Weekly Update May 15-19

Hello, It’s hard to believe that it’s the last full week of school.  A few more short weeks and then summer will be here!  Please check at home for field trip forms, family night forms, and field day forms and return them as soon as possible! Also, remember if you aren’t able to make it the whole day for our field trip, you are welcome to join us for lunch at Horseshoe Park. If you have any questions about any of the end of year events please let me know.  

If anyone has any box tops please turn them in by Friday, June 2nd.

Upcoming Events:

5/22-Family Night 6:00-7:00

5/26 & 5/29-No School

5/31-Walking Field Trip

6/6- Field day

6/7-Last Day!  ½ day of school!

End of Year Dress Up Days

G 5/30 Go Team! Wear your favorite sports gear

O 5/31 Odd/crazy sock day

O 6/1 Orange Colors

D 6/2 Dads and moms (dress like your parents)

B 6/5 Backwards clothes day

Y 6/6 You’re so bright (wear sunglasses)

E 6/7 Extra bright clothes

Reading: We just finished up our nonfiction unit. Students have become experts about so many topics. This week we are starting our last unit, Reading and Role-Playing: Fairy Tales, Folktales, Fables, and Fantasy. We’ll be stepping into the magical world of fairy tales, folktales, fables, and fantasy. We’ll be getting to know the characters, notice their feelings and pay attention to the settings. We’ll also be noticing the magic in these stories and noticing some of the language and vocabulary that are unique to these stories.

Writing: We are continuing to write poetry. First graders have been experimenting with sense words, using strong feelings and line breaks. This week we will be visiting poetry centers. Our centers include songs, imagery, rhythm, adding poems to our poetry binders and seeing objects with new eyes.   

Word Work: The new words this week are some, open, these, new, does. Please have your child practice these words on a regular basis. As they become fluent with them, it’s helps them with their reading and writing.

Math:  We will be taking our unit 7 assessment today. Next we will be spending some time on True and False equations, and understanding what the equal sign means.

Example: 7+5=8+3   True or False

Content: We are continuing to learn about communities. We’ll be starting our centers this week. We’ll be learning more about maps, community helpers, and  buildings in a community using books, Pebblego and other hands on materials.

Weekly Update May 8-12

Hello,

For some students the countdown is on for summer but there is still so much learning and fun to be had in the next couple of weeks.  We are wrapping up a few units this week and beginning our final units of first grade.  We will also begin some end of the year assessing soon...there is so much to celebrate at this time of year!

We are going on a field trip!  Check for the permission slip coming home today.  If you are able to chaperone, we would love to have you!  If you aren’t able to make it the whole day, you are also welcome to join us for lunch at Horseshoe Park.

Upcoming Events:

5/10-Bike to School Day

5/22-Family Night 6:00-7:00

5/26 & 5/29-No School

5/31-Walking Field Trip

Reading: We are continuing to build our nonfiction reading skills.  We are working on determining importance in our books and retelling the main idea and key details.  We are also working on teaching about our topic with our partners and having conversations around our books.  At the end of the week we will celebrate this unit by presenting the information that we learned in our books.  

Writing: We are starting our poetry unit. We’ll be spending some time exploring poems and answering the question, “What is a poem?” We will be thinking of things we love, strong emotions and things we like to do to help us generate ideas for poems. We’ll also be learning how to use line breaks and sense words to help our poems sound more poetic.

Word Work: The new words this week are take, put, your very, once. Please have your child practice these words on a regular basis. As they become fluent with them, it’s helps them with their reading and writing.

Math:  This week we are learning about the attributes of 3-dimensional shapes and using 3-D shapes to compose new shapes. We will also be comparing and ordering objects by length and measure objects with same-size length units (ie paper clips).

Content: We are beginning our Community unit.  This week we are building some background knowledge and next week we will dig deeper in centers.  We will end this unit with our walking field trip.  We are also continuing with Junior Achievement. Students are enjoying learning from our volunteer.

Weekly Update May 1-5

Hello,

I can’t believe it’s May. Hopefully the weather will begin to feel a little bit more like spring consistently!

Note from the office: Teacher Appreciation Week - May 1-5 Help thank our teachers for their hard work. Provide an item for lunch or snacks during Teacher Appreciation Week.  Click on this link to sign up.  Thank you for your support!

Thanks for all the cereal boxes. We’re all set!

Here’s the link to the May Newsletter

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2BiuAZD6NhGNTRzZU83d0NBVGVyRmFNbXZ4SFQzWmUycktZ/view?usp=sharing

Upcoming Events:

5/4- Action Figure/Sci Fi Day

5/10-Bike to School Day-See note that is coming home today for more information

5/22-Family Night 6:00-7:00 Look for more info to follow soon

5/26 & 5/29-No School

Reading: We are continuing to grow our nonfiction reading skills. This week we will be continuing to work on determining the topic of our sections and the key details. When we jot our posits they sound like: The topic of this section is….A key detail is… We will also be spending some time thinking about how each section in our book fits together to teach us about the big topic and coming up with our own ideas about what we are reading.

Writing: We are finishing up our series books this year. We will be learning how to use our illustrations to tell important details, writing a “Meet the Author” page, and getting our books ready for our final celebration.

Word Work: The new words this week are old, stop, them, write, live. Please have your child practice these words on a regular basis. As they become fluent with them, it’s helps them with their reading and writing.

Math:  We finished up telling time to the hour and half hour. Students were very excited to be studying clocks. This week we learning about the attributes of rectangles, squares (a special rectangle), triangles and circles. We will also be learning about equal shares and be spending some time composing 2-D shapes.

Content: We’ll be finishing up Needs and Wants this week. We are also continuing with Junior Achievement. Students are enjoying learning from our volunteer.

Weekly Update April 24-28

Hello,

Last call for KAT envelopes. This is an amazing fund raiser for our school. Thanks for all your support!

Note from the office: Teacher Appreciation Week - May 1-5 Help thank our teachers for their hard work. Provide an item for lunch or snacks during Teacher Appreciation Week.  Click on this link to sign up.  Thank you for your support!

If you have any empty cereal boxes at home please send them in. We need about 6 more!  We will be using them at the end of our writing unit in about a month but I figured it’s never to early to start asking.  

Upcoming Events:

4/28-Funky Friday (dress as silly as you want)

5/4- Action Figure/Sci Fi Day

Reading: We are continuing to grow our nonfiction reading skills. We are working hard on setting our own goals and practicing them everyday. In order to make a goal a habit, we need to practice, practice, practice! As we are reading, we continue to think about the topic of each section and are learning how to stop and think often about the key details in the text. See below for some questions nonfiction readers can ask themselves when thinking about key details.

Writing: We are continuing with our series books. This week we are learning how we can use patterns to elaborate (add more to) or writing. We are also making reading/writing connections by studying some of the books in our book boxes and noticing what the authors are doing that we can do in our own writing. We will also be focusing on our punctuation, and having a “punctuation party” to be purposeful about the punctuation we are using.

Word Work: The new words this week are us, boy, girl, just, friend. Please have your child practice these words on a regular basis. As they become fluent with them, it’s helps them with their reading and writing.

Math:  We finished our 2-digit addition unit and have started our next unit, “Geometry, Measurement,  and Equal Shares. During the first part of this unit we will be focusing on telling and writing times to the hour and half hour. We will then move on to shapes and equal shares. The last part of our unit will focus on measurement and ordering by length.

Content: We’ve started our Needs and Wants unit. This ties in nicely with our Junior Achievement lessons.

Weekly Update April 18-21

Hello,

Welcome back! I hope everyone had an enjoyable and restful break. It’s hard to believe we are halfway through April already!

We had a lot of fun last week with the Egg Crack off.  Myles was our class winner!  We also sent Jasmine off to her new school with a surprise party!  

Thank you for all the Birthday Box donations. We will be assembling boxes this Saturday, April 22. Please click the link below if you are interested in signing up to help!

http://signup.com/go/fa4ZnY

Please contact Kristin McEneany at  kristin.mceneany@gmail.com  with any questions.

Note from the office: Teacher Appreciation Week - May 1-5Help thank our teachers for their hard work. Provide an item for lunch or snacks during Teacher Appreciation Week.  Click on this link to sign up.  Thank you for your support!

If you have any empty cereal boxes at home please send them in.  We will be using them at the end of our writing unit in about a month but I figured it’s never to early to start asking.  

Upcoming Events:

4/20: Family Night 5:30-7:00 Subs, Science and Social Studies

4/21-Wear Green and Blue (earth day) Permission slip coming home soon for neighborhood clean up

4/28-Funky Friday (dress as silly as you want)

Reading: We are continuing to build our nonficiton knowledge in our clubs! This week we will be noticing the different structures our books contain (diagrams, heading and details, question and answer, cause and effect) to help us make a plan for our reading. We’ll be learning how to break the text into sections and asking, “What is this part mostly about?” and stopping often to think about what we are learning. Then, we’ll use this learning to have conversations with our clubs.

Writing: We are continuing with our series books. This week we are focusing on showing not telling by adding in tiny realistic details. We’ll also be showing not telling how the character is feeling and realistic settings. We’ll be adding chapters to our books and using our partners to help us add even more.

Word Work: The new words this week are find, ask, every, know, who: Please have your child practice these words on a regular basis. As they become fluent with them, it’s helps them with their reading and writing.

Math:  We are continuing our 2-digit addition unit and will be completing our assessment on Friday.  See our chart below to see the strategies that we are using to help us solve these equations.

Content: This week we will be learning about Earth Day and importance of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. We will also be starting Junior Achievement this week.  A volunteer from a local business comes into our classroom once a week for 5 weeks and conducts a lesson that lasts about 30 minutes. JA programs focus on the skills necessary for students to develop work readiness, financial literacy and entrepreneurism all at the first grade level. The program is designed to be interactive using practical hands on activities that reinforce key concepts to prepare and inspire students to succeed in a global economy. The title of the first grade program is: Our Families.

April 3-7th News

Hello!  April showers bring May flowers! I’ve noticed many parents are now following us on Seesaw. So far, this has been a very successful tool for students to share their thinking and connect with each other. Seeing parent comments at school is also very exciting :)  Look for our U.S. Symbol projects that we are posting tomorrow afternoon.  

If you have any empty cereal boxes at home please send them in.  We will be using them at the end of our writing unit in about a month but I figured it’s never to early to start asking.  

http://signup.com/go/TNwaqh

Here is the sign up link for Knowledge-a-thon​

Upcoming Events:

4/3-7: Dress Up Days- See Below

4/7: KAT in the AM, PAC field trip in the PM
4/11: Egg Crack Off-WEAR RED!- Note coming home about bringing an egg.

4/12-17: Spring Break

4/20: Family Night

4/21-Wear Green and Blue (earth day) Permission slip coming home soon for neighborhood clean up

4/28-Funky Friday (dress as silly as you want)

KAT Week Dress up days April 3-7th

Monday Brewer/Sports Day

Tuesday Dress as a question or answer to KAT question

Wednesday Pajama Day

Thursday Superhero Day

Friday Dress Fancy

Reading: This week in reading we are beginning our new unit: Reading Nonfiction Cover to Cover.  In this unit students will improve their nonfiction reading skills, and work on their speaking and listening skills.  We will learn new strategies to help hang on to important information and how to let go of the not-so-important information.  We will also learn how to take information provided in one book and add it to information learned in another, and another, thinking and learning about a topic across many texts, not just one.

Writing: This week we are working on writing a series.  We learned that series writers often write a Book One in their series.  In it, they share a lot of details about their character.  We also are focusing on adding more dialogue into our stories to make our characters come alive.  We will end the week with some revision work and celebrating our first series.

Word Work: The new words this week are:soon, rain, fly, any, under. Please have your child practice these words on a regular basis. As they become fluent with them, it’s helps them with their reading and writing.

Math:  We have started 2 digit addition! Students have been trying a variety of methods to solve these problems: tens frames, drawing, and using tens sticks and ones circles. They will be learning the new group below and new group above method in second grade. This year our focus is on exposure and building the concept of adding a 2-digit number with a 2-digit number.

Content: This week we are finishing up our U.S. symbol research and presenting our information to each other.

March 27-31st Update

Hello,

Wow! I can you believe it's the last week of March already?! I am excited to share your first graders progress at conferences either tonight or Thursday.  I have been meeting with students to set goals to work towards in the last quarter of first grade and we can't wait to share them with you!

Keep practicing the KAT questions and don’t forget to turn in your permission slip for our PAC field trip if you haven’t already.

http://signup.com/go/TNwaqh

Here is the sign up link for Knowledge-a-thon​

Timber Rattlers Reading Program: Remember, if your child is participating in Fang’s Reading Club and completes the 2 week reading assignment, fill out the the corresponding Fang and bring him back to school. If your child completes all the the assignments, he/she will earn a complimentary ticket to the Timber Rattlers game on June 11th at 1:05 PM.

Upcoming Events:

3/28 & 3/30: Portfolio Conferences 4:00-7:00
3/29: Wacky Hair Day
4/3-7: Dress Up Days- See Below

4/7: KAT in the AM, PAC field trip in the PM
4/11: Egg Crack Off- Look for a note to be coming home soon!

KAT Week Dress Up Days April 3-7th 
Monday Brewer/Sports Day
Tuesday Dress as a question or answer to KAT question
Wednesday Pajama Day
Thursday Superhero Day
Friday Dress Fancy

Reading: We are continuing to study characters this week with the focus that readers learn lessons from their books. We are making predictions on what the lesson might be and we are checking our predictions throughout our reading. In our small groups many of us are working on our conversations about books and we have formed book clubs. Reading has been a very exciting part of our day!

Writing: Students are doing an amazing job writing realistic fiction stories. They are giving their characters troubles and then fixing the troubles. We are using what we know about adding action, feeling and dialogue to make our stories come alive!

Word Work: The new words this week are: say, well, give, again, please. Please have your child practice these words on a regular basis. As they become fluent with them, it’s helps them with their reading and writing.

Math:  We’re going to be spending a couple more days on comparison problems and using comparison bars as this concept was a little tricky for first graders. At the end of the week we will be moving on to two digit addition!

Content: We are continuing our study of US symbols. Students are researching U.S. symbols and working to make posters to present their information. Students have dug right into their research and are very excited about what they are learning!

-Samantha