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

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:

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

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

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

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

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 

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.

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