Our First FULL Week as First Graders!

WOW! We have made it to the end of our first full week! We were VERY busy this week...

Sight Words continue to be an important part of our day. Now, and throughout the year, we will work on MASTERING both reading and writing our Sight Words. As we begin our weekly spelling routine, our lists will first consist of only Sight Words before we begin our Spelling Principles. 

We have also started building our READING STAMINA! Each day we will continue practicing what it looks like and sounds like when we are reading to self. We know we pick and spot and "park it," stay quiet and READ THE WHOLE TIME. 

Sharing our writing is becoming a very important part of our day! During Writer's Workshop, each First Grader has the opportunity to share the writing they are working on. We show respect to our classmates by staying quiet when they share and clapping when they are finished. 

Today was a VERY exciting day! It was our first trip to the library! We met with Mrs. Graef AND checked out books. Our library book rule is: if you take it home to read it is either IN YOUR HANDS or IN YOUR BACKPACK. If we never set our books down, we'll never lose or forget them. We only have a few minutes between library and lunch so we get to spend some time reading our new books around the room! Our weekly library time is Friday 10:15-10:40. 

Last, but not least, we met with our new Fourth Grade buddies in Miss McNamara's class! We spent time getting to know our new buddies and completed an All About Me page with them. Check out these First and Fourth Graders!

Concord Flyer Tuesday!

Today is our very first Concord Flyer Tuesday! In your child's Flyer Binder you will find numerous papers and handouts from the district, Concord, and our classroom. Our Flyer Binders go home every afternoon and come to school every morning!

Sight Words are a very important part of First Grade so we have started our Sight Word inventory! Each day this week the First Graders are given a 28 word assessment to "show what they know." This is NOT a test because I do NOT expect them to know every word. These Sight Words are words they will know by the END of First Grade, so there is no need to prepare or worry about the "test." GREAT NEWS - EVERY First Grader knows some of the words already! WOO HOO! GO FIRST GRADERS! :) 

While we are working on our Sight Word inventory we are also practicing our Sight Words through various activities. It is very important we can read AND write all of our Sight Words!

In addition, we continue to work on school and classroom procedures and routines! 

The beginning of the school year is always a VERY busy time, but I hope each of you can attend Curriculum Night on Thursday, August 29. I will present A LOT of information regarding First Grade curriculum and our classroom procedures, so I highly encourage you to make arrangements to come! 

Have a great night! 

Getting in the Swing of Things!

It is only the third day, but we have already established many routines and procedures in Room 16! 

Today we rotated through four different math stations while practicing our rules and expectations for math stations. We know that we choose a spot, stay quiet, and do our job! 

Today we also began Writer's Workshop! We learned that good writers write about things they know.  Everyday we will come to the carpet to learn about writing, practice what we learn, then have an opportunity to share our writing with the class. During Writer's Workshop, we ALWAYS use pen and we have many different styles of paper to choose from. It is always important to have choices! After today I can already tell we have some FANTASTIC First Grade writers!

One last (but very important!) routine we established today was our FLYER BINDER! Your child's Flyer Binder will come home in their backpack every afternoon and back to school every morning. This is where you will find district papers, school papers, and classroom papers. Next week we will start HOMEWORK which will also become part of our Flyer Binders. Please make sure you are checking your child's Flyer Binder every day. If you need to send a note to school with your child, please send it in their Flyer Binder. It will be an important communication tool between home and school!