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!