News You Can Use!

Read below to learn about our fantastic week in 1-1.

Literacy

Treasures: 

This week, we began our first unit in Treasures. The children did a wonderful job of working with short /a/ words. Their stories for the week consisted of fantasies and a nonfiction piece. They worked on identifying what makes a story a fantasy. The children enjoyed using sequencing cards to retell one of the fantasy stories. They also learned that they can use the pictures in a nonfiction piece to learn additional facts. 

We started grammar packets this week. The children worked with sentences. They worked on recognizing the difference between a complete and incomplete sentence and learned that all sentences must start with a capital. Their grammar packet came home in their take home folder on Friday. At the top you will see a note that says, Done Together. We will complete this packet every week as a class. The children will continue to focus on sentence structure next week. 

This week, the children were also introduced to our Making Words lessons. They use letter tiles at their desk to create different words that follow our spelling pattern for the week. The children took turns coming up to the board to spell the words on our interactive pocket chart. Their favorite part of the lesson is when the get to try and figure out the “mystery word.” This word uses all of the letter tiles for the day. 

Daily 5 & Guided Reading:

The children did a great job this week during Daily 5 and guided reading. They were independent during their Daily 5 activities, which allowed for very productive guided reading groups. In guided reading the children worked hard at learning some of our reading strategies and reading their books. On nights when your child brings home their book bag, please have your child read the book to you. If your child brings home a word ring or graphic organizer have them read these to you as well. 

Poetry Folder:

In your child’s backpack you should have noticed a purple folder, this is your child’s poetry folder. Attached was a note explaining what to do with the folder over the weekend. Every week, we will learn a new poem that goes along with our spelling pattern of the week. Please read the poem with your child and send their folder back to school on Monday. 

Spelling:

The children did a great job on their first spelling test this Friday. I am so proud of how hard they practiced all week long. Next week our spelling pattern will continue to focus on the short /a/ sound. There is no school on Friday, so the children will take their test on Thursday. Thank you for helping your child review their words at home!

Writing

This week, the children put their autobiographies together into a book. To celebrate all of their hard work the children met with students from Mrs. Glaser class. In groups of four, the children took turns reading their autobiographies. They had a great time using the pretend microphones and sharing their writing. Enjoy the slide show of our writing celebration below! 

Math 

In Math, we began unit 2. The children worked with the number grid to locate numbers and solve math problems. As a class, the children brainstormed a list of ways that we use numbers around us. They also worked with ten frames, labeling numbers with units, finding sums of ten, and using calculators. To practice some of their math skills the children played two math games, Rolling to 50 and 10 Frame Top-it. 

Social Studies

This week, we finished our Map unit. The children enjoyed taking an imaginary trip around the world to visit different landforms. After we visited each land form the children wrote about it in their landforms booklet. 

The children also worked with basic map skills this week. They looked at maps and globes and discussed how they are similar and different. The children learned about the compass rose and cardinal directions. They really enjoyed learning a special way to remember the cardinal directions: Never Eat Soggy Waffles. The children learned about map keys. They took turns coming up to the board and using the cardinal directions and a map key, they located different areas on a map. 

Thinking Skills

On Friday, Mrs. Schwarz came in for another visit. This week she worked with the children on creative thinking. She showed them a piece of scrap wood. The children brainstormed and shared ideas of what they could create using the piece of wood. The children really enjoy her visits. Mrs. Schwarz will come in for her last visit on October 12th. 

Notes:

• Monday, is Picture day! Don’t forget to say cheese. 
• Wednesday, is Walk To School Day. All the teachers will be out at 8:40am to walk to school with the children. I hope to see you on your way to school! 
• There is no school on Friday due to a SIP Day. The children will take their spelling test on Thursday.

Have a great rest of the weekend! 

News You Can Use!

We had a wonderful week here in 1-1. It was filled with lots of fun learning adventures. View of news clip and read all about it below!

Literacy

This week, the children finished learning the last components of the Daily 5. On Thursday and Friday, the children practiced all of the Daily 5 routines: word work, work on writing, read to self, read to someone, and listen to reading. They are doing a great job of building their stamina and working quietly. We will continue to fine-tune the routines next week. 

This coming Monday, we will begin guided reading groups. The children will work on the Daily 5 while I meet with small guided reading groups. Your child will bring a book bag home at least one night a week. Please read the book with your child and send it back to school the next day. During curriculum night, I gave you handouts on ideas for reading with your child and a reading strategies bookmark. These will be helpful if you are looking for ways to help your child with reading or ideas for questions. If you have misplaced your copies please let me know - I can make you a new set! 

Writing

This week, the children finished publishing their four autobiography pieces. They worked hard to rewrite their pieces in their best handwriting and drew illustrations that were careful, colorful, and detailed. The children also illustrated a front cover for their work. Next week, they will put their work together to create their very own autobiography book. To conclude the unit we will have a celebration of their writing. We will join Mrs. Glaser's class and the children will get to read their autobiography to a group of friends. The books will then become part of our classroom library. This will allow the children to enjoy reading each others writing. 

Math 

In Math, we wrapped up our first unit. The children practiced reading temperature ranges on a Fahrenheit thermometer. They made the connection that the degrees on the thermometer go up, just like numbers on the number line. The children worked with tallies again and created a tally chart of their favorite seasons. They also practiced solving number stories using counters and a variety of math strategies that we have learned. Several children came up to the board and showed the class how they arrived at their answers. The class also enjoyed telling number stories for their classmates to solve.  

On Wednesday, the children had fun reviewing all of the math concepts from unit 1 with Mimio Vote. Our classroom was turned into the set of, Math Review Mimio Vote. The children became contestants in the game and answered questions using their own clicker. They enjoyed my performance as game show host! 

On Thursday, the children took their first math test. Their test came home today. I was so proud of how hard they worked on the test, they did a great job! We will begin unit 2 on Monday. A note will come home via backpack mail detailing the concepts that will be taught in this unit.

Social Studies

This week, we began our Map unit in Social Studies. The children learned about the seven continents and oceans this week. Thank you to all of you who had friends and relatives visit our blog. I can not even begin to express the excitement the children had every time we viewed our ClustrMap. They could not believe that people had visited us from so many places. We have had visitors from four continents so far! It has really helped the children to learn the names of the continents and taught them some countries that are located on the different continents.  

The children enjoyed two projects this week, Me On The Map and creating a map of the world using a paper plate and cut out continents. 

A special thank you to Johnny! He brought in a large map to share with the class. The children enjoyed using it to write a story about where they would go, if they could travel anywhere on the map. 

Next week, we will continue our Map unit. The children will learn about landforms and basic map skills including an introduction to the compass rose, cardinal directions, and map keys. If you have any books at home about maps or map keys, please send them in to share. Just make sure your child’s name is in the book. I will return them at the end of the week. 

Royal Reader

We enjoyed a visit from Mr. Robinson today, he was a wonderful Royal Reader. The children loved his magic trick of making the books appear! He read two books, The Giant Jam Sandwich and Goodnight iPad. Thank you Mr. Robinson for coming and sharing these amazing books with us!!

A note from our fantastic librarians:

Do you want to get involved at Dryden and feel like you are a part of our great school? The LMC is looking for some great volunteers! Come to our orientation meeting on Tuesday, September 25th at 2:30 in the LMC and find out all about how you can help! See the flyer below for more information.  If you have questions, please call us at 847-506-6537 or send an email to Joanne Kenney at jkenney@sd25.org. Thank you for your interest!

Have a great weekend! 

Continents Question

Boys and Girls, I'm excited to tell you that we have now had visitors view our blog from four of the seven continents!  Can you name the continents that we have had visitors from? If you know the answer, post it as a comment. Some of the dots on our ClustrMap have temporally disappeared. Here is a map off my blogger site to look at. The areas in green are the ones that people have visited us from. 

First Grade Book Club!

The following information regarding book club is from PTA parents Mrs. Ryerson and Mrs. Sagendorph. If you would like to sign your first grader up please read their message! 

IT'S NOT TOO LATE TO SIGN UP FOR 1ST GRADE BOOK CLUB!

During the lunch hour, the Book Clubers will break into small groups and enjoy a story read to them by a parent volunteer beginning on Wednesday, September 26th.  Book Club will meet every Wednesday during lunch for 4 weeks and close with a pizza party provided by the PTA.  

Children of all reading levels are welcome and encouraged to participate. 

Parent Volunteers are also needed to make our Book Club a success!

The reading portion will take about 20 minutes and is performed by a 1st grade parent volunteer. Parents can bring a book from home or Mrs. Kenney, our Dryden librarian, will have a cart full of books that parents can choose from to read to the 1st graders. 

If your child is interested in participating please click the link below to complete the sign-up form (volunteer sign up is also included on this form).  New deadline to sign up is Monday, September 24. 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?fromEmail=true&formkey=dHQxRk5UVUZSZEs3U1VPYm1FYnZuelE6MA

Thank you!

Laura Ryerson and Amy Sagendorph

Work on Writing

Today the children learned about the last component of the Daily 5, work on writing. During work on writing time, the children will spend time on writing that really matters to them. The children will often have a writing prompt and they can choose how they would like to respond. There will also be free write days where the children will be able to write about anything they wish. After discussing why it is important to work on writing, we created a work on writing I-chart together as a class. 

Here are a few photos of the children building their writing stamina!

                                                 

Listen to Reading and Word Work

Over the last two days the children have learned about two more components of the Daily 5, listen to reading and word work.

In listen to reading, the children will have the opportunity to listen to books on CD or on the computers. This will help the children to become better readers and help in developing fluency and vocabulary. Yesterday, we created our I-chart as a class and practiced our listen to reading procedures. 

Today, the children learned about our word work activities. During word work the children will be: experimenting with words for learning and practicing a spelling pattern, memorizing high-frequency words, generalizing spelling patterns, and adding to their knowledge and curiosity of unique and interesting words. 

Each day the children will engage in a different word work activity such as Rainbow Words, Spelling Code, Write Three Times, Word Sorts, and others involving their weekly spelling words and spelling pattern. The children will also have the opportunity to take turns at a hands-on word work station throughout the week. They will work with manipulatives such as magnets, stamps, and wiki sticks to practice their spelling words, word families, and sight words. Today, the children practiced using the hands-on word work materials. 

 

 

Here is our word work I-chart.

Constitution Day

Today we celebrated Constitution Day in our classroom. The children watched a short School House Rock video titled, The Preamble. Then they listened to a short story titled, Our Constitution. I projected the story on our whiteboard and the children took turns highlighting important facts about the Constitution. After, they worked together to fill out a graphic organizer about the Constitution. 

Here is a video of the children performing a poem they learned about the Constitution. Enjoy!

News You Can Use!

We had another busy week here in 1-1. View our news clip and read all about it below!

Literacy

This week, the children began learning about the Daily 5. You can view our earlier posts from the week to learn about: what good readers do, building stamina, I-PICK good-fit books, and read to self. 

On Friday, the children were introduced to Read to Someone. Read to someone helps children read independently and grow as readers. The children enjoy read to someone because they get to read and discuss books with a friend. It gives children a chance to share their thinking and learning. Read to someone also helps improve fluency. Below is a picture of our class created I-chart for read to someone.

I have now had time to meet individually with all of my first grade readers and assess them using Fountas and Pinnell running records. We will begin guided reading groups in about one week after we have finished our introduction to the Daily 5. I will continue to post information about the remaining areas of the Daily 5 as we learn the routines in class. 

Writing

This week, we continued working on our first writing unit, Autobiographies. The children wrote about their favorite place to go. On Wednesday, the children met with a partner to share their rough drafts. They took turns reading their writing to one another. After, they shared ideas for adding more detail to their writing and illustrations. On Thursday, the children started the publishing process. They will rewrite each part of their autobiography in their best handwriting and draw illustrations that are careful, colorful, and detailed. When they are finished publishing all of their pieces, they will compile them into a book. 

Math 

In Math, the children continued working on number sense. This week they practiced representing numbers using tally marks, created a tally chart to organize data, compared pairs of whole numbers, and used the calendar to answer questions about days, weeks, months, and dates. The children were also introduced to math explorations. They learned about base-10 blocks, pattern blocks, and geoboards. 

The children enjoyed playing two games this week, Top-It with a group of children and Dice-Roll and Tally. Before playing Dice-Roll and Tally, each child predicted which number they thought would be rolled the most times. After, they compared it with the number that did get rolled the most. They had a great discussion about their observations. 

We will wrap up our first math unit this week. On Wednesday, we will review all of the math concepts we learned in this unit. The children will enjoy using Mimio Vote as our review tool. Our classroom will turn into the set of a game show during our math block time as the children apply their math knowledge and answer questions using their very own clickers. On Thursday, we will have our first math test. The children will have all problems read out loud to them. This will ensure that I am testing their math skills and not their reading skills. The tests will come home via backpack mail on Friday. 

Social Studies

We finished our first social studies unit this week on communities. The children learned about how firefighters, garbage men, librarians, and policemen help our community. They listened to a book about each community helper and then brainstormed ideas about how they help our community. The children completed their community helpers packet and brought it home to share with you on Friday. 

We will begin our next unit on Maps this coming week. If you have any relatives or friends that live in other states or countries please encourage them to visit our blog. The children learned this week about ClustrMaps and Live Traffic Feed on our blog. They are excited to check back in during our Map unit and see all the places that people are visiting us from.  

Patriot Day

On September 11th, we celebrated Patriot day in our classroom. We read two short books on America and had a discussion about what America means to us. After the children, created heart shaped flags and on the back they finished the sentence starter, America is... Some of the finished sentences were: America is a safe place to live. America is freedom. America is beautiful. America is my home. America is my family. America is a wonderful place to live. 

International Dot Day

On Friday, the children had a wonderful time celebrating International Dot Day. They listened to, The Dot, by Peter Reynolds. We talked about how each of us can make a mark in the world. The children shared ways that they will make their mark this year at Dryden. Some of the responses were, I will be a good friend, I will follow directions, I will help others when they need it. The children also enjoyed creating their own dot art. They had a blank canvas and were allowed to use any available materials in the classroom. We have some remarkable artists in our room! 

Thinking Skills

On Friday, Mrs. Schwarz our Odyssey teacher at Dryden came in for a visit. She worked with the children on thinking skills. She will come in for the next three weeks and engage the children in different mind exercises.  

Note:

There is no LMC this week due to Map Testing. If you would like, you may keep your book for another week and return it for LMC on Friday, September  28th.

Happy Sunday!