October 17-21

Monster Bash 2016! Those two cuties on the right are my twins!

And here they are close up!

Hello Families!
I hope many of you were able to come out for the Monster Bash! I was here for the first hour handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters, and it was a blast!

Here's a sneak peek at our week:

This week during our morning Brain Bins, one of our activities was decorating our "tree cookies" from the Retzer Nature Center. We turned them into beautiful necklaces!

In Writers' Workshop this week we tried out craft moves that we noticed George McClements do in Night of the Veggie Monster. We then explored other favorite books to see if we noticed other craft moves that we'd like to try in our writing. We discovered that we can learn A LOT about writing our own books from books that we love! 

Noticing what Mo Willems does in his Elephant & Piggie books.

Mo Willems also wrote the Knuffle Bunny books. He used more interesting craft moves in those books, too!

We found craft moves we'd like to try in Ted Arnold's Fly Guy series.

Pete the Cat author James Dean does many things in his writing to keep his reader interested!

POP OUT words are a class favorite!

We then selected our most special piece to revise and edit for next week's publishing party. Here we are making two piles: books that are ready to be published and books that aren't...

During our editing process, we learned all about trying a word three ways on our dry erase boards. Each time we write the word, we try to listen harder for each sound that we hear: 

In Reader's Workshop this week, we continued our focus on Good Reader Habits. We learned that readers don't give up; they try, try again! We paid special attention to vowels in tricky words and tried vowel sounds two different ways - short and long sounds. We also looked at the soft and hard sounds that c and g make. 

Partner readers learned that they can introduce their books to each other with a sneak peek...

and they learned not to tell their partner what the tricky words are. Instead, they should help them solve them by suggesting strategies! 

Partners give book introductions!

Finally, we talked about how, just like we do when we read independently, partners can do something at the end of their books: retell, reread, read a favorite part, talk about a connection to the book, etc. 

In Math Workshop this week we did a lot of work with representing and solving addition story problems. We also learned that it's much faster to COUNT ON rather than COUNT ALL when solving an addition equation. Have your mathematician show you what this means by solving this equation: 2 + 7 = ___

We had our first Star of the Week!

Sharing a special talent!

Sharing a photograph and a story!

In Science Lab this week, we learned more about air; this time through an investigation about parachutes! We became engineers and built our own parachutes.

After building our parachutes, we tried them out in our classroom...

in the hallway off the balcony...

and outside!

Ask your engineer what s/he learned about how parachutes use air. New vocabulary words:

parachute

push

wind

air resistance

Next week we'll continue to ready our books for our publishing party, Mrs. French will join us for guidance on Wednesday, and Friday will be our parade and celebration.

Until then...

Michelle Mullen

Star of the Week Schedule

Solveig – October 24^th - 28^th

Athena – October 31^st – November 4^th

Ben – November 7^th-11^th

Lexi – November 14^th- 18^th

David - November 28- December 2^nd  

Madelyn – December 5^th-9^th

Cameron - December 12^th-16^th

Giselle - January 9^th-13^th

Oscar – January 23^rd - 27^th

Alex P. – January 30^th- February 3^rd

Evy – February 6^th -10^th

Josh – February 13^th-17^th

Eleonore – February 27^th- March 3^rd   

Darius – March 6^th-10^th

Alex M. – March 13^th-17^th

Brayden – March 20th-24th

Mark Your Calendars!

Wednesday, October 26: Early Release

Conferences: 3-6:30pm

Thursday, October 27: Conferences 4:30-8:00pm

Friday, October 28: Halloween Parade & Celebration

Tuesday, November 8th: Picture Retake Day

Tuesday, November 22: Music Concert (Last Names A-M at 10am/Last Names N-Z at 2pm)

Wednesday, November 23: Early Release Day

Monday, December 5: Report Cards Come Home

Wednesday, December 14: Early Release Day

Friday, December 23-Monday, January 2: Winter Break

Wednesday, January 11: Early Release Day

Monday, January 16: NO SCHOOL

Wednesday, February 8: Early Release Day

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

Wednesday, March 8: Early Release Day

Wednesday, March 22: Early Release Day

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

Thursday, June 8: Last day of First Grade! 

See you later, Second Grader!

October 10-14

Hello Families!

It was another short week, but we managed to get a lot accomplished! Here's a sneak peek...

 

 On Monday morning, Firefighter John from the North Shore Fire Department joined us. We learned all about fire safety, and he left behind special bags with scrapbooks and Sparky dogs for us to take home as part of our Star of the Week program! Information about that was sent home on Friday. If your child's Star Week doesn't work for you, please work with another family to make a switch. Also, please hold onto the paperwork as they won't receive it a second time during their week. Thank you! 

Here's a letter we wrote to Firefighter John!

During Writers' Workshop this week, we used our editing and revising checklists to fix and fancy up one of our small moment books. We then moved into our third bend of the unit and learned about the craft moves of our mentor author George McClements. We learned about ellipses, writing exact actions, and POP OUT words! Ask your writer to tell you why authors use each of these craft moves. Also ask your first grader if s/he gave one of these moves a try in his/her writing this week. 

 

During Readers' Workshop we talked about dropping bad habits and picking up good habits. Ask your reader to tell you about these bad habits: The Mumble, The Freeze, The Tell Me and The Blooper! What are some strategies they can use instead?

 

We also talked about how readers look at all the parts of tricky words AND think about what would make sense in order to solve them. Finally, we talked about how readers double check their reading. We think to ourselves: Does it look right? Does it sound right? Does it make sense?

In Math Workshop this week, we completed our unit 1 assessment. I'll be sharing this with you during conferences. We then spent two days in math rotations which consisted of Dreambox, Ten Frame Top It, Bump +1, Bump +2, and we learned a new game: I "Sea" Ten! 

We revisited our Science Notebooks this week by thinking again about our air investigation last week. We reviewed our vocabulary from this lesson (air, gas, move, blow, and matter). We then worked together to complete sentences with missing vocabulary words, and finally wrote these words in our alphaboxes. Our goal is that our scientists begin using these words correctly while speaking and in their writing. 

During Word Work, we practiced our new "snap" or word wall words with Rainbow Writing and Roll and Write. We also found some of our new snap words in a poem called Little Spider which we added to our poetry notebooks. 

Next week's word wall words: 

in

so

we

it

and

Your child should be able to read and spell these words independently. 

Thanks to everyone who was able to sign up for items for our Halloween celebration on October 28th! Wow - you all are quick! I'll be looking for classroom volunteers as well. We'll need you here right after lunch at 12:50 to help kiddos get into costumes. Ideally, we'll begin our four rotations at 1pm. We'll have about 12 minutes per rotation, then we'll head to art. I think we'll plan to eat our healthy Halloween treats and hear a Halloween story when we come in from the parade - a great way to end our day! Please let me know if you're able to join us on Friday the 28th from 12:50-2:00. We'll need 4-5 volunteers. Thanks much!

Please have a look at Mrs. Witkov's "Literacy Spotlight." This will be a monthly feature! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u0Xo9qc2fg&feature=youtu.be

Until next time...

Michelle

Mark Your Calendars!

Thursday, October 20: Conferences 4:30-8:00pm

Friday, October 21: Monster Bash

Wednesday, October 26: Early Release

Conferences: 3-6:30pm

Thursday, October 27: Conferences 4:30-8:00pm

Friday, October 28: Halloween Parade & Celebration

Tuesday, November 8th: Picture Retake Day

Tuesday, November 22: Music Concert (Last Names A-M at 10am/Last Names N-Z at 2pm)

Wednesday, November 23: Early Release Day

October 4-7

Hello Families!
Our week was a bit of a whirlwind with Monday being a holiday and due to the fact that I was out of the classroom serving on our social studies committee Thursday and on our PBIS committee Friday afternoon. That left me with few photo opportunities during the week except for our science investigation on Friday and capturing our final King of the Week! Here he is...

Now that all of our friends have had a chance to be either our King or Queen, we'll soon begin Star of the Week! Due to our short week this upcoming week, we'll get started on the week of October 24th. If your child is chosen, s/he will bring home information later this week.

During Writer's Workshop this week we brought our small moment stories to life by bringing what's inside out. This means we thought about what the people in our stories were thinking and feeling. We also used drama to bring our stories to life by acting them out. Finally, we focused on a spelling strategy: using known words to spell unknown words.

We began adding words to our Word Wall this week. Each week, we'll focus on five new "snap" words. We refer to them as "snap words" because we should be able to read and write them "in a snap!" During the course of the week, we'll focus on these words by using them in our Morning Message, noticing them in books and poems, and practicing them through activities like rainbow writing and roll and write. 

This past week's words were:

I

a

the

to

is

Next week's words will be:

my

go

me

like

on

Your child should be able to read and write these words independently and "in a snap!"

During Reader's Workshop this past week, we learned that readers track words with their eyes and "scoop up" phrases rather than reading word by word. We want to make sure that when we're reading, we don't sound bumpy or boring! We talked about how readers reread so that they can see more. I can't stress enough the importance of rereading for our developing readers. What we know how to read, we should read smoothly. So, if your child is reading and gets stuck on a word then uses strategies to solve that word, they should go back and reread  the sentence so that it sounds smooth - just like someone talking. We also learned another reading habit: Readers Take a Sneak Peek at the pictures again DURING reading to help them figure out tricky words. 

During Math Workshop this week we continued to work with our number cards and stair steps to learn about partners of 7, 8, 9 and 10. On Monday we'll review what we've learned in our first unit, focus on the Standards for Mathematical Practice, and complete our unit 1 assessment. 

We added a new routine to our mornings this past week - tracking the weather in our desktop calendars! Each morning we write the new date, then check our Weather Channel link for the day's temperature. We then show this temperature on our thermometers and then record the weather for the day. These activities are part of our first science unit Air and Weather. On Friday, we did our first investigation: What Can Air Do?

Each scientist received a bag with a feather, balloon, cotton ball, straw, piece of paper and a foam ball. When we emptied out the items in our bags, was there anything still left in the bags? Ask your first grader!

Using the straw to blow the items in the bag: What did this scientist find out about what air can do? Ask your first grader to tell you!

These scientists used their straws to fill up their bags. We learned that air is matter and matter takes up space! One of our scientists even noted that air contains moisture!

Using a pump to inflate the balloon. 

Investigating what happens to the objects when you drop them. Some even experimented with putting items on top of the paper to see what the effect was. 

While some were in the "lab" investigating air, others were exploring nonfiction books on Tumblebooks using our Chromebooks. Others were exploring science books. 

Later in the afternoon, we were introduced to our Science Notebooks where we'll record our learning for each investigation. We responded to our focus question: What can air do? 

Here were some of our ideas. 

Finally, the PTO put on yet another AMAZING Scholastic Book Fair for our school community! A huge thank you to them and to our many friends who brought in coins for the Reading Makes Cents drive. The bulk of our funds collected were used to donate books to a school in need. I purchased two books for our classroom and was thrilled to also find many books that were donated to our classrom library from several of our friends. My heart is overflowing with gratitude - thank you! 

Just a reminder that Tuesday is our Library day and kiddos should return their library books then. 

Next week we'll enjoy a Fire Prevention Assembly.

Until then...

Michelle Mullen

Mark Your Calendars!

Wednesday, October 12: NO SCHOOL

Thursday, October 20: Conferences 4:30-8:00pm

Friday, October 21: Monster Bash

Wednesday, October 26: Early Release

Conferences: 3-6:30pm

Thursday, October 27: Conferences 4:30-8:00pm

Tuesday, November 22: Music Concert (Last Names A-M at 10am/Last Names N-Z at 2pm)

Wednesday, November 23: Early Release Day