March 27-31, 2017

Specials

Monday - 3

Tuesday - 4

Wednesday -5

Thursday - 6

Friday - 1

Upcoming Events & Reminders
April 3-7 - SPRING BREAK!
April 19 - All Pro Dad's Breakfast
April 24-28 Book Fair
April 27 - 1st grade to Cincinnati Zoo!
If you are interested in chaperoning, please make sure your background check and volunteer forms are complete! 
April 27 - Celebrate the Arts Night
April 29 - PTA Carnival 2-7pm
May 2-19 - K-PREP Testing Window. This means our schedule will be different during this time.

Spelling List

LIST A

my
try
fly
shy
baby
lady
mommy
sleepy

LIST B

buy
why
sly
reply
crazy
navy
lazy
daddy

Sight Words
Beginning this week, I will begin identifying five sight words for you to practice reading and writing at home each week. I will be choosing 2 of these words to put on our spelling test.

number
what
could
said
here

Kid-Friendly Objectives
I can read, write, and identify words with y as a vowel.
I can write to tell a fictional story.
I can partition shapes into halves and fourths.
I can use illustrations in a text to talk about characters, settings, and events.
I can read and correctly use prepositions in a sentence.

Classroom Donations
-Do you have any gently used books at home (any level) that you are no longer using?
We would LOVE to add some more to our library. We are always looking for more chapter books and picture books :)
-Dry Erase markers
-Stickers
-Post-its

Week in Review
We're starting out with math this week!
This week was all about attributes. To begin, we talked about the attributes of BUTTONS! We read a Frog and Toad book called The Lost Button.

 We sorted my buttons by their attributes.

 Then we wrote about it (I LOVE incorporating writing into mathematics).

 The next day, we sorted our pattern blocks by THEIR attributes.

 We had fun playing "Guess my Attribute." The kids selected 3 shapes and we had to use logic to figure out the attribute used to group those shapes together. Can you guess Apollo's attribute?

 This game creates such great conversation!

When we were finished, we got to compose shapes with our pattern blocks. One sneaky friend helped me make a person...then she insisted they dab. Oh dear.

 We composed shapes by playing Fill My Shape.

 We also problem solved to figure out how many triangles it takes to make a rhombus, trapezoid, hexagon, etc.

Check out that concentration!

 At the end of the week, we wrote about attributes again. This time, we were creating riddles!

 Friday, we used those riddles to help us construct shapes with popsicle sticks and velcro!

 Check out that hexagon!

 These kiddos got a kick out of their circles...if you couldn't tell.

We had great conversations about our comprehension skill: using the illustrations to give us details.

 We had a blast with compound construction this week. We constructed compound words by collaborating to complete puzzles, cup stacks, and matching Easter eggs. The kids had so much fun!

There are 239487 million more pictures that I am keeping in my pocket for our end of the year video. :)

I hope you have a great week!

Hoodwinked permission slip!

Please click the link below to give your child permission to watch Hoodwinked with us!

Hoodwinked Permission Slip

March 20-24, 2017

Specials

Monday - 4

Tuesday - 5

Wednesday -6

Thursday - 1

Friday - 2

Upcoming Events & Reminders
March 24 - Report Cards go home
AND Book orders are due!
April 3-7 - SPRING BREAK!
April 21 - All Pro Dad's Breakfast
April 24-28 Book Fair
April 27 - 1st grade to Cincinnati Zoo!
If you are interested in chaperoning, please make sure your background check and volunteer forms are complete! 
April 27 - Celebrate the Arts Night
April 29 - PTA Carnival 2-7pm
May 2-19 - K-PREP Testing Window. This means our schedule will be different during this time.

Spelling List

LIST A

fern
germ
burn
dirt
shirt
turn
third
purse

LIST B

verb
verse
chirp
nurse
skirt
church
purse
serve

Sight Words
Beginning this week, I will begin identifying five sight words for you to practice reading and writing at home each week. I will be choosing 2 of these words to put on our spelling test.

there
use
an
each
which

Kid-Friendly Objectives
I can read, write, and identify words with -ir, -er, -ur.
I can write to tell a fictional story.
I can identify and describe common 2-d shapes and their attributes.
I can use illustrations in a text to talk about characters, settings, and events.
I can read and correctly use compound words in a sentence.

Classroom Donations
-Do you have any gently used books at home (any level) that you are no longer using?
We would LOVE to add some more to our library. We are always looking for more chapter books and picture books :)
-Dry Erase markers
-Stickers
-Post-its

Week in Review
Thank you to everyone for your extended patience while I was out sick this week. I apologize for any difficulties in reaching me. It was hectic, to say the least.
Consequently, there are only a few pictures for this week but I am so glad to be well enough to 
share them with you!

This time of the year is so special because so many kids begin to really TAKE OFF! I came back to school on Tuesday, probably too soon, in retrospect. Because I was still not feeling up to snuff, I was able to ask sweet Madeline to read our story for the day.

You would not BELIEVE how engaged the students were. I am beyond lucky to have a class full of so many kind souls who did not even question why our story was read aloud by a peer and not their teacher. Instead, they gave her more respect than they probably even give to me while I read! (not complaining - that is so awesome!)

The story she read for us was a version of the familiar fairy tale, Little Red Riding Hood.

Later in the week, we read 

All of this helped us to make some key comparisons in the experiences of the characters in each text.

We were also able to use these stories to have some great conversations about our fictional narratives! Some of our focuses this week were on being daring spellers, adding dialogue, and SHOWING details to our readers, not telling.

Can you believe these are some of the words that I found our FIRST GRADERS using in their stories?! Our pieces will be completed at the end of this week and you will be amazed with the final product. 

Our language skill this week was all about commas. We had conversations about correct and incorrect use of commas. 

We also worked in groups to build sentences and place the commas correctly.

In math, we continued with double digit subtraction (and listened while our friends taught us their strategies!)

 We also completed this SUPER number talk. This is a fun practice that we complete most days after recess. Number talks are a way for students to use mental math and EXPLAIN how they solved a problem to their peers. In this particular example, the students were completing target practice. The challenge was to use the numbers in the wheel to make the target number: 50. The examples on the board are the ways students explained their mental problem solving. WOW!!!

In our small groups, we did some riddle solving on Friday in our St. Patrick's day garb. Some of the kids asked where the leprechaun was this year but I think he might have been feeling under the weather...

Have a great and HEALTHY week!