December

I hope you all are enjoying your Christmas break!  I know I am!  Just a little update while I have some down time :)  We have all been extremely excited for Christmas, but we still had to get some learning in!  In science, we studied Land and Water and got to observe how lakes form with sand and water and we also got to observe different types of rocks under a microscope!  In math, we finished up missing addends and jumped right in to measurement with some fun Christmas pictures.  In social studies, we learned about how different countries celebrate Christmas.

On the last three days, we celebrated Christmas by making Christmas crafts and on the last day we watched Polar Express and had hot chocolate!

November

It has been a busy month!  I can't believe it is already the middle of November!  We have had a ton of learning going on in our classroom and I am enjoying watching each student grow!  We have been learning new glued sounds in phonics (ing, ang, ong, ung, ink, ank, onk, unk), we've been learning text features and thin and thick questions in comprehension, in science we have been learning about the Earth and Sun, and in math, we've been learning missing addends! Whew! That's a ton of learning, but it has been a lot of fun as well!

I want to give a BIG shout out to all of my excellent students for winning another plinko party and winning snow cones!  Also, a BIG shout out to my book-it students who read at least 6 books last month to win a free pizza and to my Xtramath students who work hard every day to increase their scores!

Reminders!

November 19th:  1st grade program 7pm

November 20th:  Thanksgiving crafts and desserts

November 25-29:  NO SCHOOL!  HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

October

This month has flown by!  I can't believe we are already half way through October!  We have been learning so many new things and the children seem to be enjoying every bit of it.  In phonics, we have been learning digraphs (ch, wh, th, sh, ck), bonus letters (f,l,s, and sometimes z) and all of those trick words that we can't sound out to spell!  In comprehension we have been learning about main idea, details, context clues and figurative language.  In writing, we have been concentrating on letter formation and writing each letter correctly and we are starting to move on to capitalization, making sure we capitalize the beginning of sentences, names, and I when it is by itself.  We have also been learning new reading centers and rocking the ones we already know!

In math, we have been learning the commutative property (3+2=5, 2+3=5), adding three numbers (3+2+4=9), doubles (2+2, 3+3) and the associative property (grouping numbers different ways, but getting the same answer 3+4+5, 5+4+3).  The children have really caught on to these different properties and the strategies we have learned to solve this problems!

In science, we have been talking about sinking and floating and how heavy objects sink and lighter objects float.  With this, we were able to do our Dancing Raisins experiment.  We used cups, sprite and raisins and predicted what was going to happen.  Some students said sink, some said float, but what they didn't know was that with the carbonation, the raisins danced!  They would float and sink because of the bubbles from the carbonation.

Reminders:

Wednesday, October 23:  Character Dance

Friday, October 25:  Report Cards and Fall Carnival 5-7 at JBES

September

It has been a busy month!  We finished our FAIR testing, have been learning how to tap out CVC words, we've been exploring our five senses, and started counting back in math!  It has been a lot of hard work, but as always, we've been having fun doing it! Continue to work with your children at home with their reading and math homework.  It makes a world of difference in the classroom!  
Our class has been on their best behavior and earned 10 charms last week, which means we got to play PLINKO!  The students won a movie and popcorn party and loved every minute of it.

Important Dates:

September 12 - Parent Night

September 16 - No School

September 25 - Early Release

First Week

   The first week of school was a blast!  I had such a great time getting to know your students and interacting with them.  We jumped head first into reading stories, talking about them, writing and counting.  We have been talking about characters and settings in a story and using what we talk about to write in our Frayer models and answer questions about the stories we have read.  In math, we have been counting to 120 by ones, fives and tens and identifying numbers on our number chart.  It has been a lot of work already, but we've been having fun in the process!
   Please continue to send your child's home folder to and from school every day.  Also, be sure to check it every night to see if something new comes home.  Remember to do the homework, practice sight words and read every night so we can both build the students up for success!  

April

April has flown by, as the rest of the year has, but we have been learning a lot and having fun in the process! We are currently learning our vowel suffixes (ed & ing) in phonics, sequencing in comprehension, writing narratives and measurement in math!

We had our field trip to the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, which was a blast!  The children had a lot of fun learning about different animals and riding the rides!  We also wrote a narrative about it and what we would have done if an animal had gotten loose!

Just a reminder that we will be testing for the next two weeks!  Please get plenty of rest, a good breakfast and get to school on time!!

Important dates:

May 6-10:  Parent Conferences-check your yellow sheet to find the day and time you come in

May 20:  No School-teacher workday

May 27:  No School-Memorial day

June 3: Field Day

June 5: Last day of school