1st Grade Update

I hope you all had a chance to enjoy this beautiful weekend! We have been spoiled lately with gorgeous weekends. We have entered the last full week of April, as hard as that is to believe.
Below are a few notes and important reminders.

Coming Up: 

• Friday, April 28: Field Trip and Summer Reading Club Notes Due
• Friday, May 7: Neon Day
• Friday, May 12: Early Release Day
• Thursday, May 25: 1st grade field trip - Tsuesink's Pony Farm and Tunnel Park
• June 9: Last day of school

A Few Notes:

• Water Bottle Reminders: With warmer days ahead, I would like to give some reminders regarding water bottles. Staying hydrated is essential for learning, however we try to make water bottles as manageable as possible.
• No screw on tops. First graders struggle to get these back on correctly. Sport or straw tops that are spill proof only. 
• Only water. No gatorade, chocolate milk, etc. Water is what keeps our brains ready to learn! And if a spill does occur, it does not leave things sticky.
• Label water bottle with child's name. We will be storing water bottle on drying mats on the counter starting next week. This will help with condensation getting on papers. It will be important to have your child's water bottle labeled with his/her name.

• Shorts and Shoes: Though spring is here, our classroom is still quite cool. Layers are a great idea this time of year. Several students really want to wear shorts and short sleeves daily, however they end up pulling their t-shirt over their legs to stay warm. Layers allow options. A reminder to check your child's behavior calendar if you need a reminder of what days are PE days to be sure your child has the proper shoes. 

• Field Trip and Summer Reading Club Notes: Your child should have brought home two yellow notes in his/her folder on Friday. The first was regarding our field trip on May 25. The second was regarding the Summer Reading Club program Mrs. Farrell and I will be offering this summer. If you do not receive either note, please let me know. Both forms are due by Friday, April 28. Thank you!

• Reading and Writing: We have begun our animal research project. Students are busy reading about their animal, taking notes, and writing a nonfiction book with chapters. I am truly amazed by what writers they have become! It is so fun to watch them with this new genre. It is truly exciting!

• Math: We took our test on Friday, and are moving onto a new unit this week. Our new unit will first focus on telling time, then will move onto measurement, geometry and equal shares (fractions). We will be telling time to the half hour. Feel free to start pointing out clocks your child may have around him/her, and start to practice with telling time. 

• Science: We continue to explore weather and will be weather observers this coming week. 

1st Grade News

With only 8 weeks of school left, there will be a lot we are packing into the weeks ahead to be ready for 2nd grade!

Coming up: 

• Friday, May 7: Neon Day
• Friday, May 12: Early Release Day
• Thursday, May 25: 1st grade field trip (more details coming this Friday - be sure to check your child's folder!)
• June 9: Last day of school

Reading:
We started a new reading unit this week. We are are becoming researchers where we are diving into both fiction and non-fiction books about a single topic. We spent some time this week sorting and organizing our classroom library. We found books specific to animals, and by the end of the week, we all selected an animal to read and learn more about. Ask your child what animal he/she is studying. You may encourage checking out books from the library about their animal, or helping them search online for more information. We will be crossing over from reading about their animal to writing about them in the coming weeks.

Writing: 
We wrapped up our narrative unit, or small moment stories, this week. Students selected one final topic (spring break gave us many ideas!), and spent the week producing their best work. It is so exciting to see the growth students have made in writing!

Math: 
We are continuing to work through unit 6 in math, Comparisons and Data. We are working through comparison story problems currently (identifying more and fewer, etc.).

Science:
Spring is definitely a great time of year to study the weather, and students are always exciting to engage in conversations on the topic! We began our weather unit last Monday and have learned about temperature and clouds. We will focus on precipitation this week and being weather watchers.

Read and Feed Day

Read and Feed day was a success! Students have enjoyed a day full of our favorite thing - reading! They loved building forts to read in. We were able to team up with Miss B's 2nd grade class and read our narrative stories to them. They read opinion pieces to us. We also had mystery readers surprise us - Mr. Lary and Mrs. Hall. We will end our day by partner reading with Mrs. Farrell's 1st grade class. Thank you for the wonderful snack donations. They definitely fulfilled the "Feed" part of our day. Enjoy these pictures of students reading with 2nd graders (some students were too well hidden in their forts!), as well as Mr. Lary reading to us. 

A Special Visitor

We were fortunate to have Mitchell's grandfather come to our classroom last Friday. Hopefully your child told you about his visit! Mr. Behler is blind. He was able to talk with our class about his experiences, read a book in braille, and each child received a braille alphabet. Students also had an opportunity to look at braille books on their own, learn braille using braille boards, and more. Many thanks to both Mr. and Mrs. Behler for their visit. Enjoy the pictures below!

Coming Up

It was wonderful to meet with all of you this week. Thank you for taking the time to do so. Fifteen minutes never seems to be enough time! If you think of any further questions or comments after you left, as always, please feel free to contact me at any time.
We have a few important updates and dates to be aware of. Please see below.

• March 20: Book Fair Preview
• March 22: Book Fair Shopping
• March 20 - 24: non-latex bandaid drive (Please see the Bauer blog for information.)
• March 24: Used books for Book Drive due. Please consider donating your previously loved books!
• March 30: Read and Feed (details below)
• March 31 - April 10: Spring Break
• April 14: Early Release Day

Addresses: Students are working toward mastering their home address. At this point, only 6 students have demonstrated mastery with this (they must write it 3 times independently for it to be considered as mastery). Please help your child practice writing it at home. Proper handwriting, comma after the city name, etc. are all essential.

Read and Feed: On Thursday, March 30th, our school we participate in our annual Read and Feed event. Our theme this year is "Going to the Beach." Your child may bring a beach towel from home to read on and any favorite books from home as well. No pajamas this year, however comfy clothes, maybe even with a beach or ocean theme, are welcomed. We also will have a snack mix. Please see the attached document if you would be willing to donate items for it. Thank you!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TiNUNnE408Yhsy9l9yCDxTJNcdoLi78LzfzRduTZIvY/edit?usp=sharing

Reading Aloud: During conferences with some of you, we discussed the importance of reading aloud to your children. Once children are reading on their own, we often lose sight of the value of reading aloud to them. I am including two links to articles that discuss the importance of this. Please take a moment to look them over. If you are looking for some good books the start with, you may want to check out some others in the American Girl series. Boys and girls like these!
http://www.whatdowedoallday.com/why-you-should-read-aloud-to-older-kids/
http://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/read-aloud-to-children/

Oh, the Places We'll Go!

March has arrived, and with that we celebrate March is Reading Month. With a room full of readers, we celebrate reading each and every day here in 1st grade, however we will be involved in some additional activities this month. We kicked off the month on Wednesday with a visit from the Cat in the Hat himself!

Something else that has arrived with March are the swings in temperatures. To best help your child, layers are appreciated. Boots are often still needed, especially if there has been any rain at all. Our playground gets muddy very easily. Protecting shoes (and our rugs) is appreciated!

The following communication was sent to families, however it appears to have gone into spam for many (including myself). I wanted to make sure you all saw it.

Please check your spam email if you did not receive this, and be sure to mark it, along with any other Bauer emails, as not being spam in hopes of receiving future communication in your inbox. 

Bauer Families,
As our community continues to grow, so does our school!  Your generous support of Hudsonville Public Schools has enabled the district to add on to Bauer.  Construction will begin next week to add two classrooms on the east side of the building.  In order to work and keep our children safe, the construction company has put up a fence that encompasses the work site.  

We are so fortunate to have a very large playground.  Our students will be using more of the north end than they previously did.  Students will not be able to enter or exit the south gate.  Parents that drop off students should plan on using the front of the building avoiding the bus drop off area beginning tomorrow and continuing through the end of the school year.

We are excited to grow and realize we will need to be flexible as we do so.  Construction should be complete by the end of July!  I will keep you posted on how our project is progressing.  

Thank you for your support and cooperation!

Coming up: 

• March 10: Early Release Day
• March 15-16: Parent/Teacher Conferences
• March 17: Wear GREEN!
• March 28: Jet's Pizza Night (Please tell them my name when you order - we would love to win this month!)
• March 31: Spring Break Begins

Reading:

We have been working hard as readers! We have been working on a strategy for summarizing what we have read. We are recording the answers to who, what, when, where, why and how in our stories. Then we are using that information to write a summarizing sentences. You could have your child write these words on their whiteboard and answer them for a book they have just read. 

Writing:

We are back to writing small moment (narrative) stories. We are currently writing a class piece altogether. We will select our own topics next week. I am having so much fun watching these writers take off! Saying their sounds as they write is making a tremendous difference. 

Math: 

We are wrapping up our unit on place value concepts next week and will be taking our test. We will then move into a new unit, comparisons and data. 

Social Studies:

We have begun our geography unit. We are learning about our place on the map. We have started practicing writing our addresses. Students will need to show mastery in writing their address by memory. Please encourage your child to practice their address at home. Whiteboards are a great tool for this!

Book Orders: 

There is a new book order form going home in folders today. Please place your order by March 17 if you would like to order. Head to scholastic.com. Our class code is: LGVW7.  There are many books that would be great in Easter baskets! If you would like the books to be a surprise, just shoot me an email. 

Valentine's Day

Here are a few pictures from our Valentine's Day party. We enjoyed delicious cupcakes, making bookmarks, and a fun game. Later we enjoyed opening up our valentine cards from friends. Thank you to everyone for your contributions to our day!