This Week

Happy Monday Fantastic First Grade Families!

With Winter Break just around the corner, we have lots of awesome stuff going on this week!

Spelling - Due to our short week, we will NOT have new spelling words. We will take this time to assess our Snap Word skills.

Writer's Workshop - This week we are wrapping up our nonfiction unit. We have all chosen our favorite nonfiction book and are working to "fancy it up!" We will edit, revise, and add a front cover so it's ready for our First Grade Writing Celebration on Wednesday afternoon.  When we come back from Winter Break we will start our next writing unit - opinion writing! 

Math - We continue to develop the relationship between addition and subtraction.

THURSDAY - On Thursday we will have our school wide assembly AND Winter Party. Don't forget to use the SignUpGenius if you are interested in bringing anything in! Our party will be from 2:00-3:00PM in our classroom. Hope to see you there!

Have a great night!

An Overdue Update!

Happy Monday Fantastic First Grade Families!

Can you believe it's already December 7?! I sure can't! We've been super busy in Room 21 so read on to find out what we've been up to!

Reading - We've been focusing our learning on nonfiction books. We know that nonfiction means REAL and TRUE so nonfiction books include information that teaches us about a topic. We've been getting super smart about nonfiction topics like animals, sports, and weather!

Writer's Workshop - Just like we've been READING nonfiction books, we've been WRITING nonfiction books! We have discovered we are all experts about different topics - dogs, Legos, and volcanoes just to name a few! We have learned lots of different ways to teach our reader about our various topics:

We've even started writing CHAPTER BOOKS since we have so much information to share! Ask your kiddo what their nonfiction chapter book is about and to name a few of their chapters.

Math - Just like we learned ADDITION strategies to help us solve addition, we've been learning SUBTRACTION strategies to help us solve subtraction. As we learn these strategies we are developing an understanding that addition and subtraction are related. If I know 2+2=4, then I know 4-2=2! 

Don't forget this Wednesday, December 9 is an Early Release day! If your kiddos afternoon transportation will be different than normal, please send a note with them to school. 

Monday Updates!

Happy Monday Fantastic First Grade Families!

I hope everyone had a great three day weekend and a super fun Halloween! We have some important updates, so check out what's going on in Room 21:

Homework Check Off - We are going to be switching up the way we record reading minutes/homework. In place of the light bulb pages, you will find this page in your child's binder this afternoon. Starting TODAY, we will be using it to keep track of reading minutes, XtraMath, and Spelling practice. The only box I expect to see filled in EVERY night is Reading. Please continue reading for at least 10 minutes every night, then record the number of minutes in the box. You only need to mark an X for XtraMath and Spelling on the days those two activities are completed. Make sure you initial on the line each night! Please let me know if you have any questions!

Helping Hands - Our annual Helping Hands Campaign begins today and runs through December 11th. Each week you will receive a note with the specific items we are collecting. This week we are collecting FOOD items. Please send in canned or boxed food items such as peanut butter, tuna, canned chicken, pasta, spaghetti sauce, macaroni and cheese, hot and cold cereals, canned fruits and veggies, etc. Please do not send anything breakable - no glass containers! Also, don't forget to check expiration dates, rust, or damaged cans/boxes. Our families deserve the same things we'd like to eat! Our Helping Hands room coordinator, Mrs. Merlo, gave us a challenge this morning - bring in 100 food items by Friday and we will get a treat! Let's see if 22 first graders can reach our goal!

Have a great night!

Spelling Switch!

Happy Monday Fantastic First Grade Families!

As we finish up Spelling Principles and move into more sorting during Spelling/Word Work, we will only be sending home Weekly Snap Words. Keep an eye out for your child's FIVE Snap Words every Monday!

COOKIE DOUGH FUNDRAISER STARTS TODAY! You can find all information regarding our Cookie Dough Fundraiser in your child's backpack.

Don't forget to send in BOX TOPS! We are having a school-wide competition - the grade level with the most box tops earns an EXTRA RECESS!

FRIDAY FACTS - This Friday, October 16, is a HALF DAY. School will be dismissed at 11:50. Please send a note if your child's dismissal routine will be different than normal. We will be taking a school picture on the field on Friday, so please send your child to school in their GREEN IGNITE, INNOVATE, INSPIRE shirt.

Have a great night!

Friday Fun!

We had a SUPER fun Friday in Room 21! Check us out:

We used the laptop cart for the FIRST TIME EVER! We logged on with a username and password, opened an Internet browser, and navigated our way to www.jmathpage.com! We did most of this by ourselves with just a little help from friends and Miss Greteman. It was a very successful laptop day for us!

We also had our grade level WRITING CELEBRATION! After working hard throughout our entire Small Moment Unit, we just HAD to show off our pieces. We traveled around to other first grade rooms, read our friends' writing, and left them comments about their writing!

Marvelous Monday!

Happy Monday Fantastic First Grade Families! I hope everyone had a great weekend! Here's what we're up to in Room 21 this week:

Reading Envelopes will start coming home this week! Please start checking your child's backpack for a reading envelope 3-5 times a week. Which days it comes home will depend on which days your child's reading group meets with either myself or Mrs. Marting. The reading envelope looks like this:

We are wrapping up our Small Moment Unit in Writer's Workshop this week! Today we chose our FAVORITE small moment story from our folder and met with our writing buddy to start revising. We will revise using everything we've learned, edit with a checklist, and fancy up our piece to make it LIBRARY READY! Next week we will get started with How To Books.

In Math we are working on Addition Concepts and getting ready to learn Addition Strategies next. We are learning that there are lots of ways to make the numbers 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10!

This week we are working on adding endings to words we know like jump, help, and play. When we add ING, S, or ED it changes the meaning!

Have a great week!

Spelling, SNAP Words, and Goals! OH MY!

This afternoon you will find some exciting spelling stuff in your child's Leadership Binder! This week we will be working on our very first Spelling Principle - You can add a letter to the beginning of a little word you know to make a new word. In addition, each child has chosen three Snap Words to focus on this week. We will store our Spelling Principles at the very beginning of our binder. This week it looks like this:

We will have ten words that follow this principle on our Friday test.

You will also find FOUR pages of First Grade Snap Words in our Goal Setting section. At the beginning of the school year each child was assessed on these words to see which ones we know and which ones we still need to practice. Your child highlighted all the words they know today at school. PLEASE DO NOT HIGHLIGHT WORDS AT HOME. We will use these pages to keep track of our Snap Word mastery, choose weekly Snap Words, and SET GOALS! Speaking of setting goals...

Please talk with your child about the Snap Words he/she already knows and the three they have chosen to practice this week. Then, work together to create a REASONABLE Snap Word goal we can work towards for FIRST QUARTER. You do not need to worry about second, third, or fourth quarter goals. We will set Snap Word goals at the beginning of each new quarter!

Writing Museum!

Today we displayed all of our writing for a WRITING MUSEUM! It's always fun to read your friends' stories!

We Can Add A Letter To The Beginning Of Little Words We know!

Fabulous Friday!

Happy Friday Fantastic First Grade Families!

We had another amazing week in Room 21! With 16 days under our belt we are in routines, know expectations, and are SO close to digging into the real LEARNING of first grade. Next week our CSR, Mrs. Marting, will begin meeting with reading groups and shortly after that Miss Greteman will begin meeting with reading groups! 

These First Graders continue to be ROCKSTAR WRITERS! This week we started zooming in on our small moment stories. Instead of picking a watermelon idea like a whole entire vacation to Florida, we are choosing seed stories like finding a starfish on the beach. We also aren't afraid to spell tricky words like "eventually" and "Halloween" because we are learning spelling strategies! This week we've focused on STRETCHING through words. Ask your kiddo what tricky words they stretched through during Writer's Workshop this week! 

Today we met with our writing partners for the first time! Writing partners are an important tool during Writer's Workshop! They can help us through the writing process and keep us on track with our planning, writing, and revising. When we first meet with our writing partner, we need to do some STORYTELLING:

1. Partner 1 tells their story. 

2. Partner 2 listens and asks questions. 

3. Partner 1 tells their story again, saying MORE. 

4. Partners switch!

5. Partners write their stories!

Don't forget - if you do any reading over the weekend to mark it down in your Leadership Binder!

Terrific Tuesday!

Happy Tuesday Fantastic First Grade Families!

I hope everyone enjoyed the three day weekend! It sounds like lots of people squeezed in some final trips and pool time! :)

HOMEWORK:
We have officially started HOMEWORK in Room 21! Concord has set a school-wide goal of reading ONE MILLION minutes by the end of the year! To do our part, we will be reading 10+ minutes EVERY night to help reach that goal. You will find a light bulb recording sheet in the "Goal Setting" section of your child's Leadership Binder tonight. Please have your child color in one light bulb for every ten minutes read, then initial inside each light bulb. This is considered homework so please make it a priority each night! This nightly reading can include: reading to your child, your child reading to you, or your child reading independently.

SPELLING:
We are getting VERY close to officially starting Spelling in Room 21! This week we all have the same list of SNAP words that we will test over on Friday. You will find it in your child's Leadership Binder this afternoon. You may think, "These words are easy! My child already knows them!" and that's OK! This week we are focusing our brains on, "What does Spelling look like in our classroom?" opposed to "I am learning new words." We will spend this week getting familiar with word work choices (to practice spelling words) and being responsible for our list of words. Next week Spelling will become differentiated and we will start with our first principle!

Fantastic Friday!

Happy Friday Fantastic First Grade Families!

We had another wonderful week in Room 21! We're keeping track of reading, making goals, revising our writing, and so much more!

This week we began getting familiar with our sorting journals. Once Word Study begins and we are learning how words work and the principles of spelling, we will be doing A LOT of sorting. This week we sorted our classmates names, vowels and consonants, capitals and lowercase, and tall/short/hanging letters.

We have been learning about the good habits good readers have. We know that good readers take a sneak peek, do something at the end of a book, and READ READ READ! To help us keep track of our reading, we use our reading mat and post-it notes to set goals. When we get ready to read, we make a stack on our START side, then start reading our way through the stack. As we finish a book, we move it to our STOP AND START AGAIN side. If we finish all of our books, we start making our way through the stack again!

We learned another math center! Ask your kiddo how to play "In and Out!"

This week we learned a REALLY important saying in Writer's Workshop - "When you think you're done, you've just begun!" After we finish a story, we know that we need to REVISE. We can revise our story by rereading it from the beginning and making sure we've answered WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, and HOW so our reader knows ALL about our small moment! I bet we will come back on Tuesday with some more small moment story ideas!