It's Twin Day!

There were twins, there were triplets, and there were even quadruplets!!!  To celebrate Red Ribbon Week we dressed like the twin of somebody because "Drug Free is DOUBLE the Fun!"  

Weekly Update

It is an exciting week when you are 6 and 7 years old!  We are having a little fun this week in our classroom!  We will be doing some pumpkin math and carving a pumpkin, meeting with our third grade buddies to write spooky stories, and in science we are researching and learning about bats and spiders!  During Morning Meeting this morning we shared about our costumes.  We do not dress up at school but many wanted to share what their costume looks like.  If you have a picture you may send it in or email it to me for our share. 

Portfolio conference times went home yesterday. If you see that your time will not work please let me know as soon as possible!  I can't wait the share all the gains your child has made so far this year as a first grader. 

Field Trip Forms!  If you have not sent in your pink field trip form for the Building for Kids on Nov. 6th and/or money please do so.  If you need an extra copy send a note in the planner.  Thanks 

November Homework Calendars will be going home at the end of this week. Be sure to check for it.

THIS WEEK: Red Ribbon Week:

Red Ribbon Week is an alcohol, tobacco and other drug and violence prevention awareness campaign observed annually in October in the United States.

Tues. Oct. 27th....no sweat being drug free...wear sweats
Wed. Oct. 28th....Red Day
Thurs. Oct. 29th...drug free is double the fun....twinning
Fri. Oct. 30th...we're the ghosts. ..say BOO to drugs....wear orange and black!

Curriculum Updates:

Readers' Workshop: This week we will be focusing on reading with smooth, fluent voices. One strategy to smooth out our reading is to scan the page to notice how much we will need to read and notice the punctuation first, before reading. We will also be focusing on retelling by using our fingers and words such as first, next, then, after that, and finally. Towards the end of the week we will be thinking about the lesson the author was trying to teach the character, or even us sometimes!

Writers' Workshop: First graders have so much to teach and have been writing lots of How-Tos! This week we will be looking at published how-to texts to notice things such as warnings, tips, introductions and conclusions we can add to our own writing. We will also be adding more details to our steps, making sure our pictures teach, and edit our writing for punctuation. 

Word Study:  The words this week are: for, come, in, am, us. We will be assessing these words on Friday. These are words we want students to be able to read and write automatically without having to think to sound them out. Students also continue to work on phonics skills and word sorts at their developmental level.

Math Workshop: We will be focusing on subtraction and noticing that there are addition and subtraction relationships (i.e. I know that  7 + 3= 10, so 10 - 3=7). These relationships can help us become fluent with our facts. Each day in math workshop we have also been working on solving problems and trying to use at least two strategies. Here's an example of a first grade problem: 

Science/Social Studies:  We have finished our organisms study. First graders were sad to say good-bye to our critters, but they learned so much about what living things need to live and grow. This week we will be conducting a mini research unit on bats and spiders. We will even be using the ipads to research online using Pebblego. If you'd like to access this site at home the usename is electa and the password is electa. The information is easily accessible for first graders. We will be visiting this website throughout the year.

In Gym they have been loving their biking unit.  Many students have learned to ride a bike without training wheels for the first time at school.  I have heard that many others are practicing at home!  Below are a couple videos of some learning for the first time. Thank you Mrs. Stratton for all your help :)

Have a great week and as always if you have any questions please let me know! 

-Samantha

Help spread the word!

New Directions Learning Community will be offering a free event

for senior citizens in the Fox Valley.

On Thursday November 5^th  from 8:30 – 9:15 am

seniors are welcome to visit our school.

Coffee and pastries will be served while they

learn about how school is different today than it was when they were young.

Weekly News

Short update for a short week!  We have 3 new word wall words this week: up, do, go.  These words will be assessed tomorrow. 

Thank you for returning your conference sheets!  I will send home your time early next week. 

TONIGHT! Oct.  20th-Grandparents and Goodies Family Night 4:30-5:30

Oct. 23 & 24-No School Enjoy the long weekend!

Oct. 30- Fall Celebration (No Costumes)

Red Ribbon Week:

Red Ribbon Week is an alcohol, tobacco and other drug and violence prevention awareness campaign observed annually in October in the United States.

Tues. Oct. 27th....no sweat being drug free...wear sweats
Wed. Oct. 28th....Red Day
Thurs. Oct. 29th...drug free is double the fun....twinning
Fri. Oct. 30th...we're the ghosts. ..say BOO to drugs....wear orange and black!

Enjoy the long weekend and don't forget to count how many pumpkins you find in your neighborhood! 

Help spread the word!

New Directions Learning Community will be offering a free event

for senior citizens in the Fox Valley.

On Thursday November 5^th  from 8:30 – 9:15 am

seniors are welcome to visit our school.

Coffee and pastries will be served while they

learn about how school is different today than it was when they were young.

Weekly News October 13th

Happy Fall Y’all !  You may have noticed your first grader checking out leaves a little closer over the past few days. We have been a doing a mini Autumn study in our room and are working on identifying leaves.  We are displaying the “pretty” leaves in our classroom and sharing them during Morning Meeting.

Reminder: Some students have not had snacks during snack time.  We have snack every afternoon and we do not have extras in the classroom. Thanks! 

Tomorrow!  Oct. 14th-Yoga- Mrs. McEneany will be leading us in yoga at the end of the day. Wear comfy clothes!

Oct. 16th-Math Morning 7:30-8:15 AM Ryan Flessner, our math consultant from Butler, will be presenting information about math instruction.

Oct.  20th-Grandparents and Goodies Family Night-Please RSVP if you haven't and are attending.

Oct. 23 & 24-No School Enjoy the long weekend!

Red Ribbon Week:

Red Ribbon Week is an alcohol, tobacco and other drug and violence prevention awareness campaign observed annually in October in the United States.

Tues. Oct. 27th....no sweat being drug free...wear sweats

Wed. Oct. 28th....Red Day Thurs. Oct. 29th...drug free is double the fun....twinning Fri. Oct. 30th...we're the ghosts. ..say BOO to drugs....wear orange and black!

Curriculum Updates:

Readers' Workshop: This week we will be focusing on using specific word solving strategies when coming to tricky words. Some of the strategies we will use include: readers look closely at words by looking at chunks, rather than letter by letter, readers use blends (bl, cl, sp), diagraphs (ch, sh, th) and endings (ed, ing) when figuring out tricky words, and readers use word wall words as stepping stones when reading.

Writers' Workshop: This week we are starting our How-To unit. How-to texts are procedural texts that teach readers how to do something. We will be writing lots of books that teach people how to do something. This week we will be focusing on thinking of topics, rehearsing and writing lots of teaching books. Students will be thinking of things they care about and how they could use this topic to teach someone how to do something. For example, if a writer cares about soccer he or she could teach a reader how to dribble the ball, how to kick a goal, how to do a throw-in, etc. You could help your child brainstorm ideas for what he or she could teach others by noticing activities in and outside of home!

Word Study:  The words this week are: he, she, can, play, to. We will be assessing these words on Friday. These are words we want students to be able to read and write automatically without having to think to sound them out.

Math Workshop: This week in math we will be focusing on the strategy of 'counting on' when solving addition equations. A family letter was sent home yesterday explaining the strategy.  We are learning some new math games this week to reinforce this strategy.  Hopefully you will be able to join us on Friday morning for Math Morning!

Science: This week we will be looking closely at the changes happening in our terrariums and aquariums. 

Help spread the word!

New Directions Learning Community will be offering a free event

for senior citizens in the Fox Valley.

On Thursday November 5^th  from 8:30 – 9:15 am

seniors are welcome to visit our school.

Coffee and pastries will be served while they

learn about how school is different today than it was when they were young.

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask!  Have a great week!

-Samantha 

Bugs and Celebration!

On Wednesday our Beetles and Pill Bugs arrived. We added them to our Terrariums. This was very exciting!

Pill Bug

Bess Beetle

 Today we finished up our small moments writing unit with a celebration.  We shared our published stories in small groups and gave each other compliments such as "I like how you made your people move in your story!" or "Nice job using bold words in your story!" We ended our celebration with a cheer and added the books to our classroom library.  This is a class full of authors!

Finally, a few class pictures to join in on the Homecoming fun! We are Kaukauna Strong in first grade at New Directions!

Have a great weekend!
-Samantha

Weekly News October 6th

Hi!  There are so many exciting things happening in our classroom. We have finished up our first unit of reading in which we built some strong reading habits and our first math unit where we worked hard on partners of ten.  This week we will also finish up our small moment stories.  Last week we added to our aquariums and this week we will add bess beetles and pill bugs to our terrariums!  Please try to check the blog a couple times a week as I will work on adding pictures of our weekly events as they happen!

Thank you for helping students remember their student of the week bags!  We only have a couple left this week.  It has been fun learning about each other and growing as a classroom community.

Upcoming events:

Oct. 9th-Homecoming Parade-We hope you can join us. Wear orange and black to school today! Crazy Hair Day!

Oct. 16th-Math Morning 7:30-8:15 AM Ryan Flessner, our math consultant from Butler, will be presenting information about math instruction. Also, a chance to see independent time in the classroom

Oct.  20th   Grandparents and Goodies Family Night-Please RSVP if you haven't and are attending.

Oct. 23 & 24-No School

Red Ribbon Week:

Red Ribbon Week is an alcohol, tobacco and other drug and violence prevention awareness campaign observed annually in October in the United States.

Tues. Oct. 27th....no sweat being drug free...wear sweats
Wed. Oct. 28th....Red Day
Thurs. Oct. 29th...drug free is double the fun....twinning
Fri. Oct. 30th...we're the ghosts. ..say BOO to drugs....wear orange and black!

Curriculum Updates:

Readers' Workshop:  We began our new unit yesterday: Word Detectives Uses All They Know to Solve Words. In this unit we will work on our word solving skills. When readers get stuck, they think, "Does it look right? Does it make sense? Does it sound right?" We will also work on more word solving strategies as our books become trickier.  I have begun meeting with guided reading groups.  In these groups students are reading a book a bit higher than their independent books.  This gives them a chance to try out new strategies.  I am asking them to pack that book to bring home on days when they receive a new one to share at home. 

Writers' Workshop: We will be wrapping up our small moment stories this week. We have been using Night of the Veggie Monster, by George McClements, to notice and try new things in our writing.  We also did some of our own research in books to see what our favorite authors try in their writing so that we can give it a try. We noticed that Mo Willems uses many speech bubbles and does a great job of adding action to his characters. We will finish up the week with some revising and editing and finally publishing our best small moment story.

Word Study: We introduced 5 new word wall words today. The words are: the, went, is, are, be. We will be assessing these words on Friday. These are words we want students to be able to read and write automatically without having to think to sound them out.

Math Workshop: We finished up our first math unit, Partners and Number Patterns through 10. All students did very well with this unit.  We have begun our next unit which will focus on addition and subtraction strategies.  We are working towards fluency in addition and subtraction within 10.  A homework sheet will come home on Wednesday.

Science: Our aquariums and terrariums are growing! Last week we added snails and guppies to our aquariums. This week we will be adding bess beetles and pill bugs to our terrariums. Hopefully most of the plants that we grew made it home safely yesterday!  Here are some pictures from when the snails arrived! 

Have a great rest of the week!  Check back for more later in the week :)

-Samantha 

Building Good Reading Habits

We are finishing up our first reading unit. We have been talking about ways to build good reading habits, solve tricky words, and work with partners. Today we made goals on what we still need work on...we aren't good at it YET! We will continue to work on these goals in the next unit.  Here are some pictures of the charts that we have built in the unit and continue to use as reminders.