Halloween Fun!

What a wonderful way to start our day! It worked our great on our end to have our party first. Coming in costume really helped to start our day on the right foot. I hope it worked out well for all of you also. The party ran incredibly smoothly today. Students were engaged at every station, and we had many helping hands. Thank you to everyone who donated supplies for the party, as well as those that donated their time to help today. A big thank you to Katie Terpstra for organizing the party as well. Please feel free to share any feedback you have in regards to having the party first thing this morning. For those trick-or-treating tonight, have fun! I heard on the news this morning that the past four Halloweens have had rain or snow. What a beautiful night ahead! Enjoy the pictures below.

Turkey Trot

Congrats to our runners! 

Weekly Update

What an amazing fall weekend! I hope you were able to get outside to enjoy it. Please see a few quick updates below:

Coming up:

• Star Student: Logan Dirkse
• Monday, 10/24 - Friday, 10/28: MSU vs. UofM Coin War. Please send in your loose change!
• Friday, October 28: U of M school spirit day. Oops, I mean U of M or MSU school spirit day! :) 
• Monday, October 31: Halloween Party at 9am
• Friday, November 4: Early Release Day
• Wednesday and Thursday, November 9-10: Parent/Teacher Conferences (be sure to return your confirmation slip ASAP)

What we have been working on:

• Reading: We started our work with reading partners last week. We also worked on comparing two books, incorporating our vocabulary word, and searched for words that make the /o/ sound as in boat, rode, and tow and recorded them in our reader's notebooks. 
• Writing: Last week we continued work on our small moment stories. I am amazed by the work I am seeing! Continue to encourage your child to "say as they write" anytime they are writing at home. Their practice is paying off.  This coming week we will wrap up our first story, move onto a new story, and work on adding details to sentences. 
• Math: We will be wrapping up unit 2 this coming week. We are projected to take our unit 2 test this Friday. Your child will bring home their unit 2 review on Thursday. Please plan to spend some time reviewing and practicing some of the problems Thursday evening. Whiteboards are a great way to do this. 
• Science: We wrapped up our study of matter this week. Your child may have asked to become a scientist at home by exploring magnets, or seeing if things sink or float!
• Vocabulary: Or word of the week was compare, to find likeness in two or more things. 
• WEB Books: I hope this has been a successful experience for your child. Continue to have your child read each night, and return and select a new book daily. We have a few students who need to become more regular with this. I am in the process of assessing student levels for report cards. Some students may bump up a level, some may bump up several levels. Students are usually quite excited when they do, so I am sure they will let you know! 
• Whiteboard Practice: To extend our practice reading and writing words with the /o/ sound, we discussed the concept of homophones this week. Homophones are words that sound the same, but are spelled differently and mean different things. We looked at the words rode and road. When we said the sounds in each word it was exactly the same, however when we started spelling it out it was different! To help us understand the meanings and to be sure we could remember the spellings,  we first put a dot under each 1-letter sound and a dash under each 2-letter sound. Then we drew a picture next to each word. To wrap up, we wrote a sentence trying to use both words in the correct context! (see picture) This would be a great activity to do at home with other homophones such as: ate/eight, be/bee, to/two, or any others! Be sure your child is saying those sounds out loud as they write each word in their sentence. Also be sure to correct handwriting and spelling errors! 

• Halloween Reminder: Our party will be taking place first thing in the morning at 9am. Students are asked to wear their costumes to school that day. This should be over their clothes. Once the party is over, students will remove their costumes and place them in their backpacks. (Any parents in attendance may take costumes home.) Any questions, please let me know. 

Weekly Update

Last week absolutely flew by! Here is a quick update:

Coming up:

• Star Student: Hannah Blaskowski
• Monday, October 31: Halloween Party at 9am
• Friday, November 4: Early Release Day
• Wednesday and Thursday, November 9-10: Parent/Teacher Conferences

• Halloween Information: Our party will be taking place first thing in the morning at 9am. Students are asked to wear their costumes to school that day. This should be over their clothes. Once the party is over, students will remove their costumes and place them in their backpacks. (Any parents in attendance may take costumes home.) Any questions, please let me know. 
• Library Books: We had many students not return library books this past week. Please be sure to have your child return library books each week. Our library day is Thursday. 
• Vocabulary: Our word this past week was RETELL. Have your child practice retelling their WEB book to you this week. 
• Reading Workshop: Going along with our vocabulary word of the week, we practiced retelling our books this week. We also practiced using our reading finger, and sliding our finger while reading. 
• Writing Workshop: We selected topics for a small moment story. We made a plan across pages for our story, and wrote our first two pages. 
• Math Workshop: We practiced the addition strategy of counting on last week, and we began learning subtraction strategies. 
• Science: We started our science unit "Properties of Matter." We have learned about attributes, sink and float, and started exploring magnets. 
• Whiteboard Practice Idea: This week we learned about 4 different spelling for the /k/ sound: c   k   ck   ke

Here is an activity you two can do together!
Have your child say and write these four spellings for this sound on the top of their board.

Have your child go on a hunt for the /k/ sound around the house. When they find something, have them say as they write the word in the middle of their boards. You will stop them to error correct any misspellings that occur.
Then ask your child to either dot or dash the letter(s) that make the /k/ sound. Ask them what column it belongs in. Erase the word, and have them say as they write the word in the correct column. Remember to stop and correct them if any errors are made.

We've got spirit!

Between maize and blue day, popcorn, and the pep assembly this morning, I am sure you can imagine the excitement and energy that is in 1st grade today!

Thank you to everyone for sending in your $3 donation to our class parties for the year. If you have not sent your money in yet, please next week.

We have had several water bottles coming in that are not spill proof. If your child has to unscrew a lid to drink it, or if water can spill when the lid is off, please leave the bottle at home. Thank you for your understanding with this!

Coming up:

• Star Student: Mitch Behler
• Friday, October 14: Early Release Day
• Monday, October 31: Halloween Part 9:00am

Here's a quick update on what we have been up to in 1st grade:

• Reading Workshop: We have been using our Reader's Notebooks to record sound that begin with the /w/ sound, spelling /w/ and /wh/. We also practiced using and sliding our reading finger when reading. Ask your child to show you their reading finger and ask why we use it. Then have them use it while reading their WEB books! I hope the first week os WEB books has gone well for all of you. We have been reading James and the Giant Peach as a class. They are loving this book so far. Ask your child to retell what we have read so far. 

• Writing Workshop: We wrote a class story this week about the Walk-a-thon. We will select our own topics to write about next week. 

• Vocabulary: Our word of the week was IDENTIFY. Ask your child what this word means. Try to use it in conversation at home!

• Math: We had our first full week of math workshop this week. We learned the strategy of "counting on" to solve addition equations. Thank you to all of the parents that have volunteered to help during math workshop. So far it has been incredibly beneficial! 

• Science: Coming up next week we will begin studying matter with our first science unit. 

• Whiteboard Practice Idea: We have been focusing on the two ways to spell the sound /w/. On our whiteboards, we have identified those two ways as "w" and "wh." Set up the whiteboard with both of these spellings. (*see picture) With your child, go on a word hunt through their WEB books or books from home to find words that will fit under each heading. Be sure your child is saying the sounds as they write each word! Discuss the patterns they notice (a big one is that "wh" is most commonly found at the beginning of a word). 

• Reminder: Don't forget to encourage appropriate handwriting! They should be starting their letters from the TOP and moving down. If they make a mistake, they need to correct it right away. Any time a reversal is done, please erase and have them write it again. You can model the appropriate letter formation for them first and then have them try it! 

Have a wonderful weekend!

First Grade Happenings

Thank you to all of the parents that were able to come to our 1st Grade Literacy Night. The feedback we received indicated it was a helpful evening of learning. I have loved hearing students coming in each morning sharing ways they have used their whiteboards at home. Thank you for encouraging this. It is obvious that we have a class full of families dedicated to their child's success!

For those of you that were unable to attend, I would be happy to set up a time to meet with you to go over the information and give you a whiteboard bundle for your child. 

Your child is bringing home their Data Notebook for the first time today. This is where assessments are housed for the year. It will coming home about every two-three weeks, as long as their are new documents inside. Please note the writing assessment is a pre-assessment. This is to have a before and after comparison. Be sure to place the notebook right back in your child's backpack, and return it to school on Monday. 

Also, there is a Christmas coloring picture in your child's folder. This is a coloring contest to advertise for the parade. If your child would like to participate in the contest, please have him/her return the picture by next week Friday. The city will collect these from us. 

Coming Up: 

• Star Student: Myles Beach
• Friday, October 7: Maize and Blue Day and Popcorn Day
• Friday, October 14: District Early Release Day
• Monday, October 31: Halloween Party, 9-9:45am

Halloween Party: Please note that our party will take place October 31st, 9-9:45am. Bauer is dividing up grade levels to morning and afternoon parties to help with parking lot crowding. By having our party first thing, your child will be able to put their costume on over their clothes before school and wear their costume to school (costumes will come off at the end of the party). This should help make it easier here at school for students to be ready (and I know many parents will love taking pictures of their children in costumes before school!). Katie Terpstra is asking for each family to donate $3 to cover party expenses for the year - that is only $1 per party! Please send your money to school this next week if possible. Many thanks to Katie for her help in planning, and to all of you that have already volunteered to help! 

Reading: We finished up reading The Chocolate Touch this week, and began a new book: James and the Giant Peach. I chose this book because Jenison High School will be performing this play, and I thought that would be a great connection for families that choose to attend the show. 

In reading workshop this week we talked about thinking of what words might be in the book before we begin reading, as well as making a movie in our mind while we read. We also looked for words with /ch/ and /tch/ in our books and recorded them in our reader's notebooks. 

Writing: We started a whole class story about the walk-a-thon. We thought of a plan for our story using 5-fingers (first, next, then, after that, finally), then we drew our pictures across our 5 pages, and now we have started writing our story. We will continue writing it next week. 

Vocabulary: Our word this week is describe. Ask your child what this word means. They can even sing the song for you! It is also on the Bauer Elementary blog. We learned about this word this week by describing a lemon. We also drew a lemon and wrote words to describe it. We also played a guessing game where someone describes something, and the others have to guess what the item is (for example: "I am thinking of an animal. It has 4 legs. It lives on a farm. It likes mud. What animal did I describe?" This is a game you could play at home too. 

Math: We wrapped up Unit 1 and spent the week getting ready to begin Math Workshop with Unit 2 - addition and subtraction strategies. We will have 3 groups that rotate during math time - one group meets with me, one group works in their math journal, one group plays math games. It is a nice way to move students at their pace in math, and it allows me to work more closely with students. This week we learned and practiced the routines for workshop. We also learned how to play the games that will be played during Unit 2. Today was our first lesson in our new unit. 

Whiteboard Practice Idea:

I have heard a lot of excitement from students who have been using their whiteboards for writing at home. Thank you for encouraging this! 

Here are two things you can have your child try at home using their whiteboard. 

1. Have them first tell you how many sounds (not letters) are in his/her name. They can use their fingers as they stretch it out. Then have them write their name. Have them place a dot under one letter spellings for sounds, and a dash under 2-4 letter spellings. Ask them if their prediction matched the actual number after it was written. Repeat for other family member's names. See photo for how this would look. 

2. This week we have done two different sorts on our white boards. These both make the same sound, but they have a different spelling: /w/ and /wh/ was the first, and /ch/ and /tch/ was the second. Pick one of these pairs of sounds. Have your child write them on top of their board. Then while they are reading a book, they can record any works they come across with those spelling patterns in their story. Don't forget to remind your child to "say as you write"!

Have a wonderful weekend!

First Grade Happenings

It is kind of hard to believe that we have been together in 1st grade for only 14 school days. I feel like we have already connected as a class, and are rolling right along. This is a really fun group. They've definitely captured my heart already! 

Be sure to check out our Walk-a-thon pictures on the blog. 

Thank you for your work with returning library books by Thursday. We were the only class to have all of our books returned on time. Good work!

Coming up:

• Star Student: Nora Schreur
• Monday, September 26: 1st Grade Literacy Night - 6:30pm
• Friday, October 14: Early Release Day

Here's what we have been up to in 1st grade:

• Reading: We are falling into a grove with reading workshop. I was able to wrap up assessments this past week. Students will be selecting new books this week. We have been reading the book, "Chocolate Touch" during our read aloud time. This is such a fun book to start the year with. Ask your child to tell you what is wrong with John Midas. We will be wrapping up the book this week. 
• Vocabulary: Starting this week, our school will be learning a vocabulary word each week. We will be studying this word together. Our word for the upcoming week is: describe. As the week goes on, ask your child what this word means, and look for opportunities to point out the use of the word in real life situations. 
• Writing: We have been learning about small moment topics, how to plan a story, and how to draw "ish" pictures when we write (ask your child what those are!). We are also working on various strategies such as "say as you write". Be sure to come to the 1st Grade Literacy Night on Monday to hear more!
• Math: We will be wrapping up our first math unit this week with our test on Monday. We will begin unit 2, addition and subtraction strategies, later this week. 
• Social Studies: We wrapped up our citizenship unit this past week. We will spend some time on leadership/7 habits lessons for the next two weeks, then dive into science. 
• Behavior Calendars: The purpose of sending these calendars home is to make you aware of where your child is landing on our clip chart. It sounds like overall this has been a helpful tool for parents. Please remember that GREEN is the average. Please do not expect to have your child above this color. That is just a bonus. 
• Volunteers: For those of you interested in volunteering, I have not forgotten about you! It takes some time to let the dust settle as the year begins. I will be contacting you this week with some possible times and opportunities. Thank you!

As always, please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns. Not only is this a great group of kids, I can already tell what a great group of parents you all will be to partner with this year. Here's to a great week 4!