do.  They need to be able to take charge of their own reading and get through the tough parts of books on their own. This week we are talking about being the boss our own reading.  First we stop at the first sign of trouble, then try something from our toolbox of strategies and if that doesn’t work we try something else, and finally we check to make sure that it makes sense, looks right, and sounds right. 

Writers' Workshop: This week we will start opinion writing in first grade, Writing Review. In this unit we will begin by writing about our favorite or least favorite things to play. Next we will move into writing reviews about anything and everything: toys, restaurants, video games, and anything else important to students. During the last part of this unit we will learn to write book reviews. 

Word Study: The words this week are: jump, not, off, have, eat.  Continue to practice spelling these words at home.

Math Workshop: We are continuing our work with 10s and 1s. We will be doing some beginning grouping of ones to compose a ten, adding a 1-digit number to a 2-digit number, solve addition story problems that involve grouping tens and extra ones, and using place value to compare 2-digit numbers.

Science/Social Studies:  Yesterday we spent some time talking about goals for the new year. Tomorrow we will be starting our new unit: Families Today and Long Ago. We will be exploring what makes a family, what families like to do together, and how families today are similar and different than families long ago.

If you have any questions please let me know!

-Samantha