Sunday, October 25, 2015

An Exciting Week in First Grade!

As you can imagine, this will be a fun and busy week in our classroom.  We will be learning about spiders, bats, pumpkins, and fall fun.  This will be a brief update, but filled with some important reminders. :)

Word Wall:  Our six new words for this week are:  up, but, like, day, thing, & are  Please practice reading these words (and all of our Word Wall Words) quickly and fluently.

Spelling:   Our short vowel focus will be on the short u sound and on building many different word families using this vowel sound.  Ex:  cut, but, hut, shut....  bug, dug, hug, tug...

Writing:  We will look through our writing folders and select one favorite 'small moment' personal narrative story this week.  We will use checklists and work with partners to edit and revise our stories to make them the best they can be!  At the end of the week, we will read our stories to another class as a way to celebrate our great work!

Math:  We will review subtraction, whole = part + part, whole - part = part, and problem solving this week as we prepare to work on another math assessment as first graders!  I will send home our completed assessments for you to review with your child.  Please sign and return all math assessments this year.

Reminders:
* Eagle's Silent Auction is coming SOON!  Please send in all donations for our gift basket this week. You can send in actual gift cards or a cash donation to be put towards the purchase of gift cards.  No donation is too small!  Thank you for supporting this terrific fundraiser for our school.
* Please send in all items to help build and decorate our Fall/Halloween Graham Cracker Houses by Wednesday. We will decorate the houses on Friday at 2:15 in our classroom.  I will send home a note.  Please let me know if you will be joining us so that we can partner up children accordingly.   Thank you! :)
* Wednesday, October 28th:  11:45 dismissal for children due to parent-teacher conferences.
Friday, October 30th: Children do not wear costumes to school, but can certainly dress in festive orange and black.  The Spooktacular will be hosted by Eagle's PTO in the evening.  This is a great time to showcase your costumes! :)

I am looking forward to an exciting and busy week in First Grade!

Eileen Browne

Sunday, October 18, 2015

All About Pumpkins!

I hope you all had a terrific weekend!  Below is a sneak peak at some of our learning that will happen this week in our first grade classroom.

Word Wall:  We will add six new words:  dog, he, she, out, at, & they.  The children are doing a terrific job reading our Word Wall words and finding them in everything we read.  Keep looking for these words at home too! :)

Reading: We are in a good groove of working in guided reading groups and daily five literacy stations each day.  The children will continue bringing home 'just right' books in their reading bags during the week.  They should be able to read these books fluently.  Practice retelling the stories and talking about the main idea, the main character, the setting, the problem, and the solution in the books the children are reading.  We are also working on reading with expression and paying attention to punctuation within the stories.

Writing:  We are currently working on editing, revising, making our stories easy to read, and practicing craft moves in our personal narratives.  We sure are busy, but writing workshop has become a favorite time of the day for many children!  Our writing folders are filling up with many wonderful small moment stories and we just love sharing them :)

Math:  We are wrapping up Topic 2 on subtraction numbers.  This week we are working on problem solving as well as fact families.  We will use manipulatives and writing number sentences to notice how numbers go together.  Ex:  2+3=5; 3+2=5; 5-2=3; 5-3=2 ~ We can write four number sentences using the same three numbers, but the number sentences must make sense and 'tell the truth'!

Science: We will read, write, and learn all about pumpkins and pumpkin seeds this week.  We will also create a fun pumpkin craft that we will hang in our classroom.  We are having a blast with our seed unit.

Extras:
~We will continue to have homework this week. Our spelling focus will be short 'o' sounds this week. Thank you for supporting your children at home.  Each week we will have spelling, math, and reading logs to complete.  The children are so proud to bring their completed work back to the classroom each day.  Keep up the great work!
~October Scholastic Book Orders are due this Wednesday!  I will place the order Wednesday night.  This will allow enough time for any Halloween books to get to us in time!  You can browse the flyers online.  Email me if you need our class activation code.
~Haunted House Decorating:  We will build our Haunted House projects with our 5th grade buddies, but will definitely need help decorating them!  We will be decorating our houses on Thursday, October 29th at 2:15.  We hope that you can join us!
~First Grade T-Shirts:  We are working on ordering orange tie dye "Eagle's First Graders Rock"
t-shirts for our three first grade classrooms.  An order form will be coming home soon!

We are looking forward to another great week of learning in our First Grade Classroom!

Sincerely,
Eileen Browne

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Welcome October!

I honestly cannot believe how quickly September went by!  We are now entering my favorite time of the school year...fall!  We are so lucky to live in an area where we are surrounded by crisp cool air and colorful leaves.  This is a perfect time of the year for our class to be examining seeds (apples, sunflowers, pumpkins), leaves, and trees.  This week we are spending time outside learning about seeds and sunflowers.  Today the children observed our sunflowers in our school's garden.  We drew diagrams and labeled the different parts just like scientists.  

Reading:  We are doing a nice job working in our Daily Five stations.  I am now beginning to work with small guided reading groups during this time period.  Your children will bring home 'reading bags' during the week.  Please be sure to return all books back to our classroom.   We are currently working on taking 'sneak peeks' at books, making predictions, and discussing the big idea in books as we read.  

Word Wall & Spelling:  We added six more words to our word wall:  in, that, said, for, be, & of. We now have 24 words on our wall.  The children should be able to read these words quickly in isolation without out stretching out letter sounds.  They should also be able to recognize these words in books.  This week we are also working on spelling words.  We are practicing writing words with many different short a sounds and short a word families.  Some of the word families that we are learning about this week are:  at, an, ad, ag, & ap   We can make many different words just by switching the first letter with these word endings.  Ex:  hat, bat, cat, sat, flat...

Math: We are now working on topic 2 in math ~ subtraction.  We began this unit by learning about finding missing parts of numbers.  We will soon begin breaking numbers apart, writing subtraction sentences, and solving subtraction problems.  

Writing:  This week we are learning how to tells our personal narrative stories in 'itsy bitsy' steps.  We are working hard on bringing our stories to life by using speech bubbles and making our characters move.  Adding details and tiny pieces of information makes our stories so much more interesting to read.  Right now, writing workshop is our favorite time of the day!  We dim the lights, put on 'writing music', stretch out, share ideas, and get our stories onto paper.  

Homework:  This is our first week of homework!  The children were so proud to bring in their math papers to me today.  They know that completing homework and turning it in is a 'big kid' responsibility.  Remember, first grade homework is a all about building routines and accountability while keeping you connected to what we are working on in the classroom.  Thank you for your support!  


Farm to You Fest:  
This is a great opportunity for us to focus on healthy eating.  Please send in healthy snacks and also donate produce if you are able to do so. Please see the note below from our district website.

Sincerely,

Eileen Browne

"Squash Hunger Produce Drive: Each school in the district will have collection bins for soft and hard produce all week. We are encouraging items such as apples, eggplants, squash and potatoes, since we would like the items to last. Lettuce and strawberries, for instance, can be quite perishable. How often does your student get to bring a whole eggplant or squash in their backpack? Volunteers will deliver the produce each day to McCarroll’s Delmar Marketplace, where Capital Roots (formerly Capital District Community Gardens) will weigh and collect the produce to be delivered to local shelters and food pantries. In 2014, our district donated a recored-breaking 1,659 pounds of fresh produce. Let’s top that impressive amount this year!"