Newsletter 2-26-16

Mueller Moments

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

February 26, 2016

The beginning of our week was surely different than the end! We went from spring coats to snow pants overnight. With our snow day being on the warmer side, it was a gift to our kids - so many were able to play outside, build snow forts and snowmen, and just have fun being kids! 

• BandAid Collection: Many thanks to all of you that have donated BandAids already. You have until March 4th to send in your donations of fun BandAids to donate to Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital. We really want to win this competition! Please consider donating. A reminder that the BandAids need to be latex free in order to donate them to the hospital. There are many different brands, a simple one is most Meijer brand BandAids.
• Coming up:
• Star Student - Quinten Poortenga
• Monday, February 29 - PE Day
• Thursday, March 3 - PE Day
• Friday, March 4 - BandAid Collections Ends
• Monday, March 7 - No School, Record’s Day
• March 8-9 - Parent/Teacher conferences
• March 11 - Read and Feed Day (note in folders today)
• March is Reading Month: We will be celebrating reading month at Bauer with several activities. I will send home calendars on Monday that list several activities your child can participate in. If your child marks off the activities and returns the calendar, he/she will receive a prize for participating. 
• Reading: This week we added to our chart of what good readers do. We learned that as good readers we can try different sounds for letters when the sounds we try don’t make sense, make sure our reading voice matches the punctuation in the sentence, and make sure our reading sounds smooth. Today we talked about how once we have tried all of the things good readers do, we can practice reading our book again to enjoy reading it. All students selected one book that they would like to practice next week. At the end of the week they will have the opportunity to read their book to a kindergarten buddy. 
• Writing: This week we started writing our small moment topics. Students selected their topic, and made a plan for their story on a timeline. This plan transitioned into their story. We worked on adding dialogue to their stories this week, as well as using temporal and time words. 
• Math: We continued our work in Unit 5 this week with addition problems that contain 3 addends. Due to our snow day on Thursday, there was only one day of homework this past week. 
• Social Studies: We continued our Me on the Map unit. Students worked on finding the state of Michigan, finding their town and capital of our state, and labeling these using a key. Next week we will focus on how to draw a map of their room using a key. 

For your children,

~ Holly R. Mueller

Newsletter 2-19-16

Mueller Moments

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

February 19, 2016

• Bandaid Competition: Next week Bauer will be collecting bandaids for the Helen Devos Children's Hospital. In celebration of Cambri Jewell's last chemo appointment (Caden Jewell's sister, a Bauer student), the Jewells are asking people to join them in giving back to the hospital by donating FUN bandaids that the patients can choose from after their chemo ports are removed. In an effort to collect as many boxes as we can, we are making this a competition for Bauer. The class that brings in the most boxes of bandaids will win Sprinkles Donuts. (I really love Sprinkles Donuts- let’s win this one!) If you would rather donate money (I understand how busy life can get), that is great too. We will go out and purchase bandaids with any money raised. 
• IMPORTANT:  All band aids must be medication and latex free.  CURAD® and Nexcare™ are some of the best brands for latex free options. Thank you so much for considering this! 

• Coming up:
• Star Student: Estevan Munoz
• Monday, February 22 - PE Day
• Thursday, February 25 - PE Day
• Friday, March 3 - Bandaids Due
• Monday, March 7 - Records Day - No School 
• March 8-9: Parent/Teacher conferences (times are the same from fall)
• Reading: This week we continued our work to figure out words. We learned that we can “dot and dash” words when we don't know what they are (ask your child to show you what this means with a word in their WEB book). We also worked to make sure we understand what a sentence says before moving on to make sure the words we read made sense.  
• Writing: We started our “Authors as Mentors” narrative unit this week. We read some mentor texts, and studied what the authors did in the books. These “noticings” will inspire us as writers in this unit. We started to think of topics to write about. Thank you to the families that were able to help their child think of topics. If you did not complete this yellow form yet, please send it in this week.  
• Math: We began unit 5 this week. You may have noticed with the homework your child brought home that this unit makes a big jump. We now have mixed story problems - addition and subtraction, with both unknown partners and unknown totals. Comprehension of the story is key with these problems. If your child is struggling with these at home, ask your child to close his/her eyes to picture the story and what is happening. This can help to determine what the problem is asking. 
• Social Studies: We began our geography unit this week, and started practicing our addresses. We learned about our continent of North America, and our country of the United States. We will continue this week as we talk about our state, city, and street.

For your children,

~ Holly R. Mueller

Valentine's Day Photos

We enjoyed opening our valentines together, and a wonderful party. Thank you to all of our volunteers! 

Newsletter 2-12-16

Mueller Moments

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

February 12, 2016

• Many thanks to all of our volunteers that helped make our third and final party a success today! Valentine’s Day is always such a fun party in 1st grade. Your time and energy you have invested into our parties throughout the year has made for some great memories for this group of students. Thank you!
• With the busyness of the party today, our short week, and backpacks full of valentines, students did not bring home data binders today. They will again next Friday.
• Coming up:
• Star Student: Avery Ponstein
• Wednesday, February 17 - PE Day
• Monday, March 7 - Records Day - No School 
• March 8-9: Parent/Teacher conferences (times are the same from fall)
• Reading: This past week we began a new reading unit, “We can be our own teachers when we work hard to figure out words.” This unit will focus on reading strategies for decoding, fluency, and comprehension. So far we have learned that as readers we can: 1. Track the words by sliding our reading finger under the words 2. Keep our eyes on the words the entire time 3. Look at the pictures before we read to see what we think might happened on that page. Please encourage your child to do these things at home while reading. They should be familiar with these teaching points! We will add to our list next week. 
• Writing: We finished typing up our how to stories this week. Students look forward to sharing these with you. We also completed our on demand pre-assessment for our next Narrative Unit: Authors as Mentors. Next week we will become immersed in this unit by studying some favorite authors. 
• Math: We will be starting unit 5 on Monday: Place Value Situations. We will be exploring place value further, and spending time with story problems. The story problems in this unit can be tricky - comprehension is key with these problems in order to understand what the problems are asking. Math homework will resume next week. 
• Social Studies: We finished our study of the past and the present this week. We will move on to our geography unit next week. We will begin working on learning how to write our addresses independently. 

For your children,

~ Holly R. Mueller

Newsletter 2-5-16

Mueller Moments

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

February 5, 2016

• Coming up:
• Star Student (week of 2/15): Avery Ponstein
• February 8-9 - Winter Break, No school
• Thursday, February 11 - PE Day
• February 10-12 - Send Valentines to school
• Friday, February 12 at 2:45pm - Valentine Party
• Monday, March 7 - Records Day - No School 

• Valentine’s Day: You may send in your  child's Valentines anytime next week, Wednesday - Friday. Please be sure to send one for every child. The list of names is on the blog if needed. Our party will be Friday, February 12 at 2:45pm. 
• Addresses: There is a note coming home today in folders about our upcoming geography unit. Your child will need to know how to write his/her entire address, spelling everything correctly (including last names). Although we are not starting this unit for another week, I wanted to let you know now in case you are able to practice over our 4 day weekend. For those students with two homes, they will be responsible at school for primary addresses only. Thanks for your help with this! 
• Reading: We wrapped up our study of nonfiction texts this week by working with reading partners to study a topic of interest. Next week we will begin our next unit which will focus on decoding strategies.  
• Writing: We headed to the computer lab this week to type up our how to stories. We will finish up next week. I am very impressed with how well the have done with this. It has been fun to watch some students who have a real strength with computers and typing take off. We will be heading into our next unit later next week. We will be going back to narrative stories, writing small moments, using authors as our mentors. 
• Math: We took our unit 4 test this week, and our pre-test for unit 5. We are learning new math games to get us ready for unit 5.  
• Social Studies: This week we took our timeline assessment, and have been exploring the past and present. It is fun to watch the wonder on children’s faces as they think about life 50-100 years ago. 
• Today's Presentation: Please see the note in your child’s take home folder regarding the talk we had today with the presenter from the Children’s Advocacy Center. Please continue the conversation at home. It is always good to make sure students interpreted the material the way it was presented. She does a great job presenting the information using 1st grade appropriate language. 

For your children,

~ Holly R. Mueller