What a Day!

Thank you to everyone who made our day a huge success! 

Happy Halloween

We are having a Halloween breakfast tomorrow at 8:30am for the first graders. If you have been asked to bring something in, Marjorie will collect it in the office and send it down. 

We look forward to seeing you for our Halloween parade at 1:30.  The parade starts at 1:45 but we'd love help getting our costumes on!

Thanks!

Even or Odd

We have been learning all about even and odd numbers in math.  Even numbers are numbers where every one has a partner.  Odd numbers leave someone the "odd person out".  We have a lot of experience with odd numbers because it's hard to play partner games with a group of three.  What is tricky about even and odd numbers is that it's only the LAST number in a number that determines if it is even or odd.  We have been looking at numbers with 4, 5, and 6 digits to practice this skill- only the last number matters!  

We learn so much during our SWR time!  We are working to make sure we use what we know from our red words and word family words and use them in our writing.  If we need a red word in a story we are writing, we can use the word wall or tap it out.  We have so many resources to help us with our writing. 

Please remember to sign up for lunches.

Thanks! 

Halloween Week

Our WOW word this week is rapid-  to move quickly.  We discussed different times during the day when we moved rapidly.  We also discussed that the opposite of rapid would be slow. 

We are reading Franklin books this week to understand characters in stories.  Reading about the same character in a variety of books is fun!  We are anxiously awaiting our next Franklin story and have had fun answer the W questions about the stories we read. 

Our red work of the week is come.  We have two word families this week, ___in and ___im.  We are practicing writing words in these families along with the other word families we have learned.  I sent home this week's skills for SWR in homework folders today.  I thought it might be helpful for you to practice at home.  Students can tap out red words, write word family words or practice writing any letters. 

We have moved on to Unit 3 in math.  In Unit 3 we will learn about odd and even numbers, patterns we find in our classroom, and number patterns.  Today we practiced continuing a pattern with a partner.

We still do not have access to RAZ-Kids.  Please read with your child each night.  I'll let you know as soon as it's ready again.

Please sign up for lunch next week using the link below:
LUNCH MENU

Our Halloween breakfast celebration will be Thursday morning at 8:30am.  We would love for families to join us for the parade in the afternoon, we're hoping breakfast can be just for the first graders.  Thank you. 

Happy Monday! 

Writing and Editing

We have been awesome editors checking our own writing to make sure we have everything done correctly.  The stories we write are getting better and better!  

Today was a great day!  We had lunch in the classroom to celebrate some awesome behavior AND we had a Super Student celebration!  Congratulations to Nick for doing what's expected! 

Thoughtful Thursday

We had a wonderful day in Room 3 today!  We are working hard to use all of the reading, writing and math strategies we are learning.  Some of our favorite reading strategies are to use the picture, sound it out, make a guess and check to see if it makes sense and to make the beginning sound of the word we don't know. 

Exposure to reading is so imporant while children are learning to read.  Please make sure to read with your child every evening and continue to practice the sight words that were sent home in folders earlier in the year.  The more practice the better!  We are seeing AWESOME reading success this year as a result of the work you're doing at home.  Thank you so much for your continued support of our classroom efforts. 

Today, we took our Unit 2 math test.  Look for a copy of that in your child's folder tomorrow afternoon.  

We worked on writing stories and I had two students have lunch with me to celebrate their awesome behavior! 

We celebrated my birthday today in our room- the first graders were so sweet to remember that it was my birthday and said, "Happy Birthday" as soon as they walked in the door. 

CSD Spotlight

The Colchester School District and Town have a blog at
www.csdspotlight.org .  Signing up to receive this blog is a great way to stay up-to-date on what is going on in our entire community.  This blog features posts about each school in our district, different classrooms and individual student initiatives.  When you sign up, each time a post goes up, you will receive an email with the text content.  Visit our district blog and sign up today to stay informed.

This morning I shared an inspiring video with the first graders about members in our own community who are working hard to help children and have fun. If you haven't seen it yet,

 

this video from DHMC has gone viral and it a wonderful way to celebrate some of the amazing things that happen close to home.  My sister is a pediatric nurse at CHaD and tells us that CNN is flying in today to film  their own story on Maggie, the girl pictured above.  We LOVE learning about news stories that we have personal connections to.  We all had many stories about times a doctor and nurse at a hospital have helped us.  

Walk to School

We had a wonderful time walking to school this morning!  Your child has a goody-bag of walk-to-school supplies in their backpack this afternoon. 

Today we worked more with our new word family, __it.  We also practiced writing "qu" together.  Q's are very tricky to write we're learning! 

In math, we worked to write addition and subtraction number models.  We love to write number models about our favorite foods like cookies, donuts and cupcakes.  We are getting ready for our Unit 2 test at the end of this week. 

We read another No, David! story and identified how David was feeling during the story.  When we read and write, understanding and showing how the character feels is so important.  

We are writing reports on an important member of our community.  We started to use Haiku Deck to share these reports electronically.  We are enjoying learning about this new app. 

Please remember to fill out the lunch menu for next week! 

Marvelous Monday

I hope everyone enjoyed a nice, long weekend! It was fun to see some of you Friday afternoon at the community dinner. 

Our WOW word this week is impatient.  We were very successful thinking of times we are impatient and had fun using that word in sentences.  Our word family this week is the "it" family.  We are moving on to short "i".  We learned about the phonemes y, v, and qu.  Our red word is you. 

When we read, we are working to analyze characters in a story.  We are using the No! David! books to do this.  We had a  lot of fun working with that story today.  In writing we are working to add detail to our writing and edit our own stories.  When we edit, we check for punctuation, spelling and missing words. 

We are starting to write a report about an important Community member.  We will make a Haiku Deck presentation when we're done.  We're very excited!

Please sign up for next's week lunch menu below:
LUNCH MENU

A few upcoming events/details:

-Our RAZ-Kids subscription is currently expired.  We have sent a check and should be back up and running shortly!  I'll let you know as soon as that happens.

-Tomorrow is Walk to School day.  Buses will drop students off at the end of Greenwood Drive and we will walk to school together.  Please join us if you'd like to!

-Project Inside Out orders will be arriving Thursday.  We would love volunteers to help us unpack and sort items.

-You can watch education videos at www.brainpopjr.com  our username is porters point and our password is brainpop
Let me know if you need help logging in.

-Look for the X-tra Math informational flyer in your child's homework folder

-Miss Betsy, who works in our room in the afternoons, got engaged over the weekend!  We are so excited for her! 

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday, everyone! I hope you're enjoying this beautiful day!  We've been at school today working together district-wide to discuss how to implement new strategies into our daily routines that align closely with our new Common Core Standards.  It was a great day and I can't wait until Monday to start some new activities with the first graders. 

I know many of you are traveling this weekend- I hope you have a great time.

If you happen to be in Colchester this afternoon, please remember the Community Wellness Fair and Harvest Dinner.  It begins at 3:30 with dinner being served at 4:30.

Addition Number Models

In math we introduced addition number models.  We started by dropping 5 pennies into a cup and counting them.  Then, we dropped three more into the cup and counted UP from 5 to 8.  We practiced this many times and practiced writing number models together.  We also learned about the addition sign (+).  

Our Student of the Week this week is Amani!  We have enjoyed learning more about Amani as the week progresses.  She loves the color purple, would like to be a dentist when she grows up and she likes that she shares her toys.  (We like that about Amani, too!)

We learned about the Muslim holiday E'id this week as it was celebrated on Tuesday. Two students in our classroom celebrate this day so we heard first-hand about some traditions that are done to celebrate. We love learning about new things! 

The Colchester Community Harvest dinner is tomorrow afternoon!  We'd love to see you there!  

Have a great long weekend!   

Comparing Books

We've been working hard to find the main idea of stories and articles we're reading.  We read an informational passage called "Clean Water" and we read the book, Letting Swift River Go.  Before we read the story, we weren't sure how the two pieces of writing were connected, but after the story- we realized!  Both pieces were about people needing clean water to drink and how they got it.  We enjoyed our conversation about how the solutions to the problems were different, but the outcome was the same- clean water!  We also enjoyed that one was a non-fiction, short passage and one was a story.  

We are continuing to count coins in math.  Please help your first grader be ready for this skill by counting by 5's and 1's and counting coins at home.  If you draw coins on paper, ask your child to add the touch points if they'd like.  

During our reading lesson today we used our classroom document camera.  We LOVE our document camera because it allows everyone to see what one student is writing.  It is a wonderful way to share our work and writing.    

We read a new Time for Kids magazine today.  We learned more firefighters and their job. 

Please remember about our Community event on Friday afternoon at CHS.  We hope to see you there!
 

Community Wellness Fair and Dinner

This Friday, October 18th, the Colchester School District with the Town of Colchester is hosting a Community Wellness Fair and Dinner.  

The event is free and open to the public! The fair will host experts in fitness, nutrition, and general well-being for people of all ages. There will then be a harvest dinner on a first-come, first-served basis. Please join us! There will also be a raffle for door prizes.

The wellness fair will run from 3:30 to 7:00 p.m. on October 18 in the Colchester High School gymnasium. The harvest dinner will run from 4:30 to 7:00 p.m. in the CHS cafeteria.

We hope to see you there!

For more information, please contact CSD’s wellness coordinator, Jaycie Puttlitz, at (802) 264-5743, or e-mail her at puttlitzj@csdvt.org.

Here we are practicing our coin touch points. 

Big Idea(s)

What a wet day!  The students came back to school today so ready to learn! I think they must have gotten outside a LOT over the weekend.  It was wonderful to see so many of you at the Pink Out the Park event on Saturday- what a picture perfect day we had for it!

Mrs. Connor, Ms. Warren, Ms. LaRose & myself

Our WOW word this week is truce- a peace agreement.  We all agreed that we had called at least one truce with our siblings before!

This week in reading our focus is on finding the main idea of texts we read.  We will read fiction and non-fiction texts to practice this reading skill.  As you read with your child at home, discuss that the main idea is.   We also read through passages to find words we already know and circled them.  

Our new red word of the week is like .  We are so excited because this is a word we already use a lot in our writing.  We love to write about things we like!

We introduced the nickel in math.  Now, we will be counting pennies and nickels.  Counting by 5's and then 1's is a very important skill to have now that we are counting pennies and nickels.  Practice with your first grader as much as you can!  We learned to add touch points to our pennies and nickels to help us as we count.  Ask your first grader to teach you about these touchpoints and to explain how they are helpful. 

Please sign up for lunch next week below:

Lunch Menu

Northern Lights

I've been sharing photos of the Northern Lights in the media with the first graders.  They wanted to be sure I shared with their parents where to find them because they thought the photos were *awesome*.  

Today,  I found a series of photos taken right in Mallett's Bay of this amazing phenomenon.  

You can check it out below:

Northern Lights

Community Helpers

We have been learning about all of the awesome Community Helpers we have in our community.  We've had special presentations this week from firefighters and police officers in our community. 

We've learned so much about their jobs, the tools they need, and why we need them in our community.

Tomorrow (Friday) evening there is a BINGO night at PPS hosted by our PTO.

Saturday is Pink Out the Park at Bayside Park.  Please join us!  For more information visit our district blog:

CSD Spotlight

First, Next, Then, Finally

We've been working to re-tell stories by selecting the four most important things that happen and tell them to a friend, in order.  We use the sequencing words, first, next, then and finally to let the person we're telling know when in the story these important things happen. 

Check out our first graders using sequencing words to retell a story that we read.

• Please remember to fill out the Menu Form for lunch next week! 
• Pink Out the Park is Saturday! 

Power of Our Words

I was watching the news this morning and the weekly segment from pediatrician, Dr. Lewis First, came on about the power of adult words when interacting with children.  As a faculty, we are also reading the book The Power of Our Words     by Paula Denton. This was a great reminder of the importance of what we say (and how we say it) when we're talking to children. 

Check it out:

Dr. Lewis First News Segment

Tomorrow evening, Greg Kriger our Guidance Counselor and Nurse Mary, our school nurse will be offering a class for parents at 6:30 at school.  This class will focus on the challenges parents may be facing with their kids.  Childcare will be provided.  Join us if you can! 

Please remember to fill out our lunch menu for next week. 

Four Winds

We were so lucky to have our first Four Winds of the year today!  Mrs. Puttlitz and Mr. Palagonia were so awesome.  Thanks for joining us! 

When we read we are working to retell the most important events of a story in order using the words, first, next, then, and finally.  We practiced this with our read aloud today and with our reading group books.  When you read with your child at home, ask them to retell the story after.  We have had a lot of fun choosing the events we think are the most important and putting the story into our own words.

Our WOW word of the week is dawdle- to waste time.  Many of us said that we dawdled out of bed and through breakfast this morning.  Hopefully your child will be more awake tomorrow morning if that was the case! 

We are learning about the phonemes, n, d and k in SWR.  We practiced writing them and listening for them in words.  Our red word of the week is have .  We also learned about the ____ad word family.  (Not to be confused with the ___ab family!) 

Please make your selection for lunch next week using the menu link below:

Lunch Menu

Calculators!

Ask your child what they learned about calculators today! 

Thursday Thoughts

We had a great day in Room 3 today!  We can't believe how warm it has been in the afternoons.  It feels like summer. 

We read Charlie Anderson during literacy today.  It is a story about a cat that has a surprise ending.  We answered the "W" questions about this book so well.  We also answered the "W" questions during our reading groups and worked on the strategies we can use when we don't know what a word is.  We made text-to-self and text-to-text connections while we read.  We are becoming excellent readers! 

We practiced writing full sentences in SWR.  Most of us are remembering to uppercase the beginning of sentences, put a period at the end and leave spaces between words.  

We learned about 10 frames in math.  Ask your first grader to tell you what they learned about the frames and combinations of 10.  We made a connection that 10 frames are similar to Penny Fist addition because the answer is always 10!  We are so observant! 

Once a week we read Time for Kids.  Time for Kids is a wonderful resource to read non-fiction and learn about the world around us.  We LOVE Time for Kids!  Encourage your students to notice non-fiction texts in their world outside of school. 

Mr. Kriger came to our room for Guidance today and we learned about personal space.  He brought bubbles and a hula hoop which was very fun. 

Wordless Wednesday

There is a meeting about School Calendar 2.0 at Essex High School tonight at 6:30 if you're interested in attending.  Please remember to fill out the lunch menu!


Check out these awesome first graders shaking their dice to make combinations of 10!

 

Number-Filled Day

Our sharing at Morning Meeting has been going so well!  We are learning so much about each other.  Congratulations to Kaylie who has a brand new, baby brother!  More details are coming soon!

Mario is our Student of the Week.  So far, we have learned that Mario has an older brother and LOVES cheese pizza and chicken to eat. 

We have been meeting in our reading groups and doing a great job being ready to read.  We are working on word-attack skills and sight words as well as answering the "W" questions and making connections to other texts we've read.  

In SWR our red words of the week are my and by . We are working to put spaces between our words, capitalize the first word in a sentence and names of people, and remember a period at the end.  It is a lot of remembering when we write!  We practice often!  We have some impressive writers in our classroom.  

We discussed different kinds of numbers in math today and where we might find them.  We talked about telephone numbers, clocks, calculators and addresses.  We practiced writing our phone numbers and addresses as well.  We also played Roll to 50 again- we love this game!