Celebrating Citizenship, a Busy Month Ahead, Pics and More ~

Where to start…We have been busy, busy, busy to say the least!  I’ll begin by saying thank you once again to all of our parents who donated items for our flag cookies and apples. 

Picture day was on Wednesday and boy how sweet did our little firsties look that day.  I always love picture day because the littles always come dressed in their best.  They are so very precious!!!  I figured this would be a great day to take some snapshots of the class as well.  So I carried my camera around and took some great shots of the kids.  Enjoy the cuteness!!!Playing a rhyming game on the Promethean board during reading rotations.  I have a lot of games from Lakeshore that I use during our center rotations in reading and math.  The kids love them and so do I.  What a fun way to reinforce our learning in the room!Working with Mrs. Gosnell during work with words.  We love Mrs. Gosnell.  She is in our room 45 minutes of the day during our reading rotations.  Currently, the students are working on sight words with her.Working with Mrs. Dusenberg during reading rotations.  We love Mrs. Dusenberg too!  She is in our room during reading, math, and writing.  During reading she works on phonics with our students.Read to Self.Read to Self 

The students get to pick out their own good fit books.  We discussed in class how not everyone has the same good fit books.  Everyone has their very own book shopping day.  This is when they return their old books and pick out 5 new good fit books to work on.  We read the same 5 books for one whole week to work on comprehension (I understand what I read) and fluency (I can read smoothly with few errors and still understand what I read).

Practicing our smiles.Practicing our smiles.Practicing our smiles.A little recess fun.A little recess fun.A little recess fun.A little recess fun.A little recess fun.A little recess fun.A little recess fun.A snapshot of our class.  Awww!!!

Mrs. Maness was able to get this snapshot of our class that included me!

Now on to some other things that have been happening in our classroom.  We began our bean seed observations over a week ago.  The students have been recording their observations in a bean seed journal.  We will finish our observations next week.  Then, we begin learning about plants. The following are just a few pics of this science project in action.
 

Working in their bean seed journals.

Our bean seeds sitting in the window. 

In social studies we were learning about the constitution of The United States of America.  We also learned about The Pledge of Allegiance and the United States Flag.  We dissected the Constitution and the Pledge apart line by line and discussed their meaning.  We also learned what each part of the flag meant.  Then, we made flag cookies.  They were yummy…so I’m told! 

I always enjoy having the kids make these cookies as a culmination to our citizenship unit.  Thanks again to all the parents that donated supplies for this activity.

Now for the important upcoming dates:
September 29 – October 3 – Spirit Week, please refer to the handout sent home today for the themed dress up days.
October 1 – Muffins for Mom; Field trip to the Peach Tree Farm  If you are a chaperone for this trip, please arrive at 8:45 a.m.
October 3 – Early Dismissal for homecoming at 1:00 p.m.  The parade will start at 1:30 p.m. Scholastic book orders are due TODAY!
October 10 – Donuts with Dad
October 13 – NO SCHOOL, professional development day.
October 17 – FIRST GRADE MOVIE NIGHT
October 23 and 28 – Parent Teacher Conference from 4-8p.m.
October 30 – Fall parties at 2:00 p.m.
October 31 – NO SCHOOL

A few weeks ago the cheerleaders held their mini-cheer camp.  I watched our minis perform at the high school football game.  They were adorable.  Here are some pictures of that event.  Sorry it took me so long to get these on here.  I guess that is what happens when you have thousands of pictures on your camera....I should really take care of that!  ;)

Mid-terms and Other Things...

This week I have no pictures to add to the blog....BOO!  I always love taking pictures of our work, but we were really busy this week.  Everyday I thought about taking pictures I was just too caught up in the learning to take snapshots.  I do have some pictures of last weeks mini-cheer leaders that I can come back and add when I get a free chance.

Mid-terms went home today.  They are in your child's blue homework folder.  We have a new grading system that I want to explain to you today.  It goes as follows:  P-proficient, W-working towards proficiency with steady progress, L-working towards proficiency with little progress.  It is okay if you do not see a P for each subject area.  In fact, you most likely will not see any P's at this time of the year.  It would make sense at the beginning of the year that your child is working towards proficiency in all subject areas.  Our learning is a work in progress.  We make strides towards our learning goals weekly and try our best to improve upon ourselves throughout the school year.

Tonight is the first movie night of the year.  Third grade will be showing Rio 2.  You will also have a chance to win a boy or girl bike for a 50 cent raffle.  Movie nights are so much fun for the whole family.  If you haven't been to one, you should definitely try to make it to some of them this year.  It is free to get into the movie.  A concession stand is offered for you to get all kinds of goodies to eat while watching the movie?

Don't forget that our field trip is on October 1st.  We will need all permission slips and money by Tuesday, September 23rd.  This is also picture day.  Don't forget to bring your smiles with you!!!

A Post of Many Thanks~

I want to start off this post by sending a sincere thank you to all of my parents.  Thank you all for taking the time to work with your child every night on homework.  Thank you for asking them about their day and cleaning out their folders.  Thank you for being involved in their lives and letting them know they are the greatest thing in the world (because they are)!  I know that being a working parent is hard work, especially when you have other children you are caring for at home.  I realized something this week, that I’ve never really thought a lot about.  Homework takes time and being a parent is hard work!!!  For those of you that don’t know, my oldest daughter is in Kindergarten this year.  She doesn’t really have homework, but I read to her and have her read to me nightly.  We work on the sight words and talk about her day.  We go over the math pages that come home nightly.  Wheww!!!  That makes me tired just thinking about it.  I know being a parent of a school aged child can be difficult, so thank you from the bottom of my heart, for being there for your child.   I appreciate you!!!!!!! 

Another thank you is in order as well.  Scholastic book orders went home yesterday.  Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of the parents that ordered.  Our class was able to get more books for our listening center thanks to your orders.  In addition, each student in the class got a coupon for a FREE book from months book order.  Hold on to those certificates and use them next month when I send the next flyer home.   Also a huge thank you to those parents that donated candy to our classroom.  We use the candy for our Great Leaps fluency program and for students that clip up on the behavior chart.  The students were very pleased (to say the least) when they noticed the donations.

This week we have been reviewing our reading strategies:  check for understanding, back up and reread, and making predictions.  The students were also introduced to Quincy the Questioner.  Next week we will be learning how to ask questions while we read nonfiction texts. 

Our Pinto time rotations will begin this week.  Pinto time is a thirty-minute time block where the students in first grade will switch classes.  Students in our grade level will get a variety of instruction based on their academic needs during this time block.  The pinto time teachers for our grade level include:  myself (Mrs. Hogan), Mrs. Hendrickson, Mrs. Hees, Mrs. Morrow, Miss Phillips, Mrs. Dusenberg, Mrs. Dicus, and Mrs. Friedrich.

We finished our science unit on living and nonliving things this week.  The students created posters at the end of the unit to display their learning .  They used magazines to find pictures of living and nonliving things.  They were required to include five living things and five nonliving things.  Our next unit will focus on plants and animals and what they need to survive.  We will starting an experiment with bean seeds.  The students will record their observations in a journal and we will discuss our learning in class.  They are very excited about becoming real scientists. 

This coming week we will be learning about the constitution.  We will also learn about the American flag and The Pledge of Allegiance.  At the end of the week, we will recreate the flag in cookie format!  This is always a fun activity.  Please contact me by email (susan.hogan@californiak12.org) if you would be willing to donate items for our cookies.  I’ll let you know what you can bring in to help us out.

With the weather changing and getting cooler, please do not forget to send your child to school with a jacket.  Our morning recess can be quite chilly sometimes.  Please check the weather every morning.

`

Getting in the Swing of Things

We are now fully implementing our reading and math rotations.  Last week, I shared some pictures of our reading groups.  This week, I wanted you to take a peek at our math rotations.  We have four rotations during math.  I teach the new math concept to the students.  After they come to me, they visit Mrs. Dusenberg where they continue to work on the new concept.  This is when they complete the guided math pages that you see coming home in your child's folder.  They then rotate to the computer station.  Currently, the students are working on an addition dice game on MOREStarfall.  As the year progresses, the students will be introduced to more math games on Starfall.  During this time, one student in this group plays and interactive math game on our Promethean Board.  I switch these games up frequently as well.  The next rotation they visit Mr. E.  He is currently teaching the students a math strategy using touchpoints.  This skill will help them when adding and subtracting.  After the introduction of touchpoints, this station will become a game fluency station.  The students will play math games in order to improve on their math fact fluency.  Here's a look at our work.  I'll try to get more pictures up next week.

We are learning about graphing this week.  The students were rolling dice and making towers and graphs to match the number they rolled.

Learning touchpoints

Working on Starfall.

 We take several brain breaks during the day using Gonoodle.  This site is an excellent resource for getting the kids up and moving after they have sat in the classroom for long periods of time.  The students LOVE GoNoodle and we try to fit some breaks into our day when needed.  Check them out at www.gonoodle.com.

~Brain Break~

Today was the first Friday of the month, therefore a newsletter was sent home.  In the newsletter you will find our academic updates on the back for each subject area of our day.  In addition, in your child's folder there is a letter regarding the spelling program I use in our first grade classroom.  You will also find information regarding unit 3 of our phonics program (Fundations).  Please be sure to read over all of this important information.

Before I let you go...I've been holding onto some pictures from the Back to School Bash.  I know it's been a couple weeks, but I've been wanting to share them.  So here are a couple for you to enjoy.  Thank you all for the support you give our school.  It is truly amazing!!  

Back  to School Bash

Back to School Bash

Back to School Bash

Back to School Bash

My daughter at the Back to School Bash.

My daughter in the bounce house at the Back to School Bash.

Mr. Baker in the dunking booth.

Mr. Baker taking one for the kids!  ;)

My daughter again at the Back to School Bash.