Week 8 - October 26, 2018

Halloween

For Halloween in First Grade this year, we will have a celebration following the parade from 10:00-11:30.  

If you haven't already, please make a choice from the sign up genius for Halloween.

The session choices are:

• Ms. Schumaker's DIY No Carve Pumpkins. Come join us and get creative decorating and designing your own pumpkin using googly eyes, paint, sparkles, fabric and other neat materials! Please note that this session has a $2.00 Fee.  If your child signs up for this session, please send in $2.00 cash labeled with your child's name. 
• Ms. Sauchak's Spooky Dance Party! Come learn some spooky dance moves with Ms. Sauchak! We will spin like spiders, float like ghosts, shake like skeletons, fly like bats, walk like zombies and smile like jack-o-lanterns! Let's BOOgie! 
• Mrs. Lussier's Let's build! Come build towers with candy corn pumpkins and catapults for candy corn. Measure how tall your tower is and how far you can send the candy corn flying. Work with others to make the tallest tower you can or to send your candy flying!
• Ms. Walthall's Sensory Project! Are you ready to feel and discover gross and slimy things? Come challenge your senses with a mystery box and surprisingly slimy sensory project!
• Mrs. Pintar's "Spooky" Read Aloud!  Do you love listening to stories and creating projects?  Come enjoy a fun and relaxing Halloween read-aloud and craftivity!
• Game Time Fun!  Do you love to play games and have fun?  Come join first grade parents and play some exciting and spooky games!  

Curriculum

Reading:
This week, we learned to look and listen to the characters in the books we read.  When we do this we can tell what kind of character they are.  We can give them traits to describe them.   Next week, we will learn more decoding strategies.  Our focus will be on Chunky Monkey.  This is a strategy encourages the kids to find chunks they know in a word to help them decode it.

Book Baggies:
Many students forgot their book baggies today.  Please help them remember them next week Friday.  I would like them to have an opportunity to read different books.

Writing:
We worked hard as writers, planning and drafting stories this week.  Our focus was on how to organize stories with a beginning, middle and end.  Next week, we will take those stories and make them better when we learn to write strong leads, and endings and to use transition words. 

Math:
Students learned to solve missing addend type addition problems.  They also learned that number sentences can be written horizontally and vertically.  Finally, we continued to build fluency and number sense within 10.  

IXL Skills - Use these activities as you wish to help your child with the skills we will be working on throughout this first trimester.

Science/Social Studies:
Students learned about the seasons and sun this week.  They learned why we have seasons and how it relates to the sun.

Purposeful Play
Please see the Purposeful Play tab on the blog to learn more about our weekly Play Time and donation items we could use for it!

Homework

• Read every night
• Work on a math skill (i.e. counting forwards and backwards within 120, adding and subtracting to 20 - play a board game for this, telling time, counting coins, measuring - length and volume -  have your child cook with you to practice this, talk about shapes - 2D and 3D - find items around your house, etc.) 

Specials Schedule

Monday: P.E. (Wear tennis shoes)
Tuesday: Art (Bring an Art shirt labeled with your child's name)
Wednesday: Music
Thursday: Media/Library
Friday: Rotates (See the back of your child's OWL folder (everyday folder) for a schedule.)

Important Dates

October 31: Halloween Parade (9:20 AM), Fall Celebration (after the parade around 10:00 AM-11:30 AM)

November 6: No School
November 14: Picture Retakes

Week 7 - October 19, 2018

Fun Run

We had our Fun Run today!  The kids had a good time and enjoyed some cider and donuts afterwards!

Halloween

For Halloween in First Grade this year, we will have a celebration following the parade from 10:00-11:30.  

Your child will have the choice of two sessions during the celebration.  A sign-up genius e-mail will come home on Monday, October 22nd at 8:00am.  You will need to sign your child up for two  sessions.  

Please look over these session choices with your child this weekend.  Sessions are limited to 20 kids each.  

The session choices are:

• Ms. Schumaker's DIY No Carve Pumpkins. Come join us and get creative decorating and designing your own pumpkin using googly eyes, paint, sparkles, fabric and other neat materials! Please note that this session has a $2.00 Fee.  If your child signs up for this session, please send in $2.00 cash labeled with your child's name. 
• Ms. Sauchak's Spooky Dance Party! Come learn some spooky dance moves with Ms. Sauchak! We will spin like spiders, float like ghosts, shake like skeletons, fly like bats, walk like zombies and smile like jack-o-lanterns! Let's BOOgie! 
• Mrs. Lussier's Let's build! Come build towers with candy corn pumpkins and catapults for candy corn. Measure how tall your tower is and how far you can send the candy corn flying. Work with others to make the tallest tower you can or to send your candy flying!
• Ms. Walthall's Sensory Project! Are you ready to feel and discover gross and slimy things? Come challenge your senses with a mystery box and surprisingly slimy sensory project!
• Mrs. Pintar's "Spooky" Read Aloud!  Do you love listening to stories and creating projects?  Come enjoy a fun and relaxing Halloween read-aloud and craftivity!
• Game Time Fun!  Do you love to play games and have fun?  Come join first grade parents and play some exciting and spooky games!  

On Monday morning, watch for the e-mail with the sign up genius links.  Your child will need to choose two of the sessions.  We look forward to a fun and spooktacular Halloween day with your child!

FYI's

This week your child should have brought home an FYI sheet as well as a goal setting sheet.  The students filled out the FYI themselves first and then I marked them and added notes on the back to help you understand how your child is progressing with their Learning Skills so far.  These are the same strands from the report cards that students will be marked on.  I also sent home a goal setting sheet so that the students can make goals for themselves to improve these learning skills.  Please make sure these get signed and returned as soon as possible.  I would like to keep them in their leadership notebooks, so we can see how they grow in their learning skills throughout the year.

Curriculum

Reading:
This week, the students learned to use their "Eagle Eyes" to help them when they come to words they don't know in their reading.  Students learned to look at the pictures to see if there are clues to help them with difficult words.  In addition, the students were able to separate and blend words using their onset and rime.  Next week, we will continue working on decoding skills by thinking what would make sense when we come to unknown words.   

Book Baggies:
Many students forgot their book baggies today.  Please help them remember them next week Friday.  I would like them to have an opportunity to read different books.

Writing:
This week, we generated personal narrative story ideas.  The student can continue to add to their lists as new stories come up.  We also began planning one of the stories to write about it.  We are focused on planning a beginning, three middles and an ending.

Math:
In math this week, the students continued to build addition and subtraction fluency within 10.  We also discussed several strategies for solving math problems such as number lines, pictures, using fingers, etc.  Students are then encouraged to explain how they used that strategy to help them.  Next week, we will continue to build addition and subtraction fluency within 10 by solving missing addend problems and learning to write number sentences (equations) vertically.   

IXL Skills - Use these activities as you wish to help your child with the skills we will be working on throughout this first trimester.

Science/Social Studies:
This week, the students had an opportunity to make kites. They then explored with their kites to learn more about what air and wind can do. 

Purposeful Play
Please see the Purposeful Play tab on the blog to learn more about our weekly Play Time and donation items we could use for it!

Homework

• Read every night
• Work on a math skill (i.e. counting forwards and backwards within 120, adding and subtracting to 20 - play a board game for this, telling time, counting coins, measuring - length and volume -  have your child cook with you to practice this, talk about shapes - 2D and 3D - find items around your house, etc.) 

Specials Schedule

Monday: P.E. (Wear tennis shoes)
Tuesday: Art (Bring an Art shirt labeled with your child's name)
Wednesday: Music
Thursday: Media/Library
Friday: Rotates (See the back of your child's OWL folder (everyday folder) for a schedule.)

Important Dates

October 26: Trunk or Treat (5pm)

October 31: Halloween Parade (9:20 AM), Fall Celebration (after the parade around 10:00 AM-11:30 AM)
November 6: No School
November 14: Picture Retakes

Week 6 - October 12, 2018

Curriculum

Reading:
Students are now in to our rotations.  Next week, we will begin learning decoding strategies to help when we come to words we don't know in our reading.  In addition, students are learning new sight words each week.  This week, we will also be learning to separate word sounds into their onset and rime and blend words using their onset and rime (which can help when decoding words and when trying to write/spell words).

Book Baggies:
Many students forgot their book baggies today.  Please help them remember them next week Friday.  I would like them to have an opportunity to read different books.

Writing:
We have been reading personal narratives all week.  Students are listening and thinking how they can use ideas from these mentor texts in their own writing.  Some things we've noticed are that authors write across pages, they use onomatopoeia, they tell stories in order (they have a beginning, middle and end), they include details, dialogue, feelings, thoughts and actions.  Next week, we will be generating ideas for our own personal narratives and beginning to write them. 

Math:
Our focus in math has been adding and subtracting within 10 and explaining our thinking/strategies when solving addition/subtraction word problems. We will continue to practice these skills next week.  In addition, we will learn how to use tallies to collect data and then put that data into a graph.    

IXL Skills - Use these activities as you wish to help your child with the skills we will be working on throughout this first trimester.

Science/Social Studies:
This week, the students continued to learn about air and wind.  We made an anemometer and were able to try to use it this week.  We also made pinwheels and learned how they are similar to anemometers.  The students had an opportunity to use these pinwheels outside to see how meteorologists use anemometers as tools to measure wind speed.

Purposeful Play
Please see the Purposeful Play tab on the blog to learn more about our weekly Play Time and donation items we could use for it!

Homework

• Read every night
• Work on a math skill (i.e. counting forwards and backwards within 120, adding and subtracting to 20 - play a board game for this, telling time, counting coins, measuring - length and volume -  have your child cook with you to practice this, talk about shapes - 2D and 3D - find items around your house, etc.) 

Specials Schedule

Monday: P.E. (Wear tennis shoes)
Tuesday: Art (Bring an Art shirt labeled with your child's name)
Wednesday: Music
Thursday: Media/Library
Friday: Rotates (See the back of your child's OWL folder (everyday folder) for a schedule.)

Important Dates

October 15-19: Spirit Week - $1/day for the spirit wear to help us meet our goal

• Monday 10/15-  Favorite College Team Day
• Tuesday 10/16- Hat Day
• Wednesday 10/17- Pajama Day
• Thursday 10/18- Green and White-  Go Novi Wildcats Day

October 19: Color Run

October 26: Trunk or Treat (5pm)

October 31: Halloween Parade (AM), Fall Celebration (after the parade around 10:00 AM-11:30 AM)

Week 5 - October 5, 2018

Family Picture

If you haven't already, please send in a family photo (no larger than 5X7) so that we can discuss our families!  These photos will be returned to you at the end of the year.

Curriculum

Reading:
We have learned all of our Daily 5 Stations so far.  Now the students are learning to use Seesaw as a part of our Daily 5 routine.  We made our first post today!  We will continue this learning next week.

Book Baggies:
Many students forgot their book baggies today.  Please help them remember them next week Friday.  I would like them to have an opportunity to read different books.

Writing:
We finished our book about our family this week.  Students learned to go through the writing process to complete this book.  They also learned about using mentor texts to help us as authors and how to organize their writing in this unit.  Next week, we will begin working on personal narratives.  We will begin by generating ideas and planning.  You can help at home by discussing different story ideas.    

Math:
In math this week, we have been learning to add numbers within 10.  Students are trying to build fluency with these numbers.  We will continue to work on these facts into next week but focus more on subtraction within 10.    

IXL Skills - Use these activities as you wish to help your child with the skills we will be working on throughout this first trimester.

Science/Social Studies:
This week, the students explored air and wind.  We've used bubbles, read books and observed to learn how air takes up space and how wind moves.  The students are beginning to learn how we, as meteorologists, can use information about wind and air to make predictions about the weather.  We will continue to explore these ideas next week.  We will be making a class anemometer and wind vane to observe these weather patterns.

Purposeful Play
Please see the Purposeful Play tab on the blog to learn more about our weekly Play Time and donation items we could use for it!

Homework

• Read every night
• Work on a math skill (i.e. counting forwards and backwards within 120, adding and subtracting to 20 - play a board game for this, telling time, counting coins, measuring - length and volume -  have your child cook with you to practice this, talk about shapes - 2D and 3D - find items around your house, etc.) 

Specials Schedule

Monday: P.E. (Wear tennis shoes)
Tuesday: Art (Bring an Art shirt labeled with your child's name)
Wednesday: Music
Thursday: Media/Library
Friday: Rotates (See the back of your child's OWL folder (everyday folder) for a schedule.)

Important Dates

October 10: Walk to School Day
October 19: Color Run
October 26: Trunk or Treat (5pm)