Sunday, November 28, 2010

First Grade Photos!

Wow! November was FULL………lots of reading, learning, counting, cutting, coloring, gluing, laughing, working…well you get the picture! We had a fabulous month in Room 123.  I am so thankful for all of your precious children and the joy they bring me each and every day! Thank you for sharing them with me! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and didn’t eat too much! My family certainly enjoyed our time together! I have been working on some fun Christmas activities that I know the children will enjoy! Can’t wait to see all my sweet friends in the morning!

Oh…..how about that game?……..War Eagle!:)

Take a look at some of our November events!

           Turkeys In Disguise!

 

              Career Day!

 

             Guest Readers! 

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Auburn Raptors & November Happenings

Gobble, Gobble………

I heard there may be some turkeys looking for a place to hide…….come to Room 123 on Monday! I can’t wait to see everyone’s disguise!

I hope everyone has enjoyed their long weekend.  I FINALLY remembered with the help of some of my first grade friends to send home Poetry Notebooks on Friday.  I hope you  have had a chance to look through these together.  We certainly do enjoy reading, singing, and talking about them in Room 123.  Please return Poetry Notebooks to school Monday.

We have been talking about the First Thanksgiving this whole month, this week we will make a flow chart with illustrations of the First Thanksgiving.  We will also be discussing the differences in Thanksgiving today and the First Thanksgiving.  At the end of the week we will wrap up our Thanksgiving unit by making a Blessings Mix.  I will send the recipe home along with what each item in the mix represents, be sure and ask your first grader about it.  You will be surprised at what all they have learned.

Our focus sound in reading this week is /k/ as in kangaroo, word wall words this week are:  couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t & think.

In Language we will begin Rule 11 of our DOL rules, learning about VERBS.  We will continue to practice all other rules we have learned so far this year in correcting our DOL sentences.

Math……I don’t know if you have heard but each first grader in Room 123 has their very own  Daily Calendar notebook!  These have very quickly become a favorite in our class and I am so glad! The children use their notebooks and as a class we do our Calendar Math together every day.  It is a wonderful tool that covers a number of critical math skills, and the best part is we do all of the skills EVERY day.  Each month I will add an additional skill or two to our calendar.  Some of the skills we are currently working on are skip counting, writing number sentences, even and odd numbers, graphing, patterning, place value, using a hundreds chart, reading a tally chart, comparing and ordering numbers, and the list could go on.  At the end of every month I will send the calendar math papers home for that month.  It is my hope that you will use these papers to reinforce math skills at home.  We are continuing to work on memorizing addition and subtraction facts and creating a solid foundation of number concepts.

In other news…..

American Education Week spotlights the importance of providing every child in America with a quality public education, and the need for everyone to do their part in making public schools great. We have different activities taking place throughout this week ~ Monday – Each class will spotlight a different author, we will take a tour of the school to learn about many different authors.  Tuesday – Come dressed in a career that you may want to do one day.  Wednesday – Friday, I would like for the children to bring in a “favorite” picture book, we are going to share these and I am going to read each child’s favorite book to the class.  Also, if anyone would like to come and be a guest reader this week, we would love to have you.  Just pick YOUR favorite book and let me know a time that would work for you!  This is a GREAT group to read to, they love listening to books! YEA!!

Yearbook Pre-Sale is going on now.  From now until November 30th the yearbook is available for a discounted price of $20.00 per yearbook.  Make your checks payable to Blount PTA.

Monday, November 15th is Spirit Night at the Mellow Mushroom……yum! yum!

Tuesday, November 16th is the Blount PTA Holiday Market from 5:30 – 9:00 in the school cafeteria.  There will be more than 25 vendors selling holiday gifts for the whole family.  PLUS more than 25 raffle drawings to be given away.  Rumor has it there may be a first grade teacher selling some items……(wink)!

Friday, November 19th will be the last collection day for Adopt A Troop.  You may drop off your items in the AM carpool or place them in the yellow box in front of the office. Also be sure and turn in your PALA (President’s Active Lifestyle Award) sheets today!

Friday, November 19th we will collect BOX TOPS.  I hope everyone has been saving! I think I have quite a few at my house.  You may send them in anytime this week and I will turn them in on Friday.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Teach me to count…..and I will number my blessings!

Hugs!

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Happy, Happy Halloween!

Sound the sirens…..this class is HOT!

Happy November!

Wow! I can’t believe that it is already November! What a fabulous October our class had! Last week the Montgomery Fire Department brought out the “Smokehouse” and talked to us about Fire Safety.  Thank you to Jacob’s mom, Heather Jones for providing our class with a pumpkin! We had a wonderful time investigating, measuring, weighing and carving the pumpkin.  We named him “Smiley” and if you look at the pictures above you will know why.  :)

This week we are as busy as little turkeys!!

Reading – This week our focus sound is /r/ as in rabbit, and our word wall words  are:  want, wants, eat, three, ran. Be sure you are taking the time to practice the word wall words with your child.  I took a grade last week and as the words are beginning to get a little more difficult the children need to practice reading them more.

Math – We started Chapter 10 on tens and ones….however I have decided to back up some.  We are going to continue to focus on concepts of 10.  I want to make sure that the children understand the whole-part-part relationship of numbers.  We will also continue to practice our addition and subtraction facts.

Our Poetry Journal is gobbling good this week! We have been having a great time singing some new Thanksgiving songs and learning our new poem.  I have posted a large note to myself to remind the children to bring home their poetry journals this Friday.  Please take the time and let your child share their poetry journal with you.  I know you will enjoy it!!

Language – We are still working on capitalization, periods at the end of a sentence and nouns.

Our character education word for this week is ~ Patriotism.

Scholastic Book Order Forms went home on Monday.  If you would like to order from this month’s forms you may go online and enter the code: GQY4J or you may fill out the order form and send it in to me along with a check made payable to Scholastic by this Friday, November 5th. 

Make Up Pictures will be Tuesday, November 9th.

I hope you take the time to read the Aviator News that the PTA sends home.  The menu is located on the back, but it is FULL of all kinds of information about things going on at Blount!

ADOPT-A-TROOP ~The 2nd Graders will be collecting items to send to the strong men and women who serve our country and will be spending the holidays away from their loved ones.  You can help by sending in any of the items listed below:

canned meat          candy/gum      wet wipes      nuts     peanut butter crackers crystal light drink packs      toothbrushes    playing cards     magazines    lip balm

For a detailed list of other items you may donate look in your Aviator News!  There will be two drop off days:  November 5th in the morning and afternoon carpool and November 19 in the morning carpool only.  There will also be collection boxes in front of the office for collections.  Thank you for your donations!

The PTA is sponsoring a Holiday Market in the school cafeteria on Tuesday, November 16 from 5:30 – 9:00.  Come shop from over 25 home based businesses where there will be gifts for everyone that can’t be purchased in stores! There will also be more than 25 raffle drawings!!

Thank you so much for supporting Blount! Last month our Spirit Night at Chick Fil A ($135) and Jason’s Deli ($138) were both successful!

There will be two Spirit Night fund raisers in November! Mark your calendar for November 15th Mellow Mushroom and November 30th Baumhower Wings.  Yum!!

I hope you are having a wonderful week! 

No one can do everything, but everyone can do something!

Hugs!!