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!