Monday update…October 24th

· Phonics- Red/Yellow/Green/Blue- Double s,l,f and sometimes z. At the end of a one syllable short vowel word you double the s,l,f and sometimes z. Ex. fuss, tell, cuff, buzz

· WOW Bag Vocabulary winner, --------!! Keep using those vocabulary words and sight words each week. Use context clues when you read This week’s words: survive, wade, rare, powerful, habitat

· Thursday is early release at 12:10. It is also our Character dance which will be at 9:55. We will be doing different Halloween type activities. If your child is wanting to bring in Halloween candy to swap with friends please send in Thursday.

· NO SCHOOL FRIDAY!

· Thanks to the ---------family for donating our class pumpkin!

· Please go ahead and turn in your child’s field trip forms completed even if you don’t turn the money in right now. The first $25.00 dollars is due Friday, November 4^th. Remember that the chaperone cost is $54.00

· Scholastic books have been order and should be here soon!

· BOOK IT forms are due on Monday, October 31^st. Please make sure you and your child have signed it.

· YEARBOOK and YANKEE CANDLE Orders are due next Monday, October 31^st!

· Our class is collecting canned food and a dollar to help support a family this thanksgiving. We have 5 cans and $5.oo already! Thanks for supporting this great cause the student love to be caring and sharing.

· Check your food for box tops.

· $1.00 Pickle Fridays

SCHOOL WEBSITE: http://jbe.levyschools.org/r/home

Monday Update…October 17th

· Phonics- Red/Yellow/Green/Blue- Double s,l,f and sometimes z. At the end of a one syllable short vowel word you double the s,l,f and sometimes z. Ex. fuss, tell, cuff, buzz

· WOW Bag Vocabulary winner, Alexis Nobles!! Keep using those vocabulary words and sight words each week. Use context clues when you read J This week’s words: responsibility, appreciate, cooperate, partner, scrumptious

· Pizza Party for earning our 20 ABC charms will be on Friday. No lunch needed that day because students will be provided pizza, a drink, and a cookie.

· Next Thursday is a half day. It is also our Character dance which will be at 9:55. We will be doing different Halloween type activities. If anyone would like to make a special treat for that day let me know so we can plan accordingly.

· Thanks to The _____ Family for donating goldfish and vanilla wafers for our great leaps program. Also could anyone donate a pumpkin for Halloween when we do a 5 Senses science activity?

· Please go ahead and turn in your child’s field trip forms completed even if you don’t turn the money in right now. The first $25.00 dollars is due Friday, November 4^th. Remember that the chaperone cost is $54.00

· Thank you to the ______ family for supporting our SAC last Tuesday!

· Scholastic Book orders are due Friday, October 21^st.

· Keep selling PTO’s YANKEE CANDLE this month! Candles make great Christmas gifts!

· Check your food for box tops.

· $1.00 Pickle Fridays

SCHOOL WEBSITE: http://jbe.levyschools.org/r/home

 

WE HAVE A NEW NEWSLETTER IN OUR CLASSROOM NEWS TOO!!!!

Context Clues, Peas and Carrots, and Much Much More

A new common core standard for first grade is context clues.  I had never taught context clue directly before and was excited to create a new unit!  I read an article our reading coach gave us on context clues and suggested the book Henry P. Baloney to teach children context clues.  It was perfect and hilarious at the same time.  THE KIDS LOVED IT!!  It was presented to the children over a five day period.  I did 3 days and Ms. Toledo did the last two days which was fun to teach and observe this new skill.  We began the unit by asking what the children thought context clues were and then we introduced the anchor chart. 

Henry uses alien language through out his book and the students had to use the illustrations and the words to guess/predict the meaning of the unknown word.  Here are the words their meanings and what context clues we used to determine them.

 

We began each day with reading the section of the book we were going to cover that day.  Then we passed out clip boards with a half sheet for each student. The left column had the alien word and the right column was blank so they could tap to spell their prediction of the words meaning.  We read the story again and then we went around and shared our predictions and added it to the chart along with the context clues used. 

On Thursday we had a BIG day….      

did they tell you we got

20 CHARMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mrs. Lewis came with the big dice and she told the students the six prize options.  Then she called on the student to assign the different prizes to a number which I then write on the board.  Mrs. Lewis then offer the dice to Ms. Toledo or I to roll or we could pick a student who has been a a great role model by following the ABC’s.  We picked a special someone and she rolled that big dice.  It laded on six.  WE WON A PIZZA PARTY!  It was just a huge celebration in our class.   I will be setting a day next week for our pizza party and will let all the families know as to plan accordingly for lunch.

We learned a new SUMS game and practice an oldie but a goodie!  On Friday students refreshed their memory on how to play 3 towers of 10.  They did a great job working together and recording their data!

Our new game is called 7 peas and carrots.  My “special” spoon only scoops up 7 vegetables…some being carrots and some being peas. the students have to come up with all the combinations of 7 and they take turns recording on their sticky note!

Our math curriculum is called Math Connects.  We begin our math block with calendar on our interactive board, then do math journal most days, and then a mini lesson using Math Connects before we go into math centers.  Instead of ripping apart each page and taking the time to pass each page out everyday we decided to keep the chapter together like a book this year.  We stapled it so that it stays together and we put their name sticky on the front.  This cuts out so much wasted math time.  They get their book when they put their math journal away and turn to the page and begin.  We don’t even need to write our name.  We take classwork grades from this and their math mid chapter check test and final chapter tests are all in the packet. When you get these packets home like you did on Friday please go through it and see how your child is doing. 

The last 2 weeks we have been learning about nouns. We have been finding them in sentences and this week the students will begin using nouns in their sentences. when they free write.  This week we will introduce plural nouns. 

Each day during our read aloud we have continued to discuss a stories main idea and details.  This week the students will take an assessment on main idea and details.

We will begin our unit on motion- push and pull.  We got the students excited by doing an activity with a boat and water on Thursday.  The student recorded all the ways they got the boat to move. 

On Friday at recess Ms. Toledo got the students all excited!  She was “IT” and all the students were chasing her around. I am so glad I brought my camera out to capture these sweet moments!

Tall Tales, Trees, and a Gift Card

Here is our anchor chart about tall tales.  Boy have these kiddos loved tall tales.  We covered John Henry, Pecos Bill, and Paul Bunyan. 

After reading John Henry the children made sledge hammers!

This picture cracks me up! There was a song in the story that had the ring ring of John Henry’s sledgehammers.  So after their sledgehammers were done I sang the song and the student went ring ring with their sledgehammers!

We read Pecos Bill two days later and learned how he invented the lasso so we lassoed up us some steer of our own!

Today we finished up our last tall tale we didn’t have time to get to last week.  Paul Bunyan the strong logger ever know!  He was also enormous in size compared to all the normal folk.  Check out how small the normal people are compared to Paul Bunyan!  These loved Paul’s story because it had the most exaggerated details and boy do they love to use that word exaggerated even if they butcher it everytime.  I just love teaching these little guys!

Along the bottom of the wall is our apple orchard.  Our apple trees are filled with apples from our family trees!  They turned out so cute!

I got this gift card from a family in our class and I finally decided on the books it would buy for our classroom! They shipped today and should be here soon. 

We barrowed Baloney from another teacher but our class needs to have one for further reference.  He has helped us learn all about context clues this week! The other three will help with our Daily 5 Centers and picking good fit books which continues to be a struggle because they always want to read the hardest book in the library.

Monday Update…October 10th

· Phonics- Red/Yellow/Green - Continue digraphs: wh, sh, ch, th, ck ex. bath, chip, shop, back, whip. Digraphs stick together to form one sound. Blue- Double s,l,f and sometimes z. At the end of a one syllable short vowel word you double the s,l,f and sometimes z. Ex. fuss, tell, cuff, buzz

· WOW Bag Vocabulary winner,….!! Keep using those vocabulary words and sight words each week. Reviewing all vocabulary words this week and working on context clues

· We are in need of teddy grahams, animal crackers, or gold fish. The students receive one after they do Great Leaps, a fluency program with our class aid and peer counselor! Also could anyone donate a pumpkin for Halloween when we do a 5 Senses science activity?

· Please go ahead and turn in your child’s field trip forms completed even if you don’t turn the money in right now.

· SAC (6:00) and PTO (7:00) meeting this Tuesday.

· Scholastic Book orders are due Friday, October 21^st.

· Keep selling PTO’s YANKEE CANDLE this month! Candles make great Christmas gifts!

· Check your food for box tops.  We are getting ready to send in our box tops!

· $1.00 Pickle Fridays

SCHOOL WEBSITE: http://jbe.levyschools.org/r/home

A week Recap

In math we are learning all the different ways to make 10 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,  and 9.  The number sentences they have come up with are endless.  We are going to have many anchor charts up with their number sentences!  Students learned how to play roll and record this week.  The materials they use are 2 dot cubes (dice), a dry erase marker, and a record sheet in a plastic sleeves for ability to reuse.  They roll the dot cubes put the bigger number in their head and count on from that.  For example if I rolled a 5 and a 3.  I would put 5 in my head and literally tap my head then either count the three dots (6,7,8) or count three fingers (6,7,8). Then the student record their answer or sum on their record sheet.  It is set up like a graph so after they can make observations about their data. 

 

In music Mrs. Austin has them preparing for their PTO Program in November.  The students added the song lyrics booklets to their green BOOK bags on Friday and are in love.  They are singing the lyrics during read to self but there are following along and building that reading fluency.  It is pure sweetness!

Our comprehension focus  right now as stated on out newsletters is main idea.  After we do a read aloud in our classroom we ask the students what do you think this story is mostly about?  (Main Idea)  They began with retelling and now they are beginning to understand what main idea means.  Try it at home with your kiddos!  They also love to tell about the characters the setting and the many details that help support the main idea!

The students are loving the wow bag.  They are using the vocabulary words in their sentences and in their conversation now.  We are taking this upcoming week to review past words and begin a unit on context clues.  Context Clues will help student determine the meaning of words on their own by using pictures and words in the sentences. 

The students are loving the phonics program WILSON and it is working.  Students are growing more than I have ever seen students grow before.  They are tapping to spell and tapping to read.  We are finishing up our last week on digraphs (sh,th,ch,wh,ck).  In addition to WILSON we are using a program called the phonics dance with the children.  I love to move and dance and be loud as much as the students do!  The phonics dance introduces words chunks such as ch, th, sh, ow, ou, ing.  Each chuck has a dance or a jingle that goes along with them.  I can’t put the jingles on here due to copyright but ask them to do the chicken cha cha!

We are using a program called Four Square Writing this year which will guide them into Writers in Control which is used in second grade. 

• At first we began with picture sorts.  The students had to use the focus statement (yellow) in the middle of the squares to determine which pictures fit in the four squares.  They did 2 of these independently with many done altogether on the easiteach software.   
• Then we moved to the student illustrating the four squares that went with the focus statement in the middle.  We also had them add a word identifying the illustration.
• Now we have been adding our conclusion to the last square.  They can choose a feeling statement (the heart), a thinking statement (the light bulb), or the best things (the B.T.).   _______makes me feel _______.   I think _____ are _______.   The Best things about  ________  is _______.
• This week we are going to transition into changing the focus statement in to an actual sentence and not just a word. 

The students did a four square on Thursday about zoo animals which were out of th0si world fantastic.  Many of the children choose to write sentences instead of words.  They will be gracing our hallways next week.  The students had the opportunity to sit around and read theirs to their class.  The students classmates were a bit squirrelly at times but gave awesome compliments, such as, what a great illustration, or that is a good reason to pick that animal.   It was such a neat teaching moment.  As they read they realized where they forgot periods or a capital and look at Ms. Toledo and I and said next time they would check closer…ha!  I love what I do! 

I will tell about our tall tales unit next week when I can gather a few more pictures.   We have many John Henry’s and Pecos Bills around these days!

Monday Update 10/3/11

·         Phonics- Red/Yellow/Green/Blue - Continue digraphs: wh, sh, ch, th, ck ex. bath, chip, shop, back, whip.  Digraphs stick together to form one sound. 

·         WOW Bag Vocabulary!!! Keep using those vocabulary words and sight words each week.  Vocabulary this week: Protect, provide, guide, separate wild

·         Keep the sight word flash cards I send home and review past words.  The students get reassessed on the words periodically.

·         Check out our class website!

·         Check your food for box tops. J We are getting ready to send in our box tops!   

·         $1.00 Pickle Fridays

SCHOOL WEBSITE: http://jbe.levyschools.org/r/home

A little bit of this and that

We have our word families up and we plan on adding many more words this week.  We added the ick and ack word family on friday since we introduced ck this week to the students. 

The phonics program we are using this year is called Wilson Fundations.  These are the sounds cards that go with each letter.  When we echo letters this is what we say for a…a, apple, /a/.  /a/ denotes the sounds ahh.  We need to add out digraphs to the bottom of the alphabet but we are running out of room.

We have been building our read to self stamina.  Our stamina goal is 20 minutes of uninterrupted reading.  We are at about 15 minutes right now.  They love building their stamina.

The WOW bag has been a huge hit in our room.  Each week we have beenhaving students use the sight words and vocabulary words in sentences.  They are using them at home and bringing in their work.  They are finding sight words in the stories they are reading.  I can’t wait until they find the first vocabulary words.

Here are all our vcocabulary words thus far.  We keep adding each week!

We learned two new SUMS math games this week.  Here the students are playing double compare.  They both pick two cards.  They have to add them to see which player has the bigger number.  You could play this game at home with a deck of playing cards.  They also learned five in a row which they loved.  They have a number cube, a dot cube, counters, and a game board.  They take turns rolling the cubes and adding them up.  They then work together to get five counters in a row on their board. 

Over the last 2 weeks we have begun free journaling in their reading notebook.  The stories are great and we have some authors in our class this year.  I always read them and write note back to them which they love to read the next time they free journal.