Happy Friday! It is hard to believe we only have 15 days of school left. The energy in the room has increased drastically this week 😜 and we are having fun! We still have a lot to get done...field trips, passion projects, finishing fractions in math, and end-of-year assessments but we are getting it all done!
Gem Mining Field Trip: We are heading to Emerald Hollow Mine on Tuesday, May 7th! Please have your child to school by 8:00 AM sharp as the buses are planning to leave at 8:15 AM. Please feed your child a large breakfast so that they stay full until lunch. Please send your child with a packed lunch and water bottle (water bottle that will fit into their lunchbox would be best). We will be outside the entire day so I suggest applying sunscreen to your child before they come to school. They need to wear comfortable clothes that they can get messy. There will be a chance for us to go into a creek and students can put their feet into the water while looking for stones. The mine director has asked that all students wear water shoes. If your child has Keens, these would be perfect because they are safe and great for water! If not, normal water shoes are great! They shouldn't need a change of clothes but if you feel like your child would mind their clothes being a little wet, you may send a change of clothes in a labeled Ziplock bag.
EOG Early Dismissal: We will have early dismissal because of EOG's on Tuesday, May 14th and Wednesday, May 15th. Carpool will start at 2:00 PM and all students need to be picked up by 3:00 PM. Students will be held in our classrooms for that hour. I would suggest coming as close as you can to 2:00 PM because students already feel that the normal 30 minute carpool line is long. 😅
Author's Tea: Our Author's Tea will be held on Tuesday, May 28th at 1:00 PM in our classroom. This is a time where your child will get to share their passion project bare book with you. We will also have refreshments for the students and you may take your child home with you when done.
Math:
This week in math we finished learning about money and how to add up pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. The students did a scavenger hunt around the room to practice adding coins. We began learning about fractions on Tuesday. Students LOVED our first activity which was using cookies to learn how to cut things into halves and fourths. In first grade, students are required to understand fractions in halves and fourths. I also taught the students about thirds and we did a little bit with fifths and sixths. We will continue fractions next week.
Literacy:
During both our literacy and thematic center chunk of time, students are working on their passion projects. They are doing a great job and are excited to share them with you soon! This is essentially a research project and they are in their final writing phase and will begin illustrating their books soon.
Have a great weekend! 🌤🌻
Love,
Mrs. James
Friday, May 3, 2019
Friday, April 5, 2019
April 1st-5th
Happy Friday! Our class enjoyed the beautiful weather yesterday when we went to the park. Hopefully more of that is coming our way! 😎 We are excited to see all of you next week for our Artist in Me Gallery Crawl. This will be held in our classroom and we will have refreshments for the students to follow.
April 11th 10:00 AM: Artist in Me Gallery Crawl. The students will perform a song about each artist that we studied and then you will go on a scavenger hunt with your child to find all of their artwork.
April 15th-22nd: Spring Break
May 7th: Field trip to Emerald Hollow Mine. Go ahead and put this on your calendar if you would like to chaperone. It will be an all day field trip (it is in Hiddenite, NC) and I will send more information as we get closer to the date.
Math:
We wrapped up our unit on time to the hour and half hour this week and I plan to give a "post-assessment" next week to check student's proficiency levels to see if I need to reteach any of the lessons. They have done great! Some are still struggling with time to the half hour and knowing which number to say or write when it is in between two numbers. We are reviewing that daily and it should click soon! Next week we will begin our unit on money and explore with pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. We will begin by learning the names of the coins and what each coin is worth.
Literacy:
Even though we are continuing with guided reading groups on Tuesday, our passion projects are taking the center stage during our literacy time. This week was the first time when everyone was writing completely different pieces based on their passion project topic. For example, the past few weeks we have all done our acrostic poems on the same day or all have done our labeled pictures on the same day. This week one student may have been writing about blue whales while another student was writing about the different NFL football teams. In order for this to be smooth and successful, we pull each student one-on-one and create dash facts for them. A dash fact is a quick little fact blurb that we extracted from one of their books or internet articles. For example, if I am working with a student on blue whales, one of their dash facts might be "-largest animal ever known to have lived on Earth". After we finish, it is the student's job to turn all of their dash facts into complete sentences (adding necessary words, capitalization, and adding punctuation). Once the students finish their writing, we edit their work and they write their final draft that will go into their barebook.
Thematic:
We finished studying Edgar Degas this week (all things ballerinas and horses) and are moving onto Auguste Renoir. Students got to create their own colorful ballerina using cut-outs and melted crayons and got to paint on horse calendars. These art projects turned out beautifully and will be displayed next week. We began our first Renoir art project yesterday where the students painted a beautiful outdoor scene that we will turn into a reflection painting. We have also been practicing our songs and dances for next Thursday during our thematic time.
Thank you to our mystery readers this week...Sue Sink (Anna's Mom) and Diana Brush (Nicholas' mom)! Mystery readers have become a hit in our classroom. 😊
Have a great weekend!
Love,
Mrs. James
April 11th 10:00 AM: Artist in Me Gallery Crawl. The students will perform a song about each artist that we studied and then you will go on a scavenger hunt with your child to find all of their artwork.
April 15th-22nd: Spring Break
May 7th: Field trip to Emerald Hollow Mine. Go ahead and put this on your calendar if you would like to chaperone. It will be an all day field trip (it is in Hiddenite, NC) and I will send more information as we get closer to the date.
Math:
We wrapped up our unit on time to the hour and half hour this week and I plan to give a "post-assessment" next week to check student's proficiency levels to see if I need to reteach any of the lessons. They have done great! Some are still struggling with time to the half hour and knowing which number to say or write when it is in between two numbers. We are reviewing that daily and it should click soon! Next week we will begin our unit on money and explore with pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. We will begin by learning the names of the coins and what each coin is worth.
Literacy:
Even though we are continuing with guided reading groups on Tuesday, our passion projects are taking the center stage during our literacy time. This week was the first time when everyone was writing completely different pieces based on their passion project topic. For example, the past few weeks we have all done our acrostic poems on the same day or all have done our labeled pictures on the same day. This week one student may have been writing about blue whales while another student was writing about the different NFL football teams. In order for this to be smooth and successful, we pull each student one-on-one and create dash facts for them. A dash fact is a quick little fact blurb that we extracted from one of their books or internet articles. For example, if I am working with a student on blue whales, one of their dash facts might be "-largest animal ever known to have lived on Earth". After we finish, it is the student's job to turn all of their dash facts into complete sentences (adding necessary words, capitalization, and adding punctuation). Once the students finish their writing, we edit their work and they write their final draft that will go into their barebook.
Thematic:
We finished studying Edgar Degas this week (all things ballerinas and horses) and are moving onto Auguste Renoir. Students got to create their own colorful ballerina using cut-outs and melted crayons and got to paint on horse calendars. These art projects turned out beautifully and will be displayed next week. We began our first Renoir art project yesterday where the students painted a beautiful outdoor scene that we will turn into a reflection painting. We have also been practicing our songs and dances for next Thursday during our thematic time.
Thank you to our mystery readers this week...Sue Sink (Anna's Mom) and Diana Brush (Nicholas' mom)! Mystery readers have become a hit in our classroom. 😊
Have a great weekend!
Love,
Mrs. James
Friday, March 29, 2019
March 25th-29th
Happy, happy Friday! I hope you all have a great weekend with the beautiful weather headed our way. 🌻 We had an awesome and productive week in the classroom. Read below for what your child learned and upcoming events/announcements.
April 11th 10:00 AM: Artist in Me Gallery Crawl. The students will perform a song about each artist that we studied and then you will go on a scavenger hunt with your child to find all of their artwork. You do not want to miss this so put it on your calendar! This event will be in our classroom.
April 15th-22nd: Spring Break
May 7th: Field trip to Emerald Hollow Mine. Go ahead and put this on your calendar if you would like to chaperone. It will be an all day field trip (it is in Hiddenite, NC) and I will send more information as we get closer to the date.
Math:
We continued learning about telling time this week and students learned how to read and write time to the half hour. The trickiest part is them trying to figure out which hour it is when the hour hand is halfway between two numbers. We are still working on this skill! Encourage your child at home to practice this skill by noticing the clocks around them (both analog and digital) and attempting to figure out the time! If it is not exactly at an hour or half hour mark, they could at least determine what hour of the day it is by looking just at the hour hand. Incorporating this into their everyday life will really help them progress with this math concept.
Literacy:
Our literacy schedule for the rest of the year is the following:
Monday: 10 new spelling words and daily 5
Tuesday: guided reading groups and daily 5
Wednesday: passion projects
Thursday: passion projects
Friday: spell check, daily 5, and finish any passion project writing from Wed. and Thurs.
This week during our passion project time, students learned how to label pictures. We talked about what "labeling" is and why we use it in life. I showed them many examples around the classroom of things that I have labeled. Each student chose one thing that had to do with their topic, they drew a picture of it, and labeled all of the parts. They had to label at least 8 things on the picture. For example if they drew a picture of a dog they would label ear, mouth, tongue, whiskers, tail, body, head, paws, etc. They created a rough draft, we helped them edit their picture and spelling, and they created a final copy.
Thematic:
We finished studying Henri Matisse this week and moved onto Edgar Degas today. Students rotated through three stations this week:
1. Matisse bowls: Students learned how to paper mâché this week. They used modge podge to glue Matisse styled shapes onto a balloon. Once the glue dried, they got to pop the balloon and it left a beautiful bowl! These are definitely a class favorite.
2. Matisse paper people cut-outs: We learned that Matisse loves scissors and cutting paper. Students got some body-like shapes and had to cut them out and into smaller pieces and create their own person.
3. How-to Spot a Matisse mini-book: To review each artist, the students illustrate a book about "how to spot a..." This reviews the key characteristics and art styles of each artist so if they walked into an art gallery, they would know an artist by their painting.
Thank you to our mystery readers this week...Carolyn Sink (Anna's grandmother) and Gloria McGlamery (Hudson's gigi)!
Have a great weekend!
Love,
Mrs. James
April 11th 10:00 AM: Artist in Me Gallery Crawl. The students will perform a song about each artist that we studied and then you will go on a scavenger hunt with your child to find all of their artwork. You do not want to miss this so put it on your calendar! This event will be in our classroom.
April 15th-22nd: Spring Break
May 7th: Field trip to Emerald Hollow Mine. Go ahead and put this on your calendar if you would like to chaperone. It will be an all day field trip (it is in Hiddenite, NC) and I will send more information as we get closer to the date.
Math:
We continued learning about telling time this week and students learned how to read and write time to the half hour. The trickiest part is them trying to figure out which hour it is when the hour hand is halfway between two numbers. We are still working on this skill! Encourage your child at home to practice this skill by noticing the clocks around them (both analog and digital) and attempting to figure out the time! If it is not exactly at an hour or half hour mark, they could at least determine what hour of the day it is by looking just at the hour hand. Incorporating this into their everyday life will really help them progress with this math concept.
Literacy:
Our literacy schedule for the rest of the year is the following:
Monday: 10 new spelling words and daily 5
Tuesday: guided reading groups and daily 5
Wednesday: passion projects
Thursday: passion projects
Friday: spell check, daily 5, and finish any passion project writing from Wed. and Thurs.
This week during our passion project time, students learned how to label pictures. We talked about what "labeling" is and why we use it in life. I showed them many examples around the classroom of things that I have labeled. Each student chose one thing that had to do with their topic, they drew a picture of it, and labeled all of the parts. They had to label at least 8 things on the picture. For example if they drew a picture of a dog they would label ear, mouth, tongue, whiskers, tail, body, head, paws, etc. They created a rough draft, we helped them edit their picture and spelling, and they created a final copy.
Thematic:
We finished studying Henri Matisse this week and moved onto Edgar Degas today. Students rotated through three stations this week:
1. Matisse bowls: Students learned how to paper mâché this week. They used modge podge to glue Matisse styled shapes onto a balloon. Once the glue dried, they got to pop the balloon and it left a beautiful bowl! These are definitely a class favorite.
2. Matisse paper people cut-outs: We learned that Matisse loves scissors and cutting paper. Students got some body-like shapes and had to cut them out and into smaller pieces and create their own person.
3. How-to Spot a Matisse mini-book: To review each artist, the students illustrate a book about "how to spot a..." This reviews the key characteristics and art styles of each artist so if they walked into an art gallery, they would know an artist by their painting.
Thank you to our mystery readers this week...Carolyn Sink (Anna's grandmother) and Gloria McGlamery (Hudson's gigi)!
Have a great weekend!
Love,
Mrs. James
Friday, March 22, 2019
March 18th-22nd
Happy Friday! Wow...we had a very busy week in our classroom between learning how to tell time, working on our fictional writing piece for our passion project, and learning about Henri Matisse and recreating his artwork. We were also excited for the start of spring and have enjoyed the sunshine at recess this week!
Reminders:
April 11th 10:00 AM: Artist in Me Gallery Crawl. The students will perform a song about each artist that we studied and then you will go on a scavenger hunt with your child to find all of their artwork. You do not want to miss this so put it on your calendar! This event will be in our classroom.
April 15th-22nd: Spring Break
May 7th: Field trip to Emerald Hollow Mine. Go ahead and put this on your calendar if you would like to chaperone. It will be an all day field trip (it is in Hiddenite, NC) and I will send more information as we get closer to the date.
Math:
We began a new math "cluster" this week as we began studying the clock and how to tell time. In first grade, they learn to tell time to the hour and half hour. If any students are successful with these two concepts, I challenge them by teaching them time to the quarter hour and down to the minute. This past week we learned about the parts of a clock (face, hour hand, minute hand, large numbers that represent the hours, and the small lines that represent the minutes.) We also focused on telling and writing time to the hour. Students did great! They completed activities where they had to read the time on an analog clock and write the time as "9:00" or "3:00" and activities where they had to read the number time and draw the hands on a clock. Next week we will move onto time to the half hour. Students also continued to work on our math number tiles that included subtraction, before/in between/after, and balancing numbers to 10.
Literacy:
This week during our passion project time, students wrote a fictional writing piece that had to do with their topic. We also began teaching students about the editing process and how we were going to edit/revise each piece of writing they did. After they finished their fictional piece, we called them over one by one and edited their writing. We mainly edited capitalization, punctuation, sight words, and any words that were ineligible. We will continue working on the editing process with them and soon they will be able to edit their own writing. Once it is edited, they write their final draft in their best handwriting that will go into their bare book. I also taught a lesson before our guided reading groups about looking for digraphs and blends in words that we are trying to decode. I tried to help them realized that if they look for these letter chunks, it will help them sound out unknown words. We came up with a huge list as a class that included ch, sh, wh, th, wr, br, bl, tr, ph, pl, sl, cl, cr, fr, etc. We applied this to our guided reading books when reading on Tuesday.
Thematic:
We finished studying Pablo Picasso on Monday and began studying Henri Matisse! We have some of the student's artwork hanging in the classroom already and it looks amazing! They are doing a great job with this unit. Students rotated through two art centers this week as they had multiple steps to them.
1. Students recreated Matisse's famous painting of a goldfish bowl on a table in the corner of a room. Students learned to use a ruler to create their lines and learned how to make a drawing look 3-dimensional. They used different art mediums (oil pastels and liquid watercolors) to create their painting and had to cut construction paper to finish the table and goldfish bowl.
2. We learned that Matisse loved paper cut-outs and reflections/inversions of shapes. Students got to tie-die paper with liquid water colors and then cut out any shape they wanted to create a reflective piece of artwork.
We can't wait to share all of our artwork with you at the gallery crawl! Have an awesome weekend!
Love,
Mrs. James
Reminders:
- If there is a change to the way your child is being dismissed in the afternoon (carpool, bus, after school enrichment class, etc.) and it is during the school day, please call the front desk and they will relay the message to me. I am not always able to check my email during the day and I would hate to miss an afternoon dismissal change.
- We encourage the students to eat their main food first (sandwich, pasta, burger, crackers/cheese, pizza, chicken, etc.) and then their other healthy items before any dessert like item. Please keep this in mind as you are packing your child's lunch as we have to have lots of conversations of saving the treats until the end.
April 11th 10:00 AM: Artist in Me Gallery Crawl. The students will perform a song about each artist that we studied and then you will go on a scavenger hunt with your child to find all of their artwork. You do not want to miss this so put it on your calendar! This event will be in our classroom.
April 15th-22nd: Spring Break
May 7th: Field trip to Emerald Hollow Mine. Go ahead and put this on your calendar if you would like to chaperone. It will be an all day field trip (it is in Hiddenite, NC) and I will send more information as we get closer to the date.
Math:
We began a new math "cluster" this week as we began studying the clock and how to tell time. In first grade, they learn to tell time to the hour and half hour. If any students are successful with these two concepts, I challenge them by teaching them time to the quarter hour and down to the minute. This past week we learned about the parts of a clock (face, hour hand, minute hand, large numbers that represent the hours, and the small lines that represent the minutes.) We also focused on telling and writing time to the hour. Students did great! They completed activities where they had to read the time on an analog clock and write the time as "9:00" or "3:00" and activities where they had to read the number time and draw the hands on a clock. Next week we will move onto time to the half hour. Students also continued to work on our math number tiles that included subtraction, before/in between/after, and balancing numbers to 10.
Literacy:
This week during our passion project time, students wrote a fictional writing piece that had to do with their topic. We also began teaching students about the editing process and how we were going to edit/revise each piece of writing they did. After they finished their fictional piece, we called them over one by one and edited their writing. We mainly edited capitalization, punctuation, sight words, and any words that were ineligible. We will continue working on the editing process with them and soon they will be able to edit their own writing. Once it is edited, they write their final draft in their best handwriting that will go into their bare book. I also taught a lesson before our guided reading groups about looking for digraphs and blends in words that we are trying to decode. I tried to help them realized that if they look for these letter chunks, it will help them sound out unknown words. We came up with a huge list as a class that included ch, sh, wh, th, wr, br, bl, tr, ph, pl, sl, cl, cr, fr, etc. We applied this to our guided reading books when reading on Tuesday.
Thematic:
We finished studying Pablo Picasso on Monday and began studying Henri Matisse! We have some of the student's artwork hanging in the classroom already and it looks amazing! They are doing a great job with this unit. Students rotated through two art centers this week as they had multiple steps to them.
1. Students recreated Matisse's famous painting of a goldfish bowl on a table in the corner of a room. Students learned to use a ruler to create their lines and learned how to make a drawing look 3-dimensional. They used different art mediums (oil pastels and liquid watercolors) to create their painting and had to cut construction paper to finish the table and goldfish bowl.
2. We learned that Matisse loved paper cut-outs and reflections/inversions of shapes. Students got to tie-die paper with liquid water colors and then cut out any shape they wanted to create a reflective piece of artwork.
We can't wait to share all of our artwork with you at the gallery crawl! Have an awesome weekend!
Love,
Mrs. James
Sunday, March 10, 2019
March 4th-8th
Hello parents! We had an awesome week in the classroom between learning about Pablo Picasso and starting our Passion Projects. Passion Projects will begin taking up most of our Daily 5/literacy time and you can read below about what we are doing to get started.
March 12th: Field trip to the Laurel's Nursing Home
March 14th and 15th: No school...teacher workdays
April 11th 10:00 AM: Artist in Me Gallery Crawl
April 15th-22nd: Spring Break
***Carpool: If there is a change during the school day to your child's afternoon pickup plan, please call the CSD front desk and they will relay the message to me. I don't always have time to check my email during the day and I would hate to put your child on the bus when they are supposed to do carpool or vice versa.
Math:
We finished wrapping up with ten more/ten less, one more/one less. I realized that some students needed some extra time to practice this skill so we continued another week of it before moving onto the next concept. This week we will begin learning about time! Like I mentioned in the blog last week, we learn time to the hour and half hour. We also are continuing to work on addition and subtraction with higher numbers, the hundreds chart and the patterns that exist within it, and understanding word problems.
Literacy:
We continued with our guided reading groups on Tuesday like normal but the rest of our literacy time during the week was devoted to Passion Projects. The beginning stages are the toughest as we are trying to set the students up for success in this research project. The first step that we take is pull each child one-on-one and come up with "subtopics" for their topic. Each subtopic will be a page in their bare book and will include page of writing and a page of illustrations. For example, if someone chose "the ocean" as their topic some subtopics could be layers of the ocean, a list of ocean animals, dolphins, sharks, jellyfish, the 5 oceans of the world, waves and currents, etc. Each child brainstormed this with us and we wrote all of them down so that we can begin working on them in the next few weeks. The plan is to work on Passion Projects on Wednesday and Thursdays during out literacy time.
Thematic:
We started our Artist in Me unit this week and we began with learning about Pablo Picasso. We are also learning the "Picasso Polka" that we will sing during our gallery crawl on April 11th. The kids love it! We learned the Picasso loved painting funky faces, blue artwork, rose artwork, cubism, and loved to tie in math into his artwork. We learned that as he transitioned through different phases of his life, his style of artwork also changed. Below are the centers that the students rotated through:
1. Students illustrated a book about "How To Find a Picasso" piece of artwork
2. Students created the famous Picasso painting of a rooster and they used chalk and oil pastels
3. Students created different shades of blue using blue, white, and black to create a "blue period" of a time they were sad
4. Students played "Roll a Picasso" where they rolled a dice and had to draw a face, ears, eyes, mouth, and nose to create a "funky face" like Picasso did
Thanks to our mystery reader today, Christina McConnell! The kids are loving this parent activity. There are still a few spots left so sign up on the Sign Up Genius that I sent out if you are interested.
Have a wonderful week!
Love,
Mrs. James
March 12th: Field trip to the Laurel's Nursing Home
March 14th and 15th: No school...teacher workdays
April 11th 10:00 AM: Artist in Me Gallery Crawl
April 15th-22nd: Spring Break
***Carpool: If there is a change during the school day to your child's afternoon pickup plan, please call the CSD front desk and they will relay the message to me. I don't always have time to check my email during the day and I would hate to put your child on the bus when they are supposed to do carpool or vice versa.
Math:
We finished wrapping up with ten more/ten less, one more/one less. I realized that some students needed some extra time to practice this skill so we continued another week of it before moving onto the next concept. This week we will begin learning about time! Like I mentioned in the blog last week, we learn time to the hour and half hour. We also are continuing to work on addition and subtraction with higher numbers, the hundreds chart and the patterns that exist within it, and understanding word problems.
Literacy:
We continued with our guided reading groups on Tuesday like normal but the rest of our literacy time during the week was devoted to Passion Projects. The beginning stages are the toughest as we are trying to set the students up for success in this research project. The first step that we take is pull each child one-on-one and come up with "subtopics" for their topic. Each subtopic will be a page in their bare book and will include page of writing and a page of illustrations. For example, if someone chose "the ocean" as their topic some subtopics could be layers of the ocean, a list of ocean animals, dolphins, sharks, jellyfish, the 5 oceans of the world, waves and currents, etc. Each child brainstormed this with us and we wrote all of them down so that we can begin working on them in the next few weeks. The plan is to work on Passion Projects on Wednesday and Thursdays during out literacy time.
Thematic:
We started our Artist in Me unit this week and we began with learning about Pablo Picasso. We are also learning the "Picasso Polka" that we will sing during our gallery crawl on April 11th. The kids love it! We learned the Picasso loved painting funky faces, blue artwork, rose artwork, cubism, and loved to tie in math into his artwork. We learned that as he transitioned through different phases of his life, his style of artwork also changed. Below are the centers that the students rotated through:
1. Students illustrated a book about "How To Find a Picasso" piece of artwork
2. Students created the famous Picasso painting of a rooster and they used chalk and oil pastels
3. Students created different shades of blue using blue, white, and black to create a "blue period" of a time they were sad
4. Students played "Roll a Picasso" where they rolled a dice and had to draw a face, ears, eyes, mouth, and nose to create a "funky face" like Picasso did
Thanks to our mystery reader today, Christina McConnell! The kids are loving this parent activity. There are still a few spots left so sign up on the Sign Up Genius that I sent out if you are interested.
Have a wonderful week!
Love,
Mrs. James
Friday, March 1, 2019
February 25th-March 1st
Hello all and happy Friday! I hope you all had a great week. We had a fun, exciting, and busy week with our field trip to Discovery Place and our "Bailey Goes Camping" camping day. We also had a visit from Davidson Dentistry on Wednesday to talk about the importance of dental health and taking care of your teeth. It is hard to believe we only have three more months of school left. 😆 Next week we begin our Artist in Me thematic unit and we will also begin working on our Passion Projects!
March 4th: Passion Project materials due...please refer back to the email I sent on Feb. 21st to see what needs to be collected and sent in for this project.
March 12th: Field trip to the Laurel's Nursing Home
March 14th and 15th: No school...teacher workdays
April 11th 10:00 AM: Artist in Me Gallery Crawl
Math:
We are finishing up our work on ten more/ten less and composing/distinguishing shapes. We will continue to spiral review back to these concepts but will soon be moving into telling time! The kids love learning about time because they are able to use it in their daily life. In first grade, they learn time to the hour and half hour. We talk about the cyclical nature of the clock and we count all of the minutes and see how we can group them into 5's. I also label the clock in our room so that they can easily count the minutes and learn to tell time.
Literacy:
Students completed their normal guided reading groups and word sorts this week and then we had our writer's workshop during our camping day. I am going to reassess all of the students on their "spelling inventory" assessment that I use to show me what developmental spelling stage they are in. Their word sort group may shift some depending on this assessment and if they have made any more progress. We will soon be working on our Passion Projects during literacy time so word sorts may become more sporadic. Guided reading groups will stay consistent. Passion Projects are a great way to work on all of the different parts of literacy at once (decoding, comprehension, summarizing, writing, editing, revising, etc. This is essentially a research project that is differentiated to their level.
Thematic:
This week we wrapped up our Author in Me unit by studying Kevin Henkes. He is the author of several popular children's books such as Chrysanthemum, Lily's Purple Plastic Purse, Wemberly Worried, Owen, and Bailey Goes Camping. After reading Wemberly Worried, students got to write about their own worries that they have in life and they created an art piece to go with it. We also studied our names after reading the book Chrysanthemum and examined the vowels in our name, syllables, letters, etc. We had a full day of camping activities that included reading in tents, writing in tents, playing camping BINGO, making binoculars and going on a nature scavenger hunt, and making s'mores!
Have a great weekend!
Love,
Mrs. James
March 4th: Passion Project materials due...please refer back to the email I sent on Feb. 21st to see what needs to be collected and sent in for this project.
March 12th: Field trip to the Laurel's Nursing Home
March 14th and 15th: No school...teacher workdays
April 11th 10:00 AM: Artist in Me Gallery Crawl
Math:
We are finishing up our work on ten more/ten less and composing/distinguishing shapes. We will continue to spiral review back to these concepts but will soon be moving into telling time! The kids love learning about time because they are able to use it in their daily life. In first grade, they learn time to the hour and half hour. We talk about the cyclical nature of the clock and we count all of the minutes and see how we can group them into 5's. I also label the clock in our room so that they can easily count the minutes and learn to tell time.
Literacy:
Students completed their normal guided reading groups and word sorts this week and then we had our writer's workshop during our camping day. I am going to reassess all of the students on their "spelling inventory" assessment that I use to show me what developmental spelling stage they are in. Their word sort group may shift some depending on this assessment and if they have made any more progress. We will soon be working on our Passion Projects during literacy time so word sorts may become more sporadic. Guided reading groups will stay consistent. Passion Projects are a great way to work on all of the different parts of literacy at once (decoding, comprehension, summarizing, writing, editing, revising, etc. This is essentially a research project that is differentiated to their level.
Thematic:
This week we wrapped up our Author in Me unit by studying Kevin Henkes. He is the author of several popular children's books such as Chrysanthemum, Lily's Purple Plastic Purse, Wemberly Worried, Owen, and Bailey Goes Camping. After reading Wemberly Worried, students got to write about their own worries that they have in life and they created an art piece to go with it. We also studied our names after reading the book Chrysanthemum and examined the vowels in our name, syllables, letters, etc. We had a full day of camping activities that included reading in tents, writing in tents, playing camping BINGO, making binoculars and going on a nature scavenger hunt, and making s'mores!
Have a great weekend!
Love,
Mrs. James
Friday, February 22, 2019
February 18th-22nd
Happy Friday! We had a great week in our classroom other than being forced to have indoor recess multiple days in a row. 😆 The students actually love it at times because they get to play "Four Corners." We are ready for some sunshine and the playground! The highlight of the week was definitely going to CSD's high school black box and watching the middle school dance performance of "The Greatest Showman." They did an amazing job!
February 26th Discovery Place Field Trip: Please have your child at school by 8:00 AM. The bus will be leaving CSD at 8:15 AM. Chaperones...I will email you separately but you will meet us at Discovery Place with your child at 8:45/8:50 AM. We will not have time for a morning snack so please feed your child a large, protein filled breakfast to keep them full until lunch. Please pack a normal lunch in their lunchbox and make sure to send a water bottle (it would be great if the water bottle could fit inside the lunchbox so it doesn't get lost). We will be eating at Discovery Place at some point between 10:30-12:30.
February 28th Camping Day: Because we are studying Kevin Henkes and one of his books Bailey Goes Camping, we are having our own camping day! Students can wear their pajamas and bring a flashlight for reading inside of the tents. We need some parents to send in some tents for us to borrow and it would be amazing if those parents could also come set up and break down their tent (so that it get's properly assembled and we don't mess it up). We will do fun camping activities all day, we will have hotdogs for lunch, and we will make s'mores! All of these items needed will be on a Sign Up Genius sent out.
March 4th Passion Project Materials Due: Please make sure to read my email I sent out Thursday morning about the Passion Project. Your child needs to pick their topic within the next few days so that you can begin collecting books, internet articles, magazines, scrapbook paper, stickers, etc. Once you begin to collect books and articles, please begin reading them with your child and highlight any important facts (if in an internet article). This will help your child tremendously when they begin the writing process of their project.
Math:
We had two new centers added into math workshop that involved shapes and greater than/less than. Students worked together with tangrams to recreate different pictures. We are reviewing 2D shapes before we move into 3D shapes. Students also played a game where they rolled two dice (if they rolled a 6 and a 4 their number would be 64) and their partner then rolled two dice and they had to pick which sign (< > =) would make the math sentence correct. Next week we will be working on the concept of ten more/ten less using the hundreds chart. Our goal is that they can add ten or subtract ten from any number between 1-150 by the end of first grade.
Literacy:
We moved onto a new concept during our writer's workshop that is called "authors as mentors." We discussed some of our favorite authors that are successful at writing fun, interesting, exciting stories that we get wrapped up into. We decided that we would choose Mo Willems as our "mentor" to study and write a story similar to. We discussed all of the things that Willems does that makes him a great author...funny jokes, interesting characters, punctuation, speech bubbles, a good storyline. All students then wrote their own Elephant and Piggie book styled just Mo Willems.
Thematic:
We studied Ezra Jack Keats this week during our "Author in Me" unit of study. Some of the books we read are Snowy Day, Whistle for Willie, and Peter's Chair. Many of Keats' books take place in a city so we reviewed our cardinal directions and students had to follow specific steps to create their own city. They enjoyed this activity! Students also used scrapbook paper to create their own scene from the book Peter's Chair. Monday we will get to make fake snow as we study the book Snowy Day. We will then move onto Kevin Henkes.
Love,
Mrs. James
February 26th Discovery Place Field Trip: Please have your child at school by 8:00 AM. The bus will be leaving CSD at 8:15 AM. Chaperones...I will email you separately but you will meet us at Discovery Place with your child at 8:45/8:50 AM. We will not have time for a morning snack so please feed your child a large, protein filled breakfast to keep them full until lunch. Please pack a normal lunch in their lunchbox and make sure to send a water bottle (it would be great if the water bottle could fit inside the lunchbox so it doesn't get lost). We will be eating at Discovery Place at some point between 10:30-12:30.
February 28th Camping Day: Because we are studying Kevin Henkes and one of his books Bailey Goes Camping, we are having our own camping day! Students can wear their pajamas and bring a flashlight for reading inside of the tents. We need some parents to send in some tents for us to borrow and it would be amazing if those parents could also come set up and break down their tent (so that it get's properly assembled and we don't mess it up). We will do fun camping activities all day, we will have hotdogs for lunch, and we will make s'mores! All of these items needed will be on a Sign Up Genius sent out.
March 4th Passion Project Materials Due: Please make sure to read my email I sent out Thursday morning about the Passion Project. Your child needs to pick their topic within the next few days so that you can begin collecting books, internet articles, magazines, scrapbook paper, stickers, etc. Once you begin to collect books and articles, please begin reading them with your child and highlight any important facts (if in an internet article). This will help your child tremendously when they begin the writing process of their project.
Math:
We had two new centers added into math workshop that involved shapes and greater than/less than. Students worked together with tangrams to recreate different pictures. We are reviewing 2D shapes before we move into 3D shapes. Students also played a game where they rolled two dice (if they rolled a 6 and a 4 their number would be 64) and their partner then rolled two dice and they had to pick which sign (< > =) would make the math sentence correct. Next week we will be working on the concept of ten more/ten less using the hundreds chart. Our goal is that they can add ten or subtract ten from any number between 1-150 by the end of first grade.
Literacy:
We moved onto a new concept during our writer's workshop that is called "authors as mentors." We discussed some of our favorite authors that are successful at writing fun, interesting, exciting stories that we get wrapped up into. We decided that we would choose Mo Willems as our "mentor" to study and write a story similar to. We discussed all of the things that Willems does that makes him a great author...funny jokes, interesting characters, punctuation, speech bubbles, a good storyline. All students then wrote their own Elephant and Piggie book styled just Mo Willems.
Thematic:
We studied Ezra Jack Keats this week during our "Author in Me" unit of study. Some of the books we read are Snowy Day, Whistle for Willie, and Peter's Chair. Many of Keats' books take place in a city so we reviewed our cardinal directions and students had to follow specific steps to create their own city. They enjoyed this activity! Students also used scrapbook paper to create their own scene from the book Peter's Chair. Monday we will get to make fake snow as we study the book Snowy Day. We will then move onto Kevin Henkes.
Love,
Mrs. James
Friday, February 15, 2019
February 11th-15th
Happy Friday! 🎉🎉🎉
It was great to see so many of you at the Valentine's Party or at parent conferences this week! We had a short week together but it was a productive one. We are also cleaning like crazy and diffusing thieves in an attempt to stop the flu epidemic in our classroom. Thank you for keeping your child home if they are showing any symptoms of illness in order to not spread their germs in our room. Thank you for also following the school's policy of your child being fever free for 24 hours.
February 18th: No school...President's Day
February 22nd Pet Show: We are studying the author Ezra Jack Keats and one of his famous books is called Pet Show. We are having our own pet show in the class and the students can bring in one stuffed animal on the 22nd that is small enough for them to carry into the school building.
February 26th (all day) Discovery Place Field Trip: We need more chaperones!!!!! We only have 4 as of right now and could really use some more help. The Sign Up Genius for chaperones was sent out two weeks ago. You will pay $17 (the normal admission price) upon arrival to Discovery Place instead of paying through CSD. You will drive your own child and meet us there. We will arrive to Discovery Place between 8:45-9:00 am and will stay the majority of the day. No siblings please.
February 28th Camping Day: We are studying Kevin Henkes next week and one of his books is Tacky Goes to Camp. We are having our own camping day where students get to wear their pajamas and we will have a special lunch (either hotdogs or pigs in a blanket) and will also make s'mores! We will need some tents to borrow so if you have a large tent that we could borrow, please email me! We will need you to come set it up and tear it down because we would hate to mess it up or not be able to figure out how to make it work.
***Please make sure your child is bringing the necessary items to school everyday including their blue folder (emptied), water bottle, lunch/snack, and a jacket. Please also make sure they bring their guided reading book and binder back on Friday. We have had a lot of these not brought to school on Friday's recently and really need the student's to make every effort to remember this. Some sort of reminder near their backpack would be perfect!
Math:
All throughout first grade we have been comparing numbers (greater than, less than, equal to) but we finally introduced the signs (<, >, =) to the students. Our curriculum had us wait until now to introduce the signs so that the students would fully grasp the concept first. They loved learning about the signs and an easy way we learned to remember that involves an alligator. You can ask your child to learn more about the alligator helper. :) We are also spiral reviewing back to word problems. We do "Word Problem Wednesday" where we specifically work on it for around 20 minutes as a class and in partners. We are working on reading the problem for meaning and understanding of what is known and unknown.
Literacy:
Our guided reading groups have shifted around since I assessed the student's on their reading recently and you may notice that they bumped up a level, or two, or three. This is exciting! I usually push the student's and put them on a little bit of a harder reading level since it is direct instruction in their small reading group. During the reading group, they should be able to read most of the book on their own but it is normal for them to struggle with certain words or difficult vocabulary. I guide them through this during our lesson and I would encourage you to help them with this at home when they read to you.
Thematic:
We are halfway through our Author in Me unit of study and the kids LOVED studying Mo Willems the past two weeks. He is the author of Elephant and Piggie books which are the student's favorite! Their favorite center was definitely when they got to create their own Elephant and Piggie book. Their other favorite center was when they got to create the pigeon in an art activity. They are displayed in the hallway and are so cute! They love finding the pigeon when we read Mo Willems' books. We are moving onto Ezra Jack Keats this week who writes The Snowy Day, Peter's Chair, Whistle for Willie, and Pet Show.
Have a great long weekend!
Love,
Mrs. James
It was great to see so many of you at the Valentine's Party or at parent conferences this week! We had a short week together but it was a productive one. We are also cleaning like crazy and diffusing thieves in an attempt to stop the flu epidemic in our classroom. Thank you for keeping your child home if they are showing any symptoms of illness in order to not spread their germs in our room. Thank you for also following the school's policy of your child being fever free for 24 hours.
February 18th: No school...President's Day
February 22nd Pet Show: We are studying the author Ezra Jack Keats and one of his famous books is called Pet Show. We are having our own pet show in the class and the students can bring in one stuffed animal on the 22nd that is small enough for them to carry into the school building.
February 26th (all day) Discovery Place Field Trip: We need more chaperones!!!!! We only have 4 as of right now and could really use some more help. The Sign Up Genius for chaperones was sent out two weeks ago. You will pay $17 (the normal admission price) upon arrival to Discovery Place instead of paying through CSD. You will drive your own child and meet us there. We will arrive to Discovery Place between 8:45-9:00 am and will stay the majority of the day. No siblings please.
February 28th Camping Day: We are studying Kevin Henkes next week and one of his books is Tacky Goes to Camp. We are having our own camping day where students get to wear their pajamas and we will have a special lunch (either hotdogs or pigs in a blanket) and will also make s'mores! We will need some tents to borrow so if you have a large tent that we could borrow, please email me! We will need you to come set it up and tear it down because we would hate to mess it up or not be able to figure out how to make it work.
***Please make sure your child is bringing the necessary items to school everyday including their blue folder (emptied), water bottle, lunch/snack, and a jacket. Please also make sure they bring their guided reading book and binder back on Friday. We have had a lot of these not brought to school on Friday's recently and really need the student's to make every effort to remember this. Some sort of reminder near their backpack would be perfect!
Math:
All throughout first grade we have been comparing numbers (greater than, less than, equal to) but we finally introduced the signs (<, >, =) to the students. Our curriculum had us wait until now to introduce the signs so that the students would fully grasp the concept first. They loved learning about the signs and an easy way we learned to remember that involves an alligator. You can ask your child to learn more about the alligator helper. :) We are also spiral reviewing back to word problems. We do "Word Problem Wednesday" where we specifically work on it for around 20 minutes as a class and in partners. We are working on reading the problem for meaning and understanding of what is known and unknown.
Literacy:
Our guided reading groups have shifted around since I assessed the student's on their reading recently and you may notice that they bumped up a level, or two, or three. This is exciting! I usually push the student's and put them on a little bit of a harder reading level since it is direct instruction in their small reading group. During the reading group, they should be able to read most of the book on their own but it is normal for them to struggle with certain words or difficult vocabulary. I guide them through this during our lesson and I would encourage you to help them with this at home when they read to you.
Thematic:
We are halfway through our Author in Me unit of study and the kids LOVED studying Mo Willems the past two weeks. He is the author of Elephant and Piggie books which are the student's favorite! Their favorite center was definitely when they got to create their own Elephant and Piggie book. Their other favorite center was when they got to create the pigeon in an art activity. They are displayed in the hallway and are so cute! They love finding the pigeon when we read Mo Willems' books. We are moving onto Ezra Jack Keats this week who writes The Snowy Day, Peter's Chair, Whistle for Willie, and Pet Show.
Have a great long weekend!
Love,
Mrs. James
Sunday, February 3, 2019
January 28th - February 1st
Happy Sunday! I hope you all have had a great weekend so far. The weather has been beautiful and it has been nice to get outside. It is hard to believe we celebrated the 100th day of school last week! Please see below for upcoming events and a review of our week.
February 7th 10:30-11:00 AM Scholastic Book Fair: You are welcome to join us and help your child and other children pick out books! You may also send in money with your child in a Ziplock bag labeled with their name and we will help them pick out books.
February 13th 1:00 Valentine's Reading Party: You are invited to come read Valentines with your child that other students wrote for them. We will also have a Valentine's snack for your child to enjoy. *** Please have your child bring in their Valentines with them to school on the morning of the 13th because they will pass them out before the party
February 14th and 15th: No school...optional parent conferences
February 18th: No school...President's Day
February 26th (all day) Discovery Place Field Trip: We can have as many chaperones as we want so you are all invited to come! No siblings please. The Sign Up Genius for chaperones was sent out last week. You will pay $17 (the normal admission price) upon arrival to Discovery Place instead of paying through CSD. We will most likely arrive to Discovery Place around 9:00 AM and will stay the majority of the day.
Math:
Having had a half teacher workday on Friday, I was able to revamp all of our math workshop centers and I am so excited to start them tomorrow! The students absolutely LOVE the number tile games they are playing. We have number tiles that practice addition, subtraction, before/after/in between, ten more/ten less, hundreds board, addition doubles, etc. We are still working heavily on place value as this is a huge concept for the students to understand going into 2nd grade. We are also working on comparing numbers (greater than/less than) and will be introducing the signs soon (>, <, =).
Literacy:
We are continuing with our weekly guided reading groups, word sorts, Daily 5, and writer's workshop. Last week in WW, we began working on opinion writing. Students are working on picking something that they have a strong opinion on (when I modeled this style of writing for the students I chose the topic "Why I Think Beagles are the Best Kind of Dog"). So you may see your child come home with a book similar to this. :) They are doing a great job with coming up 3-4 reasons to support their opinion they chose. We will begin a new topic in writing this Thursday since it is February.
Thematic:
Last week we began our "Author in Me" unit. We will study four different authors and read many books that they wrote. They are Helen Lester, Mo Willems, Ezra Jack Keats, and Kevin Henkes. We began with Helen Lester who is an amazing author! She is most known for her books about Tacky the Penguin and has many other "lesson learning" books that include Hurty Feelings and Listen Buddy. We will be studying Mo Willems this week who is the author of the Elephant and Piggie books that the students love. We have many fun activities planned for this week and next involving Elephant and Piggie!
Have a great Super Bowl Sunday!
Love,
Mrs. James
February 7th 10:30-11:00 AM Scholastic Book Fair: You are welcome to join us and help your child and other children pick out books! You may also send in money with your child in a Ziplock bag labeled with their name and we will help them pick out books.
February 13th 1:00 Valentine's Reading Party: You are invited to come read Valentines with your child that other students wrote for them. We will also have a Valentine's snack for your child to enjoy. *** Please have your child bring in their Valentines with them to school on the morning of the 13th because they will pass them out before the party
February 14th and 15th: No school...optional parent conferences
February 18th: No school...President's Day
February 26th (all day) Discovery Place Field Trip: We can have as many chaperones as we want so you are all invited to come! No siblings please. The Sign Up Genius for chaperones was sent out last week. You will pay $17 (the normal admission price) upon arrival to Discovery Place instead of paying through CSD. We will most likely arrive to Discovery Place around 9:00 AM and will stay the majority of the day.
Math:
Having had a half teacher workday on Friday, I was able to revamp all of our math workshop centers and I am so excited to start them tomorrow! The students absolutely LOVE the number tile games they are playing. We have number tiles that practice addition, subtraction, before/after/in between, ten more/ten less, hundreds board, addition doubles, etc. We are still working heavily on place value as this is a huge concept for the students to understand going into 2nd grade. We are also working on comparing numbers (greater than/less than) and will be introducing the signs soon (>, <, =).
Literacy:
We are continuing with our weekly guided reading groups, word sorts, Daily 5, and writer's workshop. Last week in WW, we began working on opinion writing. Students are working on picking something that they have a strong opinion on (when I modeled this style of writing for the students I chose the topic "Why I Think Beagles are the Best Kind of Dog"). So you may see your child come home with a book similar to this. :) They are doing a great job with coming up 3-4 reasons to support their opinion they chose. We will begin a new topic in writing this Thursday since it is February.
Thematic:
Last week we began our "Author in Me" unit. We will study four different authors and read many books that they wrote. They are Helen Lester, Mo Willems, Ezra Jack Keats, and Kevin Henkes. We began with Helen Lester who is an amazing author! She is most known for her books about Tacky the Penguin and has many other "lesson learning" books that include Hurty Feelings and Listen Buddy. We will be studying Mo Willems this week who is the author of the Elephant and Piggie books that the students love. We have many fun activities planned for this week and next involving Elephant and Piggie!
Have a great Super Bowl Sunday!
Love,
Mrs. James
Friday, January 11, 2019
January 7th-11th
Happy Friday! We are SO excited to share our American Heroes play with you next Thursday! The kids have done very well in play practice this week and Mrs. Rumburg and I love watching them. They really are amazing!
January 17th 10:00 AM American Heroes Play: Our play will be in the Middle School Black Box and you are welcome to join us in our classroom afterwards for some refreshments. Please have your child wear their costume to school that morning. Remember, it doesn't have to be anything elaborate! Nice, dressy clothes are always perfect. Parents, grandparents, and siblings are all welcome to attend! We just ask that if your little one gets fussy during the play, you step out in order to respect the hard work of our first graders. Thank you!
January 21st: No school...Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!
February 20th 10:00 AM Huntersville Oaks Field Trip: Our class has the special opportunity to go on a field trip to Huntersville Oaks for service learning. Chaperones are welcome to come! The program will run from 10:30-11:30 am.
Math:
After conducting the North Carolina State Mid-Year Math Assessment, I have been able to see where students have holes in their learning and we are going back to reteach/practice some of these concepts. We started a new activity this week as we work on addition, subtraction, place value, before/in between/after, greater than/less than, and navigating the hundreds chart. The activity is called "Number Tiles" and the students are addicted! It is similar to the game "Sudoku" where you have to use the numbers "0-9" and each one can only be used once. Basically, if you put a number tile in the wrong box the entire puzzle will be off. We have over 10 different games that work on different concepts (addition, subtraction, one more/one less/ten more/ten less, place value, and before/after. The level of difficulty varies between each game so there is always room for growth! This is also great for differentiation within the classroom to meet all student's needs.
Literacy:
We took a break from guided reading groups this week as we practice for our play. Play lines have been a great learning opportunity for the students to practice reading, memorizing, and reciting something other than books. We will pick back up with guided reading next week! :) I will also begin doing assessments next week so you may notice your child bump up a level or two depending on this. Students did great with their first week of 10 word study words! I know that this was a big jump and the words seemed to also increase in difficulty this week. I really encouraged the students this week to practice these words throughout the week since there are more and they are harder to learn. Remember to always make it fun! Sidewalk chalk, paint, bath tub crayons, jump roping as they spell the words, bounce a basketball, etc.
Thematic:
This week we studied Helen Keller for our American Heroes unit. The students enjoyed learning about her and how she overcame a difficult situation. Studied illustrated a mini-book, learned how to write their name in Braille, and had a real life learning experience where they wore an eye mask and headphones around the school. Each student had a partner that would guide them around the hallways to feel what Helen felt. They also had to find the braille that is written on a lot of our school signs. We will study Martin Luther King Jr. next week in anticipation of MLK Jr. day!
Have a great weekend and see you next Thursday!
Love,
Mrs. James
January 17th 10:00 AM American Heroes Play: Our play will be in the Middle School Black Box and you are welcome to join us in our classroom afterwards for some refreshments. Please have your child wear their costume to school that morning. Remember, it doesn't have to be anything elaborate! Nice, dressy clothes are always perfect. Parents, grandparents, and siblings are all welcome to attend! We just ask that if your little one gets fussy during the play, you step out in order to respect the hard work of our first graders. Thank you!
January 21st: No school...Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!
February 20th 10:00 AM Huntersville Oaks Field Trip: Our class has the special opportunity to go on a field trip to Huntersville Oaks for service learning. Chaperones are welcome to come! The program will run from 10:30-11:30 am.
Math:
After conducting the North Carolina State Mid-Year Math Assessment, I have been able to see where students have holes in their learning and we are going back to reteach/practice some of these concepts. We started a new activity this week as we work on addition, subtraction, place value, before/in between/after, greater than/less than, and navigating the hundreds chart. The activity is called "Number Tiles" and the students are addicted! It is similar to the game "Sudoku" where you have to use the numbers "0-9" and each one can only be used once. Basically, if you put a number tile in the wrong box the entire puzzle will be off. We have over 10 different games that work on different concepts (addition, subtraction, one more/one less/ten more/ten less, place value, and before/after. The level of difficulty varies between each game so there is always room for growth! This is also great for differentiation within the classroom to meet all student's needs.
Literacy:
We took a break from guided reading groups this week as we practice for our play. Play lines have been a great learning opportunity for the students to practice reading, memorizing, and reciting something other than books. We will pick back up with guided reading next week! :) I will also begin doing assessments next week so you may notice your child bump up a level or two depending on this. Students did great with their first week of 10 word study words! I know that this was a big jump and the words seemed to also increase in difficulty this week. I really encouraged the students this week to practice these words throughout the week since there are more and they are harder to learn. Remember to always make it fun! Sidewalk chalk, paint, bath tub crayons, jump roping as they spell the words, bounce a basketball, etc.
Thematic:
This week we studied Helen Keller for our American Heroes unit. The students enjoyed learning about her and how she overcame a difficult situation. Studied illustrated a mini-book, learned how to write their name in Braille, and had a real life learning experience where they wore an eye mask and headphones around the school. Each student had a partner that would guide them around the hallways to feel what Helen felt. They also had to find the braille that is written on a lot of our school signs. We will study Martin Luther King Jr. next week in anticipation of MLK Jr. day!
Have a great weekend and see you next Thursday!
Love,
Mrs. James
Friday, December 7, 2018
December 3rd-7th
Happy Friday! It is hard to believe that it is December! ⛄ I love this month with the kids because of all of the holiday excitement and fun. You can find a review of our week below.
December 19th: Pajama Day
December 20th - January 2nd: No school...Winter Break
January 17th 10:00 AM: American Heroes Play
Math:
As we finish our third week of learning about place value, the students are really beginning to have an understanding of this concept. It can be a challenging one because it is such an abstract concept. The students learned a new place value game this week that they played with a partner. Each student had a bag of tens (on ten frames) and a bag of ones (on ten frames). One student would choose a number between 1-109 and would write it down on a whiteboard. The other student had to build the number using their bag of tens and ones. This required them to break down the number in their mind into tens and ones and then create it. They loved this game and played for 45 minutes straight one day! This game will go into our math workshop tubs next week where they can go and play with a partner.
Literacy:
During our reader's workshop this week, we learned that good readers "try, try, try again" when reading. We learned that when you get to a tricky word, don't just try one thing! Sometimes one strategy will work on one word but not another. Below are the six strategies we learned. These strategies work for all students no matter their reading level.
1. Read the word left to right
2. Can the pictures help me?
3. Does it make sense?
4. Does it look right?
5. Does it sound right?
6. Do I know any parts of the word?
We also continued our writer's workshop time learning about "how-to" books and the students blew me away with their writing! I challenged them to take their book home and read it to their parents so maybe some of you have seen these. :) It has been fun seeing what they want to teach others how to do in their writing books.
Thematic:
The American heroes that we studied this week were Neil Armstrong and Mae Jemison. We learned about outer space, the moon, the phases of the moon, astronauts, and space shuttles. We practiced our song about Neil Armstrong and they are doing great! Students learned about the phases of the moon by using Oreos and toothpicks (for carving), they created their own astronaut helmets they will wear in the play, they wrote an application to be an astronaut, and they solved math problems that had to do with outer space. Next week we move onto Helen Keller.
Sci-Fri:
HUGE shoutout to Sue Sink for our amazing Sci-Fri today! The students learned about how animals prepare for winter and they each got to make a birdfeeder using cones, sunbutter, birdseed, and yarn. They loved this activity and learning about animal habitats and preparations as we move into the winter months. We need more parents to volunteer for Sci-Fri on Friday afternoons! This is a great way to get involved in our classroom and the kids love it. The science experiment does not have to be anything crazy and I am always happy to send you ideas.
Have a great weekend! I guess we will see what winter weather comes our way. 😁⛄
Love,
Mrs. James
December 19th: Pajama Day
December 20th - January 2nd: No school...Winter Break
January 17th 10:00 AM: American Heroes Play
Math:
As we finish our third week of learning about place value, the students are really beginning to have an understanding of this concept. It can be a challenging one because it is such an abstract concept. The students learned a new place value game this week that they played with a partner. Each student had a bag of tens (on ten frames) and a bag of ones (on ten frames). One student would choose a number between 1-109 and would write it down on a whiteboard. The other student had to build the number using their bag of tens and ones. This required them to break down the number in their mind into tens and ones and then create it. They loved this game and played for 45 minutes straight one day! This game will go into our math workshop tubs next week where they can go and play with a partner.
Literacy:
During our reader's workshop this week, we learned that good readers "try, try, try again" when reading. We learned that when you get to a tricky word, don't just try one thing! Sometimes one strategy will work on one word but not another. Below are the six strategies we learned. These strategies work for all students no matter their reading level.
1. Read the word left to right
2. Can the pictures help me?
3. Does it make sense?
4. Does it look right?
5. Does it sound right?
6. Do I know any parts of the word?
We also continued our writer's workshop time learning about "how-to" books and the students blew me away with their writing! I challenged them to take their book home and read it to their parents so maybe some of you have seen these. :) It has been fun seeing what they want to teach others how to do in their writing books.
Thematic:
The American heroes that we studied this week were Neil Armstrong and Mae Jemison. We learned about outer space, the moon, the phases of the moon, astronauts, and space shuttles. We practiced our song about Neil Armstrong and they are doing great! Students learned about the phases of the moon by using Oreos and toothpicks (for carving), they created their own astronaut helmets they will wear in the play, they wrote an application to be an astronaut, and they solved math problems that had to do with outer space. Next week we move onto Helen Keller.
Sci-Fri:
HUGE shoutout to Sue Sink for our amazing Sci-Fri today! The students learned about how animals prepare for winter and they each got to make a birdfeeder using cones, sunbutter, birdseed, and yarn. They loved this activity and learning about animal habitats and preparations as we move into the winter months. We need more parents to volunteer for Sci-Fri on Friday afternoons! This is a great way to get involved in our classroom and the kids love it. The science experiment does not have to be anything crazy and I am always happy to send you ideas.
Have a great weekend! I guess we will see what winter weather comes our way. 😁⛄
Love,
Mrs. James
Monday, December 3, 2018
November 26th-30th
Happy Monday! I hope you all had an awesome weekend! Below is a review of our last week in the classroom ands some important upcoming dates and events.
December 19th: Pajama Day
December 20th - January 2nd: No school...Winter Break
January 17th 10:00 AM: American Heroes Play
Play Lines: Thank you for practicing your child's play lines with them! :) If you have not printed them off yet, please do so and highlight your child's lines for them. Our play will be here before we know it and the lines are more difficult than any of the past plays. They are already doing great on their songs in the classroom and we are also beginning to practice their lines.
Guided reading books, blue folders, snacks/lunch, water bottles: We could really use your help with making sure your child is prepared for each school day. We still have students coming to school without the supplies needed for a successful day. Although they love to blame their parents 😉, we would love for them to start taking on the responsibility of checking their bag before school in the morning or the night before. A checklist with pictures might be helpful and taking on this responsibility is a great life skill, especially as we move towards 2nd grade.
Afternoon dismissal: Dismissal begins at 2:45. We know that there will be times when you need to pick up your child early, and we completely understand and respect this. However, we are asking that if you need to pick up before the 2:45 dismissal time, you make arrangements to do so prior to 2:15 as our front desk area is very busy tending to last minute details at that time of the day. Also it is very disruptive to instruction for the phone to ring repeatedly for multiple children to pack updating the last half hour of the day. Once again, we know that emergencies and special circumstances will arise, but we kindly ask that if you need to pick up your child early from school that you do so prior to 2:15 as not to disrupt end-of-day routines and instruction.
Math:
Literacy:
This week during Daily 5, we learned about how reading is similar to juggling. Readers have to juggle or think about three things while reading:
1. Does this sound right?
2. Does this look right?
3. Does this make sense?
Students practiced this strategy while in their guided reading groups with me and while in Daily 5 (read to self and read to someone). We also began a new unit in Writer's Workshop. This month we will be working on "how-to" books and also realistic fiction. Last week we started with "how-to" books and the students loved it! They got to teach others how to do something whether it was how to make cookies, how to ride a bike, how to do a cartwheel, or how to build a lego tower.
Thematic:
December 19th: Pajama Day
December 20th - January 2nd: No school...Winter Break
January 17th 10:00 AM: American Heroes Play
Play Lines: Thank you for practicing your child's play lines with them! :) If you have not printed them off yet, please do so and highlight your child's lines for them. Our play will be here before we know it and the lines are more difficult than any of the past plays. They are already doing great on their songs in the classroom and we are also beginning to practice their lines.
Guided reading books, blue folders, snacks/lunch, water bottles: We could really use your help with making sure your child is prepared for each school day. We still have students coming to school without the supplies needed for a successful day. Although they love to blame their parents 😉, we would love for them to start taking on the responsibility of checking their bag before school in the morning or the night before. A checklist with pictures might be helpful and taking on this responsibility is a great life skill, especially as we move towards 2nd grade.
Afternoon dismissal: Dismissal begins at 2:45. We know that there will be times when you need to pick up your child early, and we completely understand and respect this. However, we are asking that if you need to pick up before the 2:45 dismissal time, you make arrangements to do so prior to 2:15 as our front desk area is very busy tending to last minute details at that time of the day. Also it is very disruptive to instruction for the phone to ring repeatedly for multiple children to pack updating the last half hour of the day. Once again, we know that emergencies and special circumstances will arise, but we kindly ask that if you need to pick up your child early from school that you do so prior to 2:15 as not to disrupt end-of-day routines and instruction.
Math:
We are focusing heavily on place value right now. We learned two new games last week called "Roll the Snowball" and "Place Value: Dice Game." Both of these games focus on identifying ones and tens, comparing numbers, and more than/less than. I am also pulling students one-on-one to conduct the North Carolina Mid-Year Formative Assessment. This assessment assesses the students on what we have learned so far this year. We are also continuing to work on addition, subtraction, and fact families.
Literacy:
This week during Daily 5, we learned about how reading is similar to juggling. Readers have to juggle or think about three things while reading:
1. Does this sound right?
2. Does this look right?
3. Does this make sense?
Students practiced this strategy while in their guided reading groups with me and while in Daily 5 (read to self and read to someone). We also began a new unit in Writer's Workshop. This month we will be working on "how-to" books and also realistic fiction. Last week we started with "how-to" books and the students loved it! They got to teach others how to do something whether it was how to make cookies, how to ride a bike, how to do a cartwheel, or how to build a lego tower.
Thematic:
During our thematic center time, we studied airplanes and flight and specifically studied Orville and Wilbur Wright, Amelia Earhart, and Bessie Coleman and all of their accomplishments. The students loved rotating through the centers while learning about how planes are designed and work, the story of the first flight, and how to make different styles of paper airplanes. This week we are studying Neil Armstrong and Mae Jemison.
Have a great Monday!
Love,
Mrs. James
Friday, November 16, 2018
November 12th-16th
Happy Friday! We had an awesome week with having two field trips! The kids always love getting to ride the school bus. 😊 Thanks to our parent chaperones for coming with us. We will have two more field trips this year...Discovery Place and Gem Mining! We are excited to celebrate Thanksgiving next week and talk about all of the things we are thankful for.
We are planning on having a Thanksgiving Feast for the kids on Tuesday so no need to send in lunch on that day. The menu will consist of mac and cheese, green beans, corn, cornbread, and homemade butter (that we are going to make from heavy whipping cream in class)!
November 21st - 23rd: No school...Happy Thanksgiving!
December 20th - January 2nd: No school...Winter Break
January 17th 10:00 AM: American Heroes Play
Math:
Our math time was shortened this week due to our two field trips but we still got some place value practice in! Students are improving in their ability to express numbers as tens and ones. We are playing many place value games to practice this skill.
Literacy:
Students are doing great with our word study program! They are learning new rules each week so they can apply them when writing during Daily 5. After winter break, we will increase to 10 words each week instead of 5. It will be even more important then to have your child write their words in the "best" column and practice the words doing fun activities.
Thematic:
We studied Mia Hamm and soccer this week during thematic centers. We learned about the rules of soccer, who Mia Hamm is, and got to hear from the FSU girl's soccer team captain! The students loved hearing her talk about her experience playing for Florida State and also professionally for a year. Thank you Melissa Rieser for coordinating this! We learned that soccer balls have both hexagons and pentagons and students created their own paper plate soccer ball by tracing and cutting out these shapes. We also made our own life-size soccer players! Students got to create a team name and logo/mascot. They turned out really well!
Have a great weekend!
Love,
Mrs. James
We are planning on having a Thanksgiving Feast for the kids on Tuesday so no need to send in lunch on that day. The menu will consist of mac and cheese, green beans, corn, cornbread, and homemade butter (that we are going to make from heavy whipping cream in class)!
November 21st - 23rd: No school...Happy Thanksgiving!
December 20th - January 2nd: No school...Winter Break
January 17th 10:00 AM: American Heroes Play
Math:
Our math time was shortened this week due to our two field trips but we still got some place value practice in! Students are improving in their ability to express numbers as tens and ones. We are playing many place value games to practice this skill.
Literacy:
Students are doing great with our word study program! They are learning new rules each week so they can apply them when writing during Daily 5. After winter break, we will increase to 10 words each week instead of 5. It will be even more important then to have your child write their words in the "best" column and practice the words doing fun activities.
Thematic:
We studied Mia Hamm and soccer this week during thematic centers. We learned about the rules of soccer, who Mia Hamm is, and got to hear from the FSU girl's soccer team captain! The students loved hearing her talk about her experience playing for Florida State and also professionally for a year. Thank you Melissa Rieser for coordinating this! We learned that soccer balls have both hexagons and pentagons and students created their own paper plate soccer ball by tracing and cutting out these shapes. We also made our own life-size soccer players! Students got to create a team name and logo/mascot. They turned out really well!
Have a great weekend!
Love,
Mrs. James
Sunday, November 11, 2018
November 5th-9th
Good afternoon! I hope everyone is staying warm and dry today! We are currently having indoor recess and the kids are playing "Four Corners" which they LOVE! 😆 We had a great week and as I make my lesson plans for next week, I realize we are going to have a very busy week!
November 12th Hurricane Make Up Day and Veteran's Day Celebration
November 13th Laurel's Nursing Home 10:30-11:30 AM: Parents are welcome to join us! You may ride the bus or meet us there. I will add this on our Sign Up Genius for the week. We load the bus at CSD at 10:00 AM and the program is from 10:30-11:30 AM and we return to CSD by 12:00 PM.
November 14th Charlotte Children's Theater Field Trip: Please have your child to school by 8:00 am on this day. The bus will leaving CSD at 8:30 am sharp. We will eat lunch when we return to school so send a normal lunch. Please feed your child a big, protein-rich breakfast that will keep them full until lunch.
***I will be sending play lines home for the American Heroes play within the next two weeks. Just an FYI.
Math:
As we dive into our cluster 3 in math, students are learning how to apply their learning of place value in many different ways. They learned two math games this week to practice this skill and demonstrate their knowledge. The first one is called Ten Frames (11-19) and work on the student picking a number (11-19), building it on two tens frames using cubes, and then writing how many tens/ones they have and the corresponding equation. We want them transitioning to seeing numbers as tens and ones. We will continue to build on this knowledge and soon move into 20+ numbers where the students will have to work with more than one "ten."
Literacy:
Students continue to work hard during Daily 5 rotations and have the freedom to move from station to station within our one hour literacy block. We have different "word work" activities for them to do to practice their word study words. This past week we had whiteboards, rainbow word writing, word searches, and stamping. Students are making great progress with their guided reading books and that makes me so happy! Keep having your child read those to you Tuesday-Friday. Repetition with them is key in developing many crucial skills.
Thematic:
We studied Jackie Robinson and baseball this week during our thematic unit time. BIG thank you to Andy Cook (Laine's dad) for coming in to talk to us about baseball and his time playing baseball professionally. The kids loved having him here and were so excited that they each got one of his baseball cards. We started learning our "Break the Barrier" song that we will perform at our American Heroes play in January. We spent time reading and learning about Jackie Robinson and all of the things he had to overcome in his baseball career. The kids favorite center was making a baseball necklace out of a washer! They had to also write three facts they learned about baseball. I am turning it into a book that will travel home with different students each night. Next week we are studying soccer and Mia Hamm and will have another guest speaker from FSU's girl soccer team (thank you Melissa Rieser for the connection)!
Love,
Mrs. James
Friday, November 2, 2018
October 29th - November 2nd
Happy Friday! We all survived the two days after Halloween. 😜 Surprisingly, yesterday and today have been great in our classroom which I did not expect to happen. We had a busy but fun week with celebrating Halloween, beginning a new math cluster, learning about Wilma Rudolph, and completing week two of word sorts!
Laurel Nursing Home Dates 10:30-11:30 AM: Below are the four dates that we will go to the Laurel's Nursing Home if you want to put them on your calendar. Parents are welcome to join us! You may ride the bus or meet us there. We load the bus at CSD at 10:00 AM and the program is from 10:30-11:30 AM and we return to CSD by 12:00 PM.
- Tuesday, November 13th
- Tuesday, January 8th
- Tuesday, March 12th
- Tuesday, May 7th
November 12th Hurricane Make Up Day and Veteran's Day Celebration
November 14th Charlotte Children's Theater Field Trip: Please have your child to school by 8:00 am on this day. The bus will leaving CSD at 8:30 am sharp. We will eat lunch when we return to school so send a normal lunch. We will not have time for a morning snack so please feed your child a big breakfast to keep them full until lunch.
Math:
We officially began Cluster 3 this week which is all about "place value." As students work with two-digit numbers, they learn that the digits represent amounts of tens and ones. Then they use that knowledge to compare numbers to see which are less than, equal to, or greater than other numbers. In this cluster, students will learn to count up from any given start number within 150. Students will learn to group objects by tens and left-overs as an efficient way to count larger groups of objects. They will write down the number of groups of tens and ones as well as the total number of objects. A variety of objects will be used for counting but we will mainly use unifix cubes. Students will also learn to count items in a picture by circling groups of tens to help find the total. This understanding of place value is foundational as students build fluency with addition and subtraction.
Literacy:
Students did awesome on our second week of word sorts! They have actually learned to love them and find them fun and challenging. 😊 Before the students are sent to Daily 5, I teach a mini-lesson that involves a reading strategy. This week we focused on the idea of "Juggling All Three Balls." Reader's don't only do one thing when we get to a word. We need to do at least three: (1) think about what makes sense; (2) think about how a book sounds; and (3) think about what looks right. This is a great thing to encourage your child to do while reading at home!
Thematic:
We continued learning about Wilma Rudolph this week as we begin our American Heroes and Famous Athletes unit. Next week, we will move onto Jackie Robinson. The other athletes we will learn about are Mia Hamm, Michael Jordan, and Michelle Kwan. We learned about Venn diagrams and how to use them to compare and contrast things or people. Students created a Venn diagram comparing themselves to Wilma Rudolph. Students thought about ways they are different than Wilma and the same as Wilma. Students also got to complete an obstacle course that I created that involved sprinting, jumping sides, and side shuffling. They got to run the course three times to see if they could improve their time. They loved this activity!
Have a great weekend!
Love,
Mrs. James
Saturday, October 27, 2018
October 22nd-26th
Happy Friday! We were happy to have a normal week in our classroom. 😁 Students were excited to begin word sorts again and did great on their first week! We also began our American Heroes unit and talked about what is a hero and what characteristics a hero has. We will study many different athletes and heroes such as Wilma Rudolph, Jackie Robinson, The Wright Brothers, Neil Armstrong, Rosa Parks and MLK Jr, Helen Keller, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Our American Heroes play will be on Thursday, January 17th at 10:00 AM. Be sure to mark your calendars! This is my favorite play that we do.
October 31st Parade of Fiction 8:45 AM: Parents are invited to come watch their child walk in the parade. Your child needs to dress up as their favorite book character and will carry the corresponding book with them in the parade. No weapons or scary masks. Please have them come to school already dressed in their costume. They may bring a change of clothes for after if wanted. Parents of students in 1st grade are asked to stand in the Middle School Gym to watch the parade.
Laurel Nursing Home Dates 10:30-11:30 AM: Below are the four dates that we will go to the Laurel's Nursing Home if you want to put them on your calendar. Parents are welcome to join us! You may ride the bus or meet us there. We load the bus at CSD at 10:00 AM and the program is from 10:30-11:30 AM and we return to CSD by 12:00 PM.
- Tuesday, November 13th
- Tuesday, January 8th
- Tuesday, March 12th
- Tuesday, May 7th
November 12th Hurricane Make Up Day and Veteran's Day Celebration
November 14th Charlotte Children's Theater Field Trip: Please have your child to school by 8:00 am on this day. The bus will leaving CSD at 8:30 am sharp.
Math:
As we finish up Cluster 2 in math, we are working heavily on addition and subtraction. Cluster 3 will be learning about place value. I taught the students about number bonds this week and we practiced solving different equations where the addend was missing or the sum was missing. Below is an example. These are GREAT to practice at home! We differentiate by choosing different numbers to meet the needs of all students.
Literacy:
Students did a great job as I introduced word sorts back into their normal routine. Below is our weekly literacy schedule. While I am pulling small groups for guided reading and word sorts, Mrs. Rumburg is pulling small groups for Handwriting Without Tears. During our writer's workshop time this week, we worked on the skill of "writing for our readers" and made very detailed and interesting books.
Monday: Daily 5 and Word Study
Tuesday: Daily 5 and Guided Reading Groups
Wednesday: Daily 5 and Word Sorts
Thursday: Writer's Workshop
Friday: Daily 5 and Spell Check
Thematic:
As mentioned above, we began our American Heroes unit this week! We have already started practicing the songs for the play. We will study all of the famous athletes first and then move into the heroes. Wilma Rudolph was our first athlete that we studied and we had many conversations about hard work, dedication, and not giving up even when things are hard. We read the book Wilma Unlimited which told us the story of Wilma and how she persevered and became the fastest woman in the world. We also set and wrote three personal goals for the school year and these can be found out in the hallway.
Have a great weekend!
Love, Mrs. James
Have a great weekend!
Love, Mrs. James
Monday, October 15, 2018
October 8th-12th
Happy Monday! It seems that a "normal" week of school is hard to come by these days. 😊 Thank you all for coming to pickup your child promptly when we lost power last week. I know it can be tricky to have to leave work early so we appreciate it. We are excited to see all of you this Thursday and Friday at the CSD Kickball Festival and the Fairy Tale Ball! Your child brought home an invitation today for the ball that had all of the details on it and they are also listed below.
October 18th CSD Kickball Festival 4:00-8:00 PM: This event is for the whole family. See you there!
October 19th Fairy Tale Ball 8:30-10:30 AM: Please have your child come in their fairy tale costume to school. They can bring a change of clothes for after the ball if they would like. Please arrive to the elementary gym at 8:15 AM to get a spot around the perimeter of the gym to watch the student's dance. The two dances they learned in music and Spanish class will begin at 8:30 AM.
October 31st Parade of Fiction 8:30 AM: Parents are invited to come watch their child walk in the Parade of Fiction! Your child needs to dress up as their favorite book character. They will carry the corresponding book with them in the parade. No weapons of any kind and no scary masks.
Have a great week!
Love,
Mrs. James
October 18th CSD Kickball Festival 4:00-8:00 PM: This event is for the whole family. See you there!
October 19th Fairy Tale Ball 8:30-10:30 AM: Please have your child come in their fairy tale costume to school. They can bring a change of clothes for after the ball if they would like. Please arrive to the elementary gym at 8:15 AM to get a spot around the perimeter of the gym to watch the student's dance. The two dances they learned in music and Spanish class will begin at 8:30 AM.
October 31st Parade of Fiction 8:30 AM: Parents are invited to come watch their child walk in the Parade of Fiction! Your child needs to dress up as their favorite book character. They will carry the corresponding book with them in the parade. No weapons of any kind and no scary masks.
Math:
Cluster 2 of our math curriculum has mainly focused on addition and subtraction within 20. We have practiced through story problems, roll and record, and many other games. Students have recorded their equations on paper as they play the games so they practice number writing and equation writing. Tomorrow we are learning how to play roll and record subtraction (instead of the normal addition). It is important for students to learn addition and subtraction at the same time so they understand how they are related. Our next cluster that we will move into is all about place value and how it relates to addition and subtraction.
Literacy:
Last week we moved onto another unit during our Writer's Workshop time. We finished up our small moment stories and learned about "writing for your readers." We talked about all of the qualities and characteristics that make up a good book and what we should include in our own books so that others want to read it. We talked about including lots of details in our pictures, multiple sentences, an interesting storyline, many different characters, and an attention-grabbing picture on the front cover. The students did great with their first week on these books! We continued with our Daily 5 and guided reading groups.
Thematic:
Last week we studied Rapunzel and talked about the storyline in this fairy tale. Students got to make popsicle stick puppets so that they can reenact the story for friends. They practiced reenacting it with a friend after creating the puppets. Students also learned how to braid yellow yarn and created Rapunzel's tower using different art mediums. Students also did a sequencing activity where they had to put pictures from the story in order. We will wrap up our fairy tales unit this Friday!Have a great week!
Love,
Mrs. James
Sunday, September 30, 2018
September 24th-28th
Happy Sunday! I apologize that I have not been getting my blog out on Friday like I usually do. I normally type my blog and do the Sign Up Genius during my morning planning time, but our team has missed 4 planning periods recently due to holidays and the hurricane. We have been meeting on Friday mornings so I have not had the time to type this. Hopefully we will all be back on track soon!
As parent conferences and report cards are quickly approaching, I am using a large chunk of the day to assess students. Last week I was busy with running records and sight words and this week I am planning on assessing math, spelling, and writing. All of this will be ready to share with you at parent conferences in two weeks. The Sign Up Genius was just sent out for conferences. Because we lost the teacher workday that consisted of parent conferences, I have generously been given a half-day sub for Tuesday morning (Oct. 16th) so that I can finish up conferences.
October 11th Make-up School Day (from the hurricane)
October 12th Teacher Workday: Parent Conferences
October 16th AM Conferences available
October 18th CSD Kickball Festival 4:00-8:00 PM: This event is for the whole family! Be sure to mark your calendars. 😁
October 19th Fairy Tale Ball 8:30-10:30 AM: You can now start thinking about your child's costume for the ball! They can dress up as any fairy tale character. Please no weapons of any kind (guns, swords, knives, etc.) We will send out a Sign Up Genius as we get closer for parent volunteers. The students have started learning their salsa dance in Spanish class that they will perform at 8:30 AM for us all.
October 31st Parade of Fiction (time TBD usually 8:30AM): Parents are invited to come watch their child walk in the Parade of Fiction! Your child needs to dress up as their favorite book character. They will carry the corresponding book with them in the parade. No weapons of any kind and no scary masks.
Have an awesome week!
Love,
Mrs. James
As parent conferences and report cards are quickly approaching, I am using a large chunk of the day to assess students. Last week I was busy with running records and sight words and this week I am planning on assessing math, spelling, and writing. All of this will be ready to share with you at parent conferences in two weeks. The Sign Up Genius was just sent out for conferences. Because we lost the teacher workday that consisted of parent conferences, I have generously been given a half-day sub for Tuesday morning (Oct. 16th) so that I can finish up conferences.
October 11th Make-up School Day (from the hurricane)
October 12th Teacher Workday: Parent Conferences
October 16th AM Conferences available
October 18th CSD Kickball Festival 4:00-8:00 PM: This event is for the whole family! Be sure to mark your calendars. 😁
October 19th Fairy Tale Ball 8:30-10:30 AM: You can now start thinking about your child's costume for the ball! They can dress up as any fairy tale character. Please no weapons of any kind (guns, swords, knives, etc.) We will send out a Sign Up Genius as we get closer for parent volunteers. The students have started learning their salsa dance in Spanish class that they will perform at 8:30 AM for us all.
October 31st Parade of Fiction (time TBD usually 8:30AM): Parents are invited to come watch their child walk in the Parade of Fiction! Your child needs to dress up as their favorite book character. They will carry the corresponding book with them in the parade. No weapons of any kind and no scary masks.
Math:
Last week we moved onto Cluster 2 of our math curriculum which is "building a conceptual understanding of addition and subtraction within 20 and developing fact fluency within 10." We want students to become familiar and confident when solving addition problems when finding the sum or a missing addend. Students learned two new games last week to practice these skills. Roll and Record Addition and Seashell Addition. In Roll and Record Addition, the student would roll two dice, add them together, and color in the corresponding box for the sum they found. They would then write the equation for the combination they rolled. In Seashell addition, students were working on combinations of 12. They had a ziplock bag full of *paper* seashells...some were clam shells and some were spiral shells. They pulled 12 out of the bag and made two groups. They counted to see how many of each shell they had and then recorded the addition equation.
Literacy:
We launched our last part of Daily 5 this week which is "Work Work." Students can come to this station to practice their word study words. The fun activities we have rotate each week and may consist of wiki sticks, shaving cream, word searches, rainbow words, play dough words, secret code spelling etc. This past week, students practice their words by using play dough and doing rainbow words. Now that our Daily 5 is fully launched, students have the freedom to rotate through all 5 stations. Some students may only do 2 stations in a day while another student may do 4. They have the freedom to clean up and move as wanted. This allows me time to pull for guided reading groups, handwriting practice, word sorts, etc.
Thematic:
We started learning about the fairy tale "Rumpelstiltskin" this past week and will continue studying it this week. We have read many different versions and we are also focusing on practicing spelling classmates names, as that ties into the story. On Friday, students wrote all of their classmates names on a chart and could compare how many letters it had versus Rumpelstiltskin's name. Students also wrote a writing piece about how they would trick Rumpelstiltskin if given the opportunity. They were so creative! Their favorite activity that we did was making Rumpelstiltskin's gold coins and they got to eat them when done. They had to follow step-by-step instructions and used vanilla wafers, icing, bananas, and gold sprinkles to create the gold coins. It was definitely a hit!
Science:
Thank you Mrs. Sue Sink for being our first parent volunteer for Sci-Fri! We LOVE having parents come in and this is a great way to get involved in our classroom and get to know the students! You can teach any science experiment that you would like. If you need help with ideas, I am happy to send some ideas your way that correspond with our curriculum! Mrs. Sue did an amazing experiment that directly aligned with our curriculum about force and motion. Students all got to participate in a pendulum painting. We had a great class conversation about force, motion, and gravity in our everyday life.Have an awesome week!
Love,
Mrs. James
Friday, September 21, 2018
September 17th-21st
Good evening parents! What a crazy two weeks we have had! It was nice to have some extra days off school, but it will be nice to get back to our normal schedule next week. 😊 We squeezed in as much as we could in three days of school this week and the students did great with their second week of word study! Just a reminder that they will bring home their binder on Monday with their new words (and you can see their spell check from the previous week then). Next week will begin our third week of word study and each week will bring new markings for the students to learn.
October 11th Make-up School Day (from the hurricane)
October 12th Teacher Workday- Parent Conferences: Please reserve this day for conferences. Admin has kindly offered to get us a sub on another day so that I can have two full days of parent conferences to fit everyone in. I will let you know the date of this as soon as I find out.
October 18th CSD Kickball Festival 4:00-8:00 PM: This event is for the whole family! Be sure to mark your calendars. 😁
October 19th Fairy Tale Ball 8:30-10:30 AM: You can now start thinking about your child's costume for the ball! They can dress up as any fairy tale character. Please no weapons of any kind (guns, swords, knives, etc.) We will send out a Sign Up Genius as we get closer for parent volunteers. The students have started learning their salsa dance in Spanish class that they will perform at 8:30 AM for us all.
- Have your child point to each word as they read. This is so beneficial because we are able to see if they are tracking, skipping words, or understanding the concept of saying one word and pointing to one word.
- If your child misses specific sight words in the book repeatedly, write them down and practice them later on when you practice word study. Sight words are essential for them to learn and memorize in this phase of learning to read. You may notice that I write down sight words on a sticky note that I have noticed them struggling with. You can find a fun way to practice these!
- Ask comprehension questions all throughout the book to make sure they are understanding the story.
- Have them retell the story to you once the book is over to see how much they remember.
- Encourage them to read with expression once they have read the book two or three times. This is one of the reasons we have them read the same book for three nights.
- Encourage them to use our Beanie Baby Strategies we learned last night when they come to a word they struggled to decode. If you want a copy of these to print out for home, I will be happy to email them to you!
October 11th Make-up School Day (from the hurricane)
October 12th Teacher Workday- Parent Conferences: Please reserve this day for conferences. Admin has kindly offered to get us a sub on another day so that I can have two full days of parent conferences to fit everyone in. I will let you know the date of this as soon as I find out.
October 18th CSD Kickball Festival 4:00-8:00 PM: This event is for the whole family! Be sure to mark your calendars. 😁
October 19th Fairy Tale Ball 8:30-10:30 AM: You can now start thinking about your child's costume for the ball! They can dress up as any fairy tale character. Please no weapons of any kind (guns, swords, knives, etc.) We will send out a Sign Up Genius as we get closer for parent volunteers. The students have started learning their salsa dance in Spanish class that they will perform at 8:30 AM for us all.
Guided Reading Books:
Thank you for taking such good care of our guided reading books and remembering to send them back on Friday's! I highly suggest that whenever your child reads the book to you, they put it right back in their reading bag when they are done so it doesn't get lost. That way they know exactly where it is when Friday arrives. Below are some tips for guided reading and things that we do during our guided reading group that may help you at home.- Have your child point to each word as they read. This is so beneficial because we are able to see if they are tracking, skipping words, or understanding the concept of saying one word and pointing to one word.
- If your child misses specific sight words in the book repeatedly, write them down and practice them later on when you practice word study. Sight words are essential for them to learn and memorize in this phase of learning to read. You may notice that I write down sight words on a sticky note that I have noticed them struggling with. You can find a fun way to practice these!
- Ask comprehension questions all throughout the book to make sure they are understanding the story.
- Have them retell the story to you once the book is over to see how much they remember.
- Encourage them to read with expression once they have read the book two or three times. This is one of the reasons we have them read the same book for three nights.
- Encourage them to use our Beanie Baby Strategies we learned last night when they come to a word they struggled to decode. If you want a copy of these to print out for home, I will be happy to email them to you!
Word Study:
Please have your child write their spelling words in their "best" handwriting column as some point during the week. I highly encourage your child to practice the words during the week if they do not know them already. Make it fun! There is a list of activities in the "handouts" section of their binder. We notice a strong correlation with the students who know their words when the spell check comes on Friday. They are the students who do their "best" handwriting section and practice the words during the week. They also practice explaining the markings to their parents so they understand the "why" behind the spelling rules. Thanks for helping your child in this way!
Math:
Students were able to rotate through 8 different tubs during our math workshop time. These tubs included games such as Grab Bags, Start With Get To, Get the Goof, and Red Bird Yellow Bird. Get the Goof is one of our newer games where students have to investigate a series of numbers to figure out what is missing. They then rewrite the number series in the correct way. Red Bird Yellow Bird is our newest game where students are working on combinations of 10. They use a ten frame to organize and show their thinking and record their findings on a chart. We are finished with "Cluster 1" of math now and are moving on to "Cluster 2" which is addition and subtraction.
Literacy:
Students did very well with their second week of word study! We also had guided reading groups on Tuesday which is always my favorite. I love reading with the students in small groups and getting to work on their individual needs. We will soon begin doing word sorts on Wednesdays during our Daily 5 time. I introduced our fourth element of Daily 5 this week which is "Work on Writing." The students were thrilled! They are able to go to our writing table or can write at any of the normal tables. They are able to work on our monthly writing topic or any other free choice topic. I will soon introduce the last element of Daily 5 which is "Word Work" and this is where they practice their spelling words in fun ways!
Thematic:
We wrapped up learning about Jack and the Beanstalk this week and are moving onto Rumpelstiltskin next week. Students got to make their own beanstalk by using paper and linking it together. They had to keep linking the paper until the beanstalk was as tall as them. They then counted how many links there were and recorded it on one of the leaves. We also did another measuring activity where they used non-standard measurement tools (unifix cubes, paper clips, pennies, etc) to measure a beanstalk.
Have an awesome weekend!
Love,
Mrs. James
Tuesday, September 11, 2018
September 3rd-7th
Happy Tuesday! I hope you all are enjoying the four-day weekend as a family...I know the kids are. 😉 We had a great week last week! Celebrating my birthday on Friday with our sweet students was the cherry on top.
September 10th, 11th, 19th: No school
September 18th 8:30 AM-1:00 PM Walking Tour of Davidson: I just sent out the Sign Up Genius for parents chaperones. We would love to have as many parent walkers as possible to make this a fun and safe field trip. We will leave CSD at 8:30 AM to walk to Davidson and will return around 12:30-1:00. Please make sure your child wears comfortable clothes on this day.
October 18th CSD Kickball Festival: This event is for the whole family! Be sure to mark your calendars. We still need a parent volunteer from our classroom to help plan the first grade booth. 😁
October 19th Fairy Tale Ball 8:30-10:30 AM: You can now start thinking about your child's costume for the ball! They can dress up as any fairy tale character. Please no weapons of any kind (guns, swords, knives, etc.) We will send out a Sign Up Genius as we get closer for parent volunteers. The students have started learning their salsa dance in Spanish class that they will perform at 8:30 AM for us all.
Love and Logic Parent Classes with Marianne:
https://www.signupgenius.com/
https://www.signupgenius.com/
Have a wonderful day!
Love,
Mrs. James
September 10th, 11th, 19th: No school
September 18th 8:30 AM-1:00 PM Walking Tour of Davidson: I just sent out the Sign Up Genius for parents chaperones. We would love to have as many parent walkers as possible to make this a fun and safe field trip. We will leave CSD at 8:30 AM to walk to Davidson and will return around 12:30-1:00. Please make sure your child wears comfortable clothes on this day.
October 18th CSD Kickball Festival: This event is for the whole family! Be sure to mark your calendars. We still need a parent volunteer from our classroom to help plan the first grade booth. 😁
October 19th Fairy Tale Ball 8:30-10:30 AM: You can now start thinking about your child's costume for the ball! They can dress up as any fairy tale character. Please no weapons of any kind (guns, swords, knives, etc.) We will send out a Sign Up Genius as we get closer for parent volunteers. The students have started learning their salsa dance in Spanish class that they will perform at 8:30 AM for us all.
Love and Logic Parent Classes with Marianne:
https://www.signupgenius.com/
https://www.signupgenius.com/
Math:
Our math lessons last week revolved around the activity "Start With, Get To" and the skills that were required to complete this game. I am sure you saw this sheet come home in your child's folder and maybe they explained to you how to play. This game works on many different math skills and was challenging for all students. Student played the game with one partner and it started out by one student picking a number of out a bag. They worked as a team to create a tower with that many cubes. Then the second student picked another number out of the bag and they had to change their tower to now represent the new number. This required them to add or subtract to reach the new number. The last step was them recording whether they added, subtracted, or there was no change. We will continue to play this game this week and will add it to our math tubs!
Literacy:
All of the students did GREAT on our first week of word study! They were very excited to get started and to get their spelling words. 😊 Thank you for having them do their "best" handwriting column at home and for encouraging them to practice their words. There is always a strong, positive correlation when students practice their words doing the week and take their spell check on Friday. Always make it fun for them! Refer to the "handouts" section in your child's binder for ideas. No word study this week since it's a short week. The students also did great on their third week of guided reading groups and were excited to bring home their books to read to you. We also introduced our third portion of Daily 5 which is "Listen to Reading." I taught the students how to use the CD player and I called over pairs of students to pick out and listen to a story together. We haven't gotten through all partner groups yet but we will the rest of this week.
Thematic:
Last week we finished up Little Red Riding Hood during our thematic study time. The basket weaving was definitely a hit! Students learned how to use construction paper strips to weave a basket like Little Red's that she carried. These are hanging in the classroom and you can come see them on the day of the Fairy Tale Ball. Students also got an opportunity to work on the cardinal directions by creating a map of the setting in Little Red Riding Hood. This week we will begin studying Jack and the Beanstalk and will read different versions and begin new centers!Have a wonderful day!
Love,
Mrs. James
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