Today Mr. B came in and read an amazing book to us about love called The Invisible String.  Ask your first grader what it was about and who they have an invisible string attached to!

We are very excited for our upcoming concert.  Save the date for March 23rd, at 6:30pm....two months from today!  

We have been talking about the difference between fiction and non-fiction.   One trick we use to remember which term means which is Fiction and Fake both begin with the /f/ sound.

All students are coming home with a new homework log today in their book bag.  Today we had less than half the class return their logs.  You are not required to do the whole log!  Please use it as you see fit and determine what works for you and your family.  I am hoping that kids can get in the habit of returning them each Monday to teach them the basic homework skill and responsibility of something goes home and then something comes back.  Thanks for your support with this!

We had a very productive (delayed) day of school today!
We have recently added our last names to our name blocks that sit on our tables.  Today we implemented a new habit writing our first AND LAST name on our papers.  We are hoping to get this habit down well before second grade!

In reading we are working on the trick words WHEN, WHO & WHAT.  

In math we are telling time to the hour and half hour now!  We are learning about dimes, we now are practicing to make and count amounts of money using pennies, nickels and dimes.   You can always practice this at home!

There are a lot of germs going around this time of the year.  We discussed how when kids practice good healthy habits it can help them stay healthy.  We remembered this tips:
*Drink water
*Eat healthy
*Get enough sleep!!!
*Wash our hands (both sides, in between the fingers and around the thumbs)
*Keep our hands and fingers especially out of our hands and mouth


We filled our bucket up today!  Look for an email alert for a privilege!

Mrs. Ruest came in today and explained the upcoming Invention Convention!  A yellow paper went home yesterday with the details.  This is an OPTIONAL opportunity for any students to showcase an invention idea of their very own!  Hopefully we will have some inventors from team 107!  Email me or truest@bownet.org with any questions!

Today we began the conversation about Martin Luther King Jr.  We are focusing on what his dream was and all the ways he was a great role model for people!  Today we read the book My Brother Martin, which was written by his older sister Christine.  Ask your first grader what was Martin's dream?

We are right back in the swing of things here in room 107 in the new year!

We are learning about suffixes!  We have introduced adding s to make the word a plural like cats.  We have talked about how s can sound like /s/ or like /z/ at the end of words ( like bugs).  We will be learning to add es as a suffix this week.

Our reading groups are about to change!  Mrs. Pelletier has been busy finding instructional level benchmark books for all the kids this week and last week.  If the book your first grader brings hope in their book bag today feels like not a quite right fit ( too easy or too hard) hang in there one more week.  We are adjusting groups as all the students are progressing and learning at their own rates.  I am SO impressed by how many students are reading well beyond where they started in the year!  

In math we just finished working on number lines and empty number lines.  An empty number line is where you only fill in the numbers you need to solve a problem and you can jump beyond 1's by whatever number makes the most sense to you:  

Now we are ready to learn time to the half hour.  We already have learned telling time to the hour and today and the next few days we will work on telling time to the half hour as well.  *Please note telling time to the minute is a skill they will be introduced to second grade.

 

We use an ipad app called "Interactive Telling Time Lite" on the ipads to practice telling time to the hour and half past in case you want to try it at home!

In writing we are writing reviews, we are reviewing restaurants, movies, toys, games etc.  We are learning to give lots of reasons why we believe it is great!  Ask your student what review they are writing!

It is my intention to share pictures from the 12/22 Night Tree Walk through a google drive link again. If this is unable to work for you email me and I will send you a handful of pictures for your student.

Today we finished our book Matilda !  We will be starting a new chapter in awhile.  We will be taking a break to learn about MLK and then read some fairytales!

Please continue to send in warm/snow gear.  Days where it is 15 degrees or warmer we will go out!

Team 107 is the final countdown to our holiday break!  We had a great couple of days this week so far.  We finished unit 5 in our FUNdations program and took the assessment today.  I am very impressed by how much these students are learning and able to apply what they have learned.

In math we are talking about number lines!  We solved lots of holiday themed problems today and practiced using number lines that are specific to the problem with just the numbers we need.  For example, 7 reindeer plus 4 more would have a number line with 7,8,9,10&11 on it.

We also learned a fun by yourself game called LEAPFROG!  Some people know it as the peg game or the Cracker Barrel game.  They really started getting the hang of this!

Remember Night Tree walk this Thursday at 8:15-9:45 am and Grinch green day Friday!

Wow these days are flying by so quickly!

In literacy this week we have been practicing our new trick words have & from.
We also have been reviewing our glued sounds -all, -an & -am.

I am impressed at how well the first graders can hear a sentence dictated to them and then write it correctly with punctuation and capital starts when they really attend to the task!  At the reading table today we had lots of writers get the whole sentence correct with all the sounds and writing mechanics!  That's a big job!
In math we are learning about patterns!  We started with the visual patterns and read the book Pattern Fish.
The first graders made a page in the same style the illustrator used in the book to show a pattern of their choice.
Today we read the book Missing Mittens and introduced the concept of odds and evens.  We figured out that we can tell if a number is odd or even by determining the digit in the ones place.  We also learned to check if a number is odd or even by counting it out on our fingers using alternating hands.  Have your first grader show you how to check 5 (If they do it correctly they should sing "Somebody is missing a partner" at the end to determine it is odd).

We are continuing to write OPINION stories in writer's workshop!  We are learning to convince your reader you should give LOTS of reasons why you like it!

First Grade was very busy this week!

We introduced the glued sounds 'am' and 'an'.
We worked on making mini trick word books where we design the word and then use it in a sentence.
We solved more sentence puzzles including ones with quotation marks!

In math we took our unit 2 assessment ( a copy went home yesterday) and we began unit 3 with visual patterns!  We know to be a pattern it has to repeat!  We are learning to create, continue and label patterns we can see or hear.

In writing we launched our new unit on Opinion writing!  We used our collections to write which item would be the best 'blue ribbon winner' in the collection.  We are learning to convince your reader you need to tell why it is the best in your opinion and use the word because.  We had other first grade teachers from Loudon come and observe us during writer's workshop and they were impressed with how great we are at being independent!

Lastly we enjoyed our pajama day and enjoyed the book version of the Polar Express.  If you are interested in coming to the PTO event tonight it starts at 5 and you do not have to be pre-registered, just come!