More Birthdays!

We ended this week with two more birthdays today!  John's mother came in and shared some pictures and stories about John, and Innogen's family sent in Rice Krispie Treats for our team.  Happy birthday to both of you!  On Monday we look forward to Olivia's birthday celebration.  This will be our eighth birthday celebration this month!

Yesterday we had our first day of Writers Workshop.  We talked about why people write. We learned about what Writers Workshop should look like and sound like and learned how to use our writing folders.  Miss Claire shared a story with the class.  She drew her picture and then everyone helped her write her story down on paper.  We will continue learning more about Writers Workshop next week.

Today was the first day for reading homework.  Your child should have brought an envelope home with a reading record and book inside it.  I'm asking everyone to read for at least 15-20 minutes each night.  It can be independent reading, reading to someone else or having someone else read to him/her.  They should write down their reading information on their reading record and place that, along with their book, back in the envelope.  The envelope should be kept in their backpack and come back and forth to and from school every day.  Hopefully it won't get lost anywhere at home if they follow this routine.

We have been busy doing more assessments this week.  My hope is to finish up all assessments next week and have guided reading groups up and running at the beginning of October.  I have been so impressed with how well everyone has been doing on both their literacy and math assessments.  Some of the math strategies my friends have been using are truly amazing!

Once again, this coming week will be very busy.  We will be making pesto through the FEED program on Monday morning, Innesbrook gift wrap orders are due back Tuesday, Wednesday will be school photos and Thursday we will have a visit from our local firemen to teach us about fire safety.  We're hoping "Shelburne Fireman of the Year" , Mr. KillKelley, will be one of the firemen we see on Thursday!

Have a terrific weekend!

Good-bye Butterfly!

Monday our butterfly emerged during math and we were lucky to see the process it goes through to prepare for its' life as a butterfly.  Yesterday she was ready to be released and we sang a little song and set her free. What a wonderful experience this was for the Adventurers Team.

We have finished up learning about bugs in Math this week and have moved on to sea creatures today.  We have several new games, our favorite has been "There's a Bug In My Pocket".  This morning we sorted sea creatures in many different ways, then counted them on tens frames.  We estimated how many we had, counted by 10's and 5's, and talked about how many "groups" of 10 and 5 we had.  We have been busy learning about coins and number sentences in Number Corner.

Readers Workshop has been going beautifully!  I'm so impressed by how well everyone is remembering our rules for Readers Workshop and following routines.  We have been learning about ways to choose books (easy, just right, hard, by interest), what readers need to read well, how to handle books gently, and how to return books to their "homes".  These are all important ideas and lessons to build a strong foundation for Readers Workshop.  In addition to this, we continue to assess students to determine their strengths and areas for growth. This information will be used to help us set up guiding reading groups.

We have been talking about reading homework and practicing routines for reading at home.  This Friday your child will bring home an envelope with a book and a reading record inside of it.  They should read for 15-20 minutes every night and record the title, author and pages read on their reading record.  The reading record should be returned to school on Fridays with their homework packet.  Next week we will add regular homework and enrichment choices to their homework packet.  We will spend next week learning routines for homework. Homework for the following week will come home every Friday in the Friday Folder.  If you have any questions about these routines, please feel free to contact me.  My hope is that by gradually introducing different parts of homework, students will have a better understanding of expectations for homework.

I encourage you to subscribe to the blog through your email.  Click on subscribe in the upper right corner of the blog.  I subscribed and have been receiving emails each time I post, so it looks like I have it up and running and working well!

Our First Full Week

We had a very busy and exciting first full week of school.  We had a visit from Ms. Wideman reminding us about "debugging",  we celebrated Benjamin, Jack and Sam's birthdays, and we worked hard on some beginning of the year assessments.  We also finished reading our Red Clover books and will be voting on our favorite on Monday.  We have been working hard on different activities in Bridges work stations and created our own problems to solve today.  Look for them on the bulletin board in the hallway outside of the Adventurers space.  I continue to be amazed by the strategies your children have for solving problems in math!  In Readers Workshop we have been talking about what readers need to read well, choosing easy, just right and hard books for our book boxes and what a quiet reading time should look and sound like.  Today we enjoyed a wonderful snack of pretzels, cheese and crackers and apples as a team that John's mother brought in.  Many thanks to Kristen for that delicious and nuitritious snack.
Next week we will have another visit from Ms. Wideman and will continue to learn more about Reader's Workshop.  We will also work hard on finishing up some assessments.  We will begin Writer's Workshop and start talking about homework.
Many thanks to all of you for attending curriculum night, it was great to touch base with all of you again.  If you have any further  questions please feel free to contact me.
Have a terrific weekend!

Hands On Nature

Today was a busy day for the Adventurers team.  We celebrated Jordan's birthday in the morning and read another Red Clover book this afternoon.  Today's book was Button Up!  It was a funny book of poetry.  Some of the second graders read some of the poems.  This morning we had Hands On Nature.  We learned about how animals (people included) find their way.  We listened to a puppet show about how different animals find their way and learned how to use a compass to find our way.  We played a game that required visual mapping and learned about North, East, South, West.  We learned a great way to remember our directions, "Never Eat Slimy Worms".  Many thanks to our Hands On Nature parents for a great morning of learning!  We finished off our day sharing some of our favorite books from home and sketching our favorite reading memories during Reader's Workshop.

Our First Week of School

We have had a fantastic first week of school!  We have been getting to know each other, making new friends, learning some sign language and getting class and team routines down.  Unfortunately we have had some confusion with our Unified Arts schedule and groupings.  Please check the schedule portion of the blog as I have made some changes to the UA schedule.  We have been reading Red Clover books and doing some writing about them.  So far we have read Redwood, Lousy Rotten Stinkin Grapes and Moonshot.   We will be reading Red Clover Books through the end of September. 

I'd like to apoligize for not being here for most of the first day of school.  My daughter was in the hospital and I needed to be with her.  She is home now and doing well.  I'm glad I was at least able to be here to greet everyone in the morning.

Have a terrific weekend!  I'm so excited to be teaching first grade and am enjoying getting to know all your amazing children:)