Hundreds Day TOMORROW!

Monday= C Tuesday= D Wednesday= A Thursday= B Friday= C Happy Sunday, families! I hope you are out and about enjoying this beautiful day. Just wanted to remind you that tomorrow is our 100th Day of School! Be sure to help your child remember their baggie of 100 items and also to wear clothing with numbers! A note went home on Friday with more details about this assignment, so be sure to check your child's backpack. We have a jam-packed day of activities celebrating the number 100! Also, tomorrow is a LIBRARY day so help your first grader remember to get their Library books in their backpacks tonight. Friday night's Movie Night was a HUGE hit!! Thank you to all of the families who were able to make it. The money we earned comes right back into our classrooms, so THANK YOU so very much! Have a wonderful evening together!

Movie Night Tonight! Hundreds Day Monday!

Happy Friday, families! Don't forget that tonight is First Grade sponsered MOVIE NIGHT! We will open the doors at 6pm and it will last until 9pm. The more the merrier! We are showing Ice Age 4 and it is sure to be a great time. Please be sure to look through your child's mail tonight. In addition to many assessments and assignments coming home, there is a note about 100's Day on MONDAY! Your child is asked to bring a ziplock baggie of 100 small items and they are also invited to wear clothing with numbers on them. We have lots of fun little activities planned to celebrate being 100 days smarter! It's been a wild week. Ask your child about Dr. King and painting elephants. We have spent a great deal of time this week learning about main idea. Have them explain what a main idea is and then ask them to tell you the main idea of this week's story (clue: it involves painting elephants!). Let me know if you have any questions. Hope to see you at movie night tonight! Thank you in advance for your support!

Happy Dr. King day!

Tuesday=C Wednesday= D Thursday= A Friday=B Hi families! I am all better and so anxious to return to first grade tomorrow! I hope you enjoyed your 3-day weekend and found time to talk about Dr. King and his influence on all of us. Have you stayed healthy at your house? I hope so! This is an icky bug and I don't want anymore of my first grade family to come down with it. Hopefully you all had a wonderful and healthy weekend! We are going to cram a lot into this short week. Tomorrow we will jump right into the thick of it with new spelling words, new stories, new sounds (-le), new concepts, etc. We will also revisit some of our previously learned skills to make sure they return with us from our long weekend! Tomorrow we have a very special visitor, Mr. Nadler, coming to see us for his annual geographic slideshow. Each year Mr. Nadler comes to see us and tell us all about one of the amazing countries he has visited. Tomorrow, we will get to go along with him to Switzerland! This is always such an amazing presentation. Be sure to ask your child about it tomorrow at supper. We kick our short week off with it being a Library day. Please help your first grader remember their books when they head out the door in the morning. Don't forget that this Friday is also the first grade sponsered Movie Night!!! We will be showing Ice Age 3 and all the proceeds we earn from this Movie Night go directly back to first grade! We would love to have LOTS of families join us. Mark your calendars!!! Finally, looking head, next Monday we will be celebrating 100's day (if you can believe that!). Be looking for more information coming home this week with the details of some of our activities! It's going to be a great week! Keep in touch and let me know if you need anything! Have a great night...stay warm!

Mid-Week Check-In

Hello again! We have made it through half of our week and we went out with some flair today! We ended our day discussing Dr. King and the kids were VERY interested in learning more about his life. Be sure to talk to your child about what they learned (or already know) about Dr. King tonight. We did a "Fair"/"Unfair" activity today in order to help the kids further understand inequality. They were fired up during the activity with lots of excitement and thoughts spilling over, and this often makes a great pathway to learning. Be sure to engage your child in a conversation about this activity. We will continue our study on Dr. King tomorrow, so I will keep you posted! We are focusing on friends this week in our Reading stories as well as relaying the main idea. Ask your child to tell you the main idea of today's story, "One More Friend". Remember you can always log on to Thinkcentral to read the story at home! Just read the directions on the sidebar of this blog! Have a great night.

Back in action!

Monday= B Tuesday= C Wednesday= D Thursday=A Friday= B Hi families! We are back and running! I am so sorry for the delay in posts, I was having a hard time with my website. Not to fear, it looks as though the problem has been fixed (or fixed itself!). Thank you for your patience! WOW! What a start to 2013 we have had. Has your child come home and told you about Matter? What about Oobleck? We've gotten down to business in science this semester learning all about Matter and its different phases. Be sure to ask your child to name and give an example of each phase of matter (solid, liquid and gas). They should also be able to identify a trait of each phase. Last week, we read the Dr. Seuss book, Bartholomew and the Oobleck and then we did an experiment where we made our own (did you notice some dried green slime on your child's hands?). We learned that Oobleck was actually a "soliquid", or a substance that has traits of both a solid and a liquid. They LOVED this experiment! Have them tell you all about it. I will post pictures later...it was a mess, but what fun! In math we have been trying something new with our Math Clubs. Last week we were focusing on Place Value (10's and 1's). This week we are using our knowledge from last week and transferring it over to learn about Greater Than and Less Than numbers. We have learned that Mr. Munch, a very hungry alligator always eats the bigger (oops, I mean "GREATER") number. Test your first grader and see if they can complete some number comparisons by adding the correct symbol. I have just added some new games to the math portion of our blog that focus on this skill. Have your child try them out at home! We are working on Main Idea in our reading groups this week. You can carry over this skill at home, but asking your child to tell you the main idea of a television show they may have watched or a story that you read at bedtime. Have them give you the main idea of our story from class called "A Perfect Lunch". This is a critical skill for improving our comprehension and becoming better readers. Make it into a game by giving main ideas of familiar stories and seeing if your first grader can name the story! Last Friday we sent hom an envelope for our TIME for Kids sponsors. If your child fills out 7 of the postcards with names and addresses of friends and family, they get to turn in their envelope for a plastic penguin! Tomorrow is the last day to return the envelopes, so be sure to help your child earn their penguin. We love our TIME for kids magazines and this activity ensures that your child will continue to receive these awesome resources! Looking ahead: No school next Monday for Dr. King Day, First grade sponsered movie night is Friday January 25. Please help your child get plenty of sleep to help them stay healthy during this cold winter season. Let me know if you need anything! Have a cozy night!

Welcome Back!

Monday= A Tuesday= B Wednesday= C Thursday= D Friday= A Good morning families! Welcome back to school! I am so excited to see all of my kids this morning. I hope you had a wonderful holiday break. I am sure that the kids will be full of stories to share! We are jumping back into our routine at full speed this week...I hope your child is ready to go! It has been decided that we will not be making up our holiday party (missed due to the snow day!), so if you were planning on donating supplies we will use them at our Valentine's Day party which is right around the corner. Can't wait to see you kiddo. Have a wonderful day!