Having a HOOT in Mrs. Mullen's First Grade!

Friday, February 17, 2017

February 13-17

Hello Families!
Love is in the air! Yes, we celebrated Valentine's Day on Tuesday, and on Wednesday we wrote about why our hearts are FULL! Thanks to everyone who was able to donate items for our celebration. We had such a great time during our three rotations which included...

Valentine's Day Games exploring addition and place value.

Cookie Decorating

Cookie EATING!

Valentine Delivery

and...

Valentine jokes in between each rotation read by our sweet friend David!

I'm so excited for you to read their Valentine writing when you come for conferences in a few weeks.

We began book reviews during Writers' Workshop and made it very purposeful by taking part in North Shore Library's Winter Reading Challenge! WOW! Your reviewers really rose to the occasion and used all they know about opinion writing to write AMAZING reviews of some of their favorite books!

One of our shared reading activities this week was a Valentine's Day poem to add to our poetry notebooks.

We continued with handwriting as well, and I'm happy to see many of our friends transferring this neat handwriting to their writing during the day!

During science this week, we explored wheat seeds. First we observed the seeds very carefully. Ask your first grader what s/he noticed about their wheat seed.

We had to be very patient as we carefully placed a strip of super-absorbent towel in a straw. Ask your first grader WHY we did this.

Next, we dropped our wheat seed down into the straw. We had to be very careful about how we did this. Ask your first grader how s/he knew which was the right way to put the seed in the straw. Ask your first grader why there is a line on our straws.

This week we earned our last chain link which earned us an extra recess on Friday afternoon. Mother Nature sure cooperated with us!

A reminder that Box Tops are being collected through the 21st. Thank you to everyone who has brought some in!

A reminder as well that our conference sign up is live! Please be sure to visit the Stormonth website to sign up for conferences if you haven't already done so.

http://www.foxbay.k12.wi.us/els/

Next Monday is a staff development day, so I will see everyone on Tuesday!

Until then...

Michelle

Mark Your Calendars!

Monday, February 20: NO SCHOOL/Teacher In-Service Day

Wednesday, February 22: Early Release Day

Friday, February 24: First Grade's Bedtime Story Day! Bring a favorite book, a stuffed animal AND wear your jammies! A note was sent home Friday about this exciting day!

Monday, March 6th: Report Cards some home. Please remember to sign and return the manilla envelope. Thank you!

Wednesday, March 8: Early Release Day

Parent-Teacher Conferences: 3-6:30PM

*Monday, March 13th: JUMP ROPE FOR HEART!

*This is the corrected date.

Thursday, March 16th: Parent-Teacher Conferences 4:30-8:00PM

Wednesday, March 22: Early Release Day

Parent-Teacher Conferences 3-6:30PM

Thursday, March 23: Musical (2pm & 6:30pm)

Monday, March 27-Friday, March 31: Spring Break

Wednesday, April 12: Early Release Day

Friday, April 14: NO SCHOOL

Monday, April 17: NO SCHOOL/Teacher In-Service

Wednesday, April 26: Early Release Day

Wednesday, May 10: Early Release Day

Wednesday, May 24: Early release Day

Monday, May 29: NO SCHOOL

Tuesday, June 6th: SAVE THE DATE!!!

Annual Family Picnic! 11:30-12:40

Thursday, June 8: Last day of First Grade!

See you later, Second Grader!

Monday, February 13, 2017

February 6-10

Hello Families!
HAPPY 100th DAY! Yes, Monday was our 100th day of first grade! It's hard to believe that there are less than 80 days left. We marked the special occasion with crowns, certificates, 100th day books, a 100th day poem, and morning Brain Bins devoted to 100!

In Writers' Workshop we have moved on to writing reviews, and this week we learned about writing interesting introductions and catchy conclusions. Ask your first grader what they should include in each of these. Also check in with them on what they've been writing reviews about! We've had quite a nice range of reviews from water parks to American Girl Dolls, restaurants, movies, games, and more! On Wednesday, we worked with a partner to give each other "Writing Checkups." Ask your first grader about this!

During Readers' Workshop this week we've been focusing on adding more tools to our tool boxes of strategies we can use to help us when we come to tricky words. We looked again at how we can slow down to break up long words into parts that we know, we practiced using words we know to help us solve words we don't know, and we tried many different ways to sound out words. We also focused on our fluency. With a new bend in our unit came a new anchor chart: Tools for Understanding our Books. This new bend will focus on strengthening our strategies to support comprehension as our books are getting trickier and trickier!

In Math Workshop we completed unit 4 and began our new unit: Place Value Situations. A new homework packet will be sent home on Monday. As a reminder, please do not go ahead of where we are in our learning. Plan on completing 2-3 homework pages per week.

On Friday morning we went to see second grade's Character Parade. Ask your first grader all about this annual event which they will take part in next year!

In Science we began our new unit of study: Plants & Animals. We planted rye grass and alfalfa seeds and predicted what will happen. We can't wait to get back to school on Monday to see what has grown in our cups!

Next Tuesday we'll celebrate Valentine's Day. Thanks so much to everyone who signed up to bring items for our special celebration! You guys are QUICK!