Newsletter 3-31-16

Mueller Moments

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

March 31, 2016

How can it be spring break already? I hope you all are able to find sometime to build memories in the coming week. I will be headed to Cape Canaveral, Florida with my family and extended family. We are looking forward to unwinding after a long winter. Once we are back, the next two months will fly by before we know it. We are only 3/4 of the way through our year though. We have much learning ahead of us in the next 9 weeks!

I would like to thank everyone that was able to donate issues and/or hand sanitizer to our classroom last week. We will definitely put everything to use. You are such a giving group of families. Thank you!

• Coming up:
• Star Student - Tristan Thompson
• April 1-8 - Spring Break
• Tuesday, April 12 - Library - Return library books! and PE Day
• Friday, April 15 - PE Day
• Thursday, May 19 - 1st Grade Field Trip - more information to follow

• Reading: We have been busy with our cross genre topics. We dove into our topics to compare books, check facts, record our wonderings about a topic, and record new words that we have learned. 
• Writing: We finished our Personal Narrative unit with a writing celebration and a final assessment piece last week. These are in data notebooks in the writing section. I am not going to send home data notebooks today due to spring break (less chances of losing any!), but be sure to check them out next time they come home. We also enjoyed a little mini unit on poetry this week. We worked on poems about seasons and other topics using our 5 senses. 
• Math: We are continuing through unit 6. This week we made a big jump as we worked on Comparison Bar problems. Be sure to watch the videos I will be sending home in regards to this homework. It can be very confusing at first, but hopefully will make more sense with the videos. We did today's homework in class instead of sending it home!
• We also explored a new website for math www.mathplayground.com - your child may want to check it out over spring break. Lots of fun games!
• Science: We wrapped up our study of weather and of the sun with our assessments today. We have been busy observing the weather, studying the effects of sunlight on plants, and learning about various types of weather. We will begin a story of life cycles following spring break. 

Have a wonderful week,

~ Holly R. Mueller

Newsletter 3-18-16

Mueller Moments

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

March 18, 2016

• This week seemed to fly right on by! Here is a quick update on our week, and where we are headed. It is hard to believe spring break is only 2 weeks away!
• Coming up:
• Star Student - Elijah TenBrink
• Monday, March 21 - Bring a Nonfiction Book from home or library to school
• Tuesday, March 22 - Library - Return library books!
• Wednesday, March 23 - PE Day and Wear a Pin with Words Day
• March 28-31 - BOGO Book Fair
• April 1-8 - Spring Break 
• Reading: This week we began a new unit looking at reading across genres. We compared fiction to nonfictions books, sorted our books by topics and by genre, and discovered we can learn from nonfiction books and fiction books. 
• Writing: We selected a piece that we are the most proud of and used a checklist to fix up our work. We added an about the author page, a title, and colored our piece. Next week we will celebrate our writing, and write our final assessment piece for narrative writing. 
• Math: We began unit 6 this week. We learned that we can sort and categorize data. We started by sorting bugs, and are moving into comparing data. As stated on my email, please be sure to save the parent letter that came home. We will be learning about “Comparison Bars”, which is a new concepts for parents and students, and having the letter to refer to is helpful. 
• Science: We continued learning about weather this week. Ask your child what they learned about temperature, clouds and wind. Michigan sure does provide a great opportunity for teaching weather this time of year. We are able to observe many types.

For your children,

~ Holly R. Mueller

Newsletter 3-11-16

Mueller Moments

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

March 11, 2016

• What a great week! I loved having a chance to sit down with all of you at conferences. It has been great to see so many logins on Raz Kids since conferences as well! Finishing our week off with Read and Feed today was fabulous. Thank you for all of the donations. Students came in ready to read today! We had several mystery readers read to us this week as well. Ask your child who they were!
• Coming up:
• Star Student - Kaleb Roof
• Monday, March 14 - PE Day
• Tuesday, March 15 - Eagle Pride Day!
• Thursday, March 17 - PE Day and WEAR GREEN Day!
• April 1-8 - Spring Break 
• Reading: This week we worked on being able to give a summary of our book. We did this by answering three questions: Who? What? Now What? We learned that this summary is different than telling all of the details of the story. Have your child practice this at home. Yesterday we finished our final book in the Addy series. The books are so good! Ask your child to tell you how it ended. Your child (both boys and girls!) may be interested in checking out other American Girl series’ at the library for you to read to them. 
• Writing: We continued our work on small moment topics as we worked with partners, made sure we included features from books by our favorite authors, and made sure we included the heart of our stories. 
• Math: We finished unit 5 and took our test this morning. Next week we will work on cleaning up our tests, previewing unit 6, Comparisons and Data, and getting started. Helpful hint: Save the math parent letters that come home for this unit! It will help you with their homework!
• Science: We began a new science unit about our sun. We will then move into weather next week. 

For your children,

~ Holly R. Mueller

Newsletter

Mueller Moments

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

March 4, 2016

• I look forward to seeing all of you next week for conferences.
• BandAid Collection: Thank you to everyone that donated bandaids! We have a ton to send on to Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital. Students enjoyed watching our collection grow. 
• Coming up:
• Star Student - Angela Ragar
• Monday, March 7 - No School, Record’s Day
• March 8-9 - Parent/Teacher conferences
• Wednesday, March 9 - PE Day
• March 11 - Read and Feed Day 
• March is Reading Month: We enjoyed an assembly to kick of reading month this week. Our theme is Reading is Sweet, a CandyLand theme. Be sure to ask your child about Grandma Nutt’s appearance at our assembly. No need to keep track of the items on the calendar sent home. We will keep track of participation items in class. 
• Read and Feed: Thank you to those of you that donated items already for our snack mix on our Read and Feed day. We are all set with Goldfish and Pretzels. A few others ideas of items that we could use for our mix include: gummy bears, marshmallows, teddy grahams, Chex or Crispix cereal, and m&m’s. Your child may bring a small blanket, small pillow and/or a small stuffed animal. NO sleeping bags please. He/she must be able to carry everything on their own. They may also bring 3-5 books from home if desired. And your child may wear PJs as well!
• Reading: This week we worked on practicing all of the strategies we have been working on that good readers do by practicing one book that we read to a kindergarten friend today. We enjoyed practicing the words, and reading for fluency.  
• Writing: We continued our work on small moment topics this week as we learned how to add leads to our stories, as well as endings. We also worked on adding ellipses to our stories. 
• Math: We completed our interim math assessment this week. We starting our work with numbers through 120. We worked on counting larger amounts using groups of 10, and practiced writing and working with numbers through 120. 
• Social Studies: We completed out Me on the Map geography unit. Most students have mastered their address. A few students still need to work on learning this. 

For your children,

~ Holly R. Mueller

Reading is SWEET

We kicked off March is Reading Month with an assembly on Wednesday, and reading to kindergarten friends today. Enjoy!

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