Last Post!!!

Thank you for a fantastic year!  What a fun group of kids we had.  I have a lot of pictures from the lifebook party, Mexico celebrations and the field trip that will be fun for you to look at with your child. I hope everyone has a great summer.  Please stop back in the fall and say hello!  I really miss the kids.

Spring is Here!

Finally spring is here.  We only have 18 days of school left now!  Can you believe it???? The year has gone by so fast.  I keep telling the class that they will be the smartest group of first graders to move on to second grade because of our math curriculum.  It's amazing when you think about how much they have learned in math this year.  We will be wrapping up the year with money.  They have to be able to count and identify coins.  In reading we will be reviewing this week and then next week working on the /oo/ sound in moon.  Don't forget the field trip is on May 24th to Baker Near Wilderness Settlement.  It is really a fun field trip.  We are outside the majority of the day.  Dress for the weather!  More updates will come closer to the time.  Here's what we have been up to the last couple of weeks since I last updated the blog.

We did a pirate unit for the sound AARGH (ar)!

We released the butterflies that we were watching grow to observe the life cycle.  They were Painted Lady Butterflies.

Lilly was lucky enough to have a butterfly land on her hand during the release!

For Cinco De Mayo we had a fiesta and broke a pinata.  We are learning about the history and culture of Mexico this month.

Starting 4th Quarter!

It was so nice to meet with all of you at conferences.  I feel very lucky to work at a school with such supportive and caring families.  I can't believe we only have one quarter left!  As you can see, first grade is a very busy year.  We have learned so much this year.  First grade is important because we build the blocks for all future learning.  Tomorrow we are starting double digit addition with regrouping in math!  This is incredible and your children are doing so well.  I have a link to a youtube video if you are unsure of how to help your child.  This video will walk you through in three minutes how to help your child.  Having your child use some kind of representation for the tens and ones if they are struggling with the concept will really help.  (pretzel rods for tens and m&m's is one idea)addition with regrouping.  Here is another link to work out addition problems using online base ten blocks.  Go to "Base Blocks Addition" and work out addition problems together: Virtual Manipulatives.

This week in reading is a review week but I will test on last week's words (y endings).  Remember, if you would like to volunteer, please let me know.  The times are from 9:30-11:30 or 2:30-3:30 each day.  We LOVE volunteers!

Jada working on a St. Patrick's Day book.

Searching for gold long o words!

Wacky Day!!!

Jason working hard on IXL for our March challenge!

Thanks for all of the eggs!

Our Egg Hunt was cold!

Eggs!

Winners of Bunny Bingo!  Hopping down to the cafeteria for their prizes!

Bunny Bingo!

Happy Snow Day!  I can't believe how much snow we got today.  We have been busy again at school and at home learning.  This is such a great time of year at school for so many reasons.  We are all developing into such strong readers.  The progress is huge compared to when they walked into first grade.  We also are such a strong family at this point too!  

Ellie created this video with the "Lights, Camera, Action" take home bag and she wanted to share it!

Beach fun with long e and short e words!

Major did a great science project with the "Scientist Bag".  

Cartoonist Duane Barnhart teaches the kids how to draw a superhero.  He came to our school on February 26th.  He was amazing!  The kids loved him and have been drawing like him since.  He has many YouTube videos if you put his name in.  You can learn how to draw many different things.  I have linked a video on how to draw an alien below.

                                    

 

cartoonist Duane Barnhart draws an alien

Last summer I went to a workshop on using ipads in the classroom and learned about this app: 100's chart.  This is a great help to teach number sense and reinforce number skills that your child may have already.  We are going into the next math chapter this week of place value again.  Using a 100's chart with your child helps so much.  Looking for patterns, asking them to locate numbers (find the number that is 5 tens and 7 ones, or find the number that is 2 tens more then 67) and practicing counting backwards from 120 are great things to practice.  We have to test on counting backwards from 120 soon.  If your child cannot do this, please practice.  Here's a link to a 100's chart for you if you don't have the ones that I sent home previously.  Number Chart

Valentine's Fun

We celebrated the 100th day!

As you may know I was gone during the fun festivities on Valentine's Day.  My family took a quick trip to Disney World.  When I booked it, I completely forgot about the program!  I had my amazing sub (Diane Smith) take some pictures.  Nolan broke my classroom camera so they are a little fuzzy.  I am going to have to start bringing my nice camera to school I guess!  

Kendra (Major's mom) came and read to our class this week for I love to Read Month.  On Tuesday we have a cartoonist coming to our school.  If you would like to come and read to our class, please let me know!  Even in March, April, or May.  They really enjoy this.   In reading we have been really working on the magic e and long vowel combinations (ai/ay and ea/ee this week).  Some students are beginning to confuse their short vowels with their long vowels.  Here is a quick youtube video to watch that will help:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHO1aJyxWIE

You may know this already but I recently learned this fact: You can make your own YouTube station that bookmarks videos for you.  This is a very useful tool if your child wants to watch things on youtube but you are not sure if they are appropriate.  Bookmark the videos that I give you and they will probably watch them because they really like them when we do them in class!  

I am going to start using sensory boxes to help with our word work time.  This week I am making some moon sand and putting shells in it.  Then the kids have to sort short and long e sounds with our parent volunteers.  The kids really like hands on learning.  I found the recipe on pinterest and thought some of you may be interested:  http://www.growingajeweledrose.com/2013/01/cloud-dough-recipes.html.  Take a bucket and fill it with the moon sand.  Write words on rocks (or math problems) and have them sort them or spell them or you can just make it for fun if you would like too!  My kids LOVED it!  We had to try it out tonight of course!  

Lastly, if you go on ixl.com at home (remember 20 minutes a day improves test scores by 20%) the category that I would practice next is graphing (bar graphs, picture graphs, and tally graphs are our focus).  We are finishing up measurement this week.  Have a good week!