News You Can Use!

This week the children were very busy despite our short week. 

Reading

This week, the children listened to the story, Cookies Bite Sized Life Lessons. After reading, we discussed the six pillars of Character Counts. Our Character Counts pillars are: Responsibility, Citizenship, Respect, Caring, Fairness, and Trustworthiness. The children also read our character counts promise, each child signed a copy to bring home. The children made the connection that by following the six pillars, they are also being a bucket filler. 

I have now had time to meet individually with all of my first grade readers and assess them using Fountas and Pinnell running records. The running records along with AIMSweb scores help me to understand where each child is as a reader and to create meaningful guided reading groups. We will begin guided reading groups in about two weeks after our introduction to the Daily 5. I will post information about each area 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 pet and favorite toy or game. They are working very hard at using the writing process: Think, Draw, Label, and Write. I am proud of our authors for using their “brave spelling” to stretch out sounds in tricky words. 

The children also began practicing Work on Writing and Word Work this week. These are two parts of the Daily 5. The children will learn more about these procedures in the next two weeks. This week they learned about journal writing, the children received a journal prompt and then decided how they wanted to respond. The children wrote about their families and about their favorite thing to wear. They will keep their journal writings in their writing binder. In word work, the children learned about rainbow words and spelling code. When we begin spelling, these are some of the ways the children will practice their words in class. Currently, the children are reviewing the kindergarten sight words. 

Math 

In Math, the children worked with number sense. This week they compared numbers, practiced writing numbers correctly, and practiced representing numbers using tally marks. The children were excited to create a Tally Chart to organize data. They created a class pet tally chart on the mimio. 

The children enjoyed playing Top-it to compare numbers. 

The children had fun playing Dice-Roll and Tally. Before we started, 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. 

Everyone did a great job of returning their first two homelinks this week! We will begin having homelinks on Monday- Thursday nights this week. Please return the next day unless otherwise noted. 

Social Studies

We began our first social studies unit this week on Community Helpers. We kicked off the unit by learning about how laws and rules help us to be good citizens. Then the children brainstormed a list of our Dryden School Helpers.   

School-Dryden

Principals-Mrs. Sessler, Mrs. Trendal

Teachers

Custodians-Mr. Bob, Mr. Ron

Lunch Teachers

Nurses-Mrs. Hamilton, Mrs. Leventhal 

Secretaries-Mrs. Lane, Mrs. Kelly

Music-Mr. Deptula

PE-Mr. Gries

LMC-Mrs. Dufern, Mrs. Powers, and Mrs. Kenney

Art-Mrs. Fuglestad

Patrols

Literacy Teachers

Police Officer

Bus Drivers

After we finished with our Dryden School Helpers, we began a KWL on community helpers. This week the children learned what makes teachers community helpers. We read the book, Teachers (People In My Community). The children each wrote a fact about what makes a teacher a community helper in their Community Helper Book.  

Exciting News!

On Friday, I shared some exciting news with the children. We played a game of Crack the Code together on the mimeo. When the children revealed the message, there were squeals of delight and lots of smiles. The children learned that I will be having a baby at the end of January. Your children were very sweet and offered lots of congratulations and thoughtful comments. After we played the game, we read the book, Alligator Baby by Robert Munsch. The children enjoyed the story and thought it was very funny! 

International Dot Day

This coming Friday, the children will celebrate International Dot Day. The children will hear the story, The Dot, by Peter Reynolds and have a chance to create their own dot art. The importance of this day is for the children to learn that each person matters, has genius, and has the potential to make a positive impact on the world. For more information on International Dot Day, please visit: http://fablevisionlearning.com/dotday/

Note:

On Friday, 9/13 at 9:10 the LMC will be hosting an orientation session for parents interested in volunteering this year in the LMC. If you can't attend the meeting, but would like to be added to the schedule, please email Mrs. Kenney, jenny@sd25.org.

Happy Sunday! Have a great rest of the weekend!