We hit the end of the alphabet! We started the week with Wacky Day! We did the Wacky w in Reading Horizons and it definitely was a wacky lesson! We eXchanged autographs in our end of year memory books. We finished with a little yoga and finally zipping up those schoolbags one last time and zooming into summer vacation!!! What a way to end the year!
We did a little more with coins but the days got busy as I’m sure you can imagine! We did make sure to cross off that LAST day of school to reach 180! There were loud cheers!!!
We made a little something for those special men in our lives. Happy Father’s Day to all!
Thanks to Rohn’s mom for coming in and being our last birthday reader! We enjoyed a last day of school book! We got one last puppet show from the 3rd graders. Always so many positive messages about being kind to others no matter what we look like. We filled our marble jar one last time and they asked for a YES day! We did pretty much everything they asked for…extra chromebook time, extra recess, dance party, scavenger hunt, and a Blooket game! Thank you to our homeroom parents and helpers for a fantastic party. We had a luau to end the year…Aloha 2nd grade!
JUNE 10-13
We enjoyed the letters R-V this week. Rainbow Day was so colorful! We made a skittles rainbow and grew a rainbow on paper towels. We enjoyed celebrating our summer birthdays…we can’t forget about them! We have 1 more next week! We used classroom materials to try and build the tallest tower. We had some great builders. Check out the tallest towers HERE. We ended the week in our uniforms. We had lots of athletes and sports teams represented! We also enjoyed taking some virtual trips to Magic Kingdom, Legoland, the aquarium and other places around the world! We’ll finish up the countdown next week!
We have a June Number Corner we are doing for fun! It’s all about money! We are reviewing our coins and counting money and “buying” toys. They are doing so well with it! Only 4 days left (3.5 if we’re being exact)! We had fun with measurement this week. We used nonstandard units (flip flops) to measure summer object around the room. We also measured with cubes. We started using rulers and measuring in standard units (inches). We’ll do centimeters next week.
We started the week sharing our weekend news. We finished the end of first grade memory book. We wrote about our spring memory and something we are looking forward to for summer. We also made an author page. We’ll get autographs next week for X day (eXchange autographs)!
Happy Birthday Viaan and Vazira! Thanks to their moms (and Viaan’s grandparents) for coming and reading! Happy early birthday to Claire, Yifan, Rohn and Julian! Thanks to Yifan, Julian, and Claire’s moms for reading to us! We had our LAST gathering! We sang to ALL our summer birthday friends and anyone that was missed during the year. We are going to miss 1st grade, but we are SO excited for summer!
JUNE 3-7
We enjoyed the letters N-Q this week. We became new people by choosing new names for the day. There were athletes (Bryson Stoot, Aaron Judge) and animal names (Kitty, Tiger). Outside day was beautiful. We lucked out with a nice day. We ate snack outside and enjoyed reading outside. Pajama day was made even better with pretzels, thanks to Rohn and his winning raffle basket! We ended the week at Noah’s Playground. We had a beautiful day and everyone looked great in ORANGE! We enjoyed the stations: measuring, bubbles, and bugs. Thanks to everyone that came!
We finished the May Number Corner. We figured out what Tad caught…a butterfly! We should have known by the colors we used: orange, purple and yellow. We collected $5.25 in the month of May. Only 9 days left, single digits!! We played Race to Zero and celebrated the 17th decade day! We are still reviewing some concepts like time and measurement as we close out the year. We had fun introducing measurement at Noah’s Playground.
We started the week with our weekend news. We continued the end of first grade memory book. So far we have written and illustrated pages for fall and winter. We brainstormed spring, but there’s still more to add in the next few days. We have one final writing assessment to complete next week.
The year is winding down! We introduced living and nonliving in science. We went on a scavenger hunt outside looking for things that could classify as living vs. nonliving. We know living things grow and change. They also need food, shelter, air, and water. We had fun discussing how things like clouds, bananas and leaves on the ground are NOT living!
MAY 28-31
In Reading Horizons, we are still adding the suffixes -ed and -ing to words. This week we added them to phonetic skill 4 and 5 words. When adding to skill 4, we have to remove the silent e and replace with the suffix. In skill 5 words, we just add the suffix…easy peasy! We’ll continue to do Reading Horizons when we can. Like I said, we are finished with Wonders for the year. Our W.I.N. choice board included: a bug room, living/nonliving room, sightword Bingo, suffixes (-er,-est), break the bank and treasure quest 100s chart
We continued the May Number Corner. Tad the frog is still hopping along the hundreds chart. We still don’t know the exact hidden picture, but we see have some guesses! We are still counting a quarter a day. We have $4.50 total so far this month. In math we are looking at 100 and Beyond. We had fun counting popsicle sticks. We had a pile and worked together to make bundles of 10 so it would be easier to count. We then made bundles of 10 to count by 100s. We ended up with 505 popsicle sticks (50 bundles and 5 extra 1s)! We also played a game with tens and ones called 2 turns to build. We have another game next week then we’ll review some old concepts and do a little with measuring to end the year!
We started the week sharing our weekend news. We also began our end of the year memory book. We brainstormed and wrote about what we remember from fall. We’ll continue this through the end of the year.
We finished the Family Show. We had a final performance for the whole school Monday morning. We attended the Spring concert. We saw advanced band, orchestra and Newtown Sound. We also got to shop at 3rd grade Market Day. Our countdown included icy pops on a hot day, we told some good jokes and jumped rope in the gym with 1st grade. We also sang some karaoke and played a fun game of kickball. We enjoyed making a summer reading list and reading in the library to show our love for the library. What an end to the week! Field Day was a blasT It was HOT, but they hung in there!
MAY 20-24
In Reading Horizons, we are still adding the suffixes -ed and -ing to words. This week we added them to phonetic skill 2 & 3 words, which meant we didn’t have to double the consonant; we can just add the suffix! We have a few more skills and concepts to look at as the year winds down. In Wonders, we read about how animals help. We read From Puppy to Guide Dog. We also read Koko and Penny about a gorilla and human with a special bond. We are going to be done with Wonders at this point :)
We continued the May Number Corner. Tad the frog is still hopping along the hundreds chart. We still don’t know the hidden picture, but we see some symmetry with the colors and numbers. We are still counting a quarter a day. We have $3.25 total so far this month. Today was day 162. Only 18 days left! We reviewed and took our Unit 6 test. It will come home next week. They did AMAZING! Moving forward, we will look at 100 and Beyond in math, along with reviewing time and beginning to measure.
We started the week sharing our weekend news. Vazira was our last STAR! We saw a national Uzbek hat. She shared many fidgets and read a fun touch and feel book. We’ll spend the rest of our days writing a memory book about first grade!
Thanks to Luca’s dad for our being mystery reader. We enjoyed hearing some Weird but True Facts! We practiced A LOT for the Family Show and it paid off! The students did an AMAZING job performing for you. I hope you are so impressed and proud! We have 1 more show for the school on Monday. No need to dress up :) We got to see the beginning band and orchestra play in the spring concert. We continued our ABC Countdown. We had so much fun at our dance party under the lights, exercising on our towels in the room, sharing some of favorite things, and playing games, especially Blooket! We can’t wait for more countdown activities!
MAY 13-17
In Reading Horizons, we reviewed the o and i vowel families. We also revisited the suffix -ed. We know -ed can make 3 sounds: /d/, /t/, and /id/. Finally we added the -ed and -ing suffixes to phonetic skill 1 words. We know we need to double the consonant when adding a suffix so there are 2 guardian consonants. During W.I.N. Time we spent a lot of time with our Mother’s Day project. They had a cinco de mayo room and Mother’s Day room to visit once finished.
We began the May Number Corner last week. We see a color pattern and a pattern with the cards. This month we are using the calendar markers to color numbers on a hundreds chart. It will reveal a hidden picture at the end. We still don’t know the hidden picture, but we see some symmetry with the colors and numbers. Tad the frog is hopping along the hundreds chart and we have to figure out what number he lands on. We’re counting forward and backwards by 10s and 1s. We are also collecting a quarter a day. After we get 4 quarters, we can trade for $1. We collected $2.00 this week. We also looked at more addition and subtraction problems…joining and separating. We counted penguin feathers and discussed different ways to make numbers. We focused on 20. We played a True or False workplace. We made equations and then said they were true if they were equivalent or false if they were not. We finished the week playing cards games for our ABC countdown. We will review on Monday and take the unit 6 test on Tuesday.
We started the week sharing our weekend news. We took some time to complete a special writing for the special women in our lives. HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! Samir was our STAR! He shared his love of soccer and some fun toys. He even had a keychain from Dubai. He read a chapter from the newest Dogman today too!
Happy Birthday Lucy! Thanks to her dad for coming in and reading The Pout Pout Fish. Also, thanks for the expo marker treat! Everyone has a new one thanks to them! Thanks to Rohn’s mom for being our mystery reader. She read What I Saw in the Teacher’s Lounge by our visiting author, Jerry Pallotta. You won’t believe the things he saw! We enjoyed starting the ABC Countdown. We shared our stuffed animals for A, blew 2 types of bubbles for B and played cards games and did chalk inside for C! We can’t wait for more! In science we revisited temperature. We enjoyed using thermometers to record the temperature of water. The temps ranged from 32-100 degrees! We did lots of Family Show practice! They can’t wait to perform for you next week!
MAY 6-10
In Reading Horizons, we looked at words ending with the/k/ sound. Words ending with -ke have a long vowel sound and follow phonetic skill 3. Words ending with -k have a vowel team and follow phonetic skill 4. We also looked at some vowel families. The vowel families have a long vowel sound. We have looked at o(-old, -ost, -olt) and i(-ild & -ind) vowel families. In Wonders, we read about insects. Our W.I.N. Choice Board this week included a Star Wars room, Spring library, mixed up sentences, syllables game, interactive hundreds chart, and butterfly addition math game. We also had some printable worksheets.
We finished the April Number Corner. We saw so many shapes. We know that we can determine the name of a shape based on the number of sides. Today we saw an L shape and it was classified as a hexagon because it had 6 sides! We added up all our totals… 20+19+18+19=77. We made more bundles of 10 to make it easier to add. We practiced subtracting within 20. We used our number racks to help solve. We celebrated the 15th decade day this week. Only 28 days left of school! We played a game where we had to pick 2 numbers that are equal or closest to 20. I finally won a game against them! We finished the week with a checkpoint. They did very well!
We started the week with our weekend news. We used our textbooks to find text evidence and answer questions about the story Fly Guy. Claire was our STAR! She has some cool toys she shared. We liked her SUS and minecraft figure. She did a great job reading There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat. If the class got carried away, she was getting their attention and bringing them back!
Thanks to Claire’s mom and grandmom for being our mystery readers. The Hugging Tree was a great story about resilience! We had a PBIS assembly…2 students from our class won t-shirts! Go Luca and Daphne! We played games with our buddies. It was a nice break for them since they have been testing the last 2 weeks! Thanks to all that brought in games! We continued learning Family Show songs. We heard and practiced every song and poem so far. We will continue to practice leading up to the show. Mrs. Cook visited for a lesson on forgiveness. We played Blooket again…itś been a while, but they really enjoyed it. We will have to play again!
APRIL 29- MAY 3
In Reading Horizons, we have finally seen all the vowel teams that follow phonetic skill 5. We know ui and ue make the long u sound /yu/ or /ew/. We also know ui is in the middle of words while ue is at the end. The only vowel team for long i is ie, which is found at the end of words. With our wacky week we did not do any Wonders, but we will pick back up next week. Our W.I.N. Choice Board this week included a Passover room, Earth Day library, Earth Day art room, some Earth Day games, and catapult math game. We also had some printable worksheets.
We continued the April Number Corner, only 2 more days. We have seen so many shapes. We did a bonus week and we collected 18 popsicle sticks this week! The same as last week and our lowest total. We will add up ALL the totals next week…22+19+18+18. We also did more subtracting. We used our number racks to help solve. We began the next Module, Combinations and Story Problems. We revisited double flap cards and fact families. We looked at penguins marching in pairs. This helped us review doubles as well as even and odd.
We started the week sharing our weekend news. Rather than writing about it, we used Monday to write about Earth Day. We wrote different ways we could protect the Earth. Then we made coffee filter earths with markers and water. Viaan was our STAR! He is always sharing about his chess tournament wins and we got to see one of his BIG trophies this week for show and tell. He read some weird but true facts. Did you know there are watermelons shaped like pyramids in Japan? Weird!
Thanks to Julian’s mom for being our mystery reader. The class enjoyed I’m Bored! In science we discussed wind. We learned how we can’t see wind, BUT we can see the effects of wind, like trees blowing. We had fun playing with pinwheels outside in the wind. They were really moving! We added ALL the songs for the Family Show to our folders and started learning them! We really enjoyed the Earth Day book swap. There were so many books to choose from…THANK YOU! We did some browsing first to get a feel for some books and then they went “shopping.” I think all were happy with their finds! We also enjoyed making some calming bottles from our recycled water bottles!
APRIL 22-26
In Reading Horizons, we continued discussing phonetic skill 5. We reviewed the ea vowel team and introduced ee. The ee can be found at the middle and end of words. We also looked at 2 vowel teams for the long o sound: oa and oe. WE can find oa at the beginning and middle of words while oe is at the end. We have more vowel teams to learn about next week. In Wonders, we read Go Wild and Vulture View. We focused on how animals survive in nature. We learned a lot about vultures! Our W.I.N. Choice Board this week included a weather room, Pebble Go, subject/verb game, free writing, drop sum game, and symmetry practice. We also had some printable worksheets.
We continued the April Number Corner. We have seen so many shapes. This week we saw a 13 sided shape and learned it’s called a tridecagon! We collected 18 popsicle sticks this week! Only 1 less than last week…so close! We began the next unit in math, Story Problems for Basic Addition and Subtraction. This week we learned about penguins on ledges, penguin huddles and pals, and egg doubles. We also looked at adding with 9 & 10 and making the 9 a 10 to be easier to add. We played Spin to Win Bingo, which reviewed adding with 9 & 10.
We started the week with our weekend news. We took some time to write about something we like to do outside in spring. We focused on 1 things and wrote details about it. We really tried to begin with an opening topic sentence and have a closing sentence. We enjoyed reading about animals in Wonders, so we had fun writing about an animal that would NOT be a good pet! They wrote about animals like alligators, bears, sharks, whales, etc. Gia was our STAR! She wants to be an artist when she grows up. She loves squishy things and shared an orbeez bear and ball. She read The Duckling Gets a Cookie to the class. We finished the week writing about her!
In science we moved onto our Air and Weather unit. We learned about temperature and thermometers. We have a fun water temperature experiment for next week. When we were discussing temperature words, HOT, WARM, COOL, and COLD all went along with the weather this week…crazy! Our song was “The 3 R’s” in honor of Earth Day! See if your child knows what those 3 R’s are? (Reduce, reuse, recycle). We finally got rewarded for Reading Across America…extra recess to end the week! Author Jerry Pallotta visited NES today. We love his Who Would Win books along with some other fun picture books he has. It was so cool to learn all about him and his stories.
APRIL 15-19
In Reading Horizons, we continued discussing phonetic skill 5. We reviewed the ai vowel team and introduced ay. The ai vowel team is at the beginning and middle of words, while ay is at the end. We also learned about the vowel team ea. In Wonders, we reread A Team of Fish. We discussed the topic and relevant details. With only 3 days, we did not have a W.I.N. choice board, rather we had a solar eclipse room to explore. It had videos, stories, and drawing rooms.
We continued the April Number Corner. We are looking at all different kinds of shapes (polygons). Each shape is based on the number of sides. We’ve seen triangles, quadrilaterals, hexagons, pentagons, and a few dodecagons (12 sides). We have fun folding the shapes to discover how many equal parts and if it has a line of symmetry. We collected 19 popsicle sticks this week, which was 1 less than last week. We reviewed shapes and fractions for our test. Everyone did a great job. Be on the lookout for them in their orange test folder this week. We will begin Unit 6 next week. We’re bringing back penguins, which is ironic since it’s spring!
We started the week sharing our weekend news. Ryan R. was our STAR! He brought in a killer whale stuffed animal. He also brought a remote control snake and shashibo cube. He read the book The Cool Bean. We finished the week writing about Ryan!
Happy Birthday Mia! You were lucky enough to have a day off for your birthday! Our song this week was Let’s Go Fly a Kite from Mary Poppins. We spent our half day learning all about the solar eclipse. We made a cool craft to show how the moon was going to come between the earth and sun to block the sun. We finished up our unit on light and sound in science. We’ll start Air and Weather next week. We got a head start on talking about Earth Day. We have some fun things planned for it.
APRIL 8-12
In Reading Horizons, we reviewed another sound for c (/s/) and g (/j/). We also introduced phonetic skill 5 and our first vowel team, ai. In Wonders, we read about how animals help each other in 2 stories, A Team of Fish and Animal Teams. We explored context clues and how to use them to figure out words. With a short week, we’ll continue this unit next week before moving on. Our W.I.N. Choice Board this week included an April Foolś Day room, animal library, animal drawing, matching words, coin review, and addition and subtraction practice. We also had some printable worksheets.
We began the April Number Corner. We are looking at all different kinds of shapes (polygons). Each shape is based on the number of sides. We’ve seen triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, and even a dodecagon. We have fun folding the shapes to discover how many equal parts and if it has a line of symmetry. We are collecting popsicle sticks for calendar collector. We collected 22 popsicle sticks this week. We are tallying them and making bundles to make it easier to count them. We continued the module on putting shapes together and taking them apart. We focused on fractions. We used paper squares to talk about sandwich fractions and we used circles to divide paper pizzas. We discussed halves, thirds, and fourths. We ended the week with fraction BINGO! Next week we will review and take the Unit 5 test.
We started the week with our spring break news. We wrote about 3 things we did over the break. We then played a fun game where we had to find someone who did different things over break, like visit another state, fly on a plane, see family, etc. We got our April bulletin board project up outside the room…April Showers Bring Multiple Meaning Words. We painted some umbrellas using watercolors. Then wrote multiple meaning words on raindrops to go with our umbrellas.
Happy Birthday Ryan R.! Thanks to his dad for coming in and reading Llama Destroys the World. He also brought in some fun goody bags to share! Also, thanks to Lucy’s dad for being our mystery reader. We loved Fire Cat. It was so cool of you to bring in your personal fire helmet from the job too! Our song this week was Lean on Me. Congratulations! We completed our Read Across America challenge! We were the first class to color all 50 states! Way to go!!!
APRIL 2-5
We took a break from Wonders and Reading Horizons due to the CogAT. Our W.I.N. Choice Board this week included a favorite book character drawing library, spring drawing library, and a Spring Reading Room. There were some BOOM cards for compound words and punctuation, as well as a spring game. The math choices included Fuzz Bugs, addition/subtraction practice, and First in Math. We also had some printable worksheets. We will resume next week.
We continued the March Number Corner. We collected 51 cents this week. It was our lowest total out of the 3 weeks. Next week we will count the total amount of money collected this month. We took a break from Math due to the CogAT. We reviewed our geometric shapes and had fun with some “lucky” math for St. Patrick’s Day. We will pick back up with the next module, Putting Shapes Together & Taking Them Apart, next week. The test will follow this module the following week.
We started the week sharing our weekend news. We talked about spring as well. We enjoyed writing a poem called Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring. We brainstormed some good winter and spring words to include. Some said goodbye to snow and hot chocolate and hello to riding bikes and water ice! We will type these next week and add pictures to practice using google slides some more! Lucy was our STAR! She shared some great family photos. Her cousin knows Taylor Swift! She had LOTS of show and tell items. We finished the week writing about Lucy.
Thanks to Ryan H.’s mom for being our mystery reader. Fox and the Springtime Blossoms was the perfect story for the start of spring! We started the week with chaos from the leprechaun. We didn’t catch him, ubt he sure did mess up our room. He even locked us out! Thanks goodness he at least left us gold and a rainbow treat! Maybe we’ll catch him next year! We spent most of the week completing the CogAT. Your children did an amazing job! They were very focused. We had some technical difficulties, but they were very patient and we ALL got through it! The results should be mailed within the next month or so. With Thursday’s “Rock your Socks” spirit day in honor of World Down Syndrome Day, we discussed how each of us is unique and different in our own way, but also how we are alike too!
MARCH 18-22
In Reading Horizons, we finished learning about all the long vowels in phonetic skill 4, with e being the last one. We also learned another sound for c. When i or e follows the letter c, it makes an /s/ sound. We call this soft c. In Wonders, we focused on animals bodies and how they help them. We read Snail and Frog Race. It reminded us of The Tortoise and the Hare. We also read Little Rabbit: A Tale from India. We compared it to Chicken Little. The W.I.N. choice board included: a St. Patrick’s Day room, Mario room, art hub, compound words game, shape match, and telling time game.
We continued the March Number Corner. We only collected 60 cents this week (we beat last week by 1 cent!). We have 1 more week to collect and then we will count the total amount of money collected in 3 weeks. We talk about strategies to make it easier to add (counting 10s, then making 10s with 5s and making 10s with 1s, then we can add the extra 5s and 1s to get the total). We celebrated the 12th decade day…that’s 120 days of first grade! That means there is less than 60 days left!!! :-0 This week we introduced 3D shapes. We learned about spheres, cones, cylinders, cubes, triangular prisms, rectangular prisms, and pyramids. We had fun going on a shape hunt around the school. There are shapes everywhere! We sorted the shapes too. We looked at curved vs. flat surfaces and made cubes with polydrons. We finished the week with a checkpoint about 2D and 3D shapes.
We started the week with our weekend news. Markus was our STAR! He shared his axolotyl huggable squishmallow. He also brought in a toy he got from the arcade and his basketball trophy. We ended the week writing about Markus.
Happy Birthday Daphne! Thanks to her mom for coming in and signing a story to us while Daphne and her sister read. Thank you so much to Mason’s mom and dad for being our mystery readers! They read 2 great stories, Caps for Sale and Ada Twist, Scientist! Our song this week was The Lion Sleeps Tonight. We are halfway through our Read Across America challenge. We’ve colored 26 states so far! In science, we revisited light and discussed transparent, translucent and opaque. We sorted objects this way. We finished the week setting some traps to hopefully catch the leprechaun this weekend! We’ll have to wait and see!
MARCH 11-15
In Reading Horizons, we reviewed phonetic skill 4 using vowels a, o, and i. We also introduced the vowel u, which makes 2 sounds as a long vowel (/yu/ and /ew/). This skill always follows a vowel, consonant, silent e at the end pattern. In Wonders, we focused on where food comes from. We read A Look at Breakfast and From Cows to You. We also read about the 5 food groups. The W.I.N. choice board included: a Leap Day room, Black History room, tooth room, balanced meal game, fact families game, and roll to the finish dice game.
We continued the March Number Corner. We have 2 patterns to watch out for. First, how much time passes on the clock each day. We have two 30 minutes followed by an hour (3:00, 3:30, 4:00, 5:00, etc.). We also have 4 analog clocks and then a digital clock. We collected 59 cents this week. I wonder if we can beat that amount next week. We began Unit 5, Geometry. We focused on some 2D shapes. We also looked at attributes so we could sort the shapes in different ways (by color, sides, # of corners, etc.) We took time each day to describe what a shape looks like, discussing number of sides, vertices, closed shape, etc. It’s a lot harder than you think! We played 2 games with pattern blocks…Last Shape in Wins and How Many Ways to Make Pattern Block Puzzles. We’ll discuss geometry and 3D shapes next week.
We started the week sharing our weekend news. Since we had rainbow day to start the week for spirit week, we made colorful rainbows to hang in our classroom. They wrote their names on clouds and then wrote adjectives to describe themselves on each rainbow strip. We made poems based off of Shannon Sharkey’s A Pattern of My Favorites. Since we were reading about food, we wrote about foods we like and don’t like. We will type them onto a slide and play around with the font and text and adding pictures. Emiliia was our STAR! She had MANY pictures to share, many from when she was in Ukraine! She brought in a bunch of stuffed animals. We ended the week writing about Emiliia.
Thank you so much to Emiliia’s mom for being our mystery reader! Mr. Francis also visited to read The Smart Cookie. We enjoyed spirit week for Read Across America. The students are showing they are up for the reading challenge. We collected over 100 tickets so far and have already colored in 11 states! We didn’t do it on Friday, so we probably have more. Mrs. Cook visited for a lesson. We finally got to see our buddies. It’s the first time this year! We read with them for a schoolwide drop everything and read. Then we played a fun character guessing game. We finished with a game or coloring option. Hopefully we can get together more frequently the rest of the year.
MARCH 4-8
In Reading Horizons, we learned about phonetic skill 4 using vowels a, o, and i. We know this skill follows a vowel consonant, e at the end pattern. The e at the end is silent and makes the vowel say its name (long vowel). In Wonders, we focused on how life was different long ago. We read Life at Home and completed a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting life long ago and now. We also read Long Ago and Now. We enjoyed watching videos comparing the past and present too. Times sure have changed! The W.I.N. choice board included: a Leap Day room, Black History room, tooth room, balanced meal game, fact families game, and roll to the finish dice game.
We finished our February Number Corner. Since the month is over, we added ALL the unifix cubes…13+19+23. We talked about making ten friends with our cube trains then adding the tens first…10+10+20=40. Then we added the added the ones…3+9+3=15. 40+15=55 total cubes for the month. We began the March Number Corner. We are telling time again, only this time it’s time to the hour AND half hour. We are talking about how much time has passed on a clock too. We will be collecting dimes, pennies, and nickels this month. We’ll start next week. We started the final module in Unit 4. We are having fun with penguins this week. We made measuring tape to match our height. We learned about the Rockhopper penguin. Did you know they are only 18 inches tall?! We also learned about the King penguins. They are 36 inches or 3 feet! We also compared the penguins to each other. We will begin shapes next week!
We started the week with our weekend news. We discussed ways we take care of our teeth. They had lots of great things to share. We also did a fun egg experiment to learn about teeth. The egg shell is a protective layer, just like enamel protects out teeth. We soaked eggs in water, vinegar, and soda (Dr. Pepper). We made predictions about what might happen and revisited later in the day. The water egg did not change. The vinegar egg was shedding itś protective layering while the soda egg turned brown! We learned water is the healthiest for our teeth! We Daniel was our STAR! He had MANY pictures to share! He brought in some fun objects he got on vacations. We ended the week writing about Daniel.
Thank you so much to our mystery readers! Thank you Danielś mom for sharing the funny Santa story. Also, thanks to Viaanś mom for reading I am Not an Octopus. Another thank you to Giaś mom for being a birthday reader! Some great read alouds this week! We went outside and completed some challenges with our own shadows. We tried earlier in the week but the sun went in…todayś sun was very bright and gave us great shadows! We talked about some more famous black americans, Ruby Bridges and Harriet Tubman. Our song this week was Getcha Head in the Game in honor of the Wizards basketball game! We also had fun with leap year since it only happens every 4 years!
FEBRUARY 26-MARCH 1
In Reading Horizons, we learned about 3 letter s-blends (scr, squ, spl, str, spr). We also learned phonetic skill 3. This is known as an open syllable and tells us when a word ends with a vowel it makes a long vowel sound. We reviewed phonetic skills 1-3. In Wonders, we reread The Nice Mitten. We completed a retelling worksheet remembering the order events happened. We also read The Mitten by Jan Brett. We compared and contrasted the 2 stories. There were many similarities and some differences too. The W.I.N. choice board included: a President’s Day room, Black History room, rhyming game, language arts tic tac toe, and base 10 practice .
We are almost finished our February Number Corner. Last week we collected 19 unifix cubes, which was more than the 13 the first week. This week we had the most and collected 23 cubes. Next week we will add ALL the cubes to see how many we collected this month. We’ll talk about strategies to help us. We have been practicing adding with 3 addends and they know all the tricks to help them get the answer. We finished up the module on jumping by 5s and 10s. We played the workplace Hit the Pad. This was similar to Frog Races. We are counting by 1s, 5s, and 10s on the number line. We took a day to review for the test. They felt pretty good about the review and they were very prepared because they did an awesome job on the test. They’ll come home next week.
We started the week sharing our weekend news. We reviewed punctuation and completed telling and question sentences about Washington and Lincoln. We also used a word bank to complete some sentences about the presidents. Mia was our STAR! She shared her rock collection from the aquarium. She also brought in Noorah the magical arctic fox from Elf on the Shelf, who can create the glow of the northern lights with her tail. She brought in some of here shell collection too. We ended the week writing about Mia.
Happy Birthday Gia! We began a new investigation in science with light and shadows. We had fun using flashlights in the classroom. We tried to make the room as dark as possible and observed shadows various objects make. We learned that we need a light source and something to block the light to make a shadow. We’ll head outside next week to explore shadows in the sun. We discussed President’s Day. We read about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Our song this week was Break the Barrier. It’s a song about MLB player Jackie Robinson. This song was in honor of Black History Month. We will learn about some other famous Black Americans next week.
FEBRUARY 20-23
In Reading Horizons, we learned about phonetic skill 2, which is a closed syllable. When a vowel is followed by 2 guardian consonants, the vowel sound is short just like in phonetic skill 1. Phonetic skill 2 can have 2 consonant endings or a consonant along with a blend or digraph ending. We mark them with 2 guardian stars. In Wonders, we read the folktale, The Nice Mitten. We know folktales are stories that have been told for many years and you can learn a lesson. We will reread next week and compare with Jan Brett’s The Mitten. We had some Valentine activities to check out at W.I.Nn Time. There was a valentine room, valentine word search, and valentine drawing room.
We continued our February Number Corner. We started looking at hundreds, tens and ones now since we hit day 100. We’ve been looking at adding 3 numbers. We look for relationships to make adding 3 addends easier. For example, finding 10 friends or doubles facts and then counting on. In math, we have continued hopping along the number line. We are jumping by 5s and 10s. Tad and Polli are frogs and they are chasing after a fly. We had fun counting how many jumps it would take each to catch the fly. Who would get it first? We were counting by 10s, which we know from last week. We continued chasing the fly, but added in 5s too. We counted the jumps and figured out where the frogs would be at each jump. We had Frog races too. We played 2 games and I won and they won. We need a rubber match! We counted by 10s, but we didn’t start at 10. We talked about how when we count by 10s, the ones stay the same, but the 10s change (4,14,24,34, etc.) This will be on our test next week! We spent Valentine’s Day playing Addition Love BUMP! They had a lot of fun!
We started the week sharing our weekend news. We did not have a STAR due to the shorter week and no school Friday. Therefore, writing was kind of on the light side. We did some Valentine activities, including an it’s not a heart, it’s… We had some coloring pages too.
Happy Birthday Carlotta! She read How to Be a Bucket Filler and donated it to the class for her special day. It was great to review at this point in the year! What a week! We had so much fun at our Valentine’s Day party. Thanks to our party planners and helpers! They enjoyed some Valentine Bingo, painting hearts, and playing some games, as well as yummy snacks! Hard to believe there’s only 1 party left, the end of year party! While we talked about Lunar New Year before, we enjoyed making a dragon craft for the year of the dragon. We will jump back into science next week. We pretty much finished the unit on sound, so we will be moving on to light. Our song this week was How Sweet It Is to be Loved By You in honor of Valentine’s Day!
FEBRUARY 12-15
In Reading Horizons, we learned about -ck and -tch at the end of words. When we hear /k/ at the end of a word and it follows a short vowel sound, we use -ck. The -ck is a guardian consonant and is marked with a guardian star. These 2 letters act like a digraph and make 1 sound. We know -tch is a trigraph, 3 letters that spell 1 sound. This is also a guardian consonant following a short vowel. Both of these spellings follow phonetic skill 1 from last week. Our W.I.N. Choice Board included: 100th Day library, Lunar New Year room, Super Bowl room and art room, hundreds chart and hundreds game. We had many printable worksheets available as well.
We continued our February Number Corner. We have seen a repeating pattern of triangles and quadrilaterals (4 sided shapes). We also have a pattern of congruent, not congruent. The students are having fun using the geoboards to make the shapes so we can compare them. This week we started collecting unifix cubes. We spun some pretty low numbers so we only collected 13 cubes. Should be easy to beat next week! We celebrated the 100th day! We enjoyed counting how many times we could do different things in 100 seconds (clap, say the alphabet, write our name); 100 seconds is a lot longer than you’d think when doing these things! Try it out at home. There are others we didn’t get to try. We also played Race to 100 to see who got to 100 first rolling a dice. We began the next module in math. We are still hopping along the number lines. We have a few more lessons next week then we’ll review and take the test the following week.
We started the week sharing our weekend news. With the field trip, we took time to write about things we saw and learned, as well as our favorite part. We had fun on the 100th day making words with the letters in ONE HUNDRED. We also used the numbers 100 to make a picture….it’s not 100, it’s____. They made faces, snowmen, animals, etc. It’s so fun for them to use their imaginations. They are so creative! Julian was our STAR! He brought in some pretty cool things to share. We loved the balloon pump, especially when he let it go and it flew around the room! We also liked his Hess truck and sports figures. He shared his Groot shoulder pet for guess and show. He read a fan favorite, The Butt Book! We finished the week writing about him!
We had quite a week! We really enjoyed our time at the Bucks County Children’s Museum. Thanks to our chaperones! We got to see Flat Stanley the Musical. It was adorable and they were a great audience! We finally cashed in on our door decorating prize from the holidays and played Knockout with Mr. Francis and Mrs. Johnson’s class. The kids had a ton of fun! We played a whole 1st grade game…congrats to Markus for winning! We also played a boys and girls game. Apolline and Ryan R. were runners up! Like I said, so much fun! We explored outdoor sounds in science. We visited the outdoor classroom and listened for loud and soft sounds. Not too much happening this time of year, but we heard airplanes and kids playing as well as some other sounds. We celebrated the 100th day. We even had a guest teacher, Mrs. Wilson. Our song this week was I’m Still Standing since we’re still going strong after 100 days!
FEBRUARY 5-9
In Reading Horizons. We learned about short and long vowels and the sounds they make. Short vowels we learned about earlier and have visual cues, while long vowels say the letter name. We also learned phonetic skill 1. We brought back slides to help us learn this new skill. We learned that when there is a consonant or digraph after a vowel it is a guardian consonant and makes the vowel be a short vowel sound. We mark it with a guardian star! Our W.I.N. Choice Board included: Groundhog Day library, animal room, groundhog art room, digraph games, number grid fireworks, and blast off number order game. We had many printable worksheets available as well.
We began the February Number Corner. This month’s calendar pictures include 2 shapes on the geoboard. We have to name the shapes, count the sides and vertices (corners) and write whether they are congruent (same size, same shape). Helpers are making the shapes on real geoboards. We can overlap them to decide if they are congruent. We are collecting unifix cubes. We spin a spinner and make a cube train. We will count the total at the end of the week and then do it again the following week. We did NOT start this since we only had 2 days this week. Only 5 more days until the 100th day!!!! In math, we finished up the module, which had us counting and adding tens. We completed a checkpoint and played some games to practice jumping. We have 1 more module before the next test. Weĺl complete this module over the next 2 weeks!
We started the week writing our weekend news. We played a game similar to headbands. They worked together to read sentences to each other while the other person had to write the sentence. Leah was our STAR this week! She is very proud of her Turkish background. She brought in a cute kitten stuffy friend and a moon replica for guess and show. She read Wild Honey from the Moon. She really kept their attention with all her expression and voices! We finished the week writing about Leah!
Happy Birthday to Mason and Emiliia! Thanks to Emiliiaś brother for reading Happy Pig Day. Thanks to Masonś mom and dad for giving us a taste of the Magic Tree House series. Another thanks to Giaś dad for being our mystery reader. He too read a great Mo Willems book! We made predictions for groundhogś day. We had 9 students predict 6 more weeks of winter, while 12 of us said early spring. Looks like an early spring according to Punxatawney Phil! We enjoyed trying to say the tongue twister Ḧow much wood could a wood chuck chuck…” since groundhogs are also called woodchucks! Our song this week was Travelin Through the Mail from Flat Stanley. Weŕe excited to watch the performance next week in school.
JANUARY 29- FEBRUARY 2
We had a FULL week of Reading Horizons. We learned about more glued sounds: -ong, -ung, -ank, -ink, -onk, -unk. We also looked at words with a combination of digraphs, blends, and glued sounds! In Wonders, we read Nate the Snake is Late! We discussed being late. Our W.I.N. Choice Board this week did not change since we only had 1 day with it last week. It included the MLK library, science sound room, ABC order, matching sight word game, guess the number, and math facts shooting game. We had many printable worksheets available as well.
We are just about finished the January Number Corner. Only 3 more days of school this month! We took the 1st 3 weeks worth of dimes and pennies and counted the total. We discussed the best way to count ALL the coins. They knew to sort the coins into dimes and pennies. We also put the pennies in groups of 10, since dimes are worth 10 and traded them for dimes. We collected a total of 162 cents, which we talked about beng $1.62. We had 16 TENS with 2 ONES left over! We also celebrated the 90th day of school today! OHHHHH, WE’RE HALFWAY THERE! We continued jumping along the number line, only this week was by 5s and 10s instead of 1s. We made a life size number line and counted to 120 by 10s. We filled in missing numbers on the line, discussing numbers that could be halfway. Knowing our doubles facts helped. We talked about how if we take away the 0 in the 10s we can see the 1s (What # is between 0-80…Think of 80 as 8; half of 8 is 4, then add the 0 to get 40!). Another lesson involved finding the value. This led to a great discussion about possible numbers that could be on the blank card on the number line. If a blank card is placed to the left of 50, what number could be there…40 or 45? Both seem like good guesses because they are BEFORE 50! We hopped along the number line to 100. We showed our jumps on the number line. The trick this week was to know that each jump represented 10. Again, we could think of adding 1s when adding 10s. (if 4+2=6 add the 0, so 40+20=60). We had fun playing Catch a Snowflake to practice moving on the number line. Next week there will be a checkpoint to review all these concepts. They will have to fill in missing numbers on a number line and add and subtract by 10s and 1s.
We started the week writing our weekend news. We had a lot to write with the long weekend (“snow day” on Friday). Daphne finished her week by reading a story, Snowmen All Year! We wrote about her too! Rohn was our STAR this week! He brought in a replica of his dog, Boomer. He also had a really cool painting of Animal Kingdom Lodge from Disney World and a baseball glove since he loves sports! He read a book about all the Mario characters. The students love Mario! We finished the week writing about Rohn!
Thanks to Samir’s mom for being our mystery reader. We enjoyed both stories! We continued our unit on Light and Sound. The focus was hearing sounds. We used tuning forks to make different sounds. We discussed sounds that are easy to identify like glass shattering, clapping, and sirens. We also used a tone generator and watched salt and rice “dance.” It was fun visiting the science fair. Ava and Luca did a great job sharing their projects with us. Thanks to all the parent visitors. We enjoyed having you and hope you had fun seeing what we do everyday! Our song this week was “Teaching Peace.¨ We visited the 3rd grade and saw some puppet shows. There were many great messages as the plays came from stories all about differences (food, skin, etc.) We had our monthly PBIS Assembly this afternoon too!
JANUARY 22-26
This week was crazy! We did not get to Reading Horizons, so we have a bunch of lessons to get to next week! We’re going to try and get back to Wonders too! Our W.I.N. Choice Board this week included a MLK library, science sound room, ABC order, matching sight word game, guess the number, and math facts shooting game. We had many printable worksheets available as well.
We continued the January Number Corner. We have one more day to spin for calendar collector. I don’t think we’ll beat the 66 cents from last week. Once we get our total, we’ll count how much we collected for the WHOLE month. In math, we did a lot of adding and subtracting (hopping forward or backward) on the number line. We showed our jumps on the number line. Next week we will do a lot of the same; however, the number line will jump by intervals of 10 instead of 1 and we will go to 120!
We started the week sharing our weekend news. With Martin Luther King Day on Monday, we discussed his dream and brainstormed our own dreams for how to make the world a better place. Daphne was our STAR! She’s not done yet! She shared her half of a BFF necklace she shares with her twin. She brought in some stuffy donuts cause she LOVES donuts! She also brought in a real cool music box that went along so great with our science unit on sound! She’ll still read to us and we’ll write about her next week!
Happy Birthday Markus! Thanks to his mom for visiting and reading to us on his special day. Also, thanks to Carlotta’s dad for being 0our mystery reader! He shared some facts about rocket ships and even performed a cool experiment with a balloon to show how a rocket launches! In science, we continued discussing sound. We focused on hearing sounds. We used drop chambers and drop objects to listen to the sounds they make when they hit the ground. Are they easy to identify? Some were and some were not. We decided it depended on the object. Some were loud and some were soft. We will continue listening to sounds in science.
*See schedule HERE
JANUARY 16-19
This week in Reading Horizons we covered more double L combinations with blends and digraphs. We also looked at the sounds of -ed. This suffix can make a /t/ or /d/ sound depending on the word. Finally, we learned about the glued sound -ng in -ang and -ing. We also learned about homophones. They are words that sound the same, but have different meanings and spellings. Words like sea and see or sale and sail. We made “Hot Cocoa Homophones” for our bulletin board this month. Our W.I.N. Choice Board this week included a Kindness library, Maps room, noun practice, contractions game, story problems, and a bug catching game. We had many printable worksheets available as well.
We continued the January Number Corner. We picked up on the pattern…subtraction equation, addition equation, backwards addition equation followed by a word problem. We noticed that the answer always matches the date! Last week we collected 44 cents in dimes and pennies. This week we collected 66 cents. We spun way more dimes this week! We actually spun the same number of dimes and pennies…6 and 6! We celebrated the 8th decade day (day 80) this week. Almost halfway through 1st grade. We moved into a new unit this week. We had fun playing with a life sized number line. We placed numbers in order. We looked at different numbers and talked about where to place them in relation to other numbers. We know 10 should be in the middle between 0-20 because it is halfway. We used a frog to hop along the number line. We can add and subtract (hop forward or backward). We have a new workplace to learn and some more adding and subtracting on the number line next week.
We started the week with our weekend news. We also spent time writing 3 new year’s resolutions. We wrote rough copies and then a final draft. We wrote goals for school, home, and as a friend. We also colored a 2024 picture to go with it. They are hanging in our classroom. Yifan was our STAR! He shared his pokemon book and a cool beyblade sword shooter. He has A LOT of pokemon cards too. We enjoyed his book Maybe a Bear Ate It. We ended the week writing about Yifan.
Thank you to Ava’s mom for being our mystery reader. We loved Scaredy Squirrel! We continued our unit on Light and Sound. We made a table fiddle with some wood blocks and string. We discussed how cause and effect can help us make science observations. We know plucking the string is causing sound to be made and the effect is the string vibrating. We read about Sound and Vibration too. We are excited to do more with hearing sounds next week! Our song this week was Martin in honor of Martin Luther King. In gathering we discussed Martin Luther King a little more and his dream for the world. We’ll share our own dreams next week!
*See schedule HERE
JANUARY 8-12
This week we jumped right back into Reading Horizons. We looked at more plural words, this time adding -es. We also looked at 5 double L combinations: -all, -oll, -ill, -ell, and -ull. Some vowels can change the sound with the double L combination. We took our first spelling test, which will focus on writing and spelling words that use the skills learned in RH. Our W.I.N. Choice Board this week included a New Year’s library, Pebble Go, winter art hub, spelling practice, Connect 4, and spot the difference game. We had many printable worksheets available as well.
We began the new January Number Corner. Our calendar pieces have subtraction and addition equations as well as word problems. The equations are missing a number. We are using number trees to figure out the missing number. We are collecting dimes and pennies in calendar collector. We got 44 cents this week. The final module was all about Exploring Equations. We looked at 6, 7, 9, & 10 and discussed equivalent equations. We know there are many ways to make these numbers using 2 or 3 numbers. We talked about how the = sign means “the same as” so we can compare numbers or number sentences. We used unifix cubes to build cube trains and towers. We compared them and figured out how many more were needed to catch up to the bigger number. We made addition and subtraction equations to figure it out. We focused on how many cubes they had in common (how many cubes did they both have). We’ll begin the next Unit, Adding and Subtracting on the Life-Sized Number Line next week.
We started the week with our winter break news. We wrote about what we ate, the best part, and who we spent time with. Next week we will focus on New Year’s resolutions. We will brainstorm ideas of goals we can make for home, school, and as a friend. We’ll write rough copies first and then a good final copy. We’ll jump back into Star Student next week too!
Thank you to Ryan Rś mom for being our mystery reader. We loved the pigeon book! We began our unit on Light and Sound. First we brainstormed things we already know about sound and light. Then we discussed sounds and learned about vibrations. We made sound using plastic cups, rubber bands, and tongue depressors. We also made a book fiddles with a hardback book, a plastic cup, and 2 rubber bands. We will continue this unit each week. Our song this week was Weŕe All in This Together from High School Musical. We thought it was a good fit for being back after a long winter break.
*More info. to come
JANUARY 2-5
This week we took a break from both Reading Horizons and Wonders. We enjoyed listening to some gingerbread stories. We compared The Gingerbread Boy to The Gingerbread Girl. We read different endings between the boy and man too. We enjoyed a gingerbread cookie treat too, just like the fox in the stories! We had a Holiday W.I.N. Choice Board. It included an elf library, XMAS room, Holidays Around the World, Holiday drawing, XMAS and Hanukkah word searches, XMAS light math, fuzz bugs, and guess the number.
We finished the December calendar. We were correct in predicting the pattern. We collected 1 of each shape first, then 2 of each shape, and 3 of each shape, and finally 4 of each. We reviewed time to the hour a little more too since we will move back to money in calendar collector after the break. We played a few rounds of “Number in my Pocket” since they like guessing my number. We reviewed for our test and they took it on Tuesday. They all did very well! I am so proud of them :) We will finish up Unit 3 when we return. We had fun playing actual dreidel with counters and real dreidels. They did so well with knowing what each symbol meant and what to do. It was great teamwork!
We started the week with our weekend news. We finished our gifts for you and wrapped them up. We hope you enjoy them in the new year! We also had fun watching some videos of holiday light displays…it’s always fun to look at the lights! We played Blooket on the chromebooks with the class and our buddies. They LOVED the game and can’t wait to play again next year! Carlotta was our STAR! She brought in a Minnie and giraffe stuffed animals. She shared a grabber she made from Kiwi Co and her camera (we took a class pic!). We ended the week writing about our star.
We finished our countdown to winter break. We We watched How the Grinch stole XMAS. We would watch a clip and they had to correctly answer a question in order to continue. They all knew the answers! We had a fun dance party. We watched some just dance videos and enjoyed a disco light in the room to set the mood! We finished with a holiday sing along! Our song this week was Jingle Bell Rock. We had our final PBIS Assembly for the year. We had a lot of fun with our spirit days. Our class and Mrs. Johnson’s class won the 1st annual NES door decorating contest with our Polar Express door. We got a trophy and we will get to play a game of Knockout with Mr. Francis in the new year! We had so much fun at our class party. They made cute snow people out of socks and other materials. Thanks to all our helpers and organizers!
*More info. to come
DECEMBER 18-21
This week in Reading Horizons we learned about 3 W-blends: tw, sw, dw. We also looked at plurals. We know the -s on a plural can say either /s/ or /z/. Finally, we looked at double consonants (-ss, -ff, -zz). We use a double consonant at the end of a 1-syllable word. We had a review day this week too. We finally used all the consonants and vowels in Beat the Clock! We read a holiday favorite, Moostletoe, and completed a sequencing page.
We continued looking at 3D shapes. We were correct in predicting the pattern. We collected 1 of each shape first, then 2 of each shape, and now we are collecting 3 of each. On Monday we will celebrate the 7th decade day! We started the week using our number racks to subtract. We played Cats and Mice. Both lessons had us finding the difference between 2 numbers. We used our number rack and cube towers to see how many more or less on the top or bottom. We began discussing Tens and Teens. We had fun playing a guessing game, Number in My Pocket. They had to ask questions to eliminate numbers and then try to figure out my number which was between 1-50. We also played a game called 50 or Bust! We looked at those teen numbers and added some up to get as close to 50 without going over. I busted by going over 50…52 to be exact. The students won with 41! We will continue this game and module next week. The Unit 3 test will also be next week on Tuesday.
We started the week with our weekend news. We introduced order words to help with our writing. First, next, then, last, etc. This should help with adding more details too. We learned about Kwanzaa. We learned some African words and the meanings behind them. Mason was our STAR! He shared his yellow belt and a yoda ornament that was made on his 3D printer! We ended the week writing about our star.
Thanks so much to Daphne’s mom for being our 1st mystery reader! We loved Daisy the Donut Fairy! We were lucky enough to attend the Winter Concert this week. We enjoyed listening to the orchestra, band, and Newtown Sound. We continued our countdown to winter break. This week we decorated a gingerbread house and an ugly sweater, watched a holiday movie, made snowflakes, and made a snowman. Only 4 more days until winter break, but who’s counting?!?! Our song this week was “Frosty the Snowman.” We enjoyed our last gathering of the year. We took some time to discuss holiday needs vs. wants.
DECEMBER 11-15
This week in Reading Horizons we learned about even more blends. We focused on the 8 S-blends: sc, sk, sp, st, sl, sm, sn, sw. We also looked at s blends at the end of a word as the final sounds (sk, sp, st). We discussed common and proper nouns. We know a proper noun names a specific person, place or thing and begins with an uppercase letter. We are all proper nouns! We had fun naming restaurants, stores, cities, and people!
We figured out the pattern on the calendar. We collected 1 of each 3D shape, now we are collecting 2 of each shape. We think it will be 3 of each shape next! We collected 24 hours! We will continue to talk about time to the hour and activities related to A.M. and P.M. We’ll reach the 7th decade next week before the break. We started Module 2, Combinations with the Number Rack. We played Tower Race and Flash Attack. We are really focused on subitizing (grouping objects) so we don’t have to count by ones. We looked at 10 friends some more. We made a Rainbow to 10 too. This can help us see the 10 friends. We completed a checkpoint to see what we learned so far. *The focus was 10 friends! We even added to 20. We’ll finish this module and then move in to the next module, Tens and Teens, midweek. We will take the Unit 3 test before the break.
We started the week sharing our weekend news. With Hanukkah starting this week, we had fun making words using the letters in “Festival of Lights.” Ava was our STAR! She shared a couple of holiday stuffies, a XMAS angel and unicorn! She also brought in a fairy barbie and koosh ball keychain. We ended the week writing about our star.
We continued our countdown to winter break. This week we played a match game, made a snowman, listened to an animated reading of Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins, made paper snowflakes and played dreidel. We traced trees and menorahs. We used shiny foil paper to make candles, ornaments, and gifts. We then used glitter to make them sparkle! We’ve been working hard on a holiday gift for our families! We hope you enjoy them all year! We had fun wearing our pajamas this week. Thanks to all for your generous donations to CHOP! We finally got to cash in on our marble jar reward. We voted for an extra gym class. We had so much fun in a girls vs. boys game of Tower Knockdown. The boys came out victorious…this time! Our song this week was “Let It Snow” and how perfect we had some flurries! Now if only they would stick!
DECEMBER 4-8
This week in Reading Horizons we learned more about blends. We focused on 7 R-Blends: br, cr, dr, fr, tr, gr, & pr. We then reviewed both R & L blends with digraphs! This means we mark an arc under the blend and an arc under the ending digraph. We read the nonfiction story, The Best Spot. We discussed animal homes and then did some animal research. The W.I.N. Choice Board included: a National Geographic Kids Room, Storyline Online, consonant blends and rhyming words, telling time game and Math Bingo.
We finished the November Number Corner and started December. The calendar pieces include real life objects and we are sorting them into 3D shapes (cylinder, rectangular prism, sphere, and cube). We are still collecting hours on the clock. We are at 7:00pm, or 1900 hours! In math, we learned a lot of new workplaces. Drop the Beans showed us different ways to make numbers. Make the Sum had us using number cards to make numbers (1 & 7 is 8, 2 & 6 is 8, etc.) We looked at doubles and discussed even and odd numbers. We know doubles are all even! Doubles +/-1 had us trying to cover all our odd numbers. We also used our number racks to solve story problems.
We started the week sharing our Thanksgiving Break news. It looked a little different as we shared food we ate, people we saw, the most fun we had and someplace we went. We explored Pebble Go and used it to research a forest animal since it went along with our Wonders story. We wrote some facts about where the animal lives, what it eats, and some other fun facts. They did an awesome job! Luca was our STAR! He shared a beaver stuffy he got on vacation. He also shared a baseball trophy and Babe Ruth baseball card! His guess and show was a pretty cool scorpion keychain. We ended the week writing about our star.
Happy Birthday Jaxon! He read Pigeon Wants a Puppy! We celebrated his special day on what happened to be his last day at NES. We’ll miss you Jaxon! We started a “Countdown to Winter Break.” Each day we will count down another day and complete a fun activity. This week, we completed a winter word search. There’s only 14 more days until break! Our song this week was perfect for this time of year and was titled, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!” We finally had a chance to share all YOUR thankful thoughts about your children. They loved hearing all the wonderful things you had to say! Thank you again for your help with the cornucopia project!
NOVEMBER 27-December 1
We had fun getting ready for Thanksgiving. With the short week we didn’t touch on Language Arts. We will resume Reading Horizons and Wonders when we return next week.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
We continued the November Number Corner. So far we’ve seen a cookie, sandwich, pizza, cracker and finally a pie split into equal parts. The last picture seems so appropriate for this time of year with Thanksgiving! We also collected 12 hours on our first clock and moved on to the next. We talked about military time and how even though there is no 13-24 on a clock, we can count those hours in a day. Once we get to those numbers we know it is pm on the clock. We used paper circles and discussed how to break them in to equal parts. We folded the paper and wrote the fractions in each part. We have some more things we’ll do with fractions next week!
With the short week we focused on Thanksgiving and the break. We brainstormed and wrote about people, places and things we are thankful for! We will write about our Thanksgiving break when we return!
Happy early Birthday (on Dec. 4)Brianna! We read Silverlicious in her honor. We had our LAST Reading Show performance on Monday. They were just as AMAZING as last week! We enjoyed meeting with our buddies to watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving! We enjoyed a popcorn snack just like they had at their feast in the movie! We made Brianna a special book as her last day with us was yesterday. Good luck at your new school! We’ll miss you!!!
NOVEMBER 20-21
This week in Reading Horizons we learned about L blends. Blends are similar to digraphs in their markings (an arc joining the letters), however, there are 2 sounds we hear instead of just 1 like in digraphs. We also spent one day reviewing with our fun centers. We have some fun Thanksgiving plans for next week!
We continued the November Number Corner. So far we’ve seen a cookie, sandwich, pizza, and cracker split into equal parts. We also collected 12 hours on our first clock and will move on to the next. We celebrated Day 50...halfway to 100! In math, we made a quilt for Thanksgiving. We used colored paper squares for one patch and a turkey for the other. We then made a pattern with the squares and noted observations. Check it out HERE. We played a couple of teacher versus students games to end the week. We reviewed pennies, nickels, and dimes. We collected 40 cents and 100 cents. They won every game! I want a rematch!
We started the week sharing our weekend news. We had fun only sharing 1 word about our weekend. It Jaxon was our STAR! He shared A seal from San Francisco and a hat from Niagara Falls. He also brought in a really cool melodica (a keyboard you play by blowing air into it.). He played Baby Shark for us with it! We ended the week writing about Jaxon!
Happy Birthday (on Saturday)Ryan H.! Thanks to his mom for coming in and reading The Smart Cookie. Also, thanks for the fun Mickey treats! Mrs. Cook visited to teach a lesson about fair and different. We spent so much time rehearsing for our Reading Show! I think you can all agree they really ROCKED it! We had so much fun and can’t wait to perform 1 more show for the rest of the school on Monday. Here are some pictures…
NOVEMBER 13-17
This week in Reading Horizons we learned more about digraphs. We looked at sh and ch at the end of words. We also talked about ph and wh. We know that wh says /w/ and ph says /f/. We always mark an arc under a digraph. We also learned about singular and plural nouns. We know singular means 1 and plural is more than 1. We can add an s to make a noun plural and we also looked at irregular plural nouns. The W.I.N. Choice Board included: an Election Day and Veteran’s Day library, Veteran’s Day art room, ch boom cards, fact family math game and comparing numbers racing game.
We continued the November Number Corner. The calendar pieces are showing foods and animals then eating those foods. One bear eats the whole food, 2 dogs eat the halves, and 4 mice eat the quarters (or fourths). Since we are talking about fractions, we are discussing how the food is cut into equal pieces. We have collected 7 hours so far. We are learning how to tell time using an analog clock. We also see the time on a digital clock; this one is a little easier to read! In math, we learned the Spin & Subtract workplace to start the week. We also took our Unit 2 test. We even began Module 4, Counting by Fives and Tens. We started to make a Turkey Quilt for Thanksgiving. We’ll finish it next week.
We started the week sharing our weekend news. We completed a fall writing assessment where they wrote about a time they did something fun. This was a completely independent assignment and I’ll be sharing it with you at conferences. Brianna was our STAR! She shared her My Melody and Kuromi stuffed animals as well as her sapphire cat! We ended the week writing about our star.
Happy Birthday Apolline! Thanks so much to her mom and dad for coming in and reading Stone Soup! Also, thanks for the gold treat! We filled our marble jar. We used Election Day to cast our vote for our reward! We voted in a pretend voting booth and put our votes in a ballot box. We even got I VOTED stickers! The majority voted for extra gym class, so we will have to take advantage of that on a Tuesday when the gym is open. Stay tuned! We have been practicing all the songs for the Reading Show. You will be amazed by their hard work! I am already so proud of them :) We finished the week reading the Scholastic News article called A Hug for a Hero! We met with buddies and did a Veteran’s Day activity too! Thank you, Veterans!
NOVEMBER 6-10
This week in Reading Horizons we introduced the 3 main digraphs: th, ch & sh. We learned that digraphs are 2 consonants that make 1 sound. We know th can make a voiceless (thin) and a voiced sound (that). We mark these with a zig zag line (voiced to show vibrations) or a straight line (no vibrations). We also use an arc to show the letters in these digraphs go together, just like qu. In Wonders, we read Good Job, Ben! and discussed story elements. We talked about characters, setting and plot (beginning, middle, and end). We did not have a new W.I.N. Choice Board this week due to Halloween. We will get back on track next week.
We began the November Number Corner. We saw a pattern pretty quickly with this one. The calendar pieces are focusing on fractions. We will see wholes, halves, and fourths. We are looking at time and collecting 1 hour each day. This will continue into December as well. We celebrated our 4th decade day (DAY 40!). We also took a number corner assessment. In math, we began a new module. We played Domino Flash and practiced making equations to match dominoes. We looked at doubles facts and learned a new workplace called Double It. We have some more workplaces next week and we will take the Unit 2 test on Thursday with a review day scheduled for Wednesday!
We started the week sharing our weekend news. We spent some time writing about our halloween night. We all had a lot of fun and got LOTS of candy! Apolline was our STAR! She shared a baby toy, her yellow belt from jujitsu, and a Star Wars music book for the piano. We ended the week writing about our star.
We added many songs to our song folder this week. They are all the songs we will be singing for the Reading Show in just a few weeks! We have a lot of work to do, but we can’t wait to sing for you! We practiced many of the songs and motions in gathering and will keep with it for the next 2 weeks! We learned about the life cycle of a pumpkin. For Halloween, we played some fun math games and used the letters in HALLOWEEN to make words! We had so much fun at out Halloween parade and party. Thanks so much to our HRC’s and other parent volunteers. We explored our first issue of Scholastic News today. We learned about how lollipops are made! We checked out the online version too where we can play games and watch videos.
OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 3
This week in Reading Horizons we introduced the last of the letters, consonants Cc & Kk. We know these letters make the same sound, but we learned a trick to know which letter to use. K takes i and e and c takes the other 3 (a,o,u). We had another review day. We added a new vowel and some more consonants. The words also changed and included short o words. We had a new W.I.N. choice board. It included a Halloween library, Pumpkin story, Halloween art hub, Halloween phonics, number bonds, and online dominoes. We learned about adjectives. We know adjectives describe a noun.
We pretty much finished the October Number Corner. We counted the total number of pattern blocks we collected for the whole month. It was 57 blocks in all! We added the 3 weeks together...20+18+19=57. We talked about how we solved the equation (counting by 10s then adding the ones). We also laid all the blocks on the floor and sorted them by shape then grouped them by 10s to make it easier to count. We learned a new workplace. We sorted dominoes by their sum (the number of dots on them). We completed a checkpoint with dominoes that included making equations based on the dots and compared totals with <,>, =. This will come home on Monday in their test folder for you to review, but they all rocked it! We also shared strategies for how we knew the total number of dots on the dominoes. Next week we will start the next module, Introducing Fact Strategies.
We started the week with our weekend news. We read Go Away Big Green Monster to go along with our adjectives lesson. We then made our own monsters and wrote adjectives to describe them. We had scary, cute, sneaky, and different color monsters! They are hanging in our room. Ryan H. was our STAR! He shared a gold pikachu card, his well loved Mickey lovey, and some great pictures. He did a great job reading Should I Share My Ice Cream by Mo Willems. We ended the week writing about our star.
Our song this week was The Monster Mash. A perfect song leading up to the Halloween fun! In gathering, we read about a witch and a ghost and their little orange house. They really enjoyed it. Ask your child about it! Thanks so much for your donations for PINK Out! We had so much fun with our pumpkin investigation. I brought in a 16.6 pound pumpkin and we made some predictions about it…will it sink or float? How many inches is it’s girth? (36) How many ribs? (40) How many seeds?(472) We cut it open and got to feel the pulp too. We did some fun candy pumpkin science as well. We dissolved candy pumpkins in different liquids: vegetable oil, vinegar, soda, corn syrup, and water. What do you think dissolved the candy the fastest? Ask your child :)
OCTOBER 23-27
This week in Reading Horizons we introduced the vowel u and consonants Qq, Zz, Yy, Ll & Ww. We use the kinesthetic cue “umbrella” with our hands making an arc over our head and then pulling down on each side. We know q does not make a sound by itself, it is “married” to u and together they say /kw/. We have to put an arc under the letters to remind us they go together. We had another review day and introduced some new centers. The 8 centers included the 6 from last week and then we introduced word detective and work with the teacher. We had a new W.I.N. choice board. It included a fire safety library, alphabetizing game, spelling practice, fuzz bugs sorting, and online geoboards. We learned about nouns. We know a noun is a person, place or thing. We did a noun hunt in the classroom.
We continued the October Number Corner. The pattern went back to the beginning, kind of. We collected more pattern blocks. We collected 5 hexagons, 4 triangles, 5 trapezoids, and 5 rhombuses for a total of 19 blocks (1 less than last week!). Next week we will count the total for the month. We celebrated our 3rd decade day. In math, we started Unit 2. We learned how to play dominoes. We learned a game, Domino Top Draw. It’s like the card game WAR, but with dominoes. We also played Domino Add & Compare with partners. Similar to Domino Top Draw, but we also compared the dominoes (less than, greater than, equal to). We discussed addition strategies we can use to count the total number of dots on our dominoes, and their advantages and disadvantages. We can count all the dots, count on, look for smaller groups of dots (3+3=6 +1 more is 7), and think about facts you know (4+4=8 and 1 less is 7). We also looked at Domino Magic Squares. It’s a fun way to add the total number of dots on 2 dominoes. The Unit 1 written Assessment will be coming home for you to look at on Monday in the orange test folder. Everyone did a very good job. Keep up the great work!
We started the week sharing our weekend news. We started STAR Student. I was the first STAR to give students an idea. I shared a poster and pictures, a fluffy friend, did show and tell, guess and show, and read a book. The STAR will come home on Friday with a bag and poster to share on Monday. We end the week making a book for the STAR.
Our song this week was Roar! The Newtown Fire Dept. visited and taught us about fire safety. We got to check out the fire truck too! Mrs. Cook visited for a lesson on sharing friends. We practiced locking down in our classroom and evacuating to 2 different meeting places in preparation for our ALICE drill Monday. The students did so well. We had a visiting author and illustrator and danced to music by DJ Mickey. We have a fun bulletin board for October…check it out HERE. We had so much fun with cozy day and all our Phillies spirit days this week too!
OCTOBER 16-20
We continued with Reading Horizons. The students are getting really good at decoding words. This week we introduced the vowel e and consonants Jj, Vv, Ww & Dd. We use the kinesthetic cue “echo” with our hand cupping our ear to remember e. We had another review day and introduced some new centers. The 6 centers included Beat the Clock, Spell & Mark, & Fill in the Blank from last week. The new centers were Write a Sentence, Fluency, and Read a Passage. I introduced the W.I.N. Choice Board for once they finish their skill check. This board gives them reading and math choices on the chromebook. In Wonders, we read Toss! Kick! Hop! We discussed learned about verbs. We know they are action words. We played charades and Verb Bingo.
We continued the October Number Corner. We saw a slight change to the pattern. It keeps us on our toes, for sure! We collected more pattern blocks. We reviewed what we know about 10 and more. In math this week we used our number racks and measured. First we used our number racks to figure out the missing number. We then measured objects around the room with unifix cubes. We made cube trains of 10 to make it easier to count (count by 10s). We also measured a jump rope with our feet (steps). We used the number rack to discuss 1 more and 1 less. We will finish up Unit 1 with a group assessment and start Unit 2, Developing Strategies with Dice & Dominoes.
We started the week with our weekend news. We are trying to work on adding more details by giving a specific detail about what we did. We shared our hopes and dreams for first grade too. We want to learn how to read, add & subtract, and make more friends. I think many of these hopes and dreams will come true!
Our song this week was Take Me Out to the Ball Game! The perfect song for our Phillies playoff run! Let’s keep it up! We talked a little about Christopher Columbus and what it was like to be an explorer. In gathering, Mrs. Johnson created a baseball trivia in honor of the Phillies. Did you know the longest baseball game in history was 33 innings and lasted more than 8 hours! And I thought these late Phillies game were tough!
OCTOBER 9-13
We continued with Reading Horizons. The students are getting the hang of slides and marking words. This week we introduced the vowel o and consonants Rr & Hh. We use kinesthetic cues to remember our vowels. For a, we eat an apple, i we have an itch, and o there is an octopus. We also learned about nonsense words and had our first center day! The centers included beat the clock, where they build and make words with the letters we’ve learned about. They practice marking words, and filling in the blank using a word bank. In Wonders, we read A Pig for Cliff. We discussed statements and questions. We know statements use a period and questions use a question mark.
We started the October Number Corner and have an idea of what the pattern is for the month. Although, it’s not as easy as last month. We saw apples, leaves, and acorns. We are making number trees and coming up with math stories (word problems) for the pictures. A number tree is different ways to make a number: 4=0+4 or 4=3+1, etc. We are collecting pattern blocks rather than coins. We collected 7 hexagons, 1 triangle, 6 trapezoids, and 6 rhombuses for a total of 20 blocks. In math this week we used our number racks and measured. First we solved some word problems. We had to find the whole number and/or missing parts in the problem. We celebrated the 2nd decade day (day 20). We learned a new workplace, Which Coin Will Win? We used spinners to battle between nickels and pennies. We figured out how many beads were in play on the number rack in Quick! Look! We then ended the week measuring items in the classroom with popsicle sticks!
We started the week with our weekend news. We talked about focusing on 1 topic and writing details to go with that 1 focus. Since we were talking about statements and questions, we edited some sentences. We made sure they started with an uppercase letter and included punctuation at the end. We also talked about leaving spaces between our words.
Our song this week was It’s Fall in honor of the new season, despite it feeling more like summer! We met with our 5th grade buddies for the first time today. We made scarecrow glyphs to get to know each other and see what we have in common. We try and meet with our buddies each month to do fun activities together.
OCTOBER 2-6
We continued diving into Reading Horizons. The students are getting the hang of slides and marking words. This week we introduced the vowel i and consonants n, f, b, & g. We are practicing writing the upper and lowercase of these letters. We are also talking about the sounds of these letters. We are learning about stop sounds and windy sounds and sounds that we use our voices with. We reviewed blending and segmenting words. We also listened for beginning sounds in words. We added sentence writing and reading a passage into these lessons too. In Wonders, we read Six Kids. We focused on sequence of events and retelling a story.
We finished up our September Number Corner. We ended with 3 groups of 10 to make 30. We finished the final week collecting 23 cents! The most out of all the weeks. We also added up our total amount of money collected ALL month... 57 cents! We layed all our money out and discussed the best way to count. We decided to group the coins by pennies and nickels. We grouped our pennies by 5s to make it easier to count along with our nickels...3 extra groups of 5 to go with our 8 nickels! We also talked about making groups of 10 so we could count it quickly. We looked at the teen numbers, focusing on ten and some more. We matched double ten frames with adding with 10 equations. 18 days of first grade down! We played 10 and More Bingo–teacher vs. students. I won 3 times! We completed our first checkpoint in math. It allows me to check what they know. We also took a September Number Corner assessment. Keep a lookout for an orange test folder next week. I’ll explain more in my Monday email.
We started the week sharing our weekend news. We did not do much writing this week. We will take our time writing our weekend news on Monday. We will discuss how to focus on 1 thing from the weekend rather than EVERYTHING! We will continue to add more details about our topic as the year progresses. We are keeping up with handwriting as we introduce the letters in Reading Horizons.
Mrs. Cook, our school counselor, visited for our first lesson. She focused on big deal, little deal. We talked about when to tell an adult and when we can try and problem solve on our own. We added the song Johnny Appleseed to our song folder. We graphed and discussed apples ALL day Friday! YELLOW came out the winner for favorite apple in our class. Ask your child about the little red house with no doors or windows and a star inside! It’s a fun story we read😊 Apple tasting and apple sauce making..what a way to end the week!
SEPTEMBER 26-29
We began our phonics program, Reading Horizons. This week we introduced the vowel a and consonants m,s, t, & p. We are practicing writing the upper and lowercase of these letters. We are also talking about the sounds of these letters. We are learning about stop sounds and windy sounds and sounds that we use our voices with. We reviewed rhymes and syllables. We also started making slides- 2 letters that we blend to make a sound but it’s not a word. We ended the week building words with these letters! We got rid of the slide and made an x to mark the vowel, which lets us know this is a word. So many parts to remember! In Wonders, we read Jack Can.
Number Corner is still going strong. Now that we’re in the twenties, we see 2 group of 10 and some more. We collected 19 cents this week. We beat last week’s 15 cents! We have 1 more week to collect and then we’ll count the TOTAL amount collected this month. We looked at the teen numbers, focusing on ten and some more. We matched double ten frames to adding with 10 equations. We made our own number racks. These will be a great math tool to use throughout the year. We added them to our,math tool kit! We used the top and bottom rows to make numbers using different combinations. For example, we can show 5 with 3 beads on top and 2 on the bottom or 4 on top and 1 on the bottom, etc. We made 10 and introduced 10 friends...2 numbers that go together to make 10. We practiced writing #s 0-9 in the Flip & Write workplace. We continued workplaces. We added 2 new ones: geoboards and polydrons. We have our first checkpoint next week.
We started the week with our weekend news. We kept the sentence “My weekend was _____.” They have a list of adjectives to choose from. We then added 1 detail to tell what we did. We will add more sentences and details as the year progresses. Feel free to brainstorm ideas of things they can write in their weekend news each week. With fall coming on Saturday, we brainstormed and shared some of our favorite things about fall. Lots shared they like jumping in leaf piles and trick or treating! We are practicing our handwriting to go along with the letters we are learning about.
We celebrated Constitution Day by reading We the Kids. We reviewed our rules too. Tuesday was talk like a pirate day! We learned what our pirate name would be if we had one. They were cracking up at Captain D’plank and Barnacle Stinkbreath! We added a new song to our song folder, Count on Me by Bruno Mars. We filled our marble jar again! We will choose our reward next week. We did a little bit of read to self. We are still building that stamina.
SEPTEMBER 18-22
We read Chrysanthemum and discussed our names. We made flowers that are hanging in our room. We took some time to go over read to self (silent reading time). We made an anchor chart to see what super readers DO & DON’T. We read Goldilocks and the 3 Bears to learn how to pick books that are “just right.” We then played musical books to help us choose some books for our book boxes. We are practicing building our reading stamina. Next week we will begin both ELA programs, Reading Horizons(phonics) and Wonders.
We continued our calendar pattern in Number Corner. We are talking about place value and tens and ones. We are looking at groups of 10 and left over ones. This will help us with our teen numbers! We began filling in our observation chart. We are learning about tens and ones and making equations. We are collecting nickels and pennies. We collected 15 cents this week! Can we get more next week?! We began our math program, Bridges. In math, we made a graph of our favorite popsicle. Rainbow was the class favorite with 17 votes, followed by red with 4 and orange with 1. We compared our numbers. We discussed tallies. We used whiteboards to practice tallying. We know 4 standing tall and the fifth one takes a fall. We celebrated the unit with a popsicle party! Check it out HERE. We introduced math workplaces. These are math centers. We played with unifix cubes, dominoes, a. nd pattern blocks this week. We will change them and add new ones that go along with the curriculum. Next week we will Meet the Number Rack!
We began weekend news. We kept it simple with a picture and one sentence (My weekend was ____.) Next week we will add a detail. We read Jack’s Talent. We discussed our own special talents and what we are good at. We then wrote about it and drew a picture to match. Miss Udis came in this week to help us log on to chrome books. It took an entire afternoon, but they are honestly pros now! We’ve been playing and exploring on google classroom. They are so happy to be using them! Today was International Dot Day. I added a Dot Day room in our google classroom for them to explore.
Happy belated birthday Daniel! We celebrated him last week. His sister came in to read Curious George Makes Pancakes. We celebrated Patriot Day. We took time to remember the heroes of September 11th. We read Fireboat, which talked about ALL the heroes of that day, especially the John J. Harvey fireboat. We made a Patriot Day ribbon. I also added an Art Hub room in google classroom on the chromebook. We introduced our song folder and learned our first song, U-Knighted (our school song!) We’ll continue to add songs each week. We had our first gathering. Every Friday, all of 1st grade will gather to celebrate birthdays and do activities as a group. We discussed gathering rules today.
SEPTEMBER 11-15
We spent a lot of time getting to know each other. We read The Night Before First Grade and compared ourselves to the story! We also read Gingerbread Man Loose in the School and took a tour to get more familiar with the important places at NES. We visited the library, office, cafeteria, music room, gym, art room and nurse! We made 1st day of school headbands to rock around school! We had so much fun sharing our Magic Bags. We pretended our classroom was a museum and we walked around to see everything our classmates brought in. We had fun using clipboards and finding out more about our friends.
We started the September Number Corner. We will set aside time each day to discuss the date, collect coins, and count the days of school. We will look for patterns on the calendar grid each month. We flipped 8 cards to see if we saw a pattern and we did! We see a color pattern and picture pattern. We are learning different ways to write the date too. We can write the date in numbers (9/8/23) or even abbreviate the month word (Sept.). We are making equations to match the days in school. We’re going to count all the days in school, but are so excited to get to 100 because then we PARTY! Next week we will begin the first Unit in Bridges.
We read First Day Jitters and discussed our first day feelings. We had a lot in common with friends sharing feelings of happiness, excitement, silliness, and nervousness. We read Have You Filled a Bucket Today? and talked about how to be a bucket filler. This will be an incentive we use in our classroom. Those following the rules and making good choices will earn a bucket and get to write their name on the bucket filler chart. This will give them a chance to win a prize once the chart is full!
We began discussing rules and PBIS. We read Officer Buckle and Gloria. We discussed classroom rules and signed our “Constitution” promising to follow our rules. We talked about appropriate voice levels throughout the school (0-4). We began filling our class marble jar...we’re working towards our first whole class reward! We are more than half full after 4 days! We also had our 1st fire drill. They did a great job getting lined up outside quickly and quietly. We enjoyed our Welcome Back Assembly. Mr. Francis reiterated our 4 pillars. We are…safe, kind, responsible, respectful. Our theme this year is “Be Legendary by Example.”
SEPTEMBER 5-8