9/14-9/18

It was another great week at school! We started off Monday with Miss Brawley taking over as our teacher. She did an excellent job, and we are going to miss her so much when she leaves us in two weeks. L It was an extra fun morning for Miss Brawley, because Andrew’s new puppy, Tomahawk, visited the classroom for show and share. If your family pet would like to visit the classroom the day that your child has show and share, please let me know ahead of time, just like Andrew’s mommy did! The kids loved Tomahawk! Here they are petting him.

A lot of new learning took place, as always!

In phonics, we worked on adding suffixes s and ing to words. If your child has difficulty reading a word that has a suffix, try covering up the suffix, and having your child to read the base word. Then let him/her add the suffix. This helps tremendously. We also counted syllables (or word parts). We count syllables by holding our hand slightly under our chin and saying a word. Each time our chin drops to hit our hand, that is a syllable. Syllabication is very important, as it helps us to spell long words by breaking them into chunks. Call out a few words so that your child can count the number of syllables (s)he hears.

The class visited a new website: Spelling City, and had a blast with the games. We also played Secret Squares this week, which is a spelling review game similar to Battleship.

We read A Fox and a Kit from our Reading Street book, and we discussed the main idea of a story. When you read a book with your child, ask him/her what the story is mostly about. We also read LOTS of books in small groups. The progress your children are making in their oral reading is outstanding! I could not do what I do with them without your help, so please keep up the reading at home! It really pays off! The class also took a lot of AR quizzes! I have a few students who are already obsessed with AR! J

In grammar, we worked on word order in sentences and completing cloze (fill in the blank) sentences. At the vocabulary center, students had to solve jumbled sentences. I wrote about seven sentences (using story words), each on a different sentence strip, and then cut them apart and put them into their own numbered Ziploc bags. Students took turns reading their cards, and making a sentence with the cards. They loved it!

In math we honed our addition skills, learning about the order property. The order property tells us that 5+4 and 4+5 both equal 9. Addends can come in any order. At math stations, students got to play addition BINGO. This coming week we will introduce subtraction number sentences. We have already been developing the concept through story problems, but we will introduce the symbol now. When you’re driving down the road, try asking your child to solve a story problem, such as if there are four red cars and three green cars, how many are there in all. You’ll be amazed!

We talked about farm life during our unit of study. The students were read a few farm themed books. They talked about the many jobs of farmers, and they learned about habitats. They even got to watch some online videos of animals in their natural habitats. We will continue our farmlife study next week.

This past Friday meteorologist Spencer Denton visited our first grade to talk about weather. We will begin our unit of study about weather in two weeks, so Mr. Denton’s speech got the class ready for our weather unit! This coming Friday will bring another visitor: Johnny Appleseed! We will also be having our apple tasting Friday afternoon. Please remember to send in the items you volunteered to send.

Thank you for everything!!! I have enjoyed getting to know you better during our conferences!

9/7-9/11

The week started off very busy--we were out Monday, and Tuesday was my birthday, so the class surprised me with some very thoughtful treats: a magnetic whiteboard for our meeting area, books, lotion, soap, a flower, and a Visa gift card!!! You all sure know how to spoil me!

This week we discussed story elements, such as main and supporting characters, setting (where and when-past or present), and problem and solution. The kids acted out action words (verbs) and did some dancing too! We even added -s to a word to make it plural! We visited the library with our AR library cards! Many students are VERY excited about AR. Several kids took AR Quizzes on Friday! Now, I do not think AR is the end all, but when used correctly, it can be a good motivational tool for students. I only require them to check out one AR book at a time because I want them to read other books too. Just because a book is not AR, that does not mean that it is not worth reading! The guidance counselor visited our classroom this week. She told the class we will be learning all about study skills this year, like eyes and ears on the speaker and reading directions. Of course, these are skills we have been working on since the beginning of the school year, so it's great that these skills will be reinforced.

In math, we continued studying place value. The students have really improved with this. Also, the other day in the hall I was calling out addition problems, and the students were supplying the answer. I could tell that a few other first grade teachers were really impressed! At math stations this week the students got to visit a station where there were dot cubes (that's dice to you all), whiteboards, markers, and erasers. Each student got two dot cubes, rolled them, and wrote an addition number sentence on the white board to represent the dots on the dot cubes. For example, if they rolled 4 and 7, they wrote 4+7=11. They did great! I am so proud of them. They get OVERLY excited about math stations on Fridays, so when they got too loud yesterday during stations, all I had to do was mention not having stations next week, and you could have heard a pin drop (not that I expect or require that low of a noise level, they are 6 and 7 after all)! I am glad the class loves math so much. I was always a math fanatic! There are so many adults, though, who strongly dislike math. It's like a fraternity that almost everyone is a part of. My goal is to always make math fun, so that my students leave first grade loving it!!!

For our unit of study this week, we learned all about apples. In a few weeks we will have our apple tasting extravaganza! I wanted to do it closer to Johnny Appleseed's birthday.

The coming week will bring a big change. Our student teacher, Miss Brawley, will take over teaching! I assure you that she has been and will continue to do a great job! She has been teaching math, spelling, and unit already, so she has mastered those areas. I will be closely guiding her through teaching phonics, reading, grammar, and small groups.

The coming week also brings conferences, art, music, and computer!

I am hoping to begin taking pictures of some of our class learning activities. I have many parents (and other teachers) who ask me how I teach a certain skill, so I think that perhaps by posting some pictures of our activities, you will have a better idea of how we learn at school! Please let me know if there is anything else that you would like to see added to our Blog!

8/31-9/4

We had another great week! We reviewed the short i and x sounds. We learned Amazing Words, such as service, cuddle, and search. Our second story in Reading Street, Pig in a Wig, made for a great lesson on realism vs. fantasy. The next time you read a book with your child, ask him/her if the story is real or make-believe. Can your child support his/her opinion? Yes, I did use that terminology with them! Several flipcharts were completed on the Activboard. We did a few noun sorts, and as always the students had a blast going to the ActivBoard to drag pictures to the correct boxes (person, place, thing, or animal)! We also completed a math flipchart on place value. The students had towers and cubes to manipulate while we worked on place value. Our extra classes this week were art, music, computer, and guidance (a make-up session because last week's class was canceled). We wrapped up our Nursery Rhymes unit today with a Favorite Nursery Rhyme graph. The class' favorite nursery rhyme? Peas Porridge Hot! I think they like the tune of it; it's pretty catchy!!! We did a lot of singing this week. Ask your child to sing and perform Tooty-Ta for you!!! Of course, we also made our edible pig!!! Remember to empty and review the work from your child's Centers Folder. Also, in the Parent Response notebook, please write an encouraging note to your child.

Have a fun, long weekend. Happy Labor Day. Please make sure your child gets to bed early Monday night! We have lots of fun activities planned for next week!

Edible Pig

This week we read Pig in a Wig. We also had a cow to visit our school on Thursday. Miss Brawley even milked the cow!!! What better way to end this week than to make edible pigs? This was our first food craft, and it went very well!!! I handled all of the food until it got to the kids' plates (with the exception of the icing, which they had a plastic knife for). I must have put hand sanitizer on my hands about fifteen times!!! With all of the sickness going around, I am taking every precaution in the classroom. Thanks, sweet parents, for sending in the supplies for the edible pigs. The kids loved making them!! I look forward to another food craft! By the way, I can tell which students either help or watch their mom bake, because three girls asked if they could lick the knife (to which I responded, "Yes, but be careful!").