Family Photos

I shared some family pictures with the class today and we thought it would be fun for everyone to bring in family pictures. Please send in a picture of your child with family members or other important people in in your child's life. We would like to display these pictures in the classroom. If your picture is needed back at home, let me know and I can scan it to make a copy for the class.

Thanks so much for helping us create our classroom family.

Big news... an author visit!

We are so lucky to have Jarrett Krosoczka coming to visit JFK! Jarrett Krosoczka is an author and illustrator of many books, including picture books, graphic novels, and chapter books. His newest book, It's Tough to Lose Your Balloon, comes out on September 8.

On September 15, Jarrett will be visiting the kindergarten and first grades. Today I sent home an order form in case you are interested in ordering any of his books. The order form needs to be in by Friday. If you have any questions, please let me know.

Here is the book trailer for It's Tough to Lose Your Balloon.

The first week of first grade!

Hello and welcome back to school! I'm so excited to start a new school year. I usually update this site once a week. During the beginning of the year, I will be posting about the people who work in our classroom and sharing our schedules, expectations, and daily routines. There will also be student work, class videos, and celebrations of our learning.

Some things to keep in mind as we start the school year:

We eat snack in the afternoon. Please make sure to send in a healthy snack and drink for snack time.

Our weekly specials schedule is:

Monday - Gym
Tuesday - Music and Library
Wednesday - Art
Thursday - Gym
Friday - Guidance

A big part of the beginning of school is learning routines and getting to know each other. We are a team and the relationships we build with each other help us to learn and grow. One way we are building relationships is through morning meeting. We are having so much fun with different greetings and songs. Ask your child about our Sunshine Greeting that we did on Friday.


We also have been enjoying the book Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes. We made our own Pete the Cats on Friday. They will be hanging up next week. Feel free to stop in and see them in the hallway!  Here's the song, have fun singing along: http://assetlibrary.supadu.com/images/ckfinder/687/images/Pete-the-Cat/audio/pete-the-cat.mp3

Have a super weekend! I'm looking forward to Monday!

First Grade Fun Day

Sorry for the lack of updates! The class has been super busy!

Yesterday (June 5), first grade celebrated First Grade Fun Day! As a first grade, we earned 400 green thoughts and celebrated with a fun day of activities. Each classroom was able to participate in  movement, cooking, and art activities. At the end of the day, I asked the class which activity was their favorite. One student said, "Dancing, food, and art... it's just too hard to pick just one! I loved them all!"

The week of June 8 is our last week of school. It will be a busy week:

Monday, June 8:  School wide celebration for all of the stars we have earned as a school!

Thursday, June 11: Step Up Day: The students will find out who they will have for second grade. We also have a school-wide wellness event in the afternoon.

Friday, June 12: Last day of school. The students get out of school at 11:00.

March 20, 2015

Classroom News: 

• Hopefully the weather will warm up. As it does, the playground gets really wet, it's a good idea to send in an extra pair of socks to change into after recess
• Don't forget, gym is on Monday and Thursday. Please send in sneakers on those days.

Literacy

We celebrated the end of our reading with expression unit by having Mrs. Moulton's class come and partner read with us. The first graders worked hard on preparing a book that they could read fluently and with expression. They also put in a sticky note to mark a good spot to stop and ask the second grader to make a prediction about what will happen next in the book. All students, first and second graders, did a great job!

Math

We have started our next math unit: place value. We are exploring how our number system is organized by using tens and ones. The student have jumped right into this unit and are doing great! Even coming up with the observation that in the  number 37, the 3 is more than the 7 because the 3 is really a 30! Super work mathematicians!

Science
The five senses are so much fun to learn about! One of the activities we did this week was a taste test to discover the some of the different things we can taste: salty, sweet, and bitter.


Cross Grade Connection

This is a district wide project where  each JFK class is paired with a middle or high school class. The goal is to build relationships across the grades and district. Last month, Mrs. Sherrer's class  came to our room and joined us for mindfulness and introductions. This month we went over the middle school and had a blast! Mrs. Sherrer and her students led us in a movement activity and a dance. Then the younger students worked with their older partners for a building activity. Mrs. Sherrer and I saw and heard great discussion between the partners. The projects came out great!

March 13, 2015

Classroom News: 

• Delayed Start: March 18
• Fun Fair: March 20 4:30-6:30 - hope to see you there!

Literacy

For the last few weeks we have been working on listening to ourselves read. Before reading, we look that pictures for clues to how the characters are feeling and what they are doing. Then we read, focusing on reading with expression to show how the characters feel and  what they are doing. We pay attention to punctuation, including quotation marks. Talking tag words (said, whispered, yelled, etc.) also help us know how to sound. The goal is to sound smooth like a storyteller.


Each child is working on reading one of their just right books. This coming week, Mrs. Moulton's second grade class is coming and the first graders will have a chance to show off their expressive reading! We are looking forward to the visit from our neighbors!


Also, the entire district participated in Vermont Writes Day!

Math

We finished up our big unit that developed our additive reasoning strategy toolbox. We learned how to count on/add up, count back, use fact families, make 10, and be more flexible with how we use numbers. Monday we start our next unit which is all about place value. I'll talk more about that next time! We also will be working on telling time to the hour and half hour.


Jump Rope for Heart:
I've been teaching first grade a long time. I've never had such a great class of jumpers! We had so much fun jumping together, getting good exercise, and taking care of our hearts.

February 19, 2015

Classroom News: 

• No School: February 21 - March 3
• Jump Rope for Heart information went home on Tuesday. We are jumping on March 11
  

Penguin Plunge

 

I loved participating in the Penguin Plunge for the second year in a row! I can't wait to do it again next year!

Celebration!

JFK had a school-wide celebration in honor of earning 100,000 stars! We got to see a show put on by Foodplay. We learned all about healthy food choices and activities to keep our bodies healthy. There are lots of great resources on the Foodplay website, including a video to teach you how to juggle!

Literacy
We read a wonderful book called Ish by Peter Reynolds. We are also currently reading Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts. The class and I are really enjoying these books! As we read, we are working on making our voices match the emotion in the story. We also are starting to learn how to stop and jot while we read to help us keep track of events in the story.


We also have started to write stories about penguins. We even made some penguins to inspire us!

Math

We are continuing to work with our additive reasoning strategies. This means we are learning many different strategies that mathematicians can use to solve addition and subtraction equations.


Brain Break
We discovered a fun new song that makes us laugh until we cry. I hope you have as much fun with Shake Break as we do!