Spring?!

I hope we get a chance to enjoy some SPRING weather this week!!

We are changing things up a bit this week in first grade.  We are no longer going to be sending home weekly spelling lists.  We will continue to have weekly word wall words that we work on in class.  We will also be working on a certain phonics skill each week that goes along with our reading story.  With that we will build and work with words and practice spelling in class.  I will be assessing spelling during that word building time, as well as in their everyday writing.  I want to see that in this point of the year the kids are using the word patterns and phonics skills we've learned to spell words in their writing. 

This week we will be reading a story called Tumbleweed Stew and practicing with words that end in "Y" or "IE" with the long "I" sound.  Some examples include pie, tie, fly, sky, etc.

In language we will continue discussing adjectives.  We have been looking and listening for adjectives in our reading and trying to use more adjectives in our writing. 

The students have been doing a GREAT job on their weekly math facts check ups!!  I'm really proud of them.  We'll continue to check these facts each week.  We will also continue to work a little more on subtraction facts, so we can get just as good at knowing those.  In unit 8, the kids have been introduced to making equal parts, and we've even started talking about fractions! 

It's hard to believe there are only 7 weeks left in first grade!  We will continue to work hard to the end. Please continue reading every night with your child.  Your support at home is an intregal part of their success in school. 

Mrs. Halon

Robots, Robots!

Our first graders were back into the swing of the routine this week and with it came a story from our reading book titled My Robot.  It was a cute story about a boy who got a robot for his birthday.  This robot did all kinds of things for the boy.  We had a great time reading books about robots, talking about if WE had a robot, and even doing a little writing about it too of course! 

The kids wrote stories about if they had a robot.  They had lots of fun with it and were quite creative.

We also finished up our story Charlotte's Web.  Each of the students completed a Character Web of one of the main characters of the story.  We had so many indoor recesses this past week that we were able to watch the entire movie as well. 

In phonics/spelling, we worked on the soft C sound. 

In language we have been learning about adjectives and how they describe.  We have been having fun pointing out adjectives in our conversations, our read alouds, and in our reading books. 

In Math, we are moving into Unit 8, which will focus a lot on more money counting, addition and subtraction number problems and stories, and fractions.

Let's hope for some warmer weather this week, or at least a week without rain so we can get some much needed play time outside throughout the day!

Enjoy your week!

Mrs. Halon

Charlotte's Web and MAP testing

Spring is here!!

This is the time of the year I love for so many reasons.  Of course I am enjoying the warmer temps, sunshine, and everything else that comes with spring.  As a teacher though, spring is the time of year that I love to look at how far "my kids" have come this year.  It brings a smile to my face to think about what our little first graders were doing back in September and compare it to what I am seeing them do now.  I still have a couple months left with these little ones and we are planning to continue to work hard to get prepared for the big move upstairs to 2nd grade. 

Last week we took our reading and math MAP tests.  MAP stands for Measure of Academic Progress.  It is a computer based test that assesses a various level of skills in math and reading.  It gives us as teachers a nice look at the progress each child has made this year and what skills are stronger or weaker for each student. 

Because our schedule was a little off last week with MAP testing, we didn't have our normal literacy block for guided reading.  I decided to do some activities during that time to coincide with the story Charlotte's Web, which I have been reading aloud to the children the last few weeks.  Students made spider webs with vocabulary words,  created story cubes with different elements of the story on it, and began an ABC book of Charlotte's Web.  We're still working on that project, but look for it to come home in a couple weeks.  It was fun to get out of the normal routine and do some fun activities with Charlotte's Web.  Maybe we'll even take some time in the next week to watch the movie now that we have finished the book. 

In Math, we have begun switching teachers and have put our kids into flexible groups according to ability.  Therefore, I may not see your child for math instruction anymore.  We are working with our math groups to really focus in on skills needed with each particular group.  The kids are enjoying moving around through the day and even having some time with other first grade teachers.  All of us at varying levels are continuing to work on our basic first grade skills which include basic addition and subtraction facts, number stories, money counting, and telling time. 

As spring is so very unpredictable, please keep an eye on the forecast each day and send your child with proper clothing for outside recess.  Thank you:)

I am pleased to see how many kiddos have been taking home books each night to read for the Read At Home Program.  I LOVE giving away all these free books to my readers!! 

Have a great week!

Mrs. Halon

March Already?!

How can it already be March??!!

This year is flying by and it's hard to believe that we are already starting our 3rd trimester of first grade!  The kiddos are making such great progress and I was SO pleased with the reading I heard them do for me last week during our trimester DRAs.  (Developmental Reading Assessments)  Thank you for all the support and reading you are doing at home with your child.  It is making a difference!

This week we are switching things up a bit in first grade.  We have decided to separate the kids up during an hour of our literacy time and do some even more differentiated instruction.  We are very excited to for this change and to see how the kids continue to grow and learn.

In Math we have been continuing to work on basic addition and subtraction facts.  We have been practicing some of these through fact families.  We have also been working on something called Name Collection boxes.  This is simply putting a number in a box and writing as many "names" for that number that we can think of.  For example, for the number 10, we can represent it with 10 tallies, 10 cents, equations that equal 10, etc) 

We will beginning "Writer's Workshop" during our writing time.  This will be a time when our little writers will be choosing their own topics for stories, working to create an idea web for that topic, work with me on editing and improving their writing, and then "publishing" their work.  Everyone will be working at their pace on their own projects.  It will be fun to see all the "published" work the kids will have at the end of the trimester. 

I am excited to start this trimester with some new approaches and activities!  Thanks for all your continued support. 

Mrs. Halon 

Happy Valentine's Day!!

The kids sure did enjoy our Valentine's Day celebration this week!  We enjoyed exchanging cards with each other as well and special sweet treats.  We are thrilled to be getting some recess time outside this week, as this time of year it is crucial to get outside, enjoy some fresh air, and burn off some energy:) 

This week was full of lots of learning fun!

In math this week we have been doing a lot of end of the trimester assessments.  In between these assessments we've had the opportunity to practice skills through learning centers.  We practiced telling time, addition facts, writing 3 digit numbers, counting money, and had fun with tangrams. 

We had a tricky phonics skill this week.  We practiced reading and sorting words that contain "er", "ir", or "ur".  It's hard to tell which spelling pattern makes the sound in different words without just memorizing it.  I made them work this week with this spelling list! 

We read a story titled Digger Pig and the Turnip.  We saw a lot of those spelling patterns in this story.  This story is very similar to the story The Little Red Hen.  Next week we plan to continue reading and doing activities with this story, comparing and contrasting to The Little Red Hen. 
This story was about some farm animals that didn't want to help Pig make a turnip pie.  We talked about how we are good helpers.  We discussed ways that we help at home and wrote sentences about it. 

In writing this week we also talked about parts of a friendly letter.  The kids now understand that a friendly letter contains a heading, a greeting, the body, and a closing.  Each of us practiced writing a friendly letter this week to Mr. Garner. 

This weekend your child brought home a ziplock bag full of paper books.  These books have been in the students' book bags in their desks for weeks.  Each book focuses on a phonics skill your child has worked on throughout the last several weeks.  These are great books to hang on to and keep practicing reading at home.  Your child should be able to read these stories independently. 

We had a great week!  This may sound silly, but keep encouraging your child to properly wash their hands.  We're working to do this at school, especially before lunch.  Our class is staying fairly healthy amidst a very tough flu season.  (I'm knocking on wood right now!)  Keep reading each night at home with your child.  Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Halon

iPads

This week I took an opportunity to give our new ipads a try in the classroom.  A few weeks ago, our classroom received 4 ipads for use in our classroom.  We've been busy playing around with them and getting apps on them that will work with our curriculum.  I have tried out a couple activities with kids during guided reading groups. However, this week, I had a group of kids try working independently during literacy center time on the ipads.  They were working on reading on RAZ kids, a program familiar to them.  It was a fun way to get their hands on this new tool for our classroom.  I'm looking forward to playing around with these more with small groups and trying out new programs and apps.

This week at a glance:

Reading/Language Arts:
We read a class story called Making Friends, Keeping Friends this week.  We wrote stories this week about what we do with friends.  The kids organized their ideas on an idea web, and then we put these details into a story book this week.  They really enjoyed creating these story booklets and making it "published" work.  Look for these stories to be coming home soon for you to see.

We learned how to put words in ABC order this week and practiced a little with it.  I told the kids this would be another great activity to do at home with their weekly spelling list.

The kids have learned this week about special names and titles of people and how we need to capitalize those in our writing.  I have become a little more picky with their writing and have really been pointing out when letters should be capitalized and when they should not be.

Math:
We reviewed and finished up our Unit 5 in math this week.  The next week will be spent doing a lot of end of Trimester 2 assessing.  Continue practicing basic facts and well and counting money at home.

We are looking forward to another great week this week!  Remember to have your child do some reading every night at home.

Mrs. Halon

-visit again in the next couple days for pics to be added to this post and the last post about penguins.  my camera is acting up and I couldn't add them on tonight. 

Penguins Penguins!

You have probably heard all about our week with our class visitor, an emperor penguin.  He arrived in our classroom in a box from Antarctica.  We spent the week learning all about our penguin and his needs to survive here at Washington school.  We even made a plan as to how we would create a room with all of its needs if we were to keep our penguin here at school.  In the end, we decided that it would be best to send our penguin home to his natural habitat, Antarctica.  It was much fun for the kids to learn all about penguins and integrate penguin activities throughout our day of reading, writing, and math.

Mrs. Block discusses the needs of our penguin with the students.

What will we do with this penguin!?

Our penguin arrived!

This week has been a busy one.  Here's our quick recap:

Reading:  This week we have been reading an African Folk Tale called Too Much Talk.  It was fun to practice reading it with expression in our voices for the different characters that spoke in the story.  We talked this week too about asking the questions who, what, and where?? 
WHO is the main character in the story?
WHAT are they doing in the story?
WHERE are they in the story?
We had the chance to go to the computer lab this week and get on RAZkids.com.  If you have access to the internet at home, this is a great resource to use to have your child practice their on-level reading.  Please let me know if you need your child's login information sent home again.  We practiced "visualizing" when we heard a poem called "The Balloon Man".  The kids came up with some great pictures of their visualizations.

Math:  In math this week, we have worked a lot on number stories.  In those stories we've discussed and compared amounts, figuring out who has more and how much more each time.  We learned that this is the DIFFERENCE between the numbers.  We're also comparing numbers using our symbols >,<,=. 
We continue to practice our math facts each day.  This week each day we also practiced putting data into bar graphs and discussing the information we found in the completed graphs.

Language Arts:  We completed another big writing activity this week.  We wrote a fact piece about penguins.  The kids made an idea web and listed 6 facts they learned about penguins.  We came up with a topic sentence, wrote the six facts, and ended our story with a concluding sentence.  They did wonderful writing!!  We are really starting to remember those capitals at the beginning of sentences and periods at the end. 

I really enjoyed meeting with all of you last week during conferences.  It's so nice to share how well your children are doing and all the wonderful gains they are making.  Thanks for all the support at home!

Mrs. Halon