Mrs. Carney's Firsties: January 19-22, 2016

Specials
Monday - No school!
Tuesday - 2
Wednesday - 3
Thursday - 4
Friday - 5

Upcoming Events
January 19 - PTA Meeting at 6:30
January 29 - 2nd 9 weeks Recognitions at 10AM **I will be contacting you by the end of this week if your first grader will be receiving an award for the 2nd 9 weeks.**
January 21 will be a "Save the Penguins" day in my classroom. If you are able, please consider signing up to donate a few items to make this event a success in the classroom. :)
Click here ---> Save the Penguins Volunteer Spot

Kid-Friendly Objectives
I can read, write, and identify words with the i_e spelling pattern.
I can make connections between two informational texts.
I can organize verbs by their shades of meaning.
I can write to share information about penguins.
I can count, write, and read numbers to 120.
I can identify 10 more and/or 10 less of a given number, up to 120.

Spelling List
Wow! Your kiddos rocked out their first spelling test that included a sentence. Please continue to practice writing your spelling words in sentences to prepare for this week's test, too!

List A (Purple Cats, Green Frogs)
fire
nice
wife
dive
bike
pile
fine
time
shine
drive

List B (Blue Dogs, Yellow Ducks)
life
drive
shine
bride
quite
write
smile
stripe
invite
admire

Week in Review!
I have been bragging about this class to everyone I meet. It is almost as if the winter break transformed your first graders into soon-to-be fifth graders! They have heard me sing their praises every day about the ways in which they are learning to problem solve, verbalize their thinking, and really begin to take care of one another. Below, you'll find pictures that show you some of the ways they've provided me with bragging rights :)
**Some of your kiddos have asked how they can have their pictures on the blog. Please don't forget that I can only post these pictures with your permission. If you are interested in seeing your kiddo at work, please sign the picture permission slip in the righthand column. Thank you!**

Wellington introduced VIP Students for the first time in its history this week! Each week, every K-5 teacher at Wellington selects two students from his or her classroom who go above and beyond expectations. Here are some of the behaviors that Carney's Firsties thought we should see from our VIPs:

(See what I'm talking about when I say they're acting like soon-to-be fifth graders? Check out those vocabulary words!)

The two VIPs get a slew of benefits. In my classroom, they get to alternate being line leaders and paper passers, they get to wear their VIP badges everywhere, sign their autograph to hang on the classroom door, use special tools that ONLY VIPs have access to, get a special plaque that remains at their desks, AND they get to eat at the Hard Work Cafe on Wellington's stage with a friend on Friday. Phew. That's a lot to take in.

We were SO PROUD of Rachel and Wyatt for becoming our class's first VIPs in the HISTORY of Wellington!!!

You should have heard the squeals when our VIPs and their chosen friends learned the Hard Work Cafe allows you to WRITE ON THE TABLES at lunch!!!

Way to go, Wyatt and Rachel! I am so proud of you!

Last week, we began our unit of research on penguins. This week, we began taking notes on specific types of penguins. We researched King, Emperor, Gentoo, and Chinstrap penguins this week.

We learned Emperor Penguins are the largest penguins, standing at 4 feet tall! Of COURSE we had to compare ourselves. Look at that integration of Math into Reading :)

This took us through a fun evolution of measuring penguins. Initially, our chart was by our cubbies so we could compare ourselves. We then discovered Gentoo Penguins were shorter than Emperor Penguins. Naturally, we wanted to compare their heights by marking how tall Gentoo Penguins were. By the end of the week, we were so excited about measuring the different types of penguins that we opted to put our rulers in the hallway for all of Wellington to use. You wouldn't believe the number of times we heard, "Oh wow! I'm as tall as an Emperor Penguin!" or, "Look how tiny the Chinstrap Penguin is!" outside our door.

We were all extremely invested in our research. It's a good thing we can handle note taking while also lounging around. :)

We also had our own experience of being a penguin this week when one of our kiddos shouted, "MRS. CARNEY! THERE'S A BLIZZARD OUTSIDE!" Being the mature first graders we are, we were able to set the timer and give ourselves a brain break to watch the magic outside our window before getting right back to work.

We continued our work with penguins by using various informational texts to help us practice identifying text features.

We discovered that verb "tense" does not mean tents full of verbs. Instead, we practiced writing and identifying verbs with regular verb tenses (-ed, -ing, and will).

Oh my goodness, math was FUN this week! We had an absolute blast playing with alligator mouths and Base 10 blocks. There are so many fun ways for your kiddos to practice place value and comparing numbers.

Here are two of our first graders comparing their numbers with "swishes" (tens) and "thunks" (ones. After they compared their numbers, they were able to write complete sentences to tell me which was greater than and which was less than.

Look at that focus!

Later in the week, we discovered Mrs. Carney's fancy gems. (Also known as floral decorations from the Dollar Tree :) ). We dropped two gems onto a 120 chart, built each number with Base 10 blocks, then decided which number the alligator wanted to eat. After all of that hard work, we had to tell Mrs. Carney our number sentence (such as 22 is less than 87).

We practiced inputting numbers into sentences to make them true. For example, this guy's working on making every sentence say, "___ is less than ___." He really had to think about how to compare his numbers to make these sentences true!