Spirit week!

Here's a list of our spirit days this week:

Newsletter 9-25-15

Mueller Moments

1st Grade * Bauer Elementary * Mrs. Holly Mueller * hmueller@hpseagles.net

September 25, 2015

What a wonderful morning! It was great to get outside and moving our bodies for a great cause! Thank you to all of you that raised money for our Walk-a-thon, as well as all of the volunteers that came to school to help out today. Your help made it a success!

Data Notebooks are coming home for the first time tonight. PLEASE RETURN THESE ON MONDAY. See the post titled Data Notebooks. 

Coming Up: 

Star Student: Kate Applegate

Monday, 9-28: T-Shirt orders Due

Monday, 9-28: Book Orders Due

Monday, 9-28: PAJAMA DAY

Tuesday, 9-29: HAT DAY

Tuesday, 9-29: PE Day - Wear your gym shoes!

Wednesday, 9-30: RED, WHITE and BLUE DAY

Thursday, 10-1: CRAZY SOCKS DAY

Friday, 10-2: EAGLE PRIDE DAY

Friday, 10-2: PE Day - Wear your gym shoes!

Reading Workshop: This week we continued to work on building good habits. We Worked on selecting a perfect spot to read in, how to make a movie in our mind of a book, and how to hold on to the movie in our mind. We also got to learn the “I PICK” song when we learned how to pick out just right books, and we were able to pick new books for our books boxes.

Writing Workshop: We continued working on our small moment stories. We read the book, “Ralph Tells a Story” to learn how to think of topics to write about. We learned the importance of including pictures and words that go together when we read the book, “Roller Coaster.” We learned that we can draw even hard to draw pictures. Ask your child about the book “Ish” and what an “ish” drawing is.

Math: We finished learning our number partners through 10. We learned two songs about ten: one called, “Count by Tens,” and the other was a chant for partners of 10. We also made partners of 10 bracelets. Thank you for supporting your child with homework and returning it each time. Next week we will review the unit, take our unit 1 test, and take an online math assessment. 

7 Traits of Happy Kids: This week we learned about 3 more traits:

4. Think win-win. (Everyone can win!)

5. Seek first to understand. (Listen then talk - ask our child about playing telephone!)

6. Synergize. (Together is better.)

For your children!

~ Holly R. Mueller

Walk-a-thon

It was a perfect morning for our walk-a-thon! A huge thank you to all of our volunteers and fund raisers! Enjoy your cowbell :) 

Help Wanted!

Are you looking for a way to get to know a pretty amazing group of 27 1st graders? Do you like hearing awesome stories and getting big hugs? If so, I may have the perfect job for you!
I am looking for volunteers weekly to help practice sight words with students each day and to help in the computer lab starting in October. I promise, you will enjoy watching these kiddos grow!

Available slots:
Computer Lab: Thursdays 2:45-3:30pm
Sight Word Volunteers: Approximately 20-25 minutes/day, one day a week: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. Ideally right away in the morning, however the time can be flexible.

If you are interested in either of these opportunities, please email me at hmueller@hpseagles.net
Thank you!

Reading Workshop

We are working on building reading stamina!

Newsletter 9-18-15

Mueller Moments

1st Grade * Bauer Elementary * Mrs. Holly Mueller * hmueller@hpseagles.net

September 18, 2015

Week two is under our belts! Our classroom family continues to grow together and learn about each other. It has been fun to learn about all of you as your children have their turn to share their family pictures. Thank you for sharing these with us! We had a successful fire drill and evacuation drill this week. Thank you for sending your child in good walking shoes today ~ please do the same next Friday for the Walk-A-Thon!

Do you like to see pictures of your child at school? I will be posting pictures throughout the year to our blog. Make sure you check them out often! As a working mom, I love seeing pictures of my children at school, and hope you enjoy them as well. 

Please check your spam folder if you are not receiving emails that our blog has been updated. I registered anyone that had not done so yesterday. If you did not receive an email stating that I signed you up, please look for it in your spam dated 9-17-15. 

Coming Up: 

• Monday, Sept. 21: P.E. ~ wear gym shoes!
• Tuesday, Sept. 22: Vision Testing
• Wednesday, Sept. 23: School Picture Day
• Thursday, Sept. 24: P.E.
• Friday, Sept. 25: Walk-a-thon @ 9-9:45am
• Friday, Sept. 25: Book Orders Due (See take home folder for book order)
• Monday, Sept. 28: T-Shirt orders Due

Reading Workshop: This week we began our first reading unit, “Readers Build Good Habits.” We worked on building our reading stamina (number of minutes we can read without getting distracted). Ask your child to tell you how they, “warm up to read,” and how many minutes we were able to read! 

Writing Workshop: This week we began our first writing unit, “Launching with Small Moments.” We worked on picking topics to write about, and telling a story across our fingers (first, next, then, after that, finally). Ask your child what “when your done you’ve just begun” means for their stories (add to the pictures, add to the words, or start a new story). 

Math: We continued working though partners of 10. Ask your child to give you partners of a number (2-10) as you are making dinner, driving in the car, etc. Ask him/her what a switch partner is and what doubles means. 

7 Traits of Happy Kids: For those of you new to Bauer, as a school we use the 7 traits of happy kids book to develop leaders. This week we learned about 3 traits: 

1. Be Proactive 

2. Begin with the End in Mind

3. Put First Things First

We also talked about the word perseverance this week. We read the book, “The Most Magnificent Thing” to discuss this concept. Ask your child to tell you about the book. 

Have a wonderful weekend!

~ Holly R. Mueller

Evacuation Drill Tomorrow

Weather permitting, we will be practicing an evacuation drill tomorrow morning. We will be walking to the ice arena. Please send your child with comfortable walking shoes. If it is rescheduled due to rain, I will let you know the new date. Thank you! 

Newsletter 9-11-15

Mueller Moments

1st Grade * Bauer Elementary * Mrs. Holly Mueller * hmueller@hpseagles.net

September 11, 2015

What a wonderful first week of school we have had! I feel so blessed to have been chosen to be your child’s teacher. This is truly a special group of kids, and I am excited to think of the learning we will have together in the year ahead. Please see below for a few important notes and updates.

Have you signed up for our blog yet? If so, you should be receiving email alerts. If you think you signed up and have not received any emails, check your junk or spam messages. Sometimes they will show up in this folder until you mark that they are not spam. 

I will be posting our newsletters to the blog starting next week, rather than sending via email. Please notify me prior to next week Friday if you will need to receive an email or paper copy instead. 

Thank you for all of the supplies you have been donating to our classroom. They are appreciated! If you have not sent in your white 1” binder yet, please do so in the next week. I need to have the forms that were sent home at open house returned if you have not done so yet.

Please remember to label all items such as lunch boxes, sweatshirts, water bottles, etc. We have already had a few items missing, as well as items found with no name. 

Coming Up: 

Our school Walk-a-thon is coming up on Friday, September 25. Notes went home in folders yesterday.

Picture Day is scheduled for Wednesday, September 23. Pictures notes are in folders today. 

Reading: We will be starting our first unit for reading workshop next week. There is nothing like watching readers grow in 1st grade! This week we started reading “The Chocolate Touch” for our read aloud chapter book. Ask your child to share what it is about with you. 

Writing: This week we completed our first On Demand writing assessment. Students wrote about something they did on summer vacation. We also completed a writing sample of our favorite things for our Time Capsules (what we used our Pringles cans for!). 

Math: We began unit one this week. This is a review of making 10 concepts taught in kindergarten. Thank you for returning your child’s first homework. A reminder that homework will come home every Tuesday and Thursday, and is due the next day.

Handwriting: This week we began work in our Handwriting Without Tears books. We will hit handwriting hard in September and October before we formally begin spelling instruction. Your child may have come home singing the song, “Where Do You Start Your Letters?” (The answer: at the top!)

Enjoy the fall weekend ahead!

~ Holly R. Mueller

Our first week!

We've been so busy learning that we've not taken too many photos this week, but I'd like to share a few! 

Here are most of us (we had two absent):

We met Mrs. VanBergen and talked about good playground choices with all 1st graders:

We practiced what we will do when we have an indoor recess:

And we met some really awesome ladies that will be working with us this year:

In order: Mrs. Gleason (overload para pro with us in the morning), Mrs. Gruppen (ASD para pro), Mrs. Nibbelink (instructional para pro with us two times per day), and Mrs. Heckel (instructional para pro with us two times per day). 

Our First Day

What a wonderful first day of first grade! I loved getting to know your children. I can tell this is a great group! We even managed to get outside for both lunch and afternoon recesses before the rain came.

If you have any further questions for me, please don't hesitate to ask. Otherwise, here's to day 2!

Thank you!

Wow! What a wonderful (steamy) night it was! I absolutely loved meeting you all tonight. I can already tell that we have an awesome group of 1st graders with incredible families. If you thought of any questions after you left tonight, please do not hesitate to ask. 

If you did not have a chance to fill out the survey, please see my last blog post for the link. Thank you! 

I hope you enjoy the last few days of summer vacation! See you soon!