Will Groundhog See His Shadow?

Dear First Graders,

     I loved the little poem you learned and performed for me! What a nice surprise to come back to after a meeting!

      You worked hard with our guest teacher to create a picture graph...

       In math, we are also learning about bar graphs and tally graphs.  Don't forgot to ask mom and dad if they use graphs in their jobs or life.

     We also made a great groundhog project that helped us practice our cutting skills and have fun at the same time!

      In addition, we celebrated a friend's 7th birthday!!  

     Please see our February folder for our February newsletter, Valentine's List, shoebox directions, and more. In the January folder, you will also find the recording sheet for the Great Escape passes!  These are due when we get back for February break! Keep reading, practicing sight words, and math facts!

Bear Hugs,

January comes... January goes!

Dear First Graders,

     Can you believe that January is wrapping up next week!?!?!  I have added our February folder with another copy of our Valentine's Box directions and list. It would be great to bring a decoration to share the day of (February 14th). Some ideas: pipe cleaners, pompoms, Valentine stickers, stickers of favorite characters, anything that will make it special.  We will use our boxes to collect our Valentine cards.

     We enjoyed a great story read to us by one of our friends Grandpa's!

Bear Hugs,

French Fairy Tales

Dear First Graders,

     Did you tell your parents about our visit from the High School French Club?!?!  It was neat to listen to them read Goldilocks and the Three Bears in FRENCH!  They also said the alphabet and counted to 10. I loved how one of the students was in my first grade class!

Bear Hugs,

Fun Friday!

Dear First Graders,

       Friday was packed with fun!  We had a make-up mystery reader, who happened to be our birthday girl's father!  He read a great story about the Incredible Book Eating Boy!

 We followed up the story with a yummy birthday treat.

 During Free Fun Friday, we broke into groups and played some of the games that came in. The kids did a great job figuring out who was going to go first and taking turns. It can be hard to be resilient when we lose a turn or face a set back in a game. We will have to do another game day! 

 The games didn't end there... BINGO night was a blast! I saw many of you there and a fun time was had by all. 

 Bear Hugs!

How Do We Measure Up?

Dear First Graders,

      We measured another year for a friend who turned 7 over the weekend!  Happy Birthday!!

How Do we Measure in First Grade?

With Non-Standard Units!!

(what are those? things like paper clips and counting cubes)

   This week we have begun to learn our... 

rules of measurement! 

Measure from starting to ending point.

Measure in a straight line. 

Measure with the same unit.

Place unit of measurement end to end.

(Do not overlap or leave a gap!)

    We used our foot to measure objects in the room and guess what??? When we all measured our desks we got lots of different answers!  We discovered that it is important to use the same units of measurement if we want to compare.  Here is a great book that we read to help us understand some of our measurement rules. 

 

Bear Hugs,

Trick Word Challenge!

Dear First Graders,

     I was very impressed with how well you are doing spelling our trick words. Parents, we took the words that we need to continue practicing and wrote those on individual cards. For those of us who knew all our words, we found some words in our journal and writing that we could practice! During daily 5, we will practice these words through many different activities like Roll-a-Word, Rainbow Words, Magic Words, and word wall challenge! We are also working on using our best handwriting and letter formation while we practice our words.

    On Wednesday, our mystery reader read a great book that went well with our growth mindset word, resilience!

    For FRIDAY, we would love to have a game day during Free Time Friday. Feel free to send one game in with your child! 

Bear Hugs, 

Winter Celebrations

Dear First Graders,

      A two hour delay nor the cold couldn't stop the fun from happening in first grade.

     We worked on being persistent and created some really amazing snowflakes.

       We also made some delicious cookies.  Yum Yum YUMMM!

We sang Happy Birthday to Ms. Maurantonio.

Bear Hugs,

Brrrrrrr...

Dear First Graders,

     It may be super cold outside, but we are heating it up in the classroom! Mr. D stopped by to tell us about his Growth Mindset goal this year!  He is being joined by some of the Rosendale Raven staff as well.  Check out their blog: Growth to Performance

    We also made milk dance in a fun science experiment that reminded us all the 3 states of matter, particularly liquids. 

    We also wrapped up our learning on holidays. We spent some time comparing our holiday to our friends. We noticed that we had a lot of things in common. It was also interesting to discover how we celebrate things differently. 

Bear Hugs,