Amazing Happenings In Room 11!

Parent Updates

• I hope you found conferences informative.  Please be sure to return the signed progress report envelopes
• Please be sure to send Booktime Books in to school on Wednesdays.  It is the only day we do this unless we run out of time, then we do it on Thursday
• The weather is getting cold, please be sure to send your child dressed for the weather.  We go out everyday unless the weather is poor

Specials

• In art the class worked hard on making pinch pots.  We then wrote "how to" stories to describe the process.  Here are some more explanations.
                    

               

Literacy

• We are working on being flexible readers.  When one strategy doesn't work, we try another.  We ask ourselves "Does it Look Right?  Sound Right?  Make Sense?"
• Worked on learning about "Glued Sounds".  These sounds keep their sounds but are "glued" together:  -all, -am & -an
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• Continued to work on trick words.  Please practice any missed words from the list sent home. In addition we have learned:  from, have, do & does
• Continued to work on having our characters come to life during writer's workshop
• Learned how to learn from mentor authors.  Discovered how to use:  bold words, movement in words, ellipses & exact words
• Finished all the "My Father's Dragon" books.  Started "Gooseberry Park".

Math

• Continued to solve story problems
• Worked on solving Addend Unknown story problems
• Worked on subtraction strategies:  "count back" on the number line, "count on" on the number line, "make 10" counting back, "make 10" counting on & think addition to solve subtraction
• Worked with fact families.  If you know how to fill a part-part-whole mat...you can use thparts and whole you know to solve problems 

Social Studies

• Learned about Veteran's Day.  Had guests come and teach us about the five branches of military and about the different jobs that people do.
                          
• Learned about the pilgrims and why the chose to come to the New World.  Watched Mrs. Paget's Thanksgiving Play.  Read Thanksgiving stories

Science

• Began learning about Solids.  So far we learned that solids have the properties:  color, shape, roll & stack and hardness

     

Happy Halloween!

Thank you so much to the room parents that planned and helped out to make our Halloween party a great one!  Can you guess who is behind the masks???

Flying Through October!!!

Parent Updates

• Be sure to send homework and the signed homework sheet back to school on Fridays
• Please send your child's halloween costume to school on Monday.  All makeup should be done at home.
• Memorial's Halloween Parade is scheduled for 9:30 on Halloween

Literacy Updates

• Continued learning to "tap to read" and "tap to spell" with CVC words
• Continued framing our sentences with capitals and end marks
• Learned how digraphs are two consonants that work to make one sound.  We learned wh, ch, th, sh & ck
• Focused on trick words.  Remember students need to be able to read and spell these words accurately.  They will come home on a list of other words.  Keep these and practice these words. (a, the, and, his, is, as, has, in & into)
• Learned how to make our small moment stories come to life by making our characters move and talk
• Finished Elmer and the Dragon.  Began The Dragons of Blueland.

Math

• Continued solving story problems
• Learned how to solve compare problems
• Continued learning addition strategies:  doubles, doubles plus 1 and addends in any order
• Here is an explanation of doubles 

                                                                                        

                                                               

 Social Studies

• Continued with Scholastic News
• Read several stories about Christopher Columbus
• Wrote facts about Christopher Columbus
• Talked about "calming down" strategies in Open Circle

Going Strong!

Parent Updates

• Don't forget to return poem notebooks to school
• Please send the red home/school folder to school everyday
• No school October 10th:  Columbus Day
• No school October 12th:  Yom Kippur

Language Arts

• Continued learning different centers:  listening center, word work center and many more
• Completed reviewing the consonants with v, x, y & z
• Began learning how to "tap to read" & "tap to spell" with short vowel (CVC) words
• Learned how to "frame our thought" with a capital and end mark
• Continued writing small moment stories; learned to write "seed stories" not "watermelon stories"
• Learned how writing partners can help plan and revise our stories
  
                        
• Finished "My Father's Dragon" and began "Elmer and the Dragon"

Math

• Continued working on "Add To", "Put Together" and "Both Addend Unknown" story problems
• Began working with "Take From" story problems
• Continued to work on ways to show our thinking
• Began focusing on strategies for solving addition problems.  Our first strategy is counting on; using numbers and number lines
• Used legos to show counting on                 
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Social Studies

• Talked about "expected" and "unexpected" behaviors and how it makes people around us feel
• Read scholastic news magazines on "friends" and author "Kevin Henkes"

The Classroom is Busy!

Parent Updates

We have been working hard setting our class routines.  I hope you found PIN night informative.  A lot goes on during our first grade day.

• Thursday, September 22 is Dot Day....wear your polka dots to school
• September 27th is picture day

Language Arts

• Continued to work on building our stamina for "Read to Self".  We are up to 9 minutes.
• Worked on "Read to Someone".  Reviewed expectations and learned what "EEKK" reading looks and sounds like.  Ask your child what "EEKK" is.

• Continued reviewing consonant sounds and letter sounds in our Fundations program"  s, e, r, p, j, h & k
• Learned that "When we're done we just begun" in writer's workshop.  We learned to go back and revise our stories by asking questions.
• Talked about spelling strategies that we can use when we are writing:  tap and write, word wall, use small words we know, and got our green word dictionaries.
• Began taking our Poem Notebooks home
• Continued reading stories
• Started our first chapter book "My Father's Dragon"

Math

• Continued working with "add to" and "put together problems"
• Began working on "Both Addends Unknown" problems

• Played the games "How many am I hiding?" and "Counters in a Cup"

Social Studies

• Created our classroom rules
• Read a Scholastic News about feelings in the classroom

First Days of First Grade

Parent Notes

• Please return the class directory.  As soon as everyone completes this I will be able to send it home.

• Please send an art smock to school.

• Be on the look out for the scholastic book order.  You can place your order online by clicking on the tab on the top of this page.  Please place your order by no later than September 16th.

Language Arts

• Learned how to do "read to self".  Practiced the right way and the wrong way.  Build our stamina to 7 minutes
  
• Began our phonics program; Fundations.  Focused on reviewing letter sounds and formations.
• Focused on the letters:  t, b, m, n, o, u, a, i, g, d & c
• Began writer's workshop with the unit "small moments"
• Worked at how to brainstorm a small moment, plan it on the pages and write.
• Looked at how touching the pages and sketching can help plan our stories
• Read many back to school stories

Math

• Learned what math centers look and sound like while exploring math tools
• Played "roll & record" and "compare"
• Began looking at how to solve story problems.  Worked with "add to" and "put together" problems
• write your starting equation
• show your work
• write and ending equation
• label your answer

Social Studies

• Played get to know you game in Open Circle
• Began brainstorming classroom rules
• Did our Scholastic News magazine focused on school rules
• Reviewed the "whole body listening look" that they learned in kindergarten
  

An Exciting Day

Hi Everyone,

What a day!  The children did a phenomenal job during their flag day performance.  It was great to see all their faces so happy and proud.

I hope you enjoyed our presentation today.  Thank you so much for those who helped the room parents with the treats.

Here is the video version of our American Symbol Ebook.

Some Exciting Things!

Wow...a lot has been happening in Room 11.

• Don't forget to send Booktime books in to school on Wednesday's.  If we don't do it Wednesday we always do it Thursday.
• Take a peek at the math tab at the top of the blog.  I put some of the links to math games that they have been using this year.

Here is a peek at just a few of the things we have been up to:

• We had a visit from the author Melissa Stewart.  She writes nonfiction texts.  We learned how important it is to make sure that the pictures match the text.  It took her 10 years to write No Monkeys, No Chocolate.

• We had another fun hour with Kibo!  This time the students were given 2 additional coding blocks; singing and respond to sound.  They could program Kibo to start with a clap.  Some kids even took the challenge of getting Kibo to go under the bookcase or chair.

• We finished up a fun unit on presidents.  We took time to ask questions,  We went to the library and found books we could use.  Mrs. Groden taught us about Pebble Go; a data base of information that we could use.  We read stories and even wrote letters to the president (or POTUS).  Then found a way that we could teach our information using organized writing. here is a picture of our "questions and facts door".

• We wrapped up a nonfiction writing unit.  The kids have come so far in writing a teaching book including things like:  tables of contents, introductions, different kinds of chapters and conclusions.  No we are on to our next unit of study...opinion writing!

• In Math we have been spending a great deal of time talking about place value.  This has been building all year and I am amazed at what a great job they are doing solving two digit and two digit addition equations.  They are able to show their thinking in so many ways; drawing the blocks, using an open number line and writing equations to match their mental math equations.

Kibo!

We are so fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet Kibo with Mrs. Gorden in the library!  Kibo is a robot that responds to code.  To build on our "hour of code" from back in December, we brought the children down to the library to meet Kibo and design code to move it.

The students had to think like engineers.  They had to work together to:  ask questions, imagine, plan, create, test & improve and share.  The conversations were amazing!

Thank you MCPE for supporting this grant!

Here is a short video of one group testing their code.

 

Happy New Year!

We have begun the new year full speed ahead!  Room 11 has built a tremendous classroom culture.  Those that have volunteered to help in the classroom have commented on what a great class we have and I couldn't agree more!

Things to Note:

• Check out our "class reporters"!  You will find videos that they created on their own to show you what we are learning in Room 11.  They are embedded below.
• Please send back Booktime books on Wednesday.  It is part of our center routine on Wednesdays, unless I am not there and then we do it on Thursday.
• Look for our new classroom pet "Snowball" to be coming home for weekend visits.                                                            
• Pajama day was a hit!  Here they are reading to their stuffed animals
  
  
  
  

Language Arts

• Continued work with the digraphs wh, ch, sh, th & ck

Worked with the "glued sounds" - all, -am & an

Introduced the concept of a suffix:  an ending added to a base word.  We are working with the suffix (-s) to show more than one; making a word plural

Continued to talk about characters and settings

Finished up our small moment unit in writer's workshop.  We looked at authors' to discover how they write.  

Learned how to use ellipses (...), make our words bold, & show movement in our words

   

• We continued to bring our characters to life

Math

• Worked with addition & subtraction
• Focused on a variety of strategies: doubles, doubles plus 1 & 2, make 10, open number line
• Continue to show our thinking on paper 

Social Studies

• Learned about the pilgrims:  why they left England, how they traveled, what they learned from the Native Americans, what the first Thanksgiving was like
• Talked about things we were thankful for