Aug 25 Update

August 24, 2023

Hello!

It has been so great getting to know your students in our first full week of school! We have focused largely this week on setting routines and talking about how we want our classroom to look and feel in terms of classroom expectations. We will finish our "Hawk Vision" for room 146 early next week incorporating what we want to see, hear, feel and do more of in our classroom to make it the most wonderful classroom we can this year!!

A friendly reminder that tonight from 5:00 - 6:30 is our back to school social. Kona Ice and Whit's ice cream will be available for purchase. This event is sponsored by the PTO and is a great way for the students (and parents!) to come together in the event to play and have some fun!

Please save the date for September 7th at 6 pm for our Curriculum Night. This will be in person this year vs. virtual and recorded in previous years. For those that can't make it, I will record the meeting and share it out afterwards.

District-wide, 1st graders take the MAP math and reading assessments in the fall, spring and winter. MAP assessments are just 1 of many data points/snapshots to help teachers know more about your student as a learner. We will be taking MAP math assessment on Wed, 8/30 and the MAP reading assessment on Thurs, 8/31. A great way to help your child is to have them get a good night's rest and have a healthy breakfast! I will be sure to let them know that this is just a "give your best effort" time so that teachers (me!) can understand what they know and what we are next ready to learn!

I typically update parents about our learning through pictures (who doesn't want to see their learner in action!) with captions regarding what we are doing and learning. Please see below for that information and reach out if you have any questions or concerns.

Thanks!
Wendy

We made our birthday numbers for our birthday wall! These pictures will hang on our wall to remind us who has a birthday and when. We will celebrate each birthday throughout the year - even the summer ones, I promise! I'm including all of the pictures here for you as well since I took them to print for our classroom and it might be fun to look at them with your student to get them sharing about the new friends they are meeting in 1st grade in their class!

2 students were sick on the day we did this - will get their pictures up soon!

This week, we learned a few math games! YAY! This game is called "Capture 4." We will grow this game throughout the year to Capture 4 Doubles, Capture 4 Teens, etc.

In writing, we stretch our words and record the sounds we hear! We are brave writers! Here, we made a community "very hungry caterpillar" after reading the book by the same name and then drew and labeled pictures to feed the caterpillar. Writing workshop will begin for many first graders with labeling their beautiful "wow" pictures! The phrases I will say are phrases such as "give it a go," "write the sounds you hear," "you are making a brave first grader try," "stretch those sounds," etc. At this stage, of course, we are not concerned with "perfect" spelling - just recording the sounds we hear!! You are welcome to use these phrases at home as you encourage your first grader. If your student asks you how to spell a word, I encourage you NOT to tell them but to just say "be a brave first grader, stretch the word and write the sounds you hear! Give it a try!" And afterward, perhaps, "Wow, you heard so many sounds in that word!"

I promise this was a fun activity even though this angle has the caterpillar looking kind of mad! : )

We launched reading workshop this week! We spent a lot of time talking about expectations while independent reading. I took the following many pictures so that we could all celebrate the great choices these readers were making as we looked at the pictures together to notice bubble space, eyes on the book, supplies ready, etc. Thought I'd share the pictures with you too so you can see your readers already in action!

Friend Scavenger Hunt!

Another math game - Compare! - They love playing partner games!

On Thursday, we had Bus Safety in the morning.

In the corner of this picture, you will see our easel. If students are finished or if we have a few extra minutes, I will often have them make an "under the easel" choice. Ask them what their under the easel choices are right now! You will likely surprise them that you know that lingo! Under the easel, there are always 4 games - usually 2 literacy and 2 math. There are also usually 2 independent and 2 partner or multi-player games. Kids love the choice when we have a little time to play those games. I rotate them every few weeks as they focus on the current topics/skills we are working on.

In the picture above, they are playing the game "Boom," which is now our newest under the easel choice that we just added on Thursday!