We are marching on to the end of 2019. We have a busy week ahead as we get ready for our two week winter break. We are finishing up some of our units. Word Detectives are finishing their final cases during both reading and word work (phonics). Last week we talked more about "unusual" words including contractions and compound words. We are on the lookout for both types of words in the books we are reading.
In writing students are finishing up their How-To books. They will be bringing home some of their work this week. Last week students worked on steps 2, 3 and 4 in their final books and tried to stretch each step to give as many details as possible. In math we are working on fact families. Students take 2 numbers and add them together. They then show the four equations in that fact family. For example, if the numbers were 3 & 5 the final number would be 8. The equations would be 3+5 = 8, 5+3 = 8 (flip it!), 8-3 = 5 and 8-5 = 3. Speaking of families we are finishing up our families and traditions unit too. Lexia - I understand there was some misinformation for logging into Lexia. Amanda sent out a correction in the Glencoe Newsletter but here is the information again: Student Home Access for TechSmart Applications in the PPS Student Portal: Student Email: first initial + last name + last 4 digits of student ID @student.pps.net Student Password: student 2 digit birth month followed by 2 digit birth date (example: April 1st would be 0401) TechSmart Applications work best in the Chrome Browser. If using iPad, individual applications need to be downloaded. For further questions, please contact Sarah Carlson, TechSmart Coach, at Glencoe: [email protected] Lexia is a great way to keep working on skills during winter break! Announcements When we come back in January we will be working with an artist in residence - Andy from Red Yarn. Each first grad class will work on a folk song and create puppets to go along with the song. We will be needing volunteers to help with the puppet making - I will post this on Konstella. We are also ready for volunteers to come and read with students. These days and times will also be posted on Konstella. Important Dates Wednesday, December 18 Assembly - Taiko Drums, 9:30 am - 10:15 Friday, December 20 Pajama Day Friday, December 20 Flop and Read, 1:30 pm - 2:15 pm Monday, December 23 Winter Break Begins Monday, January 6 First day back in 2020
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One of this week's highlights was working with Aziza's dad to do our part for the first grade art auction project. Students worked with watercolor paint and found their inspiration to create pictures and shapes in shades of blue with other pops of color. You can see photos of the artists at work on the photos page. I can't wait to see the final project!
Our mentor text last week for our family unit was Patricia Polacco's When Lightning Comes in a Jar. The story celebrates the author's memories of family reunions and led to our conversation about family traditions. Students identified two traditions mentioned in the book and two of their own family traditions for their story response. In writing students worked on their final How To story and wrote and illustrated their introduction and the first step of their text. They are working hard to use all that they have learned to make their books. We will continue adding steps this week. A fun word work activity this week was discovering "letter twins" - words like mitten and pillow. Students practiced dividing words between the double letters and decoded and blended each part to read the words. You can see photos of this activity on the photo page as well. Students then searched for examples in their own books and were able to generalize that letter twins need to be consonants rather than vowels and that they are in words with more than one syllable. Word Detectives at work! Important Dates Tuesday, December 10 PTA Meeting, 8:15 am - 9:15 am Wednesday, December 18 Assembly - Taiko Drums, 9:30 am - 10:15 Friday, December 20 Pajama Day Friday, December 20 Flop and Read, 1:30 pm - 2:15 pm Monday, December 23 Winter Break Begins I hope everyone enjoyed a restful Thanksgiving break. It is my favorite time of year - spending time with family and having the opportunity to reflect on all I am grateful for. I am truly thankful for the opportunity to meet with you all last week to talk about some of my favorite people. I am so proud of all they have accomplished in three short months and loved having the chance to share that with you. I am also extremely thankful for the generous donations of credits to the book fair. I was able to buy 14 books for our classroom - I was excited to find some new nonfiction books and some graphic novels for younger readers. Thank you, thank you, thank you! We have a busy three weeks until winter break. Students will be writing a final How To text that they will then present to the class. In reading we will continue building our strategies and learning about more spelling patterns. Our word detectives are experts at spotting the silent e so we will keep practicing and also start noticing other vowel combinations. In math we will be exploring fact families. This is a great way for students to understand the relationship between addition and subtraction. We are still collecting family photos if you haven't had a chance to send one in. You can email me a photo and I can print it and put it on our family board. We are working with the book, The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant to make connections, practice our inferring and as a jumping off point for talking about our own family traditions. Important Dates Tuesday, December 3 1st grade Art Auction project with Aziza's dad Tuesday, December 10 PTA Meeting, 8:15 am - 9:15 am Friday, December 20 Pajama Day I am sorry I didn't get a blog post out last week - I have been battling this persistent cough and last weekend was a rough one. I feel like things are moving in the right direction now!
I am really looking forward to meeting with everyone next week. If you haven't had a chance to sign up for a conference please contact the office. They are the keepers of the master schedule and can let you know what times are open. I am sending home reminders this week so if that time no longer works for you - the office can help you schedule a different time. In reading we continue our work as Word Detectives. This week we have been focusing on snap words (sight words) that we can read "in a snap" and how to use these words to figure out new words. Our phonics works is still settled around words with silent e. Students have been on the look out for words that follow the long vowel/silent e rule and collecting them for our posters. This also provides good opportunities to talk about words that don't fit the pattern. In writing we are continuing our How To books, writing step by step directions for activities we are experts at doing. In math we continue our work with strategies for addition and subtraction. We have been practicing counting on, counting back, making 10 and doubles. After our work with doubles we will be learning about how to use these facts to solve doubles +/- 1. We are still collecting photos for our family bulletin board. We would love to have everyone on the board so please let me know if I can help in any way! Tuesday, November 19 8:15 am Principal's Coffee Tuesday, November 19 5:30 pm A Race Matters Discussion @ Tabor Space Monday, November 25 Parent/Teacher Conferences Tuesday, November 26 Parent/Teacher Conferences Monday, November 25 Scholastic Book Fair Tuesday, November 26 Scholastic Book Fair Wednesday - Friday November 27-29 No School November is underway and promises to move quickly! There will be a few adjustments to our regular routines and then of course the days off for Veteran's Day, parent conferences and Thanksgiving. If you haven't had a chance to sign up for a conference please contact the office. They have a master schedule and can let you know of available times. I am looking forward to meeting with everyone!
During Readers Workshop this week we have been practicing our inference skills - using clues in the story to help us understand what is happening. One of our target skills is to cite evidence in the story to support our thinking. This week we focused on the character's feelings and how we know how they might be feeling. This also became our second See Saw activity where after reading the story, Chrysanthemum, students looked at a picture from the story and described the character's feelings and support their answer. Almost everyone has updated their journals so be sure to check them out! In math we are focusing on different strategies for solving addition and subtraction equations. We have been practicing counting on, counting back, using doubles and making ten. We are getting ready to start a new social studies unit about Family. We are going to create a focus board in the classroom and would love to add photos of our families. If you would like to participate please send in a small photo that we can put on the bulletin board. You can also email me the photo and I can print it at school. Tuesday, November 5 PTA Meeting, 6:30 pm Friday, November 8 Art Infusion Activity - Part 2 Monday, November 11 No School - Veteran's Day Tuesday, November 12 Art Infusion Training, 6:30 pm You will have noticed your child brought home some of their work from our first unit on narrative writing. I know they were very excited to share their stories with you! We will be starting our next unit on How-To writing this week. We will start with generating lists of topics where we can teach the steps for how to do something to others.
We started our newest reading and phonics units. We have been enlisted by the Super Secret Detective Agency to become Word Detectives. Our first two missions involved stopping when we see a problem (a word that is tricky) and use everything we know to solve it. We started our first technology project this week using See Saw. We read the story, Kindness is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler and then came up with two ways we could show kindness during the week. Students typed their ideas and some recorded themselves reading their writing. I will be sending home a letter that describes how you can connect with your child's journal. On Friday we had our first session for the current Art Infusion project. Students used clay to create a leaf shape using an actual leaf to make an imprint for the shape and details. We have our next session on Friday, November 8th when we will apply the glaze. I am so impressed with how well everyone did - I know these we be just gorgeous! I've posted a few photos of the artists at work. The end of the grading period is Thursday, October 31st. I will be at a science training that day and there is no school Friday, November 1st. Wednesday, October 30 Wednesday Morning Meeting, 8:20 am Friday, November 1 No School – Teacher Planning Day Tuesday, November 5 PTA Meeting, 6:30 pm Friday, November 8 Art Infusion Activity - Part 2 Monday, November 11 No School - Veteran's Day Tuesday, November 12 Art Infusion Training, 6:30 pm Visiting the Apple Festival at our neighbor, The Portland Nursery, was a highlight of our week. We walked over with our 3rd grade buddies and watched them press apples into a delicious juice. We then went into the tasting tent to sample so many different kinds of apples! After watching a juggling performance everyone selected an apple to take home and we also got a bag of popcorn! There is no wonder this is a 1st grade favorite!
In writing we are finishing up our narrative unit. Students selected their favorite piece and have been working to edit and revise their story. We looked at a mentor texts to see how the authors used interesting words and details to enhance their writing. We are trying to remember to use mainly lowercase letters in our writing. The only time we use an uppercase letter is at the beginning of a sentence and for proper nouns. You can help your child by practicing this when writing at home. We celebrated the end of our first reading unit by getting new bookmarks that list the different strategies we have been learning. Students will use these to set goals and practice during their independent reading. Thursday, October 24 Picture Retakes Friday, October 25 Art Infusion Activity - Part 1 Friday, October 25 Run for the Arts Make Up, 8:45 - 9:15 Friday, October 25 Book Order Due Friday, October 25 Harvest Festival, 5:30 - 7:30 pm Friday, November 1 No School – Teacher Planning Day Tuesday, November 5 PTA Meeting, 6:30 pm What a fun week! Two of my favorite days were combined into one with Rainbow Day and Run for the Arts on Thursday. I was so happy the weather cooperated and everyone had a great time. Sponsor sheets were sent back home on Thursday. After students have collected their pledges they bring both the pledge sheets and money back to school.
In science we continue to discuss the idea that the sun, moon and stars change position in the sky in ways that are fun to watch and predict. Last week students created models of the Big Dipper and used flashlights to explore the question, "Why do the stars come out at night?". We also started our final Picasso project where students are creating portraits that are inspired by his cubism period. Last week students drew the portraits and began to color the segments. We will finish that step and then apply a watercolor wash to create a crayon resist. As soon as they are finish they will be up on the bulletin board in the classroom for everyone to enjoy. Tuesday, October 15 Art Infusion Training, 6:30 - 8:00 pm Thursday, October 17 Apple Festival with Buddies, 9:30 - 10:00 Friday, October 25 Book Order Due Friday, October 25 Harvest Festival, 5:30 - 7:30 pm Friday, November 1 No School – Teacher Planning Day W e had our first Art Infusion lesson on Friday. We are so fortunate to have such amazing parent volunteers to come in and work with us. This month's lesson was inspired by the Ndebele houses of South Africa. Students created their own colorful houses using oil pastels. Some photos of our artists and volunteers in action are on the photo page and their beautiful artwork is on display outside our classroom. Stop by and take a look! Another exciting day was meeting our 3rd grade buddies! It was fun to get to know them a little bit and have another friendly face to say hi to at school. We got together to read – something we hope to do often! One of our favorite days is coming up - Run for the Arts! Sponsor sheets are due on Wednesday and they will then be sent back home with runners telling how many laps they ran. This is such a wonderful fundraiser for bringing more art activities to Glencoe, your support is appreciated! Rainbow Day is Thursday! First Grade wears blue! Tuesday, October 8 PTA Meeting 8:15 am Tuesday, October 8 Run for the Arts sponsor sheets due Wednesday, October 9 STOPPS bus safety 10:05 am Thursday, October 10 Run for the Arts - 9:25 - 9:55 am Thursday, October 10 Rainbow Day - 1st grade wears blue! Friday, October 11 No School Tuesday, October 15 Art Infusion Training, 6:30 - 8:00 pm Thursday, October 17 Apple Festival with Buddies, 9:30 Friday, October 25 Book Order Due Friday, October 25 Harvest Festival, 5:30 - 7:30 pm It was wonderful to see so many of you at Back to School Night! I loved having a chance to connect with families but I especially loved watching the excitement of the kids as they showed you all around their "home away from home". Sign up forms for parent/teacher conferences in November were also available that evening. If you were unable to attend please contact me or the office and we can get you on the schedule. The office would like me to let you know about a new Visitor/Volunteer Sign-in Process (Raptor) the district is rolling out to all schools. The first time will take more time but after that it should be pretty quick and easy. The process requires visitors/volunteers to provide a government-issued ID that is scanned into the system. Once the office has scanned your ID and they are approved (which happens instantly & one-time only) you can sign in using the Kiosk for your visits. We have a couple of fun events coming up - Run for the Arts and Rainbow Day. They are both set for Thursday, October 10th. First graders will be running in the morning from 9:25 - 9:55. We never know what the weather might bring so be sure to have your runner dress in layers just in case. They can also bring a water bottle. It will also be Rainbow Day and 1st graders wear blue! Wednesday, October 3 Wednesday Morning Meeting, 8:20 am Tuesday, October 8 PTA Meeting 8:15 am Wednesday, October 9 Run for the Arts sponsor sheets due Thursday, October 10 Run for the Arts - 9:25 - 9:55 am Thursday, October 10 Rainbow Day - 1st grade wears blue! Friday, October 11 No School Tuesday, October 15 Art Infusion Training, 6:30 - 8:00 pm Friday, October 25 Harvest Festival, 5:30 - 7:30 pm |
MS. SCHIADAI teach first grade in southeast Portland where every day brings a new adventure!
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