September 5, 2014

Classroom News:

• Picture Day is Wednesday, September 10
• Delayed start Wednesday, September 17 

 Literacy:

How do readers choose books? What do readers do to start reading a new book? These are some of the questions we have focused on during read aloud time. As readers, we share our thinking throughout the read aloud and then the students go back to their seats and apply the same strategies to their independent reading. This week we've shared different topics that we like to read about (these range from cats, tornadoes, and Star Wars). Then, we've read books and talked about the books we've looked at with a partner.







Some of our read alouds:

• Dream Big Little Pig, by Kristi Yamaguchi
• Chester's Way, by Kevin Henkes

Math  Focus:

How do  mathematicians organize collections in order to quickly count them?

How do mathematicians write equations and represent their thinking?

I've seen so much growth in these two concepts. Counting and organizing objects was tough at first, but now we are able to do that and start to represent our counting on a piece of paper. Some students are even writing equations to explain their thinking. Good work mathematicians!

Wellness:

Nurse Liz came in and taught us all about germs! Ask you child about this lesson. We learned a lot!

Mrs. Puttlitz (our school's wellness coordinator) came in and worked on  mindful movement with us.

Our First Book Order

Today I sent home our first book order of the year. You can send back the form in a labeled envelope with a check written out to SCHOLASTIC READING CLUB. Or, you can order right online. Go to https://orders.scholastic.com/DZPMV or scholastic.com/readingclub our activation code is DZPMV. Please place your order by September 9. Please let me know if you have any questions!


You can also always access our Scholastic site through this picture.

August 29, 2014

Classroom News:

•  No school on September 1 
• Picture Day is Wednesday, September 10
• Delayed start Wednesday, September 17  

It's been a productive first week! I'm looking forward to next week!

 Literacy/Social Thinking Focus:

This first week, we have spent a lot of time reviewing the basics of our social thinking curriculum. We've been setting green thought goals each day, talking about expected/unexpected behaviors, and creating social behavior maps of different parts of our day. 

We also have been working on creating our classroom culture. This means we need to become a team that works and learns together. Learning involves trust. You have to feel comfortable to make mistakes and push your thinking. This trust develops as we get to know each other. The children and I are sharing information about ourselves, what we like, things we do, etc. This will continue for the next few weeks. 

We also have been working on acceptance. Acceptance, is also important in building a classroom environment that celebrates learning. Two books that we have read that deal with acceptance are:


Chrysanthemum, by Kevin Henkes
Two Eyes, a Nose, and a Mouth, by Roberta Grobel Intrater

Math  Focus:

How do  mathematicians organize collections in order to quickly count them?

This is a HUGE concept. We have been counting collections, or large groups of objects. The mathematicians need to figure out a way to organize the objects in order to count them accurately and efficiently. We have figured out that we can group the objects by 5's and 10's to make it easier for us. 

 

First Day of First Grade!

There is nothing like the first day of first grade! We had a great first day. We focused on routines and expectations, which we continue over the next few weeks.

In your child's home folder, I put a notice with some more info about first grade. One thing I forgot to mention is feel free to send in a water bottle for your child to leave on their desk. Please make sure it is a water bottle that can close to help prevent spills. Also, please put your child's name on the water bottle.

Remember, if you need to get in touch with me, feel free to send me an e-mail or note (njohnson@wsdschoolsorg). I'm sure the children will sleep well tonight. In our closing meeting of the day, many students said they were going to take a nap when they got home. We were all tired by the end of the day!

Have a super night!

June 11, 2014

We've had some fun events this week! Don't forget the last day of school is Friday, June 13 and dismissal is at 11:00.

Tuesday: The first grade set a goal to earn 400 green thoughts. We did it! So we celebrated by having First Grade Fun Day! Each classroom teacher ran a station throughout the morning. I was Just Dance, Miss Willoughby made root beer floats, Mrs. Charron  made lemonade, and Mrs. Thompson made birthday cards for the kids with summer birthdays. The kids were great and had so much fun!

Wednesday: JFK Celebration! JFK earned over 200,000 stars this year! To celebrate, there was a magic show and a carnival. The kids had a blast and Hope even got picked to help out with one of the magic acts! We loved playing the games from the Big Blue Trunk.

June 6, 2014

What a busy week we had! Wait until you see all the special events that we had this week!

 Monday: We filmed our school's own version of Happy! As soon as the finished video is ready, I will share it with you. The kids were great! They were flexible during technical difficulties and showed expected behaviors during the school-wide dance.Here is a picture of us waiting for the camera to roll by!





Tuesday:  Eh Man, a high school student, came down to dance for our class. We first saw his dance at the end of the Spring into the Arts video and loved it!  (The beginning of the video has our very own Alexis singing with the chorus!)


Miss Kirsten helped me track down his teacher and we invited him to come to our room.We were so impressed with Eh Man's dance! After watching him dance, we wanted to do it too. He told us the name of the song and we have been trying to dance like him since then. The song title is DubstEpic Symph by Robotboys.




Thursday: District-wide celebration! The entire district (K-12) got together and enjoyed some mindfulness and then went outside and had some yummy ice cream!

Friday: CAREER DAY!! Thanks so much for all your help and support to make this a great career day! The kids were so excited to share their hard work in front of all of you. I was enjoying the speeches and  I forgot to take pictures!

June 1, 2014

Classroom News:

Huge THANK YOU to Joe, Peggy, Crystal, and Kadie for joining us on our field trip. I had a great time and the kids were exhausted when we got back to school. I took tons of pictures but I lost them all when I had to sync my phone with an old back up. Sorry!

 Literacy/Social Studies Focus:

This past week has been a big focus on getting ready for career day. The kids have finished the rough drafts of their speeches and we will be practicing starting tomorrow.

Math  Focus:

The mathematicians are loving geometry! We have worked on decomposing (breaking apart) and composing (putting together) shapes. We have also studied the attributes that are common among different shapes. This coming week we are exploring fractions!
Special Events:
We have a lot going on at school this week:

Monday: JFK is filming their own version of Happy! Here is Milton's version:

Thursday: Wellness connection with the our middle school buddies (more information later)

Friday: CAREER DAY! We hope you can come to First Grade Career Day! It is in the Performing Arts Center at 1:00. Hope to see you there!