Happy Holidays!

Dear First Graders,

   

       I hope you are all enjoying your winter break! Were you as surprised as me that we didn't have school on Friday! I have 4 packs of sugar cookies sitting on my desk that I brought in on Thursday.  I'm sure we have all had our fill of cookies and treats this week. My girls and I got out on Monday to enjoy the snow before it became super cold!! I am hoping to bundle up and make it out again this week. 

    Although our week was cut short, we had a lot of fun before heading off to break.  We enjoyed a sibling being our mystery reader (open dates January 3, 17, 24, and 31st 8:30-8:45 please email me)!  We also had fun playing dreidel. 

    We also wished a friend a farewell and good luck as he rings in 2018 in a new house and new school.  We will miss him!

(photo curtsey of Miss Sabourin)

    Have a great new year! Remember to brainstorm your ideas for our next writing unit. See January folder for another copy.  I also posted the lunch menu since it is very different. There will be 2 hot choices and one alternative that is bagel, yogurt, and a cheese stick. 

Bear Hugs, 

How To... Rock First Grade!

Dear First Graders,

    I continue to be amazed by your wonderful How To books and videos. Thanks to all that were able to come to our writing celebration. Those that were unable to, I hope you have had a chance to read your child's How To book and enjoy the videos (see link to the right of this page!).

    I can't give enough credit to Mrs. Maurantonio for coming up with the idea and plan for How-To videos, Mrs. Rackliffe and Mrs. Thompson that took her idea and turned it into reality!  Thanks ladies. Mrs. TenEyck and Miss Bouchey also helped us write our group How To. Thanks!

A few action shots...

The fun didn't start there...

   This week, I had the pleasure of joining you and Mrs. Johnston in music to teach our science topic about sounds! It was neat learning about vibrations and using the chimes to see and hear different vibrations. I am looking forward to joining your class again Tuesday! 

  Thanks to our mystery reader for sharing a great book on Wednesday.  We have one person signed up in January, but the other dates are available.  

Bear Hugs, 

Snow pants, boots, hats, and mittens...

Dear First Graders,

      I want to say another HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our one friend today! We had 2 friends with birthdays today, one was not feeling well so we will add his picture when he comes back!

     Many of us brought snow gear so that we were able to enjoy the snow out on the playground! We go outside as long as it is above 14 degrees so please bundle up.  I sent home a flyer with some tips on winter gear and will upload a copy to the right.

    As first graders, we are working on becoming more and more independent. With the snow gear, comes taking on and off our shoes. One important life skill that all of us need to learn is tying shoes. There are different strategies (or ways) that your child can tie his/her shoes. Once your child learns a strategy, he/she can tie shoes, boots, bows, ribbons,  etc. Here are three different videos that show three different strategies for shoe tying. 

Watch the videos and choose the one (or have your child choose the one) that you think will be easiest for your child to learn.  Hopefully with your modeling and with persistence and practice, your child will be learning to tie his/her shoes in no time!

Bunny Ear Method

Traditional Method

New Method

  We are looking forward to seeing those of you that can make it, at our writing celebration this Friday from 8:15am-8:45.  

Bear Hugs,

Pirates and Mystery Readers! Oh my!

Dear First Graders,

     We had a fun packed day today! We started off at our assembly, "Grace and the Pirates." It was a fun, interactive show... and we all got "gems" at the end!

    We ended the day with a mastery reader! One of our friends' siblings came to read us a story on his birthday! It was a great book called Hurry Up Birthday! 

Bear Hugs,

Shapes Galore!

Dear Parents,

     We have been busy learning about shapes and fractions!  We had a ton of fun using shapes to make other shapes! Some of our 2D shape names are still tricking us, especially hexagon and trapezoid. Keep working on these words at home!

      You did a great job using positional and 3D shape names to play battleship in partners. Parents, one team had to tell the other team what to do and the goal was to make two identical structures.  It was no easy feat! Cylinder and sphere seem to be the trickiest for us!

Bear Hugs!

Patterns with Shapes!

Dear First Graders,

     I loved seeing all the great patterns you created with shapes! You are making nice progress with identifying hexagons, circles, triangles, rectangles, and those special rectangles... squares! 3D shapes are still stumping us but we will keep working on those!

Bear Hugs,

Happy Birthday!

Dear Class,

     I had a nice time celebrating our friend's 6th birthday. Can you believe her mom was our mystery reader too!

      We have had a few friends already design their Turkey's and they are adorable! 

Bear Hugs,

Pajama Day

Dear First Graders,

    Did you have fun during our school wide PJ day! I loved seeing everyone in their PJ's. We looked super cozy.  I can't wait for the next school spirit day!  Here is a great shot of us!

    We also wrapped up our Properties Unit in science with one more experiment about gases. 

How are your Turkey's coming out? We have had serval waddle into the room already! I will take a few pictures and put some examples up on the next blog entry!

Bear Hugs,

Mystery Reader and Veteran's Day!

Dear First Graders,

     Wow, we were busy last week.

     On Wednesday, Mr. D surprised us as the mystery reader! He read a great story that reinforced our growth mindset words of being optimistic, persistent, and resilient!

   On Thursday, we started our geometry unit. We used stir straws to make 3 sided and four sided closed shapes. Some of noticed that all 3 sided, closed shapes are triangles! Triangles can look different, but they all have three sides and three corners! Our four sided shapes took on many looks and we were able to put names to many of those. We also reviewed our 6 sided hexagon.  Some of our friends are a little rusty on 2D shape names and would benefit from some more work at home. Or have your child watch the brainpopjr video about 2D shapes (your child should know the username and password). 

    The fun didn't end there!  We had a Veteran's Day assembly where we sang some great songs that we have been learning with Mrs. Johnston. 

Bear Hugs,