Another Slideshow--Today's Surprise Snow Cone Party!

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Our First Slideshow!!!

Look at all of the fun we have had these first few weeks as FIRST GRADERS! Enjoy!

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Fun Friday!

Hi families!!! Happy Friday to everyone. What a fun day we have had in first grade. We kicked off our morning by wrapping up our August journal. Today we wrote about the best part of first grade so far. Invite your child to tell you what they wrote about and have them tell you WHY they like their topic so much. We tried out our first "Fun Friday" in first grade. Fun Friday is modeled after Kindergarten Mania and it was our first attempt at this in first grade. It went AWESOME! All 3 first grade classrooms were opened up for the kids to explore. Each classroom had different activities that showcased things we have been working on for the past 2 weeks. Be sure to have your child tell you what classrooms they visited and what activities they liked the best. The kids were experts at transitioning and staying on task. I was so happy with how this first trial run of Fun Friday went. Way to go Firsties!!! Has your child told you about "EEKK!" buddies yet? Be sure to ask them what "EEKK" stands for and what you do at EEKK buddy time. Today we tried out our first Reader's Theater with our EEKK buddy. We made stick puppets and took turns reading this week's story "Let's Tap!". This activity encourages the children to not only take turns with their reading, but allows them to try out different vocal expressions as we begin to tackle fluency. It also requires the kids to use the pictures to help them determine what is happening in the story and use the appropriate characters at the correct times. These are great comprehension skill builders and the kids did GREAT! We have spent all week talking about the 3 ways to read a book: 1. Look at the pictures 2. Look at the Words 3. RE-TELL! I have given the kids a long-weekend homework assignment. They are bringing home their "Let's Tap!" puppets and they are asked to re-tell the story to someone at home using their puppets. This will help your child strengthen their comprehension skills. You can check their comprehension by logging into ThinkCentral.com because it is finally up and running! The (very long) directions on how to login to our text book website on located on the sidebar of this blog. Check it out! In math, we finally got to work on our BRAND NEW laptops. They are fancy. We experimented with some learning games, many of which you can play at home if you click the links on the sidebar of this webpage, too! The most exciting news for the kids today was that the first grade classes were the TOP sellers of cookie dough so far. What did that mean for us? SNOW CONE PARTY!!!! Yep, all of the first graders got to enjoy the end of their day with a nice, cool, yummy snow cone. Thank you SO much to everyone for your effort to make that possible for the kids. They were thrilled. I will post pictures later....Speaking of pictures, don't worry I have heard back from everyone and am in the process of putting together our beginning-of-the-year slideshow so that you can see what we have been up to. You may want to watch the show with your child so that they can RE-TELL you what is happening in all of the pictures! It is my goal to have the show uploaded and on our page tonight after my babies go to bed....check back. If you are a Wildcat, enjoy the game tonight! If you are not, enjoy your night! Don't forget NO SCHOOL ON MONDAY!!! Happy Labor Day. Let me know if you need anything! Thanks so much!

Here's Another Prediction Clue...We Watched This One Too! Can You Guess???

We Watched This Clip to Help Us Learn About Predictions Today!

Can YOU predict what today's story was about? Here's a hint: It had NOTHING to do with penguins!!!

Sing Along With the Short /a/ Sound!

Second Week, Here We Come!

Monday= D Tuesday= A Wednesday= B Thursday= C Friday= D Happy Sunday, families! I hope you made it through a VERY hot weekend with your family. Thank you to everyone who made it to Movie Night on Friday. It was one of the best turnouts ever. I peeked in a few times and saw lots of our class family snugged up and watching Epic. It was a wonderful time. We are set for a full week as we start to settle in to a more typical first grade routine. Last week was spent testing and reading with my kids one-on-one and this week we begin our reading curriculum. The kids will be getting their new text books tomorrow and we will kick our week off reviewing the short sound of /a/. This week brings with it our first SPELLING TEST! Tomorrow we will be having our fist PRACTICE test. Your child will bring their words home for the week on Monday and we will have our POST test on Friday. Our spelling words share the sound pattern that we focus on each week. We also will introduce new "have-to-know" words that will be found throughout our first grade texts. Finally, we introduce "fancy pants" words in which I try to encourage the kids to use in context in their daily vocabulary. For example, last week our word was "UNIQUE". Have you heard this one at home a lot? Be sure to check our blog page each week to know the have-to-know words as well as the fancy pants words and help your child read and use these words at home. In math we will continue to work on writing our numbers, as well as putting them in order to the number 30. Please practice with you child at home by asking them things such as: "What number comes after 22?" or "What number comes before 13?" Number fluency is a critical skill as we begin our first grade learning and asking these simple questions as you are driving in the car help connect the kids more to what they are doing in the classroom. We are also continuing our work with measurement. Using comparison words such as "bigger", "taller", "longer" and "smaller" we have been working at measuring with different units. In first grade we use things like unifix cubes and links to determine what is bigger, longer or smaller. Extra practice at home will help us strengthen these skills and gear us up for our first math quiz this week! Did your child bring home their PTO Cookie Packets last week? Sunflower PTO does absolutely incredible things for our kids and if you are able to help support them in this big fundraiser, we would all be so grateful. It's going to be super-duper hot again this week, so that means super worn out kids. Please continue to help your first grader do their best by allowing them plenty of sleep. If you haven't let me know about posting your child's picture to the web for our website, please send me a quick email and let me know. I am so anxious to share the darling photos of what your kids have been up to so far! Let me know if you need anything. Let's have a great last week of August!

Wednesday Wrap-Up

Hi families! We made it through mid-week. Whew...the kids are getting worn out as they settle into their new school routine. Is your first grader sleepy earlier than usual? I know my own kids are wiped out at night. Please continue to help them get plenty of rest and stick to their new school routine in order to help them do their best at school. Today, we finished up our unique cows from Tuesday. Ask your child to describe their cow and the things that make it unique. Tomorrow we are going to try our first cooperative learning activity as we keep learning about the word UNIQUE. The kids reviewed some more letters and went on a letter hunt around our room. They played a trick on me, too. Be sure to have your child tell you what they did to outsmart me with the letter "i". It was a good one!!! Today our story was Lily's Purple Plastic Purse. Have your child tell you some of the main parts of this story. We used the story to help us learn about "Good" and "Not-so-good" choices. We welcomed a little visitor today in the form of our story's main character, Lily. A little plush Lily is going to spend the rest of the week traveling from desk to desk looking for friends who are making good choices. Ask your child if Lily has visited them yet. You may also want to brainstorm some ideas of what they could do so that Lily will see the good choices they are making (raising their hand, following directions, being a kind friend, not giving up, being respectful, etc.) Lily will be sure to sit on every desk before she has to leave... Your child might also be talking AND super psyched about our class chain...we have been working together to complete our chain link and today was the day that the chain touched the ground!!! Yippee! Usually, it takes my classes MANY weeks (if not months) to fill up a chain. I am so proud of them and how they work together. Friday we will be having a celebration of sorts. I will let you know what our special treat will be...hmmmm. I wasn't ready to have this happen so soon! I tell you, they are an awesome bunch! Finally, don't forget that TOMORROW is our Watchdog Dinner! A flyer will be coming home tomorrow, but we would love to see you all at Sunflower for a pizza dinner! Be sure to look for the information that is coming home in your child's backpack TOMORROW. It's always a great night! Have a wonderful evening.

Happy Tuesday!

Hi families! Hope this post finds you enjoying a peaceful (and cool) Tuesday evening. We had another great day in first grade. I cannot begin to tell you how much I LOVE THIS GROUP OF KIDS!!! They are so much fun to be with. I have absolutely loved each moment with them as we dive into first grade. Did your first grader come home today and tell you about the word "UNIQUE"? This is our word of the week. We are learning this word (a college word, I told them) and gaining an understanding of how cool it is to be unique. Ask your first grader to tell you what was unique about me today. I was sure someone would tell me a looked "weird", but not one of them did (here's a hint...it has something to do with my hair color). They only said, "Well, that's unique Ms. B". Yay! The lesson is sinking in. We created our own unique Elmer elephants from our story yesterday and today we started creating our own unique cows to match a poem we read together. Have your child how they designed their cow to be extra special and UNIQUE! Tomorrow, we will take a tour of our new Lifeskills room and see all of the neat things that happen in there. It will be exciting to see how all different kids can learn, communicate, move, laugh, play...It is definitely cool to be UNIQUE! Did your child mention their special "Jitter Juice" today? We read a poem this afternoon, and went on a letter hunt. Afterward, we talked about the word "jitters". Even though our back-to-school jitters have gone away (for the most part), we talked about how we can still feely nervous when something new is happening. After our poem, we made some delicious (and green) Jitter Juice. The unanimous vote was that it was DELICIOUS!!!! Have your child tell you about it. I have loved working one on one with the kids this week. Thank you to the wonderful Ms. Andrea for leading our whole group lessons in letter and sound review. I am overwhelmed at the skill level of this group of kids! Thank you to all of you for investing so much time into your children. They are all, off-the-charts adorable, hard-working and just FUN to be with. Have a wonderful night. Holler if you need anything! Thanks for sharing your kids with me during the day...see you soon!

Elmer the Patchwork Elephant-Our story today that reminded us that being unique is COOL!

Full Steam and Full Week Ahead!

Monday= C Tuesday= D Wednesday= A Thursday= B Friday= C Happy Sunday families! I hope this post finds you happy and rested after a wonderful weekend with your NEW first grader! Was your child extra sleepy on Friday? This transition time back to school is often tough on our first graders, so please help your child do their best by allotting earlier bedtimes and sticking with a new routine. I, too, was too pooped to participate by Friday night and so apologize for the delay in an updated post. We had a super-duper 3 days together last week. I hope your child has shared some of the things we've learned in first grade, thus far. Be sure to have them show you some of our new sign language signs that we use to communicate in first grade. Your child should also have brought home their "Me Bag" on Friday. I am asking the children to find items that tell about themselves and put them in their little "Me Bag". We will start sharing our bags tomorrow, but don't worry if you didn't get a chance to put yours together...it will take us a while to share all 24 bags. I shared my bag with the kids on Friday. Check to see what your child remembers about me from the items in my Me Bag...hmmmmm. The upcoming week is going to bring about some back-to-school assessments. It's kind of a bummer for the kids, but it is such a valuable resource for me to know where each of my kids are at in their learning journey. We are so lucky to have Ms. Andrea join us tomorrow to help us review some letters and work on some writing while I am testing the kids one at a time. On another note, I have noticed that many of our first graders are getting hungry in the afternoon. If your child would like to bring a little snack to have at 2:30 when we return from Specials, that is fine with me. I am unable to provide snacks as a class, but the invitation is open to my kids to have a snack at 2:30 from home. It will be a working snack, as we have lots to get done the last hour of our day. But I am finding that I am getting hungry by 2:30 and so I know our first graders are as well. As the year progresses and they get into their groove, my classes have usually found they no longer need a working snack. However, this early in the year it is a good idea to keep the kids fed, watered, rested and happy! Please don't hesitate to let me know if you have any questions, concerns or comments. I have loved spending the past few days with your amazing children and am excited to see them in the morning! Have a great night!

Super-Duper First Day!

Hi families! Hopefully by now your new first grader has come home and told you something about our first half-day together...we crammed a lot into just a few hours this morning. We organized our pencil "party houses", celebrated a birthday (yay Abigail!), learned about the big kid playground, read a rhyming book about starting first grade, we were introduced to the members of our new class family, worked on our cutting and following direction skills, designed our faces, AND learned about our Starcharts!!! Whew! You should probably have a sleepy first grader this evening. Tomorrow we gear up for ALL day!!! This is tough on our first graders in the beginning, so please help your child have a great day by ensuring they get plenty of sleep tonight and help them have a great breakfast tomorrow. Remember that Sunflower serves breakfast each morning at 8am if you ever need to have your child eat at school. Speaking of eating, tomorrow will also be our first BIG KID lunch!!! We will have third grade buddies come down to help us with our lunch numbers and learning the ropes of the lunchroom. It is exciting stuff!! Your child is welcome to bring a lunch from home in the morning OR they may choose one of the 3 lunch choices. You can find the weekly choices right here on this website! I will stay with the children until everyone is served, eating and happy, so not to worry! We also get to go to Specials tomorrow!!!! Tomorrow is and "A" day, which means that we will go to Music for 30 minutes, followed by PE for 30 minutes. Please help your child remember to wear good gym shoes or bring them in their backpack when they come to school. Please let me know if you need anything! Have a wonderful night together and get ready for a BIG first grade day tomorrow! Welcome back!

'Twas the Night Before First Grade...

'Twas the night before first grade and all through our school, We new smiling faces coming in the building that is so, super cool. They met their new teacher, put their new things away And wondered what to expect on that very next day. Their teacher was THRILLED to meet her new crew She was so excited, she didn't know what to do! So she looked at the clock and said "Time for bed", There is so much fun in the days ahead. Thank you to ALL of you for making time to come to Meet-the-Teacher night tonight! We had 100% turn out!!!!! Whoo-hoo! I am beyond thrilled for our year together. It was so much fun to meet your sweet kiddos tonight. I hope they are feeling excited for our year to begin. Don't forget that we dismiss at 11:30 tomorrow, and so will NOT be having lunch. Let me know if your child's transportation plans will differ from what the office has on file for them tomorrow. Thank you so much, again, for coming tonight! What an awesome way to start our year together! Way to go families!!! See you tomorrow!