November Recap

We have had a lot of fun learning about the first Thanksgiving and turkeys this month. We read non-fiction books about Thanksgiving and created a chart about what we learned. Ms. Feuerstack was very impressed with all of the facts that we remembered from kindergarten. We also wrote a class acrostic poem about Thanksgiving and we wrote how-to catch a turkey stories. In our stories we worked on using transition words like first, next, last. This month we also made family turkey projects turned out so cute and so different.

 

 

 

 

Scholastic Book Clubs

Your child will be bringing home 3 Scholastic Reading Club catalogs on Tuesday. If you plan on ordering you may send in the order form and money with your child or you may order online. When you order online you have access to additional catalogs. You can also pay by credit card. To order online go to www.scholastic.com/readingclub. Once you are there you can set up a free account for yourself. If this is your first time ordering online this year you will need a one time activation code. This code will make sure that your order is sent to me. Our code is GQGDB. If you are purchasing books for your child for the holidays and you do not want them to see the books, just send me a note or e-mail me. I will package the books so they do not see them. Happy Reading!

 

 

No bones about it, we have a great class!

 

Thank you to all of the parents that were able to come and help us make our Q-tip skeletons last week. It was a fun afternoon and they came out so great. I love how they all look different.

 

 

 

We have been doing such a great job at Daily Five. We have all 5 choices up and running. Listening to reading and word work on the computer (www.lexiacore5.com) have become favorites.

 

Our writing is getting stronger everyday. We have been creating our own original stories and books at Daily Five. To help us fix up our writing we have been using CUPS. This stands for capitals, understanding (does it make sense), punctuation, and spelling. This is a great strategy to use at home when we do our reader's response.

 

 

We have gone batty!

We have been very busy during the last few weeks of school. We went batty in our classroom learning about the only flying mammal. Ms. Feuerstack read us many different non-fiction books about bats. We then collected facts on a recording sheet and wrote our own non-fiction writing piece. While looking at different non-fiction books we talked about the different parts of non-fiction books (photographs, captions, labels, glossary, index). We also graphed our feelings about bats. Most of our class thought that bats were cute. What do you think?

 

Thank you to the parents who were able to help out last week as we made our Q-tip skeletons. Pictures coming soon.

Label Your Teacher!

Wow! What a fun day we had. We began our new domain about our human body. We began science by creating a chart of what we already knew about our bodies. We knew a lot.

 

At writer's workshop we worked more on labeling our pictures. We began looking at an example of real life labeling from a Scholastic News. Then Ms. Feuerstack showed us an anchor chart about labeling.

 

 

After we looked at the example of labeling, Ms. Feuerstack had us label her. She looked very funny, but it helped us to understand what labels do.

After we labeled Ms. Feuerstack and had a good laugh, we got set up around the room to do some independent writing. We made sure that we labeled our illustrations.

 

 

Lost Jacket - We have had this jacket in our classroom for the last several days. No one wants to claim it. If it belongs to your child please remind them to bring it home.

What have we been up to?

Thank you for all of the parents that were able to come to open house. We had a great turn out. Below you will find some pictures of our hallway work that was displayed during Open House.

We have been very busy first graders. In math we have started using number bonds to help us understand the relationship between numbers. We used cubes and number bonds to find out all the ways to make the numbers up to ten. Did you know we found 11 ways to make 10? In phonics we have been working on short a, i, and o. This week we are going to be adding short e. We finished our first literacy domain on Fables and Stories. On Monday we are going to begin learning about the human body and we are very excited. We can't wait to learn some gross stuff.

This up coming week we will also learn about our last Daily Five choice, listen to reading. The class is all set up on Raz-Kids. To access it at home go to www.raz-kids.com. My teacher name is bfeuerstacka. Then when students click on their name they have to type in their password (their last name). If you have any trouble logging in let me know.

Busy First Graders

We were very busy this past week at school. We now have learned our first 3 Daily Five choices. We Read to Self, Work on Writing, and Read to Someone. We have built our stamina and can now work for about 15 minutes. Ms. Feuerstack began our reading groups and we have been learning different strategies on our CAFE menu. We have been checking for understanding to help our comprehension, using the pictures to help our accuracy, rereading stories for fluency, and tuning into interesting words to expand our vocabulary.

 

 

On Friday we began learning about apples by reading a poem and creating an art project. You can check out our finished products on Thursday during Open House.

 

 

 

 

Our First Week

We finished our first week in first grade and what a great week it was. We have been busy getting to know each other and getting down to the business of learning. We started our new math program Math in Focus and we have been working with 10's frames and linking cubes to review our numbers 1-10. We are learning about Daily Five, we now know how to Read to Self and Work on Writing. Speaking of writing we have learned how to use our writers notebook and our brand new spelling dictionaries. Below you will find some updated pictures of our classroom.

 

 

What a great first day!

Wow! What a great first day. I think we have the best first grade class. We did a super job following our classroom rules and the whole class clipped off of green today. Ms. Feuerstack read a few back to school books and we got rid of our first day jitters with a glass of jitter juice. We began learning about Daily Five. We learned how to Read to Self. I will talk more about Daily Five at open house. We also completed a first grade survey and drew self-portraits. I can't wait to see everyone on Monday for our first full week of school.

 

 

Class Rules

In our classroom we have 5 rules. The rules come from Whole Brain Teaching (www.wholebrainteaching.com).  Each day we will recite our rules using hand gestures. To keep us motivated to follow our rules we will play a little game named smiles and frowns. We have a scoreboard in our classroom and when the class is working together to follow the rules they will earn smiles and when they are not following the rules they will earn frowns. Each time we get a smile we let out a mighty O- Yeah! When we get frowns we groan. Our goal is to have more smiles at the end of the day.

Rule 1 - Follow directions quickly

Rule 2 - Raise your hand for permission to speak

Rule 3 - Raise your hand for permission to leave your seat

Rule 4 - Make smart choices

Rule 5 - Keep your dear teacher happy

We monitor our individual behaviors on a clip chart. Each day we begin on ready to learn. We move up and down the chart based on the choices that we make. When a students ends the day on red (outstanding), they get a sticker on their clip and they get a My Teacher is Proud of Me bracelet to wear home. Once a student gets 10 stickers on their clip they take it home and get a new one. When a student ends the day on pink (parent contact) they will have a note in their folder.

Classroom Photos

I have been working very hard to get our classroom ready for a great school year. Below you will find some photos of our classroom.

Whole group area, calendar, and SMART Board.

Front of the classroom

Student desks, cubbies, and Ms. Feuerstack's desk.

Classroom library, small group area, and CAFE Menu (reading strategies).

Classroom library, CAFE menu, and Daily Five charts (coming soon).



Classroom library

Word Wall and computers area (we are getting 5 new laptops).

Math materials and books.

Writing table, book boxes, and sink area.



Class behavior chart