Yoga

Every Tuesday, we incorporate our health standards into our CREW and throughout our day.  We have been working on smart food choices (red light, yellow light and green light foods) as well as making sure we get plenty of exercise each day. 

Today, Coach Wendy (Run Club Coordinator) came in to lead us in yoga.  The kids were really engaged and enjoyed learning new things.  Check out this article on the benefits of yoga in the classroom.  Today's focus was all about stress relief, relaxation and helping us calm down. 

Please ask your student about his/her favorite yoga pose!

Birthdays

We love to celebrate birthdays in first grade!  We know it is a special day.  If you choose to send in a snack, please follow these guidelines:

~single serving, tree nut and peanut free treat (cupcakes, donuts, cookies are fine) or make it healthy and send in a small toy or prize (pencil, stickers, bouncy ball)
~all snacks should be the same (please do not send in variety packs or chocolate & plain as this leads to sad feelings)
 ~no cake that I would need to cut
~please provide napkins
~invitations can only come to school if all children in the class are invited
~these snacks will be served during our normal snack time (1 or 1:20 pm)

Our Kick-off of Everybody Has a Story

Grab your gear, we are going on an expedition!
And the story begins....
Today we kicked off our learning expedition titled "Everybody Has a Story"!  Jonny, Kamryn's dad, came and told us a great story of Peter Pan.  The kids were mesmerized...

 

In our second case study, we will become familiar with the story elements through cheers, song, acting out and through independent, partner and small group practice. 

 In reading, we are working hard on reading strategies to help us figure out tricky words.  
*Look at the pictures
*Sound out words
We will continue to add to our list to include more strategies.  Students will be practicing these strategies in small group with me, independently during READ to SELF and at home with you through take home books.  We also worked hard on spelling this week.  Please make sure that you are practicing these spelling words (found at the homework tab) each night.

High Quality Work

We are diving into high quality work as part of our first case study for our Learning Expedition: "Everybody Has a Story".   Students are sharing about themselves through oral communication and drawing a high quality self portrait. As first graders, we realized this is a lot of work that takes a lot of perseverance.  

First, we had Mrs. Fisher, our art teacher, come as an expert to teach us about how to even start a self portrait. 

On days 1 & 2, we used YouTube to help us with a step by step plan using a mirror to complete our rough draft of our self portrait.  As artist, we used both our eyes and our hands to observe our facial features.








On day 3, we conferred with a friend using the model...

"I noticed...."
"I wonder...."
to give constructive feedback.  This allowed us to revise some of our drawings by adding and removing some things.

Lastly we transferred our rough draft onto our final draft copy.  We have had to show GREAT perseverance.  This week, we will be adding the final touches with color techniques such as blending and shading.

Tie Dye Week

What a fun three day week!  We continue to discuss routines and procedures.  We have created our classroom norms..... 

This week we talked about healthy food choices.
~Green light foods - foods that we can eat all the time and help us keep going
~Yellow light foods - foods that we eat once or twice a day to keep us healthy
~Red light foods - foods that we eat once in a while as a special treat

 We had so much fun tie dying our yellow shirts!  These will come home on or with your child on Monday. Thank you for sending in the correct writer's notebooks and a big thank you to those of you who sent in extras to donate to our class.  

Thank you again for getting your child to his/her scheduled time on Assessment Days!  This gave me a lot of information to drive my instruction.

First Week!

We had a great first week of school!  Thank you to all the parents who attended Back to School Night.  I always love sharing the information about our year.

This week, we practiced routines, routines, routines!  The students learned the expectations of the: lunchroom, bathroom, hallway, playground, CREW and classroom.  We are practicing a lot so that we know exactly what to do!  We will continue to build relationships next week by talking about friendship skills and CREW.

Please remember that we only have 3 days of school next week due to Assessment Days being on Thursday and Friday.  We will have P.E.(continue to wear athletic shoes) and technology on Monday.  We will go to music on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Please send in a labeled white t-shirt and Primary Notebook by Monday, August 18 if you haven't already.

The First Day of School is here!!!

Ms. Chris (1st Grade Educational Assistant), Ms. Rivera, Mrs. Schumacher & Mrs. Lysinger

We are all ready for the first day of school!  We are so excited for the learning and growth that will happen this year in first grade.  If you didn't get a chance to bring in your student's supplies, please bring them tomorrow.  Remember to pack a healthy snack (fruit or vegetable please) and a water bottle. 
These first weeks of school will be about building relationships and routines.  This will lead to a strong first grade community!  Thank you for helping your child get lots of rest and a healthy breakfast!

See you tomorrow!