You're here! You're here! You're finally here!

I am SO happy to have your first grader in my class for the 2017-2018 school year! This blog is going to be the central hub of EVERYTHING that goes on this school year! Now that your'e here, I wanted to take a few moments to introduce myself.

My name is Amanda Carney and this is my fourth year here at Wellington Elementary. I have taught Kindergarten for one year and this will be my third year as a 1st grade teacher. I live in Versailles with my husband, James, and my puppy, Max. (Trust me, your kid will know allllll about Max before the year is over!)

I graduated from Transylvania University (Go Pioneers!) and will be finished with my Masters from University of the Cumberlands in the second week of school (Woohoo!)

I honestly believe that first grade is the best because you will see your first grader TAKE OFF in reading, writing, and math this year...without them even knowing it because it's just so stinkin' FUN!

Our Schedule

Here's what you need to know:

Lunch - 11:05-11:30

Specials -11:30-12:25

Recess - 1:00-1:20

Language Arts is in the morning, Math is in the afternoon.

Specials Rotation
*These are our specials, however, it is possible this rotation will change prior to the first day of school*

1 - Library

2 - Music

3 - PE

4 - Art

5 - STEM

6 - Technology

Things to Know

Please use the links at the sidebar, or the links below, to complete 3 quick forms for me.

The Volunteer Application is a mandatory form that you must complete in order to volunteer in the building. Please complete this form ASAP!

The Picture Permission Slip is a quick form that lets me know whether I have your permission to take and post pictures of your child on the classroom blog. If you scroll through this blog, you'll see that I LOVE to post pictures of the fun things we do in class each week. 

The Classroom Volunteer Sign-Up Form is a form to let me know in what capacity you would like to help in the classroom. This is not a way for me to trick you into coming in every week! This is just for me to know who to call on if I find myself needing a helping hand at some point :)

You will receive SO much more information at our Welcome to Wellington Night on August 10 at Wellington Elementary.  You are welcome to come to my classroom with your school supplies any time from 11am-1pm and 5-7pm. 

Here's to a great school year!

May 15-19, 2017

Specials

Monday - Fun Day!

Tuesday - 3

Wednesday -4

Thursday - 5

Friday - 6

Upcoming Events & Reminders

May 15 - Fun Day (make sure to bring water, wear tennis shoes, and apply sunscreen!)
May 16 - Student Led Conferences 3:30-5pm
****PLEASE NOTE THE TIME CHANGE.***

May 17 - Wellington Talent Show
May 19 - Last Day of School, Awards, and First Grade Picnic

Week in Review
What a busy week we just wrapped up! Between the zoo trip, chorus performances, Orange Leaf, and the musical, I sure was ready for the nap I took this afternoon. We can see the finish line to summer and you and your first grader have worked your TAILS off. You are so deserving of the coming break.

Today's post will be lacking in zoo pictures in order to keep some of the week's memories special for our end of year video. I cannot wait to share with you the sweet memories that your child has helped our classroom make since August. 

Speaking of memories..I hope you had as much fun making these habitats as we did sharing them with our classmates. I was BLOWN AWAY by the work your first graders did!
Their creativity truly came through. :)

We continued our work with our animals and poetry by writing SHAPE POEMS! These are always my favorite. :)

And, of course, we celebrated sharing our hard work after our Musical performance! (Don't worry - oodles of pictures to come in our video!!)

Finally, THANK YOU for spoiling me rotten throughout our Teacher Appreciation Week!!!

May 8-12, 2017

Specials

Monday - 4

Tuesday - 5

Wednesday -6

Thursday - 1

Friday - 2

Upcoming Events & Reminders
May 9 - Family Fun Night at Orange Leaf
**FIRST GRADE TO CINCINNATI ZOO**
May 11 - First Grade Musical Performance (We will also be sharing our dioramas with you immediately following the performance!)
May 12 - PJ Day

May 15 - Fun Day (make sure to bring water, wear tennis shoes, and apply sunscreen!)
May 16 - Student Led Conferences 3-5pm

May 17 - Wellington Talent Show
May 19 - Last Day of School, Awards, and First Grade Picnic

Week in Review
TEN. MORE. DAYS. Ahh!!
Time has flown by this year with your sweet first graders. You better believe I'm going to be squeezing them extra tight over the next 2 weeks!
Here's a glimpse into what we've been doing this week.
We started the week with our K-PREP Parade!

In Math, we were focused on Calendars and understanding how they work.

In reading, we focused on poetry! Check out some of these poems that your students wrote!

"When I feel warm. I sweat like. A rainbow soo hot! When I am warm so much!"

Yes, we've been exploring with fun punctuation in poetry, too!

 "When I see a red gate I get surprised when. I see a red gate I get happy."

 "When I am outside I. am. cold! When I am outside I hear the sound of the whistles of the leaves. When I am outside I could play on the swing all day. When I am outside I feel happy. I <3 outside."

 "When I see a SPIDER!!! I will RUN if it is big I run so fast I will HIDE!"

 "When I hear trains I am TIRED! When I hear trains I am closing the EARS!" When I hear trains I am so mad!"

"When I feel the sun, it makes me HAPPY. The sun is so hot. When I go inside my mom cooks hot cakes. When I get hot I go to my bedroom."

We also built poetry with our friends using only the words I gave them.

See you soon!

May 1-5, 2017

Specials

Monday - 5

Tuesday - 6

Wednesday -1

Thursday - 2

Friday - 3

Upcoming Events & Reminders
May 2-19 - K-PREP Testing Window. This means our schedule will be different during this time.
May 5 - Habitat Diorama due
May 9 - Family Fun Night at Orange Leaf
**FIRST GRADE TO CINCINNATI ZOO**
May 11 - First Grade Musical Performance (I have been told 5:30 and 6pm so I will let you know the official time as soon as I confirm it).

May 15 - Fun Day (make sure to bring water, wear tennis shoes, and apply sunscreen!)
May 16 - Student Led Conferences 3-5pm

May 17 - Wellington Talent Show
May 19 - Last Day of School, Awards, and First Grade Picnic

Spelling List

No more spelling words the rest of the year!

Kid-Friendly Objectives
I can read, write, and identify words with oo (as in hook and book).
I can write an informational piece about a topic.
I can use the articles "a" and "an" correctly in a sentence.
I can read poetry.
I can read a calendar.

Classroom Donations
THANK YOU to anyone who has sent in donations. You are so very appreciated!!

Week in Review
We've made it to 15 more days until Summer Break! Your kids have some mixed emotions on whether they are ready for the break but I know we have lots of fun things planned over the next 3 weeks. :)
One of those fun things that first graders get to do is count MONEY!

First, we practiced simply identifying the coins and their values.

 Then, we practiced counting groups of coins. This is such a tough skill not because it requires us to memorize the coin values but because we have to go from counting by 25s, to 10s, to 5s, to 1s. Of course, they did it like champs. :)

We played a trading game where the kids raced to be the first one to make a dollar from 100 cents.

 We had fun tossing silly erasers into cupcake liners with various coin amounts that told us exactly which amount to make with the FEWEST amount of coins.

 We also practiced creating receipts and adding up totals. Oh my GOODNESS this is a tough skill!

 But we loved it because it included donuts and hot chocolate :)

In phonics, we got to use some of the chalk donations to practice our spelling words outside!

 Of course, we earned free drawing time afterwards. Cracking me up :-P

We practiced stretching out sentences using details and conjunctions. By the end of the week, we were writing compound sentences!

On Thursday, we had to come up with some alternate plans due to our rescheduling of our field trip. Because we had been studying using photographs in Reading and writing compound sentences in Language, we combined both of these skills! 
This activity was such a great lesson in teamwork and collaboration. The students were experts of their own exhibits at the zoo! Each group had a collection of photographs that could be organized any way they wanted on their poster.

 The teams worked together to decide what organization made the most sense for their exhibit.

Next, teammates were asked to write COMPOUND SENTENCES to teach us what information the photographs can give us about their exhibit.

On Friday, we taught the class about our exhibits. Talk about a proud teacher moment. :)

Each child read their information aloud.

Finally, the group had to come up with one "Focus Question" to ask the class. The questions were so thoughtful and the students were always able to nail the answers. I have lots of future teachers on my hands. :-P

Here's to another fabulous week!