Conferences...next week!

Remember next week if conference week! Thanks for finding time to sign up. I look forward to meeting with you to discuss your child's progress.

There won't be many curriculum updates on the blog next week because I will be spending time preparing for and conducting conferences. Check back the following week for curriculum updates :)

Coming home today

This afternoon keep an eye out for:

1. Book fair brochure
2. Veteran's Day information
3. Box top info.

Abilities Awareness

This week as a school wide focus, we are learning about individuals with different abilities. Each grade level has particular area they are learning about. First grade's is communication. We are learning that some people may use different ways to communicate than we do. Tomorrow bwtween 9:15 and 11:15 the students will be participating in a variety of activities around this topic.

Some of you have volunteered to help - thank you! We look forward to you joining us for this special learning time.

Reading - Book Bags

Book bags will begin coming home this afternoon. Each evening the children will be able to bring home one book from their book box to read at home. Keep in mind that the level they will be bringing home is 1-2 levels below where I am actually instructing them. Their independent level is where they should be able to read fluently without errors. If at any time your child brings home a book that just doesn't seem right, please send me an e-mail. It's been known to happen from time to time! Book bags should be returned each day so the child can bring home a new book each evening.

Symphony Field Trip

On October 19 we are heading to the symphony at Powell Hall. Please return field trip forms along with $10 by next Thursday the 6th. Due to limited tickets only 2 parents will be able to join us. Let me know if you are interested and if there are more than 2 parents wanting to attend, a raffle will be held to determine which parents will chaperone. Keep in mind our next two trips are not limited, so if you are unable to come this time there will  be other chances! Thanks!

Book Fair!

Next week Scholastic Book Fair is coming to Shenandoah. Stay tuned for hours of operation. :0)

Word Work This Week

Our chunks this week are: -est    -ent
Our accountable words this week are: am   did

I hope you are able to take time to look over your child's pre and post assessments for these spelling patterns. I have begun pulling strategy groups for students who are not improving their scores. Any additional practice at home would be helpful! We work with these chunks each day of the week.

Conferences

Conference week is next week already! If you haven't done so yet, please sign up for a conference time. I added a few more during the day on the 6th. It's a tricky week to fit them all in with late start being Wednesday and Friday being off school. Hopefully everyone can find a time that works! Here is the link to sign up: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0f4fa5ae22a4fa7-mrs5

Coming Home Today

1. Shenandoah Valley Buzzbook order form: This is the school directory. I get many inquiries about sharing e-mails and phone numbers with parents to arrange play dates and birthday parties. I am unable to share this information. Please purchase a buzz book for this type of information.

2. Walk/Bike to school info

3. Symphony Fieldtrip Form: On October 19 we will be attending a program at Powell Hall. Please sign and return the forms by Thursday, October 6th with $10.00 cash. We have very limited space for parent chaperones on this trip. 2 parents will be able to join us. If more are interested we will do a raffle to determine who will come. Our other two trips later in the school year do not have a chaperone limit, so if you don't get to join us this time there will be more opportunities!

Reward

Remember, our class has earned a pajama day on Monday, September 26. Children may wear pajamas to school and bring a reasonably sized stuffed animal friend. Please send tennis shoes for PE activities and recess. Thanks!

Screen Awareness

Thanks for your help with our screen awareness week! We enjoyed hearing all the things the children did instead of playing on their devices or watching television. Our class exceeded the goal of 100 hours total and have earned our extra recess!

Math

We continue to work in our addition and subtraction unit. We have been working on developing fluency with facts 1-10 and reading and solving word problems with effective strategies.

Last week the students took a 26 problem addition fact "quiz". When they finished, we wrote the time in which they completed it. Using a graph, the students will keep track of how many problems they got correct and the amount of time they completed it. Their goal each time will be to improve their number correct and lower their time a bit. Many students are still relying on their fingers when solving simple addition facts. Increased fluency will support future learning this school year as topics become more complex. Practicing facts is always something fun and quick that can be done at home, too.

We have been working on a variety of story problems. We are working on first identifying what the problem is asking us to find. Many students see two numbers and jump to add or subtract them without thinking about what the problem is asking. We are using the math practices to identify what the question is asking, make a model to represent the problem, and attend to precision in problem solving.

Additional concepts we have been working on in conjunction with what is mentioned above:
1. Missing addend: setting up number sentences with a missing piece and then working to figure out what the missing addend is.
2. Using a number line to solve addition and subtraction problems
3. Doubles facts (i.e. 3+3=6      4+4=8)

Students have had the opportunity to work some on our chrome books to play math games related to our content. Students will learn to use the chrome books to complete some short assignments and online assessments which may be used as an additional data point once in awhile throughout the school year.

Good readers help themselves

Last week we started our next reading unit: Good readers help themselves. During this unit students become familiar with a variety of strategies good readers use to decode while reading. One of our main goals in first grade reading is to help the children become independent problem solvers in their reading. We are working on an anchor chart of these strategies and will re-visit it throughout the school year. Throughout the year we work on developing a strong sense of self-monitoring and stopping at the point of difficulty to figure out new and unknown words. I have been bringing some of our habit 1 "be proactive" into the teaching as well because it fits in nicely!

Here are the essential questions we are working on in this unit:

- What do readers do when their reading doesn’t make sense?
- What do readers do when they make mistakes?
- Why is reading fluently important?
- What do readers do when they come to a word they don't know?

So far we have learned that good readers...
1. Look carefully at the cover of a book
2. Take a picture walk before reading
3. Study the pictures carefully
4. Think about what is happening in the story
5. Get their mouth ready to say the first sound (and look through the word to middle and end sounds)

In the next few lessons we will be adding to our chart:
6. Go back and re-read
7. Skip the unknown word and come back to it
8. Use what you already know to help you figure out new words (our spelling patterns and vowl knowledge)
9. Use multiple strategies when needed

At some point I will send our strategies "cheat sheet" home so you can have a copy to use with your child. It is helpful when we use common language as we coach our emerging readers. :)

Coming Home Today

1. Nutrition information
2. Screen Awareness Week information (slips begin coming back to school TUESDAY of next week)
3. Community Education information
4. Panther Pledge Donation Envelope
5. Walk/Bike to School information

Rainy Day

We still have fun at recess when we're stuck indoors!

Scientists

Here you will see our scientists hard at work! We made flags to measure wind speed and went outside to measure the wind. We are tracking and graphing wind speed for a few days.

New Writing Unit - Small Moment Personal Narrative

In writing this week we have begun our new writing unit - small moment / personal narrative. I'm sure you would agree that first graders have lots of stories to tell! From the moment the students walk into the classroom in the morning, they are bursting with excitement as they share the important moments in their lives. During this unit students will learn to take those ideas they have from personal experiences and translate them into a story for a reader.


 As friends share their personal stories with their classroom friends, deeper relationships are formed leading to strengthened community in the classroom.  Kindergarten narrative writers focus on creating a beginning, middle, and end to their piece and learn ways to stretch out their small moment.  Expectations for small moment narratives are higher in first grade in the areas of transitions, closure, and zooming in on one small moment.  For example, a Kindergarten writer may write a small moment about his or her day at the pool, while a first grade writer will zoom in on the experience of learning how to jump off the diving board.

We will spend time brainstorming ideas they can write about. Students will learn through modeling and studying mentor texts how to stretch their story across several pages with many details.

Brainpop Jr.

Did you know your child can access Shenandoah Valley's Brainpop Jr. account from home? The PTO pays for this and we are encouraged to share it with you! If you are not familiar with Brainpop Jr., they are very quick videos on various topics which align to our curriculum. We use them sometimes in the classroom. They have fun characters the students really enjoy. Here is our log in information:

Username: Shanand0ah  (yes that is a zero not an "o")
Password: panthers

There are quite a few weather related videos which go along nicely with what we are learning in science right now.

Screen Awareness Week

Next week will be our first "Screen Awareness" week of the school year. The idea behind it is to encourage the students to find other activities not related to watching television, playing on a tablet, or video games, etc. There are many other fun activities to do! Coming home with your child you will find slips to fill out for each evening next week. We will be keeping track of how many hours we can be screen-free. Each class that has a total of 100 screen-free hours will earn an extra recess! In addition, we would love to see photos of what your child has chosen to do as an alternative. Send in photos for the bulletin board.

Writing Celebration

Yesterday morning we were able to take our published book from our first writing unit to share with Ms. Evan's kindergarten class! The first graders really enjoyed sharing their books!

Picture Retakes

Picture retakes are Oct. 12. If you have questions, please contact Lifetouch: 314-739-1515

Student portraits

School pictures are coming home this afternoon if you ordered them. :0)

Please Return...

I still have quite a few friends who have not turned in their class dues yet. An envelope with your child's name on it came home awhile back. Please return this with $10 as soon as you can. These funds go towards class parties throughout the year. If you have misplaced the envelope, you can send it in another envelope and just label is with your child's name and class dues.

Spirit wear forms and money are due soon. Please send in any orders. There are some cute designs this year! Late start days will be our spirit days!

PRIDE

Each week at the beginning of the school year we are taking time to re-teach the 5 components of Panther PRIDE. So far, we have learned about:

P- practice safety
R - react responsibly
I - Initiate kindness

This week we are learning about demonstrating respect. This is a big one as we refresh our memory with what this LOOKS like and SOUNDS like in the classroom, other areas of our school, and home.

Think Win-Win

The habit we are learning about this week is habit 4 - Think win-win. This habit is not an easy one for 6 and 7 year olds to wrap their head around initially! When you think win-win, you take others' needs and wants into consideration. You talk and compromise to find a solution where everyone wins. To illustrate what can happen when we do not have this mindset, we read and discussed Dr. Seuss's The Lorax. Students saw how one individual's choice to only think about himself affected many others in a negative way.

Like all the habits, we will continue to come back to this throughout the year. I would encourage you to use this same language at home as the children are working through issues with siblings or even with friends.

What is science?

This week we are beginning our first science unit - weather. To kick off our science time and to introduce the idea of science, I posed a question to the students. I asked them "what is science?" They had a lot of great ideas. We brainstormed a web of what "science" means to them. We talked about how scientists use tools, they read/write/draw about their discoveries, they ask questions, they share information, they collaborate to complete experiments, and they are continually learning about their world. After our discussion, the students drew in their science notebooks what they think a scientist looks like. There were many different depictions. The students enjoyed sharing their ideas about science and scientists.

The essential questions for our science unit are:

- Why is it important for people to know about weather?
- How do temperature, wind, cloud cover and precipitation help us to understand the weather?
- How do we get information about the weather?

Word Work

This week we are working on -ack and -ap and the accountable words : she  no

Coming home today

A few items to look for in your child's take home folder:

1. Home paws: To help with the school to home connection with our PBIS and Panther Pride language, we send home some special paws to be given at home by parents. Each month you will receive ONE pink sheet of paws to give to your child. The children are always excited to bring in home paws and share how they are carrying out PRIDE outside of our school!

2. Book orders: Please see the previous blog post earlier this week regarding book orders. The due date to order by is next Friday, September 9th.

3. Abilities Awareness volunteer form: The week of September 26th we will be celebrating "Abilities Awareness Week" at Shenandoah. During this week each grade level participates in activities that help students understand different abilities. First grade's focus is on communication needs and different ways some people communicate. Volunteers are needed to help this event run smoothly. Please consider joining us for this activity. Please return forms as soon as you are able.

4. Passport Night info!

5. Run for Fun info!

6. Walk/Bike to school info!

** Please return dentist forms if your child is going to see the traveling dentist

Exciting News

Today we were able to use our chromebooks for the first time! We were able to borrow a few from Mrs. Wagers in the library so we could all practice logging in together. Students successfully logged into their google accounts and our math accounts! It took patience and good listening. The students were awesome at helping each other. The children really enjoyed the new math games. This will become part of our workshop routine for some of our math work. Your child can access the game center from home by logging into their google account. I will send out more thorough directions soon.

Morning Work

We use various activities for morning work. You should have seen some of these items coming home with your child. It may be math practice or word work of some kind. When our star weeks begin, Thursdays students will be writing a letter to our star student for their morning work. Today we started a journal which we will use 1-2 times per week. Students record one sentence in their journal. Throughout the year the expectation will increase to 2 sentences and then 3. The journals go home at the end of the month so you can see your child's work. I encourage parents to save these through the year, so they can look back months from now and see the progress!

NCADA Lessons

NCADA will be coming into our classroom for one lesson a week for the next 4 weeks. This four (or five)-lesson unit promotes language and behaviors that build friendships and provide
skills to handle uncomfortable feelings such as anger and conflict. In the past I've really seen a positive impact on student interaction and conflict resolution. The lessons are very engaging and the students love them! Ask your child what they have been learning!