October 2011

October was a blast!!!  We stayed super busy at school becoming better readers and mathematicians!!!!  We have been learning to read words with long vowels and sneaky e.  We've also been learning our math facts!

We learned all about fire safety and even enjoyed a visit with local firefighters.  They told us  how they get dressed so quickly for an emergency, showed us their special tools, and even let us sit in their fire truck!!  When they left, they blew the siren really loud for us!!!

We have been talking about nouns a lot in class.  We've been distinguishing between common and proper nouns, as well as between singular and plural nouns.  In the pictures below, we divided our whiteboards into three sections and wrote the day of the week, our birthday month, and our favorite holiday----all with capital letters!!!

We had fun wearing our silly socks on Halloween and making a spooky hand.  We even made a jack-o-lantern graph.

In late October we began studying about the human body and learned so much about our amazing selves!!!  We made Mr. Funny Bones and a body buddy to help us remember the important jobs that different body parts have. 

Our school year is now a third of the way over, but we have to focus more now than ever in order for academic, social, and emotional growth to continue to occur at such a rapid rate.  The next few weeks leading up to the holidays will be a hectic time, but please make time to read with your child nightly.  If you're super busy, perhaps there is an older sibling or neighbor who your child can read to.  

Thank you for all of your support and help at home.  I am truly blessed by your children each day!!!

September 2011

Each morning we begin our day with our Morning Warm-Up.  After reading and discussing the Warm-Up, students find certain words and get to circle those words on the board.

In order to take a test, students must prepare their desk for a test.  This means that their craftbox goes under their chair and their office goes around their test paper.

Students visit 4 centers each week.  Here are some friends at the Story Words Center.  At this center, students read flash cards fro each story word that week, use story words to complete sentences or match rhyming words, and then have a fun follow-up activity with story words (here students are using letter beads to lace their words).

In September we learned all about apples and enjoyed an apple tasting party in honor of Johnny Appleseed.  The hats are too cute!!!  Thanks to everyone who sent items for our apple tasting!

Apples can even make math more fun!  Here are our apple seed doubles facts.

We illustrated the seasons of an apple tree.  We have some great illustrators in our class!!!!

Our field trip to Burritt on the Mountain included a treasure hunt and a barnyard tour.

Miss Mitchell finished her internship with us on the last day of September, and we gave her a surprise going away party.  We miss her already!  We had fall colored goodies and showered her with wedding presents: monogrammed hand towels, a waffle maker, and a book of Marriage Wisdom--too cute!!!

We read about the different ways animals can move and made koalas.  Baby koalas move by riding in their momma's pouch.

8/29/11-9/2/11

Our class enjoyed reading Pig in a Wig this week!  At the Following Directions center, each student made a pig with a cute yarn wig!  On Friday we made an edible pig cookie that was so yummy!  There were several students absent, but we have a pig cookie all ready for them on Tuesday!  Thank you all so much for sending the items we needed to make our cookies!!!

In grammar we learned about the naming part of a sentence and practiced writing our own sentences.  Then we circled the naming part of our sentences.

In math we have continued to practice our addition skills.  Students will bring home a math worksheet almost every night.  However, the sheet should take no longer than 10 minutes to complete.  Please be sure that your child returns the math homework the next school day.  Our math activities are hands on and so much fun!  I hope your children are telling you all about how we do math in class!

We finished learning our nursery rhymes.  We incorporated reading, phonics, grammar, math, and social studies into this unit, and it was a blast!  We will begin studying farm life next week.

In computer lab this week we visited starfall.com.  I strongly urge you to let your child visit this website at home.  There are fun phonics activities that are beneficial for beginning readers!

And, in case you are wondering how students know which items to take home each day, here is a picture to help. =)  At the end of each day, I put magnets on the board telling students what to stack on their desk.  Then I read each item, and they say, "Check!' if they have it out.  Then they pack and put their chairs up.  

8/22/11-8/26/11

This week we began our reading series with the story Sam, Come Back! At centers we made cute cats and practiced a lot of reading! We also learned about the 3 features of a sentence. We took our first tests also! That was a memorable experience!!! Most of the students were so excited about taking tests!

In math we learned about addition sentences and reviewed shapes. We even practiced making shapes on geoboards! We <3 geoboards!!!

For our unit of study we sang many nursery rhymes and practiced different skills with each nursery rhyme. For instance, after singing Humpty Dumpty, we discussed the -all sound and brainstormed words in the -all family, such as ball and fall. We also practiced writing addition sentences for peas after singing Peas Porridge Hot. There is still more nursery rhyme fun in store for our class!

Thank you all so much for attending Open House this past Thursday night. I know your children LOVED showing you all around our classroom! What a fantastic year we are going to have!!!