News You Can Use!

 Read all about our third week of school! 

Reading

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 toy or game, their favorite thing to do, and their favorite place to go. 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 something special about themselves. They will keep their journal writings in their writing binder. In word work, the children learned about rainbow words, spelling code, and spelling shapes. 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 continued working with number sense. This week they compared numbers, practiced writing numbers correctly, practiced representing numbers using tally marks, and used the calendar to answer questions about days, weeks, months, and dates. 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 two games this week, Top-it (to compare numbers) and Dice-Roll and Tally. Before we started 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. 

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

Social Studies

We finished our first social studies unit this week on Communities. The children learned about how firefighters help our community. They listened to a book about firefighters 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.

The children were also excited to complete a My Community Scrapbook. They wrote and illustrated about places in their community that they enjoy visiting. They also wrote about some community helpers they know. Some of the children did not have time to complete all the pages, I encouraged them to complete their book at home. They do not have to return their book to school.

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

Fire Safety Presentation

On Tuesday, Fireman Andrew from the Arlington Heights Fire Department visited our classroom. He shared a short fire safety video with the children. Then, he talked to the children about important fire safety rules to follow at home and at school. 

The children were excited to learn about his fire safety gear. He told the child that he has to be able to get into his gear in 1 minute when called for an emergency. After, he showed the children what he looked liked when fully dressed in his fire safety gear. They also had a wonderful question and answer session before he left. A special thank you to Fireman Andrew for teaching us about fire safety!

Patriot Day

On September 11th, we celebrated Patriot day in our classroom. We read the story, America Is... After, we had a discussion on what America means to each of us. 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

This coming Monday, 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/

Birthday
On Friday, we celebrated Tyler's birthday. We hope that Tyler has a great birthday over the weekend!

Notes:

-Please be sure to check your child’s red take home folder nightly. Encourage your child to show you the work they are bringing home. 

-If you have not done so already, please send in a spiral notebook labeled with your child’s name. We will begin using this notebook soon to create an interactive grammar notebook. They children will use their grammar notebook all year long. Thank you!

Happy Sunday! Have a great rest of the weekend!