Week of September 23

Owl Families,


We have now been in school for a month!  I can't believe how fast it's gone by!  We had a special visitor this week, Tuffy the Turtle!  He talked to us about if we are angry, to count to 10 or more to help us calm down.  He will be visiting us every Monday for 8 weeks to help us learn some skills for life.

Social Studies:  We have taken our pre-test and are ready to start learning about families and school!  This unit focuses on what families do, how families are different/alike and how is school like a family.  The unit introduces many important concepts such as rules, responsibilities, basic needs, wants, change and diversity.  Students will explore how family rules and responsibilities ensure families live and work together safely and effectively.  Finally, students will explore similarities and differences between school and family.

Math:  We are still cruising through our second unit.  It is really starting to involve more story problems and being able to visualize those problems in our head so we can count on.

Language Arts:  
Spelling: We have started formal spelling in class this week.  Up to this week we've been doing many spelling readiness activities.  Now it's time to teach specific spelling and proofreading skills.  Your child's spelling program may be different from what you've come to expect as "spelling".  Instead of weekly lists of words to memorize, this program emphasizes the learning of important words, not for a Friday test, but for a lifetime of spelling in the real word--that is, spelling correctly in writing.

This lifelong spelling ability grows over time.  It grows through skills instruction (phonics, word origins, spelling rules, usage, etc.) through your child's everyday writing, and through word study on specific words your child has not yet mastered.  

You can extend this teaching into your home.  To help your child learn and use essential skills: Take-Home Takes will be sent home.  They are skill-building activity sheets for you and your child to do together.  Skill-building exercises are homework activities for you and your child to do to prepare for or follow up on our class lessons.  These will start to come home along side of the weekly homework notebooks.  I do not need to have these back.

Daily 5:  Since we reached our goal of 20 minutes during read to self without breaking stamina, we were able to move on to our second choice for Daily 5.  Work on Writing!  So far, we've gone 13 minutes without breaking stamina.  WOW!  We will continue our 2 choices until we reach 20 minutes of stamina and then we will move on to our third choice, word work.


Writer's Workshop:  We have started a sharing time and the kids love it!  They are able to share what they work so hard on during writer's workshop.  Each time they share, they get a sticker on to their name tag.  Check it out!

 

Have a great weekend!  -Mrs. Vos

 

Week of September 16

Dear Owl Families,

What another great week of learning we had in the owl room!  Here's what took place:

Language Arts:  We reached our goal of 20 minutes of stamina!!  Woo!  Thursday we even practices two rounds on 20 minutes!  WOW!  On Monday, we will learn and practice our second Daily 5 choice, which is work on writing.  We can't wait!

Our story of the week was called "Sam and the Bag".  We worked on the chunks "-ag" like bag and "-and" like hand.  We built some words, and read some sentences as a class that had these chunks in them!  We also talked a little bit about what happens when you add "-s" to the end of words.  When you have the word bag and add "-s" to it, it becomes bags and becomes more than one. 

In writer's workshop we have been working hard at telling and writing small moment stories.  We are doing a great job with this so far!  This week we have talked about how a watermelon is like a big, long story, like your life.  If you cut the watermelon into a slice, it is now a shorter story, but still too long to be a small moment.  You have to take the seed out of the slice of watermelon and focus on one thing during your story, and that's how we find a small moment story.  We enjoyed some watermelon after talking about this concept!  See the pictures below! :)  We talked about how we can use our hand to tell a story across our fingers, using our thumb as the beginning and pinky as the end, with our other three fingers as the middle!  Take a look at the chart we created and the reminder sheet they have in their writing binder below!  We also have been keeping track with our writing minutes, we almost got to 18 minutes today!  Good job writers!!

Math:  We took our last quick quiz of the unit yesterday, and everyone did great!  Today, we took our test and the first graders did wonderful on that too!  Monday we will be starting a new unit.  This unit will teach us more about adding, subtracting and equations.  These concepts are introduced with stories that capture children's interest and help them to see adding and subtracting as real-life situations. 

At the beginning of the unit we will show a story problem by drawing a picture of the objects but soon will move to circle drawings because you can show these quicker than drawing 4 castles plus 2 castles!  This is a major conceptual advance because it requires the use of symbols!  First graders are asked to show the partners as well as give the total.  From here, they are just a step away from writing the equation.  To keep them focused, children are asked to give a complete answer, which means they should name the objects that are in the story problem.  In the beginning of the unit, it is not required, but will be helpful on homework if you ask your owl friend to say the complete answer.

Thank you for your continued support!  Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Vos

Week 2

Happy Friday Owl Families!

Week two is done, and our routines are almost in place!  We really dove into our learning this week too.  Here's what happened:

Language Arts:  We got to 17 minutes of stamina this week!  Only 3 more minutes to reach our goal!  Way to go first graders!  We also read our first story of the week, called "The Hat".  We recalled details, and retold the story talking about the characters, setting, problem and solution.  Our sound of the week was short a, and everyone did great word building with it! 

In writer's workshop, we started to talk about what makes a good small moment story.  We read and looked at other books to see what they all had in common and how they were small moment stories.  We also talked about our own stories we are making and how they can be a one star, two star, three star, or four star.  The picture is to follow along with the books we have read!

   

Math:  We have been learning and will continue to learn partners of 5-10 and their switch partners.  We've discovered the break-aparts of a number with circle drawings.  They first draw the "break-apart stick" and then color the circles to show the different partners, as shown below.  Sometimes they are able to write these partners on a train, which is also shown below!  

Science/Social Studies:  We will be starting these soon!

**Homework will be starting next week!  Please look for a spiral notebook to come home with your child on Monday!

Have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs. Vos

First Week!

Hi Owl Families!

Phew!  We made it through the first week! What a great first week we had! 

This week we worked very hard trying to get our routines in place.  Morning routine, lunch routine and the end of the day routine!  Each day has gotten better and better!  We are starting to familiarize ourselves with our planners, our Take Home Folders, and where everything in the room is.  When these routines become easier, the learning gets better!

We have also been learning about our reading identities and which books we like to read.  We compared this to ice cream.  Not everyone likes the same kind of ice cream, just like not everyone likes the same kind of books.  Many of us chose funny books, or books with our interests in them.  And, just like there are good fit shoes for different activities, there are good fit books for different readers!  We also learned that there are 2 ways to read a book.  One way is to read the words.  Another way is to read the pictures, because the pictures can tell a story too!

We started our Daily 5 routine by trying to build our stamina... we made it to 13 minutes already!!  Way to go first graders!!

I hope all my owl friends have a wonderful and restful weekend.  See you Monday morning for another week of learning!

Also, be sure to check out our first day pictures below! :)