Aug. 29-Sept. 3, 2016

Specials

Monday - 6 (PE)

Tuesday - 1 (Art)

Wednesday - 2 (STEM)

Thursday - 3 (Technology)

Friday - 4 (Music)

Upcoming Events & Reminders
August 29 - 1st Grade Curriculum Night. 
September 5 - NO SCHOOL!
September 6 - PTA Family Night @ Chick Fil A in the mall
September 8 - Jon Agee Author Visit 
September 9-26 - PTA Bumblebee Fundraiser
September 14 - Field Trip to Evan's Orchard (More info soon!)
September 19-23 - Bookfair. 
September 21 - All Pro Dad's Breakfast 6:30-7:15am
September 22 - Tentative Grandparents Day Lunch
October 4 - PTA family Night @ Burger - Fi!

Useful Links
First Grade Curriculum Night: Click here to RSVP! :)

 Sign up for Remind texts with this link! 

Wish List items:

*magnetic tape (it looks like a tape dispenser but the tape is magnetic!)

Teacher's App of the Week

Here is a "teacher recommended" app that will help your first grader practice a skill that we are working on this week. 

Franklin's Friends of Ten is a free app that will help your first grader practice the ways to make 10 in a fun, engaging way!

Don't worry - IT'S FREE!!!

I'll be introducing this to the class sometime this week, too! :)

Kid-Friendly Objectives
I can choose a topic.
I can read, write, and identify short i words.
I can use capital letters.
I can retell a story.
I can make 10 in many ways.

Week in Review
Now that the official business is out of the way, let's get to the FUN STUFF!

We did it: our first 5 day week of first grade. Are you feeling it? I know I did come Saturday morning! We made SO much progress towards making our way into our normal routines. Here's a glimpse into our classroom. :)

We want to become better writers. Real authors practice writing every day - and we want to be real authors! One of our daily 5 choices is Work on Writing. The best part of Work on Writing is that it doesn't have to be done at your desk!

We also continued to practice Read to Self. We made it to OVER 15 MINUTES IN STAMINA!!!!!

We were able to make our Daily 5 choices (between work on writing and read to self) for the first time on Friday!

In Writer's Workshop, we learned the three steps to writing a story:

1. Choose a topic.

Here we are gluing our heart maps into the middle of our writing journals. We use these heart maps to keep our favorite topics close to our hearts!

2. Draw a picture. Kali was drawing a beautiful picture of a field trip she took in Kindergarten!

Step 3: Write it out! (We practiced this but we'll get more into it next week). 

We got our spelling dictionaries as one step to practicing COPS. Capitalization, Organization, Punctuation and Spelling are important to keep our writing from breaking the law!

Our vocabulary word to piggyback on respect from last week was kindness. Here are some of the texts we read to help us understand it more clearly.

Lily learned that sometimes, "Today wasn't a good day. Tomorrow will be better." 

We learned everyone has an invisible bucket above their heads! Huh?!?! Ask your first grader for more details :)

Here are some of the notes that were OVERFLOWING our class bucket.

This book introduced our first grade project. We each decorated a quilt square to show how we can be kind. It will be hanging up soon!

We learned the first two choices for Math Centers. These two girls are working on putting together a hundreds chart puzzle to help them practice counting to 120.

Groups at my table worked on ways to make 6, 7, and 8 with ten frames, cubes, and rekenreks.

(This shows 4+2=6).

Sometimes Mrs. Carney takes the picture too soon...

All of the kids wanted me to pass along how to make a rekenrek at home. They LOVED it!

-foam sheet

-2 pipe cleaners

-10 blue pony beads

-10 red pony beads

Put 5 of each color on each pipe cleaner. Poke it through the foam board, secure to the back. 

by the end of the week, we were cracking up at Spill the Beans!

(2+4 = 6)

Thank you SO much for all of your kind feedback on the blog. I hope it helps you have a clear picture of what we are working on each week in the classroom. Your first graders take so much pride in their work and learning and it is my pleasure to share it with you each week. :) 

Have a great week!!

Week of Aug. 22 - Aug. 29

Specials

Monday - 1 (Art)

Tuesday - 2 (STEM)

Wednesday - 3 (Technology)

Thursday - 4 (Library)

Friday - 5 (Music)

Upcoming Events & Reminders
August 24 - Our class will be taking the Reading portion of MAP at 8am on this date. Rest up on Tuesday night! :)
August 29 - 1st Grade Curriculum Night. 
September 5 - NO SCHOOL!

September 6 - PTA Family Night @ Chick Fil A in the mall
September 8 - Jon Agee Author Visit (You'll be receiving information regarding this in your blue folder)
September 14 - Field Trip to Evan's Orchard (More info soon!)
September 19-23 - Bookfair. Grandparents' Lunch will be during this week, too! Dates TBD
October 4 - PTA family Night @ Burger - Fi!

Useful Links
First Grade Curriculum Night: Click here to RSVP! :)

 Sign up for Remind texts with this link! 

Also, please consider completing the picture permission slip for me to include pictures of your child working hard in our classroom!

Wish List items:

*magnetic tape (it looks like a tape dispenser but the tape is magnetic!)

Kid-Friendly Objectives
I can write to tell a story.
I can read, write, and identify short o words.
I can check my sentences using COPS.
I can ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
I can make a number in many ways.

Week in Review
What another fun week in first grade! This week, we did a little bit of review in phonics! We started off with a review of short a word families (-at, -an, -am, -ap, -ag). 

We passed posters around our tables in a relay to see who could come up with the most words!

We warmed up our storytelling muscles with Show and Share this week. Your first graders practiced Speaking and Listening skills like introducing themselves, telling a story with details, and asking and answering questions about the stories they heard.

After each story, we had the opportunity to write about something we remembered hearing...on whiteboards!

 We learned the first option for Daily 5 this week: Read to Self.

 We learned the three ways to read a book because we keep the same books in our boxes for a whole week.

We practiced Read to Self every day to build our stamina. Our goal is to make it to 15 minutes and we are already up to 4:30!

We practiced the importance of think time with some more Think, Pair, Share. We are becoming experts at taking turns to speak. 

We practiced subtilizing in math this week to become more fluent with number recognition. We practiced finding numbers within number patterns, seeing a number and adding 1 more, and seeing a number and adding 2 more.

These two were using the masterful technique of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" to determine who goes first in the game...and who gets to write on the TABLE! 

 We celebrated a birthday girl with ice cream! :)

Our first grade vocabulary word was respect. We studied books like:

All of these texts helped us to have meaningful conversations about what is kindness and how we can show it to others. 

To help us gain a visual, I cut out a plain, simple heart. Everyone in the classroom had the opportunity to crumple, rip, stomp, do anything they want. Afterwards, I asked the class to help me make it look the way it did before we crumpled it. Obviously, we were unsuccessful. This is exactly what it is like in the classroom whenever others use mean or hateful language to another friend. We talked about how every time we use a mean word to another person, it causes a wrinkle in their heart. We can try to smooth it out and it will get a little bit better, but the damage will always be there. This is the heart we signed and hang in our classroom to remind us every day that "It's OK to be different."

Here are a few of our friends showing us which rule they believe is the most important at school!

Have a great week!!

Specials

Monday - 3 (Technology)

Tuesday - 4 (Library)

Wednesday - 5 (Music)

Thursday - 6 (P.E.)

Friday - NO SCHOOL!!!

Upcoming Events & Reminders
August 18 - PTA Social at Shilitoh Park from 6-7:30pm. Please return your RSVP if you are interested in coming so PTA can best prepare for you and your family!
August 19 - NO SCHOOL! 
August 29 - 1st Grade Curriculum Night (More info on times coming soon)
September 5 - NO SCHOOL!
September 6 - PTA Family Night @ Chick Fil A in the mall

If you have not already done so, please sign up for the Remind notifications. 
Send a text to 81010 with the message @acarney. 

Also, please consider completing the picture permission slip for me to include pictures of your child working hard in our classroom!

Wish List items:

*magnetic tape (it looks like a tape dispenser but the tape is magnetic!)

*any old, used iPods/iPhones with cameras that your family is no longer using. We would love to add these to our tech collection to incorporate some more listening activities during Daily 5! 

Kid-Friendly Objectives
I can tell a story.
I can read, write, and identify short a words.
I can sort common nouns.
I can ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
I can talk about numbers.

Week in Review
Mrs. Strange did it again...she gave me the BEST group of first graders at Wellington. I am so excited to spend this school year getting to know your first graders. They are so kind and patient (and smart, to boot!). At the end of the week, we voted on a class name and it is absolutely perfect: 1st Grade Rock Stars.
Here's a recap of my crazy fast week with your Rock Stars!

The Wellington school year begins every year with an assembly on the first day of school. All Kindergarteners and First Graders listened to Mrs. Strange and Mrs. Green about some exciting new things happening at Wellington this year! For some of our first graders, this was their first time seeing Mrs. Strange and some of our Specials teachers, too!

The first day is always a whirlwind but we always make time for a special book.
One of our first graders read my mind and brought it in for us to read.

It tells a story of a girl named Sarah who does NOT want to go to school. Read the book (or ask your first grader) about the surprise ending. :)

When we were finished, we talked about what it means to have "jitters." We read a poem that introduced us to Jitter Juice. It is SO easy to make:

Fill a cup with Sprite (or any lemon-lime soda), add a spoonful of pink lemonade mix and a spoonful of sprinkles. Stir and watch it bubble to the top!

Just look at their concentration!

Everyone begged for the recipe to be sent home. :)

Dismissal can bring a lot of craziness when we're learning new procedures so we also graphed how we go home to make sure everyone gets there safely.

We are filled to the brim with bus riders this year! :)

To practice the importance of "think time" before answering a question, we played "Think, Pair, Share." This is a simple game that helps us practice thinking about our answer, greeting someone correctly, and taking turns to talk.

We'll keep practicing our handshakes but I was SO proud of our friends when they even remembered to start with, "Hi, my name is ___" the next day! 

Because we spent so much time talking about what I want/need our classroom to look like and sound like, they decided it was time to let me know what THEY want. Here's what they came up with :)

And here are some of the things I used to tell them about me! Maybe your first grader can help explain a few of them!

Oh my goodness. I have never been more impressed with beginning of the year first graders than I was on Friday. We kicked off our writing unit, and concluded our first week, with Show and Share. Corban did an AMAZING job sharing his story about the beach. I am so excited to hear more stories from our class this coming week!

Here's to another great week! :)