April 30. 2016

Important Dates and Reminders:

Tuesday: Library 
May 10: Field Trip to Shelburne Farms
May 13: Field Trip to Flynn
May 25: Delayed Start
May 30: No School

We had a great week back from vacation. The students worked so hard in all subject areas! Super readers, writers, and mathematicians!





Literacy:
We finished up another fiction unit. Throughout this unit we worked on ways to talk about books and how to sound like a story teller when you read. I can tell you that everyone sounds like a storyteller! It gets pretty exciting during independent reading time! On Friday everyone created a character hat. Each student chose a character and then decorate their hat to represent that character. I think they would have worked on those hats all day long.


Math:
This place value math unit pushes the students' thinking and  they are loving it! We are discovering different ways to represent numbers while thinking about them using tens and ones. We also have started to work on telling  time to the hour and half hour. As usual, we do a lot of partner work and hands on activities to help the mathematicians make connections in their learning.

Classroom Fun:
We celebrated Green Up day at school on Friday. The kids did a great job greening up the playground. They filled our trash bag in no time at all! Good team work boys and girls!

April 21, 2016

Important Dates and Reminders:

Tuesday: Library 
April 25 - Back from vacation!



I hope everyone is enjoying the vacation! It is so nice to have sunshine and some warm days!

Literacy:

We continued to work on how to talk about books with our reading buddies. Listening to each other and asking questions are two areas we are working on. The students are reading such wonderful books that they love spending time sharing their thinking with each other.

Some students have finished publishing their small moments. They have worked so hard on writing, editing, and publishing. Super job writers!


Math:
Learning how two digit numbers can be taken apart helps us to be more flexible in our mathematical thinking. We expand on this concept by then adding and subtracting 1 or 10 to a two digit number. The mathematicians played a game that had them using a number grid and base 10 blocks to figure out the new number. Everyone worked hard and persevered through this tough activity!

 
Classroom Fun:
We have been reading several of Helen Lester's books, including a bunch of books about Tacky the Penguin. Everyone made their own penguins on Friday! We had Luke Skywalker Penguins, Kilo Ren Penguins, superhero penguins, and crazy, wild penguins!

April 9, 2016

Important Dates and Reminders:

Tuesday: Library 

Week of April 18: vacation



I enjoyed meeting with all of your for parent/teacher conferences. Thanks so much for all your support. If you were unable to come to your appointment, please feel free to reschedule. I look forward to sharing all the hard work your child has been doing.

Literacy:
We joined up with Mrs. Moulton's second grade class on Friday. The second graders partnered up with the first grader and read books with each other. Everyone did a great job and it was fun to see some of my old students back in the classroom. The second graders modeled great reading and were good listeners when the first graders were reading to them. I can't wait for the next first grade/second grade get together.

Math:
Our new core math idea is:

 How do mathematicians break apart numbers? 

rekenrek

 

This core math idea brought us into understanding place value. For example, the number 23 is 2 tens and 3 ones or 10+10+3 or 20+3. A better understanding of place value makes us more flexible mathematicians. We have a variety of math tools to build this concept: rekenreks, tens frames, and base ten blocks.

Classroom Fun:

On Friday, we had time to play the sight word game, POP, before dismissal. We had a good time and I loved how the kids cheered each other on. Super job team!

April 3, 2016

Important Dates and Reminders:
Tuesday: Library 
April 7 and 8: Parent/Teacher Conferences, Students are dismissed at 11:00 
Week of April 18: vacation



I am looking forward to meeting with all of you at Parent/Teacher conferences. Please let me know as soon as possible if you need a new time or if you can't make it.

Literacy:
Our new unit is all about partner work. We are learning how to share our books with our partners and how to ask questions about the books our partners have read. The students also finished up their character posters. I will be hanging those up this week. What great artists!


Math:
We finished up our math unit which focused on story problems and various additive reasoning strategies such as fact families, make 10, counting on, etc. Our new unit is all about place value! I can't wait to start it on Monday with the mathematicians!




Classroom Fun:
I love playing with the class during inside recess. The students love using the big blocks, ponies, coloring, Legos, and games. We have master Jenga players!

Sorry for the lack of pictures this week! I'll be better at taking pictures for our next update. :-)

March 19, 2016

Important Dates and Reminders:
Tuesday: Library 
April 7 and 8: Parent/Teacher Conferences



Report Cards went home on Friday. Please sign the envelope and return it to school on Monday. You may keep the report card.

The Fun Fair on Friday was so much fun! I hope you enjoyed it!

Literacy:
We have been having a blast making our voices sound like a storyteller. In order to do this, we have
to pay attention to the punctuation and think about what is happening in the story. We reread to make it sound even better. This is so much fun and the kids are doing a great job with it.

Math:
The class started working on developing a strategy list to show all the different ways they can solve one problem. This helps the mathematicians become flexible thinkers when solving problems. When a mathematician can show their thinking in more than one way, we call it using multiple pathways.

For the rest of the unit in math, we are going to be pushing our thinking to become more flexible as we develop higher level strategies that allow us to be quicker and more accurate in our work.



Science:
We had the best time planning our own healthy meals! We use the My Plate format to make sure we had  each food group represented. After planning the meal, the students used construction paper to make the meal which will be displayed. We were all hungry for these yummy sounding meals by the end of science!



Classroom Fun:
I really hope you got outside last week and enjoyed some of the beautiful weather. We never knew what to expect each day when we walked outside for recess, but one day in particular was gorgeous! We all enjoyed the sun on our faces!

March 13, 2016

Important Dates and Reminders:
Tuesday: Library
Wednesday, March 16 Delayed Start
Friday, March 18 Fun Fair 4:30-6:30




Literacy:
We love the Knuffle  Bunny books! This week we read Knuffle Bunny Too. As we read, we worked on thinking about the characters by asking questions such as:
What is the character doing? Why is the character doing that? What is the character feeling? Authors leave us clues to help us answer these questions. We can find the clues in the pictures and the words.

During writing time, we learned how to be a writing partner! The students are learning to give feedback and ask questions about their partner's writing. Then, the writers go back and add to their work. Working with a partner not only helps us improve our writing, but it's fun!

Math:
Story problems and fact families continued into this week. The students are developing a deeper understanding of addition and subtraction, and how they connect with each other. I am part of the math studio group, and my math teacher came in to observe the class. He was impressed with their mathematical thinking. Good work mathematicians!

Science:
We are starting to take our knowledge of food groups and applying it to creating a healthy meal. We used the My Plate organizer and pictures of foods to create well balanced, yummy meals. We were all starving by the end of the activity!

Classroom Fun:
We had Jump Rope for Heart this week! I was hoping to take more pictures, but it was really hard with all the jump ropes going at once! The kids did a great job!

March 5, 2016

Important Dates and Reminders:
Tuesday: Library
Wednesday, March 9: Jump Rope for Heart
Wednesday, March 16 Delayed Start
Friday, March 18 Fun Fair

It was a busy week back at school! First we had a delay and on Friday we got to see the 4th and 5th
grades put on the play Mary Poppins. Our class did a wonderful job getting back into our routine and even adding in a few new daily routines.We even squeezed in a trip to the library since we missed it the week before vacation due to a snow day and we didn't have it scheduled for this week because there was no school on Tuesday. Thanks Ms. Abbene for finding a time for us to go and get some books!

Literacy:
We are taking a deeper look at characters in fiction books. We read Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems. As we read, we talk to our reading buddies about what the characters are doing and why they are doing it.

Math:
The mathematicians amazed me with their mathematical thinking and use of mathematical language! We are working on fact families and understanding story problems. The students are working on developing a conjecture or big idea of what a fact family is. We have used dominoes and a fun class sorting activity where students had to find all the members of their fact family.

Here is are the members for the fact family group 1, 9, 10. After the whole group activity, the students had to go back to their seats to complete some independent work. 

The other big concept, story problems, involves understanding the difference between an addition, subtraction, or combination problem. The students must first identify what type of problem it is before solving it.

Science:

We have started a mini unit on how to keep our bodies healthy. First, we brainstormed what we already knew about staying healthy. The class came up with great ideas including stay hydrated, practice mindfulness, exercise, and eat healthy. This week we started looking at the food groups and talking about ways to stay active.

 We tried out a new activity to stay active this week. I taught the children how to use Chinese jump ropes. They did a great job!