Where did November go?!

Important dates:
December 4: library
December 13: early release
December 14: Winter performance


Only a few days left in November! I can't believe it! It was so great to chat with everyone during parent/teacher conferences. Every child works so hard during the day! I loved sharing their work with you and celebrating each child's growth.



Literacy:
We continue to develop good reading habits. Students are learning to ask themselves questions as they read and ask questions to their reading partners.

I am so impressed with the students' writing! They love writing time and hate for it to end! We continue to develop our writing of small moments, I shared many of the students' writing during our conferences. The writers need to think of an idea, plan it, sketch it, write it, and then revise it. Revision has always been a tough part for first graders, but this group takes it so seriously! Students work together to ask questions of each others' writing. This prompts the writers to add more. They are using editing marks to add in words and phrases, plus they are using revision strips to add even more.


Math:
Before vacation we took our first unit test in math. Our new unit builds on the concept we learned in unit 1. The mathematicians discovered that there is a pattern that can be used when finding combinations of a number: 1 +9 = 10, 2 + 8 = 10, 3 + 7 = 10, etc.

The start of a new month

Important Dates:
November 8 - early dismissal (12:15)
November 20 - no school parent/teacher conferences
November 20-24 - no school


This past week was a quick one: no school on October 30 due to the storm, Halloween on Tuesday, and lots of fun work in reading, writing, and math!

For our Halloween celebration we made healthy spider treats. The PTO also provided popcorn. Yum!

I had the honor this weekend of presenting with 3 of our ELL teachers at the Northern New England Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages conference on Saturday. We had  a big turn out for our presentation. We ran out of chairs, had people standing and sitting on the floor, and then more people came! We finally had to turn some people away because there just wasn't any more room. I am so lucky to be able to co-teach math with Sarah Forbes. Thanks for all you do Sarah!

Literacy:

We have started to learn how to read with a partner. Partner reading is an important part of our literacy time. Partner work on asking each other questions about the books and help each other to use learned strategies when they are stuck on a word. The students are doing a great job transitioning from our whole group mini-lesson to independent reading to partner reading.

During read aloud, I am reading books that focus on a small moment. This will help the students as they write about their own small moments. One book we used this week was Roller Coaster by Marla Frazee. It's a book I've just discovered and it's fantastic to teach about small moments.

Mrs. Lapointe came in at writing time and helped us revise our writing. The writers are doing a great job of going back, rereading their work, and adding more to help it make sense.


Math:

Our fact power is growing! The mathematicians love developing their math fact fluency during fact power time. Students are working through their levels and applying this new learning throughout math time!

We continue to work on combination problems. During our work, the students have discover the "turn around fact" rule. This rule means that 1 + 3 = 4 is the same as 3 + 1 = 4. Here is a video of a student explaining the discovery.