A big thank you to our wonderful room moms for setting up the fall learning experience. We got to do a lot of exciting things like listening to fall stories, a bean bag toss, painting a fall tree, fall bingo, a yummy snack, and a word search. Thank you everyone who came in to help, we enjoyed having you there!

This week was all about bats! We filled up our schema by reading about bats.  We sure did learn a lot of neat information.  Instead of me telling you everything we learned, check out the Blabberize our class made this week.  This will tell you everything we learned about bats! Enjoy!

We also had to use our reading skills to find information. This came in handy when we were trying to label the different parts of a bat!

During math we practiced ways to count to 100. We counted by 1's, 5's, and 10's. We found that 10's was the fastest so this was the method we used when counting mosquitoes! Bats love to eat mosquitoes!!

In writing, we were introduced to "sparkle" words.  Sparkle words help us add more detail to our story.  We want our readers to be able to see our story in their minds.  The more detail we give our readers the better! We created sparkle webs this week on puppies and pizza.

We were super excited about the start of "Frankie the Frog" at the beginning of October. This week Frankie the Frog has begun visiting us all day and not just during the Daily 5. Frankie the Frog loves visiting first graders who have done an outstanding job of showing Panther Pride for the day! Congratulations to Caroline, Paul, Emma, and Saul for getting to hang out with Frankie the Frog this week! Great Job!

Enjoy the cooler weather and I will see you on Tuesday! Please remember "Parent Teacher Conferences" start on Monday!

Mrs. Donohue

This week was all about spiders! The spider theme was integrated into reading, writing, social studies, and science. Boy did we learn a lot! We enjoyed looking through the nonfiction books in our classroom.  We learned that nonfiction means Not Fake.  The spider books were definitely a hit in room 1417.

At the beginning of the week we made a Wordel of all the things that came to our mind when we thought of spiders. The words said most often appear the biggest on the picture.

Our schemas grew and grew this week!  The Wordel at the end of the week looked a lot different.  It included words like exoskeleton, joints, abdomen, wolf spider, and orb web. Most importantly we learned that spiders are not "creepy, scary, and gross!" 

This week we began a fall poetry book.  Each week we will add a poem to the book and eventually bring it home to share with our families. Our first poem was about spiders of course!  

We created our very own spiders and turned our favorite spider facts into a display in the first grade hall.  Come check it out!

We put on our hunting shoes and went on a spider/web hunt to end the week.  We started early in the morning, thinking there might be a good chance to see a spider. We were right! We saw orb webs, sheet webs, spiders, and even prey wrapped in silk.  It was a success. 

On top of all the learning about spiders, we also added two more chunks to our phonics song, took our first quarter math assessment, and learned how to add detail to our writing by watching a movie in our head! What a busy week!

Have a great week! Don't forget about our Fall Learning Experience on Friday!

Mrs. Donohue

Next week we will begin our school wide Red Ribbon Week.  Our theme if for students to realize all the choices they CAN make to stay drug free! I will explain to them as being healthy and making good choices in what they do, eat, and say to others.

Next week, Mills Park, will have daily activities that go along with Red Ribbon Week.

Monday: Pledges! The children will each get a red ribbon to put their name on pledging to live a healthy life.

Tuesday: students will receive red ribbon pencils.  We will write about different activities that we CAN do to lead a healthy lifestyle.

Wednesday: Stick with it day! The students will get stickers reminding them to stick to a healthy lifestyle.

Thursday: Dress up day! The students will dress in their favorite activity that allows them to live a healthy life: soccer player, gymnast, artist, jogger, etc.

Friday: I CAN be healthy! All students will get a bookmark to remind them about this week.

The school is doing a can collection during this week as well.  If you have any cans that you would like to donate please send them in any day next week.  The class with the most cans at the end of the week will earn an ice cream party!!

We CAN live healthy lives!!

This week we continued making connections in reading.  We practiced making self to text and text to text connections.  We know that a self to text connection is when the book reminds us about something we know about. A text to text connection is when a book reminds us of another book we have read.  We used Venn diagrams and Y charts this week when making text to text connections.  These charts helped us organize our ideas and see how alike and different the books were.

This week was our first official week of literacy centers.  Everyone did FANTASTIC!! The children get to visit three stations every day.  They can choose from the following:

Listening to Reading
They can listen on the computers or the listening center.

We started learning our hunk and chunk song this week! Our phonics program is based around learning 40 different "chunks" that can be found in words we read and write. These chunks each have a song to help us remember them, and each week we will be adding on to our song until we've 
learned them all! This week we learned SH and CH. We will learn 2 hunk and chunks every week.

In writing we continued to write about small moments from our lives.  The children are doing a great job using webs to help add detail to their stories. 

In math we ended our second unit. The children did a great job on their unit tests.  I will show you these during our parent teacher conferences. We ended the week with a scarecrow math project which you can see hanging in the first grade hall. Our next unit of study will concentrate on story problems.

In social studies we began our map unit.  The children loved exploring the atlases that were added to our classroom library. We explored some different maps and learned about symbols that are used in maps.

Thank you for checking in!
Mrs. Donohue

Our phonics skill this week was "bossy e."  He got his name because he likes to boss the other vowels around! The bossy e changes the vowel from short to long by saying "SAY YOUR NAME!"  The children really enjoyed screaming this as loud as they could! We practiced sorting, writing, and reading bossy e words all week long.

This week we were introduced to our final literacy station, Word Work.  At this station we practiced reading and writing words and sentences. We used magnets, white boards, playdough, stamps, markers, and word family cubes. The children loved this station!  We started out the week practicing it for 5 minutes.  They begged and begged to try it for longer, so by the end of the week we were up to 12 minutes! On Friday we had our first real practice with all 5 literacy stations.  They did GREAT!

In writing we are working on writing about small moments from our lives.  We started out the year writing "watermelon" topics.  These are large topics so we decided to zoom in one moment and create a "seed" story. (Ex: Instead of writing about a birthday party you can zoom in on your chocolate cake with strawberry frosting!) Writing a seed story will encourage us to stay on topic and include detail in our stories.  This week we worked on zooming in and creating a web with our seed topic.

 

In math we began talking about subtraction.  We learned that in subtraction the order of the numbers matters! We also learned that subtraction means taking something away.  At the end of the week we started a mix practice of both subtraction and addition story problems.  Our Unit 2 test will be next week!

We were super excited about two new additions to our classroom this week.  First, we welcomed Frankie the Frog.  Frankie the Frog will visit a star Daily 5 student each day.  Frankie the Frog enjoys visiting students who are working hard during our literacy stations.  Congratulations to Andrew, Ben, Olivia H. Felicia, and Hank for getting Frankie the Frog this week!

Another addition to our classroom is the shark! Thank you to our generous PTA for providing the classrooms with shark vacuums to share! We started a "clean up crew" at the end of the day to give the students the chance to use the shark if they wish. :)

Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Donohue

We have been in school for over a month already (wow!) so I have decided it is time for a change in our behavior system.  For the most part it will stay the same. The children will continue to receive coins and table points for positive behavior.  They will continue to receive warnings for inappropriate behavior and you will see how their day was on their daily calendar.  The only thing that is changing is the amount of warnings I am giving out.  If your child receives a warning it is just a reminder.  They will still bring home a smiley face on their calendar.  If your child receives two warnings for the same behavior they will get a straight face for the day. If your child is given three warnings for the same behavior they will get a sad face for the day.  They will also be bringing home a think sheet.  The think sheet is to be signed and returned to school the next day.  If your child brings home a think sheet they will fill out the paper and discuss their behavior with you at home that evening. They will only bring home the think sheet if they receive a sad face for the day. If you have any questions at all please let me know.

I just added a new math website to websites.  I was just introduced to it today and thought I would share. Enjoy!

Have a great week!
Mrs. Donohue