What's Happening...

This Friday was the mini-cheer act at the home football game.  The girls had so much fun and really did a fabulous job.  Great job goes out to my own little one and these three sweethearts pictured below.  Way to go girls and GO PINTOS!

 It's starting to resemble fall not only outside, but in the classroom as well.  I finally got our fall bulletin board up and the kids just absolutely love it!  We'll be doing an activity to go along with this theme in the coming weeks.  For now....enjoy the fall season with this pic!

 With all the ROYALS excitement I had to share this sweet pic of my girl and I during one of the recesses this week.  We are avid Royals fans and are so excited to see our boys in blue playing so well.

 Our centers are even reflecting the season as well.  Our new math game is called Counting Spiders.  The students are practicing their math facts by looking at the number sentence, using the halloween counters to help them figure out the problem and then they place the number sentence on the answer mat.

The kids have also been using their addition flash cards to practice their math facts.  We have been practicing the doubles problems and become very fluent with our facts.  I am amazed at how quickly the students have learned their doubles.

 

Of course we still love to use the computers to help with our math fluency as well.

Our new word work activity this week has the students using magnetic letters to spell our word wall words.  This coming week, the students will be taking a spelling test that will help me create individualized spelling lists for each child.  You will hear more about this spelling program called Making Meaning next week.

Here are some reminders about this upcoming week.  I hope you all have a great weekend!!

Your child's parent teacher conference scheduled time is in your child's homework folder. I tried my best to give you a time that you requested.  If you did not turn in your parent teacher conference form, I assigned you a time that I had available.  If the time and date given will not work for you, please let me know so we can meet at a time that works best for you.

On Wednesday, October 28th our class will be conducting a pumpkin investigation as a culmination to our living/nonliving unit.  We need various sizes of pumpkins donated for the pumpkin investigation.  If you would be willing to donate a pumpkin to our class, please bring it in by next Friday.  Thank you so much for all your help in making this project a success for the students.

Our class fall party will be on October 29th from 2—3pm.  If you would like to donate a food, drink, or volunteer for the games, please fill out the yellow fall party note that went home in your child’s blue homework folder.

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.

Apples, Apples, Apples...and a FREEBIE!

First of all just a quick reminder for all of my parents that Monday, October 7th is our field trip to the Peach Tree Farm.  I sent a note home yesterday about the field trip, as well as a chaperone expectation letter for those of you that are joining us on our trip.  If you've never been to the Peach Tree Farm I think you'll really enjoy it.  Below is a picture of my two little girlies at the farm last October.  I can't wait to bring them back again this year.  It is our yearly October tradition.

This week we finished up our themed unit on Apples.  I love thematic teaching!  I'll share a few of the things we did this week here.  During our CAFE instruction, I introduced nonfiction features through the use of Gail Gibbons book entitled, Apples.  You can check her book out below.
                                   
The class used resources from Deanna Jumps Apples Math and Literacy Activities thematic unit.
                                                
They used a bubble map to record down all of the information they already knew about apples.  We then read the book and created an apples Are, Have, Make chart.  In addition, during shared reading we read a variety of fictional poems and books about apples.  Students were to locate rhyming words and sight words in the shared dreading activities they were involved in.  The culmination of our unit included an apple tasting where students got to taste test three different types of apples.  We then graphed created a graph and a pictograph about our favorite apples.  Afterwards, the students wrote about the data they collected.   I didn't bring my camera these days, so I don't have any pictures to share as of now.  My plan is to get some pictures and update this post sometime this weekend of our apple fun so you can see it.  Please come back to see them soon!  Below are a few pictures of the students during our math rotations.  After our mini-lesson, students go to a fact games station, paper practice at their seats, computers, Promethean (that's our Activboard), or they work with Mrs. Hogan or Mrs. Dusenberg in a guided math station.  Please enjoy the pictures below!

Playing an addition game called "Shake Those Beans."

Another group playing "Shake Those Beans."

And yet another group playing, "Shake Those Beans."

Math games on the computer.

I am working on creating some materials to use in my classroom to explore the life of Christopher Columbus.  I haven't gotten far...but I thought I'd share the FREEBIES I have created so far.  Click on the picture below to grab your copies.  ENJOY!

Station Sensation

Wow!  What a busy week it has been!  I feel like I am just trying to play catch up.  In early December I attended the MO First and Second Grade Conference.  I came away with some exciting ideas for starting math stations.  My goal was to come back home and try and figure out a way that I could squeeze this into our already busy schedules.  So, I rearranged some time/activities that take place in our rooms and voila!  math stations have arrived in our classroom.  We didn't just start math stations, we also added another station into our daily 5 rotations.  The students now go to Read to Self, Work with Words literacy and phonics stations, Read to Someone, Listen to Reading, and Work on Computers stations (once a month).  During math, the students are taught a mini-lesson before they complete their assigned work.  After they complete their math for the day, they are then able to complete the math stations.  The kids are in LOVE with the new stations and they work really hard to get through them every day.  

I have also decided that since we only have the computers for one full week each month that I would try to incorporate a little more technology into our daily routine.  Next week will be our first week for our iPad Station.  Students will use the iPad as a reading station for one full week each month as well.  Some of the kids noticed the iPads in the room earlier today and asked if we were going to use them.  They were beyond excited!  I just know this is going to add the extra something they needed to keep them motivated throughout the rest of the year.  

The following week, I will introduce iPods.  I have four iPods for fluency stations in my classroom.  Students will record themselves reading and listen to their reading.  They will then try to improve their fluency.  With the computers, iPads, and iPods our class will be using a variety of technology throughout the remainder of the school year.  Keep coming back for more updates on how this technology is improving the learning in our classroom.  

It seems as if the PTO movie night was once again a success tonight.  My daughter loved the movie {and the running around}.  We are now home lounging on the couch, however, I failed to bring my device with the pictures of our math stations and work with words stations home.  I'll do my best to get those posted by the end of the weekend.  Enjoy the coming weather and be safe.


Here are some of the pictures I got of the students doing some of their math tubs this week. A lot of these great stations have come from units I have purchased off of Teachers Pay Teachers.  Some of my favorite authors/teachers are Cara Carroll, Deanna Jump, and Abby Mullins.  I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE their creativity and the students always enjoy their literacy and math stations.  I also got some great ideas for math games and daily 5 in math from Shannon Samulski.  Pictured below you will see the kids playing Bump.  There are many variations of this game, but since this was the first time the kids had played it we did the *simple* version.  {roll the dice, add the numbers, cover the sum}  This great activity helps kids with exploratory learning.  I love the idea of the kids being able to continually practice and review what has been taught.  These activities really get the kids thinking about numbers and what they mean.  LOVE!!!  You can check out her great things at Strategic Intervention Solutions.  Check her out HERE.

Kids playing bump

Coin Toss {writing addition sentences}

Non-units standard of measurement {How many snowflakes tall are you?}