Classroom Update

Parent Information

• Don't forget to send in the Acceptable use policy.  We need it signed to allow students to use the computers.

• We will be having our Halloween parade and party next Thursday.  Please send in your child's costume that day.  Any make-up should be applied at home.  The parade will start at 1:30.  We will be parading around the school.

• Please send in the class email form.  I would like to give them out so the room parents have them for the Halloween party.

Math

• Continued working with story problems focusing on using the most efficient strategies we can: counting on or better yet...known fact
• Continued working on showing our thinking, record a number equation and label our answers
• Worked on problems with multiple combinations.  Students iidentified some target words..."some, target number & how many of each". 

***Check out our guest blogger Sean's system he uses to solve this type of problem.

                                

Social Studies

• Read several different stories about Christopher Columbus

Literacy

• Worked with the short vowel I.  "I...itch...i"
• Worked with the ig & ick word families
• Learned that you use -ck at the end of a word or syllable that has a short vowel
• Began working with short O.  "O...octopus..o"
• Worked with the -ock & -op families
• Writer's Workshop:  learned how to "unfreeze our stories" by making our characters move and talk

Global Read Aloud

We continued to read books by Eric Carle as part of our global read aloud.  This week we focused on The Mixed-Up Chameleon.  In our library/tech class we worked on making ourselves into animals.  The students used "fotobabble" to record themselves.  I then used "thinglink" to put in all together.  Click on all the touch points to see/hear our mixed up animals.  

Math

We have been working on using efficient strategies when solving problems in math.  Our guest bloggers Katie and Carl have shared their strategies.

                              

Classroom Update

Parent Information

• Please make sure to send in your scholastic order by Tuesday if you are interested in ordering.
• Picture day is on October 10th.
• The list of words coming home each week are the words that we have worked with for the week.  The words that are starred are the "word wall" words that they must be able to read and spell.  Practicing reading and writing the "word wall" words and words with the families we have explored would be beneficial.

The Great Read Aloud

All around the world first grade classes are reading books by Eric Carle.  Last week we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  We then watched videos from Eric Carle himself.  In our tech time in the library we worded together using tagul.com.  This web site works on build word clouds.  We put together words that reminded us the story.  You can move the mouse over the words and ask your child to explain them to you. Take a look at the cloud we made! 

http://tagul.com/preview?id=199350@9&name=The%20Very%20Hungry%20Caterpillar

Literacy

• Began working with the short vowel I.  "I...itch...i"
• Worked with the in & it word families
• Worked with new centers:  Work on Writing & Word Work
• Talked a lot about how to "frame our thoughts":  capitals and end marks
• Writer's Workshop:  learned how writing partners can help us with our planning and revising our stories

Math

• Worked with story problems
• Began identifying different ways to solve story problems:  counting all, counting on and know fact
• Talked about how important it is to show our thinking, record a number equation and label our answers
• Continue to work on being efficient, making the decision to count accurately but quickly

Social Studies

• Talked about what fall or autumn brings
• Read stories about apples
• Sequenced the life cycle of an apple
• Read a "tall tale" of Johnny Appleseed

Whole Body Listening

Over the last 20 days we have been talking about "Whole Body Listening"; why it is important and what it looks like.  Today we looked at the visual to help us remember what it takes to listen.

Below you will see the visual we are using.  We talked about how you need to use "Whole Body Listening" at home, brownies, cub scouts, soccer...etc.

Enjoy :)

Room 15 Rules

Here are our classroom rules.  The children created these themselves and signed them to agree to follow them throughout the year.

Classroom Update

Parent Information

• I sent home the class directory.  Please check for errors in names, phone numbers, etc.

• If you haven't sent in your poem notebook money it is not too late.

• Don't forget to send in your scholastic magazine money.

• Parent Information Night is Wednesday, September 25th.  Hope to see you all there!

Literacy

• Continued to do "Read to Self".  They built their stamina to 15 minutes...amazing!
• Continued to do "Read to Someone".  We learned different ways to read to a partner and learned to "check for understanding".
• Introduced our first set of short A word families; at & ap
• Worked with the high frequency words a, I, see, at, is me the.  They are now responsible to spell these words correctly in their writing.
• Began a new center "Word Work".  Learned how to build our at & ap words using tiles, wikki sticks, white boards and magnets.
• Writer's Workshop:  Worked on understanding how to revise our stories by asking who, what, where, when, how and why questions.

Math

• Continued to work on numbers to 20.
• Began playing games that compare numbers.
• Continued to talk about how to be "efficient" & "accurate".
• Used the 20's frame to organize and help "represent" amounts of objects.

Technology

• Read a book called The Dot.  Talked about what it meant to "make your mark".
• Participated in celebrating "Dot Day" by working with partners to design their own dots.
• Used I pads to create cool 3-D pictures.
• Look for a gallery of photos soon!

Second Week

Well we successfully completed a full week of school.  It is an adjustment to being back to school, not to mention that it was 90 degrees in the classroom.  I know that I was spent by Friday night, I can only imagine how tired they must have been.

We had a great week.  Here are some updates...

Parent Information

• Don't forget to send in an art smock with your child.
• We do have snack every day, please send it in daily.

Language Arts

• Read several stories that reinforced the importance of vowels "There's a vowel...in every...word".  
• Continued to work on "Read to Self".  They are doing great and have built there stamina to 11 minutes!  We also learned about the "3 Ways to Read a Book" (pictures, words & retelling the story).
• Began a new center "Read to Someone".  Once again they helped to develop the job for both themselves and the teachers.  Ask them if they know what "EEKK" is.
• Began "Writer's Workshop".  We are learning how to plan out and write true small moment stories.  

Math

• Explored different math tools that we will be using this year.
• Focused on counting accurately.
• Learned how important "double checking" is.
• Began talking about being "efficient"....learned how organizing counters in rows of 5 made it more efficient to count.

Open Circle

• Brainstormed rules for our classroom.  Signed them, agreeing to following them for the year.  I will post these soon.  Be on the look out!