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Thursday Check-In

It was a super speedy day today! Your first grader worked hard and should be pretty worn out this evening. Picture day was great. Thank you to everyone for returning their envelopes today. I am still missing 4 permission slips for next week's field trip. If you have not sent it back, please try to do that tomorrow! Thank you also to those of you who already returned your conference request forms! You are on the ball! As soon as I have all of my forms back, I will make up a master schedule and let you know your definite time slot. If you haven't already done so, please return that form tomorrow, too. The kids have learned something new today--ask them about ROOT WORDS and endings! Your first grader should be able to tell you what a root word is. If they forget, they are bringing home a little flip book they made today to help them remember. Please be sure to ask your child to tell you what they know about root words and see if they can give you an example (they can use their flip book for help!). We have also been learning about characters this week. Today we created a poster of characters from the story "A Bad Case Of Stripes". Have your child explain why one character in their story is bigger than the others. In math, we have been working hard on our + and - fluency. Tomorrow we will show what we know and try our luck at our first real timed test! The kids will be expected to answer + and - problems of + or - 1 or 2 in one minute and 15 seconds. Extra practice at home will help your child find further success. We have also worked hard at going back and double checking our work. Be sure to ask your child how they feel about these timed practice tests...Did you remember that tomorrow is Movie Night? Third grade will be hosting our second movie night and we will be showing the original Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. We would love to have all of our friends there, so if you can make it head on over! Study those spelling words tonight for our big short /o/ spelling test tomorrow! Enjoy this summer-like night!

Picture Day TOMORROW!!!!

Hi families! Your first grader is coming home tonight with 2 very important homework assignments for you: Assignment #1= Fall Pictures are TOMORROW September 26! Order envelopes went home last Friday in our green home folders. If you wish to order pictures, please be sure to return that envelope to school in the morning with your child. I told them to look extra sharp tomorrow for their pictures (these are the ones that will go in the yearbook). We are scheduled to have our turn at 9am, so there shouldn't be too much time for hair to get messed up or clothes to get dirty! Assignment #2= Conference Note! Your child is bringing home a conference request time. Please look at your calendar and fill out your top 2 or 3 choices on the paper. Return it to me ASAP and I will start working on my Conference Schedule. It's hard to believe that we are almost to our first conference! I am anxious to sit down with each of you and talk about all of the wonderful things your first grader is doing this quarter. Finally, if you have not already done so, please return your child's field trip permission slip. Our field trip is set for next Thursday October 3rd. I am missiong about 7 permission slips from my kids. If you need a new copy, just give me a call or drop me an email and I will send one home with your kiddo. Are you reading your RED folders each night with your child? Please try to set aside 5-10 minutes each night to have your child read to you. It is so beneficial to them in so many ways. Thank you so for your continued support at home! Your first graders are amazing. Don't forget about picture day tomorrow! Holler if you need anything!

Wild, Wacky and WONDERFUL day!

WOW-IE! What a wild day...Learning Celebration was action-packed today. You should have a very tired first grader tonight because they worked and played their tails off today. We spent our morning visiting all of the first grade teachers and doing different activities and crafts while we learned about our Constitution and great country (here is where the kids started chanting "USA! USA! USA!"). We learned about symbols and what the Constitution is all about. Our all-school assembly was interesting and very unique as it tried to teach us about the different character traits. We celebrated our morning with an all-school picnic lunch outside and then learned about the Pledge of Allegiance and what it means, got a lesson on our salt water aquarium and did some cool crafts in our "special" Specials. Since our class was the big winner from the cookie dough sales, we were one of the top 3 classes who got to go into the MONEY MACHINE at the end of the day. I was nervous to try it, but we ended up grabbing a lot of dough for our kids. Have them tell you all about it. They were so awesome and supportive as they cheered me on. It was so much fun! Needless to say, after all of these activities that were out of the norm, we ran short on time and did not get a chance to take our spelling test with that /ck/ sound. SO, you have several extra days to practice these words and we will take the test on Monday morning before moving on to our new sound (which will be the short /o/). Did your child come home and tell you about our Code Red drill yesterday? We talked at great length about our different safety drills and reasons for which we practice all of them. We also have watched 2 different music videos to help us remember what to do in emergencies and when to recognize danger. These topics can be a little scary for our first graders and so it is essential that there is follow-up conversations at home about things we discussed in class. Please be sure to talk with your child and give them plenty of reassurance that they are safe. I will attach a link of the two different music videos to our blog if you would like to view them with your child at home. I will also upload some of the pictures we took today at Learning Celebration later this evening so that you can see some of the action. I hope your child enjoys their new blue Sunflower t-shirt. This is the shirt that they are asked to wear on our field trip in 2 weeks. Speaking of field trips, please remember to return your permission slip and admission fee next week if you have not already done so. Have an AWESOME fall weekend with your family. Stay safe and healthy. Thank you for having such wonderful kids!! Holler if you need anything! Looking ahead to next week, our Specials rotation is: Monday= C Tuesday= D Wednesday= A Thursday= B Friday= C

Mid-Week Check In

Happy Wednesday everyone! Here are a few highlights of our past few days. We continue to work hard at learning to identify when the /ck/ gets to go on their playdate. Ask your child to explain when a /ck/ gets together to make the /K/ sound. They should be able to verbalize that if the /ck/ sound follows a SHORT vowel sound, the c and k get to play together on their playdate. In math we are working hard on our math fact fluency. The kids have started timed math tests with both addition and subtraction mixed together! Yikes! That is a lot to think about. We are starting off trying to work our facts of +/- 1 or 2 in about 3 minutes. The goal for first grade in to complete 10 problems (+/- 1 or 2) in just one minute and fifteen seconds. Extra practice at home will help your child greatly! The Grab and Go strategy helps out a bunch with this endeavor. Has your child come home talking about safety tips? With this being Safety Week, we have spent our afternoons brainstorming different ways to stay safe both at home and at school. The kids are coming up with some AWESOME ideas. Today we spent a lot of time on stranger dangers. Please follow up with your child about the importance of this safety tip. We also talked at length about looking BOTH ways before you cross the street. Remember that you can never remind your child too often about ways to stay safe. Your follow-up at home really reinforces what we are discussing and thinking about here at school. Yesterday we had our first tornado drill. Did your child tell you about it? Our class was awesome and did a great job getting safely to the bathroom and staying quiet for the drill. Tomorrow we will practice our Code Red drill. This will come with it an opportunity for me to talk with the kids further about stranger danger and ways to stay safe in various situations. This Friday brings with it several exciting things. First, it is Walk to School Day! Sunflower families are meeting at the Gardner Pool and we are walking as a group to school on Friday. Not only does this help us practice safety when walking to school (looking both ways before you cross the street) but it also is a great reminder about the Buddy System (a favorite in our class family!). To culminate our safety week, we have many Sunflower families participating in Saturday's Kade Meyer Walk/Run. I hope to see your family bright and early on Saturday morning running (or walking in my case) for a wonderful cause. This Friday is also our annual Learning Celebration day! All of Sunflower will spend the day learning about our great nation (and state). Your child will also be receiving their brand new Sunflower "The Sky's the Limit" t-shirt, thanks to our amazing PTO. Please be sure to check your child's backpack tonight because a note went home today about lunch on Friday. In honor of Learning Celebration, we will be taking part in an all-school picnic. Your child is asked to bring a sack lunch from home on FRIDAY September 20. If you would rather have the school prepare a lunch for your child, please let me know by tomorrow or Friday morning so that I can give the kitchen a count. There will be no hot lunches served on Friday, so please start making arrangements to plan accordingly! Have a wonderful summer-like night. Be sure to talk with your kiddos about some of the safety tips we came up with today. Let me know if you have any questions. Hope to see you at Walk to School day on Friday! Be safe!

LL Cool J - "Punctuation" Music Video (The Electric Company)--We are working on our expression in our reading!

Sing Along! We watched this today to help us remember about beginning, middle and end!

Happy Monday! Happy Safety Week!

Monday= B Tuesday= C Wednesday= D Thursday= A Friday= C Hi families! Happy Monday to you. I hope this post finds you doing great after a beautiful fall weekend together. We had great Monday and have lots of good things to fill you in on. We have kicked off Safety Week here at Sunflower! First, did your child tell you about our visit from Happy Bear today? A note when home several weeks ago letting you know about Happy Bear's visit today. The kids did a WONDERFUL job during the program learning about welcome and unwelcome touches. Be sure to follow up with your child and invite them to tell you what they learned about Happy Bear's message. We practiced our first tornado drill this afternoon. This week we will practice other safety drills (fire and code red), learn about safety tips in all areas of first grade life, among other things! Be sure to have your child update you on each day's safety tips! In reading today, we started learning about our tricky new sound this week. Ask your child if they can tell you when the /ck/ gets their playdate in a word. We learned today that when the /ck/ sound comes after a SHORT vowel sound, the c and the k get to have their playdate together. Our spelling words this week help us to practice this skill. Help your child strengthen their understanding of this tricky rule by looking for words in their library books, books from home, signs on the road, etc. Our stories this week (Pick a Sack and Get Up, Rick!) are both jam-packed full of these /ck/ date words. Help your child hunt them out on Thinkcentral! Did your child show you their RED folder today? This was an exciting day in first grade, as the kids got their first taste of daily homework! Your child is bringing home a red folder in their backpack, called their "RED" folder ("read-every-day"). Inside the folder you will find a letter explaining the expectations, a book log and a list of questions designed to help your child develop and strengthen their comprehension skills. Please look through it carefully and let me know if you have any questions. When your child feels they are ready to fluently read their book, return the folder to school and an adult with read it and book talk it with them. If they can read it fluently, I will replace their book with a new book and the pattern starts again! Our goal is to try and read 25 books during the school year on each child's level. Please remember the importance of reading each day. Your child should not be reading more than 10-15 minutes each night (unless they are on a roll and loving it!) and they should not struggle too much through the book that has been sent home. If you feel the book is too difficult for your child please return it with a note letting me know. The letter in the RED folder will explain in more detail. Holler if you have any questions. Has your child told you about the "Grab and Go" strategy we've been working on in math? Ask them to teach you this strategy. (Here is a Cliff's Notes version for you: If a problem is 5+6= ?, your child is learning to grab the first number and say it ("5")then make dots for the second number. It would look like this: 5+......=? They grab the five and say "5", then count on from the dots ("6,7, 8, 9, 10, 11"). Have your child practice this strategy tonight with several other addition problems. Mark your calendars that this FRIDAY September 20 is our annual Sunflower LEARNING CELEBRATION! As Constitution Day approaches, we spend the day celebrating our great nation and learning all sorts of things that make our country so amazing. Please plan on sending a SACK LUNCH to school with your child this Friday or let me know if you would like me to have the kitchen prepare a sack lunch for your child. As part of this annual celebration, all of Sunflower will eat lunch together in an all-school picnic on Friday. Finally, thank you to the families who have already returned their field trip permission slips. Please try to have them back as soon as possible.

The Big Pig Song--Check this out, we've been singing it all week!

PAJAMA DAY TOMORROW!!!

Hi families! I hope this latest post finds you all healthy and enjoying our start to September! I am so sorry for the delay in posts this week. Yikes! Time is flying by in first grade and I haven't found a moment to fill you in....Hopefullly your first grader brought home a blue note about PAJAMA DAY tomorrow, September 13th! We have filled up our compliment chain for the second time and this time we are going to celebrate by being comfy and cozy in our pjs. Your child is welcome to wear their jammies, bring a pillow, blanket and/or a favorite stuffed animal. We will make reading forts in the afternoon and celebrate being awesome. We have been over-the-top busy with learning new things this week. We've spent the week learning about classifying, contractions, the sound of stinky short /i/, writing sentences, the meaning of the equals sign and different strategies to solving math problems. WHEW! Have your child share what they know so far about these topics. You will be amazed! Two of our classmates grew one year older this week! Happy birthday to Bryce and Jake!! Thank you for sharing your birthday with us and for sharing such yummy treats. Don't forget that we have another spelling test tomorrow. Hopefully your child is ready to show what they know about the short /i/ sound! Be looking for our first field trip permission slip to be coming home in your child's Friday folder tomorrow. The year is off and rolling and your kids are rocking right along. Let me know if you need anything! Happy Thursday!