September 25-29, 2017

Specials

Monday - 1

Tuesday - 2

Wednesday - 3

Thursday - 4

Friday - 5

*Reference the brochure you received on Welcome to Wellington Night to know what each day is for specials!*

Upcoming Events & Reminders
September 25-29 - Hearing Screenings
September 26 - KY Kids Day
September 26 - PTP Parent Meeting at 6pm
October 4 - First Grade Field Trip
October 5-6 - Fall Break
October 17 - Fall Pictures
October 20 - PTA Fall Festival
October 23-27 - Red Ribbon Week
October 27 - School is now IN session and Report Cards go home
November 10 - Tentative date for 1st grading period awards

Weekly Standards
I can read, write, and identify words with short o.
I can identify an asking sentence by its question mark and question words.
I can compare telling and asking sentences.
I can write to tell a story.
I can solve addition word problems within 10.
I can identify key details in a story.

Spelling Words
hop
top
log
hog
hot
lot

Sight Words

they
fun
make
too

Week in Review

It was Book Fair week! The kids loved every second of it. :) On weeks like this, you just have to "embrace the craziness." The kiddos were dying to get to the book fair - and I am so thankful to those who donated books from the fair to our classroom. Now we can enjoy the fair all year long! THANK YOU!

We had so much fun bringing our stuffed animals to school so that we could enjoy our "Teddy Bear Picnic" when other grades celebrated Grandparents Day. We wrote with our animals...

 and took them outside for a picnic!

At the end of the day, we read Corduroy and left our animals at school for a slumber party.

When we got to school the next morning, THEY HAD MOVED.

Those silly animals :)

When we weren't being amazed by our animals, we were working our way through identifying and retelling books from our new Wonders series.

Our EQ (Essential Question) for the week was: What makes a pet special?
The first book we read was:

In small group, we work together to identify key details and turn them into a story mountain.

 Our story mountain has a beginning, a middle, and an end! These kiddos were retelling a silly story called, "Who Needs Rooster?"

We also practiced as an entire class retelling a funny story about a pet dinosaur who wanted to come to school. You can tell by our key details that the teacher was mad at first, but she grew to like him. :)
Your first grader will be able to do all of this independently by the end of this week!

At the end of the week, we made our own special pet posters. We like to incorporate art into our learning whenever we can!

We listed allllll of the pets we learned about this week and chose which one was our personal favorite. The students then created a poster filled with labels and reasons why the pet was special (just like an illustrator and author would do for a real book!) These beautiful artworks are hanging in our hallway now...I couldn't resist!

The cool part about Wonders is that not only do our texts follow a major theme, but the words in the texts include ALL of our week's sight words AND words that match our phonics skill. This week, our phonics skill was "l blends." In my small groups, we used these awesome making words folders to build words with l blends. The kids beg to use them at the end of groups and they are very powerful for training our phonemic awareness. :)

Our language skill this past week was identifying telling sentences. Telling sentences have:

• capital letter at the beginning
• a period at the end
• a WHO
• and ACTION!

The kids applied their learning at the end of the week by creating a text message conversation with some telling sentences. They were cracking me up!

Math (all of the kids' favorite part of the day) was a continuation of developing our problem solving strategies.

We learned how to do "frog jumps" on the number line.

 And we also played BATTLE! to practice our addition facts. The kiddos were eating it up!

 We also like to use digital math tools. This week, we experimented with balancing the number scale. Eventually, we will begin balancing EQUATIONS! (That's right - algebra in first grade).

I hope you've had a  GREAT weekend. Here's to another great week!

September 18-22, 2017

Specials

Monday - 2

Tuesday - 3

Wednesday - 4

Thursday - 5

Friday - 6

*Reference the brochure you received on Welcome to Wellington Night to know what each day is for specials!*

Upcoming Events & Reminders
September 18-22 - Book Fair and Grandparents Lunches (more info soon)
*Our class goes to the Book Fair on Tuesday, Sept. 19
If you would like your child to purchase something from the book fair, please send in cash on Tuesday.

*Grandparents Day for 1st Grade is Wednesday, Sept. 20
Your child's grandparents are invited to join us in the classroom at 10:30 for a small craft before our lunch at 11:05.

*Teddy Bear Picnic is Thursday, Sept. 21
We will have a picnic outside on Thursday with our teddy bears! Your child is invited to bring a stuffed animal (it does not have to be a bear) to school. Please make sure that the animal can fit inside a child's backpack. Your child also has the option to leave his/her teddy bear at school for a stuffed animal slumber party. They tend to get a little mischievous when the kids aren't at school ;)

September 26 - KY Kids Day
October 5-6 - Fall Break
October 27 - School is now IN session

Weekly Standards
I can read, write, and identify words with l blends.
I can identify a complete sentence.
I can complete an incomplete sentence.
I can write to tell a story.
I can solve addition problems in many ways.
I can identify key details in a story.

Spelling Words

clap
clip
flip
slip
flag
plan

Sight Words

be
come
good
pull

Week in Review
This week was wild with our field trip! Here's a bit of what we were able to accomplish in the classroom.

We all got our BAT books (and fell in love immediately).

We talked about how sentences in English follow a certain order.

We wrote on the table (again!) to help us practice our spelling words. These charts are a GREAT way to help your child develop their phonics skills. At the top of the chart, we wrote a familiar word or spelling pattern. The child used these patterns to help spell the week's words.

For example, if the child heard me say, "Hit!" the child would use the chart to determine which word "hit" sounds like. The child then uses the word "it" to help them spell "hit!"

We also brainstormed words that were NOT going to be on our spelling test but could still fit in these patterns.

In math, we focused on addition strategies. Mrs. Carney doesn't want to see you using those fingers anymore! Use other strategies!

Manipulatives are a great strategy for developing concrete awareness in math.

We also rolled dice to create new equations that we solved by drawing pictures!

One of their favorites (and mine, too!) is counting on.

To count on, identify the larger number and count on by how much you are adding. 

We practiced with some playdoh smashing!

 Students made one large playdoh ball to represent "big number" to put in their brains.

 We SMASHED the large ball and tapped the remaining, smaller playdoh balls to help us count on to our answer.

Our last strategy of the week was the number line! Here's a GREAT way you can practice at home:

Build a number line and use a bouncy ball or softball to "hop" from number to number.

 OR (my personal favorite) create a number line on ziploc bags. Write the equation on the bag and use the slider to help you move from number to number!

This part of the week's post is focused on our field trip!
Thanks a BUNDLE to everyone who was able to help our trip in any way. Your kindness and generosity are what keep our classroom running!