Happy Turkey Month!

Spelling words: or, for, form, more, store, sort, long, bring, your, and head
High Frequency words: animals, cold, fish, from, their, under, and very
Welcome November! First of all a big thank you to those of you who were able to help at the class Halloween party… and a huge thank you to our room parents for organizing everything! The kids had a blast and everything went very well!
In Storytown this week we are focusing on main idea and details as well at the “or” sound. These would be great things to work on as you read at home with your child!
We have been busy learning about story problems in math. We have worked with problems with two and three things added together and two things subtracted. When solving them we are focusing on “proving” our thinking through pictures, equations, words, and other strategies. As a class we have been practicing our adding and subtracting strategies of +1, -1, +0, -0, +2, and -2. We continue to work on skip counting to 30 by 2s and 5s to 50. (Skip counting by 2s has been tricky!)
In writing we have focused on descriptive writing. The fall has been our inspiration for these projects. This week we will be using our five senses to “experience” a special snack… and write about it using all of our five of our senses! We continue to work on writing 5 star sentences.
Spiders have been the topic of crawly discussion last week and this week. We will gather more interesting facts this week and make some of our own spider creations this week! We are practicing our graphing skills by asking the question… Are you afraid of spiders?
Reminders:
Book orders are due tomorrow November 8th.
“Saturday Morning” basket items for our PTO basket may still be brought in through Wednesday this week… don’t forget that if you are not able to send in an item they would love a breakfast recipe to include!
This Thursday students will have their health screening in the morning. This will happen at 9:20am.

Spelling 10-24 10-28

Spelling words: us, bus, must, cut, cub, club, with, then, don't, and says
High Frequency: be, does, food, grow, live, and many

Chilly Welcome into Fall!

Thank you so much for taking the time to come visit about your child’s progress in school at conferences. I enjoyed getting to see all of you! It’s hard to believe that we already have a quarter behind us. Here are a few academic notes from the week…
Thank you for continuing to read reading group books with your child at home. They should read this book through three times. During Storytown we have been focusing on words with the “th” sound. We have practiced building words with “th” in our spelling and in the class story Beth’s Job. It was fun that our story this week tied into our study of plants in science! We have also been working on story sequence and reading for details.
In writing we have been studying describing words. To start off we read the book Where the Wild Things Are. Each student designed and created a “wild thing” costume and mask. We then went back through the story to find describing words the author used to describe the wild things. Next week we will be coming up with describing words and action words that describe our own creations… and then it will be time for a wild rumpus! Studying the season of fall has also been inspiring our creative writing.
We wrapped up our study of plants this week. We have studied the parts of seeds, parts of plants, and the life cycle of plants. Next week we will begin talking about bats and spiders. We will talk about facts and habitats for each creature!
This week we have focused out studies on fact families and the commutative property. (5+3=3+5) We even created our own fact family houses to show what we have learned! I also wanted to clarify a few MAPs terms you may see on our daily practice sheets when they come home. When we work on word problems you will see PT+, TA-, and C- . PT+ means to put together add two or more things in a story problem. TA- means to take apart subtract alike things from a story problem. C- means to compare two different things… for example when you hear “how many more”, you would need to subtract to find the answer. I hope this helps clear things up a little!
Next week is Red Ribbon Week! A pink flyer came home today with all of the festivities for this fun week. If you have any questions please let me know!
Our room parent Mrs. Banfield is still looking for help with help both in items, snacks, and people who can come help for our fall party! If you can help please contact her at: mab1224@hotmail.com or (913) 708-4486. (Mary Banfield)

Spelling October 17-21

Spelling Words: then, them, this, that, path, with, ten, get, said, was

Enjoy your fall break!

I hope you are enjoying your fall break! Looking forward to seeing you at conferences this week.

Spelling week of October 3-7

Spelling: set, sent, ten, tell, let, get, all, call, make, of
Sight Words: day, said, eat, first, time, was

Happy End of September!

September 29th, 2011
Believe it or not September is almost over! Next week is our last week in class before your fall break. Today your child came home with a form called “Pre-Conference Form”. Please take a few minutes to fill in and return with your child by Wednesday October 5th. These forms allow me to have things ready, if needed, to support you at home with your child. Also, if you have not signed up for a conference time October 12th or 13th, please let me know as soon as you are able. Thank you! I am looking forward to sharing your child’s work so far this year!
We began book clubs last week and your child has been bringing books home that they have read in class. Your child has worked hard on skills and words in this book and should be able to read it independently. All you need to do is listen and sign their yellow Book in a Bag form! In Storytown we have been working on the –all word family. Keep practicing sight words at home. We will continue to practice in class and test every Wednesday.
In math we have been working very hard on addition and subtraction strategies. We began to practice vertical problems and identifying equal equations. We have also been working on measuring with standard and non-standard measurements to measure objects in our room and shapes we have been learning!
We continue to study about seeds… we even planted our own in our classroom! Each child planted seeds in a baggie on the window and in dirt. We wonder which will grow best?! Thank you so much for sending in apples! We had fun observing the outside and inside… and tasting these fall favorites! Beginning tomorrow we will start sampling some “apple” things. Our study of plants will continue into next week and into the second quarter.
Just to let you know:
At the end of October for our class party on the 31st, the first grade will be dressing up as “describing words”. I will be giving you more information at conferences.

Amber Crooker