December 19-22nd

Hello,

The countdown is on to winter break and excitement is in the air in first grade! We’re thankful that the temperatures have warmed up a bit so we can burn off some energy outside :)

Tomorrow is Grinch day in our classroom! Remember to wear green...or if you choose dress like a Who!

Upcoming Events:

December 22nd-Holiday Colors

December 23rd- No School- Start of Winter Break

January 3rd-Classes resume

Reading: We are spending this week wrapping up our nonfiction reading. We have chosen a topic we are researching and getting ready to teach to Ms. Zobel's class.  In January we will be digging into more decoding and comprehension strategies as we move up the levels as readers!

Writing: We are finishing up our All About books this week. When we come back after break we will be starting to write reviews as part of our persuasive writing. Look for more information in January about sending in a “collection” to help with this writing work.

Word Work: No new words this week. We will be reviewing the words currently on on our word wall and using them to help us spell other words.

Math:  We are continuing our Place Value unit, which focuses on 2-digit numbers and tens and ones. We’ve spent some time adding 1 or 10 to a two digit number and noticing the difference. We will also be adding tens and ones to decade numbers (10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90).We will spend some time adding a 1-digit number to a 2-digit number and explore the counting on strategy to determine the total.

Content: We are continuing to research and study how Christmas is celebrated around the world.  So far we’ve studied Germany, Mexico, Italy, England, Sweden and Australia. We are adding our learning to our Christmas Around the World booklets, which we will be bringing home at the end of the week.  When we return from break we will be beginning our family unit.  

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

December 14th Weekly Update

Hello,

First graders continue to stay busy as winter break sneaks up on us! With the colder weather, please be sure to send warm clothes with your child everyday. Extra mittens/gloves and socks are also a good idea! Even if we aren’t able to go outside for recess, we want to make sure students are prepared and are bundled up at the end of the day. Thank you!

Next Wednesday, December 21st we will be having Grinch day in our classroom. The Grinch Who Stole Christmas is one of my favorite holiday books! We will be doing a few activities and searching for Dr. Seuss' message in the story. Students are invited to wear green or dress up like a Who to join in on the fun that day!

Upcoming Events:

December 22nd-Holiday Colors

December 23rd- No School- Start of Winter Break

January 3rd-Classes resume

Reading: This week we are continuing to work on reading aloud by experts. On Monday we used drama to bring our read-alouds to life. We learned we can act out parts of our nonfiction books to learn even more and teach our partners. We will spend the next couple of days making our read aloud the best we can. We will end this unit by creating posters showing what we have learned about a topic we have read about.

Writing: We are working on finishing up another all about book.  We are using all that we know about information books in this last piece and also putting a focus on our spelling and conventions.  Next week we will be adding photographs and images to our writing.  Please help your child find a photograph or image that matches their topic to add to their books.  Feel free to print a picture or find one in magazines.  

Word Work: Our new high frequency words (word wall words) are all, from, they, her, his. We will be assessing these words on Friday.  Some fun ways to practice them are writing them in shaving cream on cookie sheets, writing them in the air, clapping them as you spell them, or tracing over words with different color crayons or markers. We will also be spending time each week work on phonics skills specific to each student’s developmental level.

Math: We are using tends and ones to add such as, 37+5.  Students should count, 38, 39, 40, 41,42.  We are also telling packaging stories and solving them.  An example of a story problem like this would be:

Each box in the bagel shop holds 10 bagels.  There are 6 boxes and 8 extra bagels.  How many bagels are there in the shop?

We will end the week with some more comparing of two digit numbers using the greater than, less than, or equal to sign.  

Content: For the days leading up to break we will be researching and studying how Christmas is celebrated around the world.  We will be studying countries like Germany, Mexico, Italy, England, Sweden, Australia, France, and Israel.  When we return from break we will be beginning our family unit.  

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

December 5th-9th

Hello!  Tonight is the Kaukauna Christmas Parade. If you plan to walk with us in the parade we will be meeting at 809 Wisconsin.  We are position 27 in the parade. I hope to see some first graders there tonight!

Last call for book orders! I will be submitting the orders tomorrow morning (December 7th).  If you would like to keep the order a secret for Christmas please let me know.  

Upcoming Events:

December 6th- Kaukauna Christmas Parade

December 8th- Pajama Day and PJs and Publishing Family Night. Square 1 Art Orders will also be distributed this night.

December 13th- No School

December 14th- College Day (Wear your favorite college gear)

December 23rd- No School- Start of Winter Break

January 3rd-Classes resume

Reading: We continue to become experts on a variety of topics by reading nonfiction books. This week we are working on reading in ways to teach others, such as reading with feeling and reading like a writer. We are also learning how we can think and talk about keywords to learn more about our topic and share that learning with others.

Writing: We have been working on adding more to our writing.  We will draw on everything that we already learned to teach our readers, including writing how-to pages, persuasive writing, and stories in their teaching books.  Adding these different pages into non-fiction books takes a lot of planning and for first graders this can be the trickiest part.  We will focus on making our writing purposeful for the reader.  We will use a checklist to self-assess our writing and set goals for what we can work on to become an expert at writing teaching books.  

Word Work: Our new word wall words are but, yes, no, that, were, people.. We will be assessing these words on Friday.  Some fun ways to practice them are writing them in shaving cream on cookie sheets, writing them in the air, clapping them as you spell them, or tracing over words with different color crayons or markers. We will also be spending time each week work on phonics skills specific to each student’s developmental level.

Math: We are continuing to build our understanding of tens and ones. We will spend some time investigating doubles of numbers 1-10 and explore addition strategies that use doubles (double plus 1, double minus 1), represent 2-digit numbers with drawings, equations and numbers, show 2-digit numbers with 10-sticks and circles, read and write numerals and numbers words for numbers through 20 and the decade numbers (30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100), practicing grouping ones into 10s and adding with groups of 10. Some things you could do at home to reinforce these skills are

Content: We are continuing our weather centers this week. Students are learning so much. They are especially intrigued by super storms! Ask your first grader to give you some details about this topic. This week we will also be making thermometers and practicing using them to read temperature and making flags to test wind speed.

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

Samantha

November 28-December 2

Hello! It’s going to be December this week!  Wow!  It’s a busy and exciting time of year at school and at home.

I am sending home book orders today.  They will be due next Tuesday, December 6th.  Books make great Christmas gifts.  If you would like me to keep it a secret from your child when the books come in send me an email and we can make a plan for you to pick up the books. You can place your orders online at scholastic.com/readingclub using my class activation code: J4RGH or feel free to send in the paper version with a check made out to Scholastic.  

Upcoming Events:

December 6th- Kaukauna Christmas Parade

December 8th- Pajama Day and PJs and Publishing Family Night. Square 1 Art Orders will also be distributed this night.

December 13th- No School

December 23rd- No School- Start of Winter Break

Reading:

We are beginning the week with some practice applying the non-fiction strategies that we have learned so far in this unit.  Non-fiction books are filled with information in the words and the pictures and there are many strategies that we can use to help us learn as much information as possible.  We are also collecting the key words in books and working to understand them and use then to teach our partners more about our books. We will also be working on reading and rereading our books to try to find just the right way each page should sound and to make our voices sound like teaching voices!

Writing: We continue to work on our nonfiction all about books. First graders are experts on so many topics. We are trying to pick topics that we know alot about. For example, places we go or things we do. Brainstorming ideas for topics at home is a great idea. This week we will be using a table of contents to help us plan out our chapters in our books, planning out what we will write in each chapter, using tips we have been given out teaching books to write our chapter books, using comparisons to help our readers picture our books (shark’s teeth are as sharp as knives), and adding details by giving examples to help our readers learn more.

Word Work: Our new word wall words are and, big, here, little, up. We will be assessing these words on Friday.  Some fun ways to practice them are writing them in shaving cream on cookie sheets, writing them in the air, clapping them as you spell them, or tracing over words with different color crayons or markers. We will also be spending time each week work on phonics skills specific to each student’s developmental level.

Math: We have started our new unit, Place Value Concepts. A parent note came home yesterday with more information and examples. We will be working with numbers up to 100 and counting by 10s. We will be exploring teen numbers and learning strategies to find teen totals. We will learning more about tens and ones in 2 digit numbers up to 100, comparing two 2-digit numbers and using tens and ones to add.

Content: Our field trip to the Building for Kids was a great success. We learned alot about weather by participating in hands on activities, and had time to explore the museum. This week we will begin our weather centers. We will be learning more about clouds, temperature, wind speed and different types of weather. We will be visiting the site pebblego. This is a great site for young learners to explore science and social studies topics. Our username is electa and our password is electa if you’d like to visit this site at home!

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

Field Trip Pictures

November 14th-18th

Hello! Thank you to everyone who made it to conferences last week and I look forward to seeing the rest of you tonight.  I really enjoying sharing your student's progress with you on these nights! We will end our week with our field trip to The Building for Kids on Friday.  We will be attending a weather class while we are there and will also have some time to explore.  This is always a very fun day!

November 15th-Portfolio Conferences

November 17th: Half Day-11:30 Dismissal

November 18th: Field trip to the Building For Kids

November 18th: Badger Day

November 22nd: Twin Day

November 23rd, 24th, 25th: No School-Happy Thanksgiving!

November 28: Packer Day

Reading: Last week we focused on getting familiar with reading our non-fiction books.  This week we will transfer our focus to tackling super hard words in order to keep learning from our books.  We are referring back to many of our word solving charts from our last unit and adding a few new strategies.  We will teach to crash word parts together and then check if it makes sense.  We will practice doing this by reading the beginning, middle, and end of the word and then putting the parts together to form a word. We will also add that some tricky words are new words.  Readers solve these tricky words by saying the word the best they can then thinking about what that word means.  

Writing: We are working on adding to our picture to teach about our topic.  Students can do this by adding arrows, labels, or zoom in pictures. This week we will also teach that writers bravely spell the challenging, expert words that help teach about their topic.  At the end of the week we will notice that writers need readers to help them revise their writing.

Word Work: Our new word wall words are: had, are, play, she, go. We will be assessing these words on Friday.  Make sure to keep practicing them at home!

Math: This week in math we are practicing mixed story problems. We are practicing setting up the equation to match the story problem.  Sometimes we need to solve for unknown partners and sometimes the total.  We are emphasizing the importance of visualizing the story taking place to figure out first if it is subtraction or addition and then next figuring out if they need to solve for a partner or a total.  The homework sheet tonight has some examples of the type of problems we are working on.  

Content: This week in content we are exploring weather words, seasons, and temperature.  We will be doing some hands on weather experiments on Friday during our field trip.

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

Weekly Update November 7th-11th

Hello!

What beautiful weather we’ve been having! Hopefully families have had a chance to enjoy it! Portfolio conferences start this week. Let me know if you need a reminder of your time and day! I look forward to sharing all of your child’s growth this year with you!

Upcoming Events:

November 10th & 15th-Portfolio Conferences

November 17th: Half Day-11:30 Dismissal

November 18th: Field trip to the Building For Kids

November 18th: Badger Day

November 22nd: Twin Day

November 23rd, 24th, 25th:No School-Happy Thanksgiving!

November 28: Packer Day

Reading: We are excited to be digging into nonfiction reading! On Friday we sorted our nonfiction books into topic bins, such as: underwater animals, vehicles, bugs, places, etc. This week we will be working on getting smart from nonfiction topics. We’ll practice taking sneak peeks before we even start reading to learn about our topic, stop and study each page to learn more, and chat about the page using your own words and ideas to talk about the book. We’ll also learn how at the end of the book we can think, “What have I learned about this topic? Am I smarter about the topic now? And then look back at our book and try to remember all we have learned. We’ll also work on reading with a teaching voice by making our voice sound smooth and lively.

Writing: Our writing unit ties in nicely with our reading unit. We’ll be writing nonfiction chapter books.  In the beginning of this unit we will be writing a basic information book similar to a picture book. By the end of the unit we will be creating multiple information chapter books filled with elaboration, interesting text elements and pictures that supplement the teaching of the words. This week we will find a topic we know a lot about, plan our topic across our fingers, and keep readers in mind when writing.

Word Work: Our new word wall words are as, good, this, at, can. We will be assessing these words on Friday.  Some fun ways to practice them are writing them in shaving cream on cookie sheets, writing them in the air, clapping them as you spell them, or tracing over words with different color crayons or markers. We will also be spending time each week work on phonics skills specific to each student’s developmental level.

Math: We are continuing to work with and practice unknown partners. We will be creating and solving story problems with unknown partners using math mountains and equations, relating subtraction problems to unknown partners and solve by counting on, create and solve subtraction story problems, and relate addition and subtraction stories.

Content: This week we will continue to learn about presidential elections and have a school election today to vote for our favorite candidate.

We’ll read some books about the election process and being a president, learn about the candidates using this site: http://election.scholastic.com/election-central/meet-the-candidates/

, and even imagine what we would do if we were president! Here are some pictures of our "official vote."

On Wednesday we’ll begin our study of weather, which will tie in with our visit to the Building for Kids.

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

Samantha

Weekly Update October 31-November 4th

Hi there,

It’s hard to believe it’s November already! Check out the pictures from our pizza party last week at the end of today's blog.I’m very excited to share your child’s progress at our Portfolio Conferences this month. Students have grown so much since the beginning of the year. Conference times came home yesterday. Please let me know if you have not received yours. If you have not returned your child’s permission slip and money for our field trip to the Building For Kids, they are due this Friday, November 4th.

Check out this link for the New Directions Newsletter

https://docs.google.com/a/kaukaunasd.org/document/d/1LSoOoTKPjCJU67Uyy9TQWQf-dXr6otelZUPv0F2T8JQ/edit?usp=sharing

Here’s a link to the November lunch calendar:

 https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2BiuAZD6NhGV0tQcWtjVENOejNUY3JtR294YW9IZUN5bHdF/view?usp=sharing

PSC NEWS

Show appreciation for the NDLC staff by bringing an item or two  for their conference meals. We'll be providing for for our teachers plus support staff and specialists. Thursday, Nov. 10th will be a Taco Bar and Tuesday, Nov. 15th will be Soup and Sandwiches. Please sign up to contribute at... http://signup.com/go/i1k9Qj

The Fall Book Fair is coming! Please sign up to help set up, cashier, or clean up! Slots are only 30 minutes in length to accommodate parent schedules with conferences. Feel free to sign up for more than one slot if you would like. Sign up at...http://signup.com/go/EQHxM2. Email ndlc.psc@gmail.com with questions!

Upcoming Events:

November 2nd-Little Mermaid Performance at Kaukauna High School

November 10th & 15th-Portfolio Conferences

November 17th: Half Day-11:30 Dismissal

November 18th: Field trip to the Building For Kids

November 18th: Badger Day

November 22nd: Twin Day

November 23rd, 24th, 25th:No School-Happy Thanksgiving!

November 28: Packer Day

Reading: Word Detectives have been working hard to use all they know about letters, sounds and words to read. This week we will be noticing contractions and compound words to help us figure out tricky words, make our reading sound smooth after we figure out the tricky parts, and then end our unit with a celebration by showing off all we have learned.

At the end of the week we will be starting our new unit, Learning About the World: Reading Nonfiction. We will be building on students’ natural curiosity as we dig into nonfiction books.

Writing: We will be finishing up our How-To writing this week, but continuing with information writing by writing All About books starting next week. This week we are using a checklist to make sure we have all the parts of a How-To, and then setting our goal and giving ourselves jobs if we notice anything missing.  We will be celebrating our How-Tos and meeting our goals at the end of the week.

Word Work: Our new word wall words are as, be, it, you, have. We will be assessing these words on Friday. These are the ‘snap’ words we are using as word detectives.  Some fun ways to practice them are writing them in shaving cream on cookie sheets, writing them in the air, clapping them as you spell them, or tracing over words with different color crayons or markers. We will also be spending time each week work on phonics skills specific to each student’s developmental level.

Math: We will be starting a new unit, Unknown Numbers in Addition and Subtraction. This week we will be focusing on solving problems with unknown addition partners. For example, We see 9 fish. Five are big. The others are small. How many fish are small?  We will be exploring multiple strategies for solving these problems.

Content: This week we will be learning about presidential elections. We’ll read some books about the election process and being a president, learn about the candidates using this site: http://election.scholastic.com/election-central/meet-the-candidates/

, and even imagine what we would do if we were president!

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