Happy Monday!

Good afternoon Fantastic First Grade Families!

We have a short, exciting week ahead of us!

We will have NO whole class principle in Spelling this week. However, each child chose 5 Star Sight Words to practice throughout the week for our Thursday morning test.

At the beginning of the year your child was assessed on 112 First Grade sight words to be mastered by the end of the year. The words your child spelled incorrectly were compiled to make their personal list of Special Star Sight Words. As we hit the half way mark for First Grade, many of the students have mastered words from their Special Star Sight Words list that they do not need to choose for future Spelling tests. This week we are taking that same 112 First Grade sight word test to reassess where each student is. Your child DOES NOT need to practice for this assessment. We began the assessment this afternoon with the first 28 words. What took us 30 minutes in August only took 15 minutes today! These First Graders knew almost EVERY word and breezed right through it! It's very exciting to see their growth from just a few short months ago. I have attached a picture of the 112 words if you are interested.

This week we will not begin a new chapter in Math. We will spend time reviewing the various concepts we have covered first and second quarter - especially addition and subtraction strategies. Today we reviewed and practiced our addition strategies. We know that the best addition strategy is JUST KNOWING IT. To help reinforce this fact memorization we have begun TIMED TESTS! This week we are learning how timed tests work - we are practicing how and why we do them. Once we come back from Winter Break we will OFFICIALLY start timed tests. The timed tests are leveled - your child must pass A before moving to B before moving to C before moving to D etc. This means we won't all be on the same timed test at the same time. Today we all started with B and everyone did FANTASTIC! You will know your child has moved to the next level when you see a PASS at the top of their timed test. We know that we only have TWO minutes to finish our timed tests, so it's important to PUSH our brains and move FAST! We cannot spend time stuck on one problem because we will run out of time. If we get stuck, a good strategy is to circle it and MOVE ON. Missing one is better than getting stuck on it and missing the rest! (Check out the picture of them pushing their brains to get finished in two minutes!)

I hope everyone has a wonderful Monday night!

Adopt a Family, Library, and IPADS!

Good afternoon Fantastic First Grade Families!

Monday morning we walked into our classroom to find an AWESOME surprise - FIVE IPADS! Every K, 1, and 2 classroom in the whole district is now equipped with five iPads for student use. There were no apps downloaded yet, but I spent Monday evening getting them ready for us! Tuesday afternoon we spent time exploring the iPads and learning how they work. We are fortunate to have quite a few iPad experts in our classroom. Many First Graders told me they have an iPad at home so they were familiar with how they work. It's GREAT to have friends who can help us out - ESPECIALLY with technology :)

Today we started integrating the iPads into our daily routine - we are starting with Word Work during Daily 5. Every student will get time each week to use the iPads during Daily 5 for various Word Work activities. As we become more comfortable with the iPads we will use them during Math and at other times throughout the day. In addition to the iPads, we still have our laptops and interactive whiteboard. Our classroom is FULL of technology the students use on a daily basis!

We only have TWO more days left for our Adopt a Family program at Concord! This afternoon Mrs. Koetting came to count all of our items (THANK YOU MRS. KOETTING!). So far we have collected 315 items!!!! It is still possible to get our grand total a little higher, so feel free to send in items Thursday and Friday of THIS week.

The library was closed on Monday during our regularly scheduled time, so we did not visit the library until this afternoon. If your child did not bring their books to school today, they may visit the library in the morning. We will still visit the library next Monday.

In Math we continue to create graphs, tally tables, and answer questions about the information given to us. We will take our Chapter 9 test on Friday.

Have a great night!

Happy Monday!

Happy Monday Fantastic First Grade Families!

On Friday during Math we surveyed our friends to find out our favorite pizza toppings. We asked every student in Room 11 if they prefer cheese, pepperoni, sausage, or mushrooms on their pizza. We discovered that Room 11's favorite topping is cheese and our least favorite is mushroom. We worked together with a partner to create a tally table and a bar graph to display our information.

Thank you to everyone who donated money for crazy hair day to benefit our adopt-a-family program. Room 11 has over 250 items! It's amazing to see their generosity at such a young age.

This week during Spelling we are back to BOSSY R! We know that when R comes right after a vowel he BOSSES it around and doesn't let it say its name OR sound. This week we are focusing on AR and OR. Check out the list we brainstormed together today! In addition to your child's FIVE Star Sight Words, they are responsible for spelling the following ten AR and OR words on our Friday test:
Smart
Yard
Hard
Bark
Shark
More
Fork
Born
Short
Sport

We have been BUSY writers in Room 11! It is one of the QUIETEST times of the day - these First Graders LOVE writing! We have been reading many Question/Answer pattern books and using them as inspiration to write our own books. We will finish our Question/Answer pattern books this week and begin writing HOLIDAY STORIES leading up to Winter Break.

Have a great night!

Early Release Wednesday!

Today was a JAM PACKED early release day!

We had our second Character Assembly this morning to recognize all the Concord kids who have hit a GRAND SLAM FOR CHARACTER! When a student displays an act of good character they are recognized on Flyer Vision, get a spot on the Character Hall of Fame, and they get to wear a ball cap to EVERY Character Assembly for the REST OF THE YEAR! ALL Concord teachers are on the look out for students displaying good character throughout their day!

Today we had BUDDY BLOCK! This means we combined our class and Miss Rauschenbach's class for Block. We also met with our Buddy Class this morning. We spent time discussing random acts of kindness, creating a wreath of kind words, and buddy reading. Spending time with our buddies is always fun and we look forward to the next time we meet with them!

After lunch we visited the BOOK FAIR! In your child's Take Home Folder you will find a list of the books they are interested in purchasing. The prices that are listed DO NOT INCLUDE TAX. This means the final total will be a bit more, so writing a check for the exact amount listed will cause some problems. If you would like to purchase some or all of the books on your child's list I encourage you to send cash with them on Friday. In addition to me helping them at the book fair, there are NUMEROUS parent volunteers assisting at the book fair. When they check out, we will make sure they receive their change and that it goes straight into their backpacks when we return from the book fair. THANK YOU for your understanding!

Have a great night!

Important Reminders!

A few important reminders for this week:

Tomorrow is an EARLY RELEASE DAY. If your child's transportation differs from a regular day please send a note with them tomorrow.

Friday is WACKY HAIR DAY! Send your First Grader to school with crazy hair and a dollar (or more!) to donate to our Adopt a Family Program. Any and all donations are accepted. If you send a bag of change with your child, please write the amount on the bag or send a note with the amount inside the bag.

This week Concord's library is hosting a BOOK FAIR! We will visit the Book Fair tomorrow at 11:45. We will NOT be buying books tomorrow, only browsing. Your child will have an opportunity to write titles and prices of books they are interested in purchasing. This wish list will come home in their Take Home Folder tomorrow afternoon. It is your decision if your child purchases the books or not. On Friday we will visit the Book Fair AGAIN. This time we will have the opportunity to purchase the books on our wish lists. You do NOT need to send book money with your child tomorrow.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Tuesday night!

Saving Our Spelling Words!

Today during our Laptop Time we are practicing our OU and OW Spelling words. Typing them many times helps us remember if a word has an OU or OW. We are also learning how to save a Microsoft Word Document to our H-Drive! This will help us in the future when typing our stories. We know it takes longer than one Writing Block to finish a story, so it's important we can save it and come back to it at a later time. If you have Microsoft Word at home I encourage you to let your child practice typing spelling words, stories, or anything else! The more we practice using shift to capitalize, location of keys, and fixing misspelled words, the faster we will become Microsoft Word Whizzes!

Happy Monday!

Happy Monday Fantastic First Grade Families! I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend! This weather is absolutely crazy, so I hope you took advantage of it! Our classroom wardrobe today looked more like September, not December! We had kiddos wearing shorts and t-shirts! :)

This week in Spelling we are learning about OU and OW words. When O is next to a U or W, he pinches them! This makes them say, "OW!" or "OUCH!" Today we brainstormed words that have the OU and OW sound. Check out the picture below for our list so far! We will have ten OW and OU words on our Friday test:
Our
Out
About
Count
Proud
Cow
Now
How
Brown
Town

Please practice theses words at home with your child. We hear the SAME sound in each of these words, so it is VERY important we JUST KNOW if a word has OU or OW.