February 23-27

Hello Families!  
I can hardly believe that we are finished with February! This is when the school year really begins to zoom by! Here is a sneak peek at what we've been up to in first grade and what's coming up:

The Spring Book Fair is coming! The fair is Tuesday, March 10th from 3pm-8pm in the Stormonth cafeteria. The Cake Walk will be held in the gym the same evening from 6-7pm. On March 2nd we'll begin a school-wide "Coin War!" It is a wonderful opportunity for kids to give a small donation to help us purchase additional books for our school. Donations can be brought in from March 2 - March 6. The classroom with the most donations will win an ice cream party!

Stormonth will be focusing on the Stormonth Way in the hallway as we have noticed that a lot of our friends (teachers even!) have been forgetting our "0" voices in the hall rule. This means that we should not be talking in our hallways. Ask your first grader why this is important. Our PBIS team came up with an acknowledgement for this expectation: the GOLDEN HALL PASS! One classroom from each grade level will receive the pass each week for demonstrating The Stormonth Way in our hallways. We would appreciate it if you would remind your first grader of the expectations. A problem time during our day is right after lunch before heading to recess, so if you would specifically focus the conversation around that time, it would be MUCH appreciated!

Our Jump Rope for Heart to benefit the American Heart Association was held this week, and what fun it was! Our specialists put together a fun-filled and health-filled 45 minutes during our special time. Mrs. Grimm-Nilsen even joined in on the fun! Thank you to everyone who participated in raising money for this wonderful event!

In math this week, we continued to work with solving and creating teen story problems. We did this with the unknown in various locations in our stories. Here are some examples of stories and the strategies we used to solve them.

I encourage you to spend time each day having your child practice his/her fact fluency. Again, there are numerous apps for you to practice this in a fun and engaging way.

On Friday we had the pleasure of attending 2nd grade's Character Fashion Show! What a fun time it was! We were given clues as to who the character was and then called out our guesses. We have done so much reading this year that we were pretty good at figuring out who our second graders were dressed as. They did a terrific job, and it was fun for us to imagine who we might dress up as next February!

 

 

 

Our first grade scientists discovered that the salt we thought had disappeared last week was actually still in the water even though we could no longer see it! After a week of evaporating, beautiful salt crystals were left behind! They were much bigger than the crystals we observed last week! Some of the crystals even had an "X" right in the center of them. It was pretty spectacular - almost like looking at snowflakes!

For this week's experiment, we observed sugar grains and sugar cubes and recorded our observations. We then had a dissolving race! Ask your first grader what they discovered!

 

In preparation for our upcoming field trip to the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center, we read Ivy & Bean. What a great story! The author, Annie Barrows, really helped us get to know Ivy and Bean. Ask your first grader to tell you what kind of a person each girl is and what these characters did/said in the story that supports their response. We can't wait to see Ivy & Bean on the stage! We're especially curious to see if Bean will throw real live worms in Nancy's face!

 We continue our tricky words unit during reader's workshop, and our chart of strategies grows and grows! We have so many strategies from which to choose, and it has been great having our readers share their strategies with the whole class and with their partners! Again, with all these strategies we always ask ourselves: Does it look right? Does it sound right? Does it make sense? When I got to the end of one of our read-alouds this week, I realized I was a bit unsure as to which character was which at the  end of the story. Instead of just choosing a new book next, I knew that I had to go back and read the book again and really pay attention to the characters as well as each part of the story as I read. The first graders helped me along, and after the second read I could demonstrate my understanding, and it made the book so much more enjoyable!

During writer's workshop this week we continued to work on our reviews. I have noticed that revising has taken center stage with our writers. They have really grown in this area! Instead of ending a piece and saying, "OK, that one's done," they are going back to old pieces each time we learn a new strategy that review writers use to convince their readers and adding them! It's so fun to see! 

That was our busy, busy week!

Mark your calendars:

March 2: First graders will be celebrating Dr. Seuss' Birthday and Read Across America by wearing red and white and  bringing in their favorite book and a stuffed animal.    

     March 9: Ivy and Bean play at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center   

March 10: Book Fair/Cake Walk Event

          March 28: Spring Break begins      

Thank you for stopping by the blog!

Michelle Mullen