I hope you had a wonderful long weekend. It was nice to have that extra day of family time and getting things done around the house! For families that did not sign up for a fall parent teacher conference at open house, I will send home the available times this week and we can finalize our schedule. I will send home a reminder of your date/time to each family as time gets closer. I'm looking forward to sitting down with each of you to share the progress your child has been making in 1st grade.
We had such a fun day on Friday with our Christopher Columbus Innovation STEM Day. I hope you enjoyed the video clips and photos your child uploaded onto their SeeSaw account. Thank you for the many bags of recycled materials for our boat creations. We have almost 5 bags full of materials left over! We can't wait to use the recycled material for future hands-on projects.
Our First Writer's Celebration
At the end of each writing unit, we try to find a way to celebrate our hard work and love for writing. We had so much fun reading our Pigeon stories. We hope you enjoyed having your child read their story to you. We all had a chance to read our story to our classmates. The students' reading voices really brought their books to life!
We are on IReady
We took our first diagnostic assessment on our new web based math curriculum called I Ready. The first day the whole class logged onto the Chromebooks but as the week continued, the kids started logging on during small group centers.This allows us to set lessons that are just right for your child during math workshop. We are excited to start using I Ready as a component of differentiated math learning in the Starfish Classroom. A paper about signing on to I Ready at home will be in your child's blue folder this week!
What's New During Math Workshop:
In Unit 2, your child is beginning to
learn strategies for solving addition problems. Last week we did many math activities around building math addition fluency to 10.
Do
Anytime Activities
1. Count orally by 5’s and 10’s while riding in the
car. Occasionally count down, or back.
2. Count numbers of objects around the house and
while shopping. Have your child keep
track using tally marks. For example, count the number of doors in your house.
Flashlight Friday
During Reader's Workshop on Fridays we have introduced Flashlight Fridays. This is a fun way to share books with our partners. The kids can't wait to try reading by flashlight again this week!
Reader's Use Strategies to Solve Tricky Words
Can you believe these cute stuffed animals are helping us to solve tricky words?
Meet Lips the Fish who teaches us to look at the beginning sounds of words.
Meet Chunky the Monkey who teaches us for look for chunks or parts of words we know
Meet Eagle Eye who teaches us to look at the pictures to help us solve tricky words
Meet Skippy the Frog who teaches us to skip the tricky word to ask ourselves what would make sense in the sentence.
During our reading lessons and when conferencing with the kids individually, the Starfish are learning that word solving takes careful monitoring. We have been playing the game "Guess the Covered Word" by choosing a few words in our books, covering them with small sticky notes. The kids have been using a variety of strategies to guess the word. The starfish are discovering it sometimes takes a few strategies to figure out the word!
Creating our new writing folders
Thank you so much helping your child come up with writing ideas. We decorated our writing folders on Friday and shared our story ideas in partnerships. We are excited to write our stories across many pages!
Upcoming Important Dates
October 17-Field Trip to Coppal House Farm
October 31- First Grade Fall Festival (More Information Coming Home Soon!)
If you would like to volunteer to help us from 9-11:40, that would be great! Please send me an email to let me know.
STEM Challenges in the Classroom
Meet Lips the Fish who teaches us to look at the beginning sounds of words.
Meet Chunky the Monkey who teaches us for look for chunks or parts of words we know
Meet Eagle Eye who teaches us to look at the pictures to help us solve tricky words
Meet Skippy the Frog who teaches us to skip the tricky word to ask ourselves what would make sense in the sentence.
During our reading lessons and when conferencing with the kids individually, the Starfish are learning that word solving takes careful monitoring. We have been playing the game "Guess the Covered Word" by choosing a few words in our books, covering them with small sticky notes. The kids have been using a variety of strategies to guess the word. The starfish are discovering it sometimes takes a few strategies to figure out the word!
Creating our new writing folders
Thank you so much helping your child come up with writing ideas. We decorated our writing folders on Friday and shared our story ideas in partnerships. We are excited to write our stories across many pages!
Upcoming Important Dates
October 17-Field Trip to Coppal House Farm
- FIELD TRIP to Coppal House Farm October 17th-AM only
- Please pack a snack and drink from home
October 31- First Grade Fall Festival (More Information Coming Home Soon!)
If you would like to volunteer to help us from 9-11:40, that would be great! Please send me an email to let me know.
STEM Challenges in the Classroom
Every Friday we are incorporating a STEM Challenge in our classroom. The STEM challenges are helping to practice the components of a Growth Mindset in our classroom. It has become a favorite part of our week in the Starfish classroom.
Some things to ask your child to promote school talk:
- Who is Eagle Eyes?
- Who is Lips the Fish?
- Who is Chunky the Monkey?
- What have you been doing during quiet time?
- Who do you like to sit next to during lunch?
- How are you building good habits as a reader?
- Can you tell me a number sentence that equals 10 like 5+5?
- Can you tell me about the count on strategy? Can you show me how you use it?
- Can you tell me about Flash Light Friday? Who did you read with?
- What have you been doing in Social Detectives?
- What's your favorite math game you have played this year?
- What did you do on the Chromebooks this week?
Have a great week,
Megan Murphy
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