Happy Holidays

As the Holiday Season is coming to a close I have compiled a few pictures to show some of the fun Holiday activities our class took part in during December. Just to mention a few we weaved Kwanzaa placemats, made our own Christmas wreaths and had fun opening up our Holiday gifts at our party.

I have also included some span shots from my own winter vacation. Enjoy!

Here Comes December!

Another holiday down and a new month just around the corner. There are only 3 weeks of school left before our winter break and we have a whole lot of fun things to get done.

In Math first graders are now starting their unit on measuring. This week we will be focusing on length. We will measure with nonstandard units such as paper clips and blocks as well as standard inches and centimeters. We will uses these measurements to compare lengths identifying which objects are longest and shortest. In Kindergarten we are continuing to progress through our number identification and writing and hope to reach 100 before the winter break. We will also be measuring some objects with nonstandard units.

This weeks science concept is: Change in Matter. This concept lends itself to a lot of fun activities such as paper folding and clay modeling. We will learn how you can start with one thing (or medium) and manipulate it to create something brand new. We will compare and contrast what we started with and what we were able to create.

In Reading we will continue our compare contrast theme with that being our main focus skill for the week while we continue to practice retelling. Students will be reading Kids Can Help. In this book a boy and a girl each help their parents cook. We will compare and contrast the two characters to see how they are alike and different. First graders will focus their phonics and spelling on words with s-blends. The spelling words for the week are: sled, slip, snap, spill, spin, make, game, people, and water. High frequency words are: girl, boy, together, when, people, care, and water. Kindergarten is still reviewing all of the letters, their names and sounds and we are adding to our sight word reading. This week Kindergarten sight words are: must, new, no, now, and on.

There is a lot to be thankful for...

I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving holiday and had time to spend with family and friends. Here is a look at some of the fun Thanksgiving related things we did over our 2 days last week.

A thank you is given to Hailey's Grandmother for making our class some Thanksgiving treats. We took that idea and made it our own taking some fun snacks and turning them into turkeys. We also used some pinecones to make our own thankful turkeys.

We learned a Thanksgiving song, "Tommy Turkey" and loved to turkey around when we got the chance!

Friends are Great!

Friends are great, and in our classroom we have lots of friends!

This past week was a review week in reading. We review the past 5 weeks of learning and had a spelling bee where not a single student misspelled a word! This week our reading theme is on friends and friendship. Our reading skill for the week will be making predictions where we make a good guess about what will happen next in a story. At the end of the story we always check to see if our prediction was right or wrong. Phonics for the week is based on words with a-e. Spelling words for first grade are: take, make, came, game, and gate. High frequency words are: hello, could, walk, pull, all and oh.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!! Kindergarten has been introduced to all letter names and sounds at this point and we are starting our in-depth letter/sound review which will take us all the way to the winter holiday. When we return from break we will start working on word families. For most of our kindergarten students we are on our second book in a bag, working on sight words: good, have, he, into, and like this week.

Writing and Grammar: In Kindergarten we continue to work or producing written words and sentences. We are trying our best to use finger spaces and make sure to have capital letters at the beginning and punctuations at the end. In first grade we are writing, making sure to include a beginning, middle and end. In grammar we are learning about verbs which are the words that show action or what is being done.

In first grade we have started our "Mad Minute Math" where we only have 1 minute to find the sums to 15 addition problems. We are working through our addition facts starting at +1 and moving up. Our regular math class has us working on subtraction skills and the relationship between addition and subtraction. It is important that 1st graders are working and practicing their addition facts and committing them to memory. In kindergarten we are identifying and writing number 1-60 this week. As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches we are also doing holiday math which incorporates a review of many of the math concepts previously covered.

Talking about the holiday Samsula will have their Thanksgiving lunch this Thursday. If you would like to join us you are more than welcome! Please send in your RSVP ASAP so we have enough food for everyone!

Kindergarten's Family Project: Turkeys in disguise :)

H-A-double L-O-W-double E-N spells Halloween!

Happy Halloween to all!

What a fun Halloween centered week we had this past week.  Our K-1 class did a cross-curricular study using our 9 classroom pumpkins.  Our literature piece was "Pumpkin, Pumpkin" which describes the life cycle of pumpkins.  In reading class we used this life cycle to sequence the life cycle and created our very own books.  In math we had fun counting the pumpkin seeds that came out of our classroom pumpkins.  Our 3 large pumpkins had 419, 508 and 516 pumpkin seeds in them.  In science we used our pumpkins to explore hypothesis and predictions.  We predicted whether or not pumpkins would float in water.  It is a whole lot of fun studying many different subjects all centered around one common theme.

Along with pumpkin/Halloween math we finished up our 2nd chapter on subtraction concepts in 1st grade.  Over the next few weeks we will be practicing our addition and subtraction facts making sure we have these committed to memory and know them to mastery.  In K we continue to add numbers to our number sense and count in groups of 2's, 5's and 10's.

In reading we finished our 4th week in our second unit on singing and dancing.  Along with the curricular materials we supplement singing and dancing to some our of favorite Halloween songs.  This upcoming week our theme is all about school, something we are very used to at this point.  Our reading skills we will continue to practice are visualizing and sequencing.  Sequencing  is telling things in the order that they happen.  1st grade spelling and phonics will center around words with /l/ blends.  Spelling words for the week are: black, block, clock, flag, clip and flip.  High frequency words to know are: today, way, school, late, away, and why.  Kindergarten sight words for the week are: did, do, eat, get, and for.

Over the next few weeks in Social Studies we will be studying jobs, working, money, needs and wants.  To be followed by thematic units on the upcoming holidays celebrated here in America and other places around the world.  

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Story Book Parade Update!

Friday was such a fun day!  If you were able to make it out to school you saw how wonderful everyone look dressed up for the parade.  Our classroom presented Eric Carle's, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar."  We practiced and had a blast. I would like to continue to thank all of the parents, family members, and friends who made this day possible.  Below are some photographs of our practice.  More photographs  from the actual parade to come soon!

Animal Homes

We have started another week and today is our 50th day of school!  It really goes by quickly when everyone in learning and having fun.

This past week we finished up our reading unit on animal homes.  We brought many books in from the media center that told all about different animal homes.  We read both fiction and nonfiction texts about animals homes.  We really liked reading Stellaluna and discussed what happened when an animal lived in the wrong home with the wrong mom looking after it.  We took this a step further researching and watching videos of real live animals who are being cared for and raised not in their typical homes.  Check out this link to see just one example: animal video

This week our reading theme revolves around making music and dancing.  Our reading skill to study will be retelling what happened in order in our own words as well as sequencing event.  The first grade words to know are: want, put, show, under, three and make.  Spelling for 1st grade will focus on the phonics concept of short /u/.  Spelling words are: bug, rug, cut, run, nut, and fun.  Kindergarten is working its way through the alphabet and is currently studying letter name, sound and manuscript for Xx and Vv this next week.  Our high frequency sight words to know are: be, black, but, brown, and came.

Last week in Science we explored the physical properties of objects around us using thermometers to measure temperature and balances to measure and compare weight.  We experiment with our thermometers placing them around the school to see where we could fin our warmest and coldest locations on campus.  Our prediction for hot places were on a light in the classroom and out in the sun by our sunflower.  Our cold place predictions were in a glass of water and in Mr. Tom's ice cream freezer in the cafeteria.  Our sunflower thermometer reached the highest temperature measuring 99'F and our coldest temperature was Mr. Tom's freezer at -8'F.

 
Last Wednesday we had a very successful paint party after school.  Our costumes for the storybook parade this upcoming Friday look great!  I would like to thank the Slucher and Wood family for heading up the costume team and all of the families that donated time and money to make this years costumes great!  I would like to invite all families and friends to join us at our story book parade Friday the 29th of October at 9:30am.  Please bring your own chairs and blankets to watch at the pavilion.  Afterwards you are invited to come back to the classroom for Halloween crafts and pizza lunch.  Children may be checked out in the classroom after lunch.

I am looking forward to another great week and hope you are too!
Miss Ellis
K-1    

Community Helpers

This past Thursday our classroom was visited by the community helpers we see above.  Amongst the students for the day we had a florist, a police officer, two veterinarians, a postal worker, and a fire fighter!  After learning about the different people who help out in our community this was a fun way to share what we learned.  The students each talked about the good things their community helper does during our morning meeting.

In reading we finished week 2 which themed on helping out.  This week our theme is on animal homes.  We have checked out many books from the library and are learning about the different places animals lives and some very different animals that share home.  We continue to study the summarizing skill (where we decided the most important part of the book and retell it in our own words) and main idea details (main idea- what the book is mostly about/ details- tell more about the main idea).  In phonics and spelling we are practicing identifying words with the /th/ /sh/ digraph and spelling words with those digraphs.  First grade words to know are: into, many, live, and out.  First grade spelling words for the week are: fish, ship, shop, thank, thin, and with. Kindergarten words to know this week are: all, am, are, at, and ate.  Kindergarten is currently practicing letters g and w.  

In science we are exploring the physical properties of the non-living things in our environment.  We are classifying things by size, shape, color, texture, weight and length.  W are using nonstandard units of measure, like paper chips and yarn to measure length.  We also got two brand new bucket balances to mesure the weight of items and then compare to different item's weights.  

In writing we continue to move forward and are working on incorporating a beginning, middle and end into each of our writings.  We are using similar sentences for the beginning and end to represents the main idea of our writing, what is is going to be about and then what we wrote about.  This will help keep of focused on the topic and let the reader see exactly what we wanted to share.

Looking forward to an other great week,

Miss Ellis' K-1 class