Sept. 21-25

 Wow!  Wonderful weather again this week!  I'm loving this fall like weather!  

For both groups we have been working a lot on iPad activities--how to get on zoom by ourselves, how to find our assignments on Schoolwork, and how to get on Epic and Seesaw from Schoolwork.  I hope you are noticing your child being able to be more independent on their iPads. :)

I am sending home the C Day and Remote plans well in advance, so I don't forget to pass them out.  You can just keep them in their Remote folder until the day we need them.  I will also try to type in the date first on Schoolwork so the assignment is easy to find.  I'm finding that sometimes the links are going awry.  If so, I don't mind you finding another book for them to read on Epic or Youtube.  Or you can find a similar Youtube video as the title if it's math.

Sight words:  I am going to be sending home our Fry's Sight word list this week hopefully!  In first grade we try to learn the first 100 words, 25 each quarter.  It's a big bump up from learning 50 in KDG, but hopefully your child will know many from last year.  I would suggest getting some notecards and writing the words on them to practice.  So far, I have introduced, (I, can, do , not,) and will add (if, as) this week.  We just don't have much time right now in class to work on them, so please start practicing them at home to keep up!  

Small Groups this week!   I had to change some kids around, please look for your child's time.  It may be new!

10:00-10:30.  Group 1--Hunter, Olivia, Seeley, Wyatt, Freddie, Ke'Vontae, Coltt

10:45-11:15.  Group 2--Aiden, Annelise, Madeleine, Jade, Alison, John

12:00-12:30.  Group 3--Kinsley, Viviana, Hadley, Dylan, Maika, Will, Blake

Handwriting--We are working on remembering to start our letters and numbers at the top!  Please make sure to watch that your child is doing this at home.  Also, is your child holding their pencil with 3 fingers?  It is ok to hold a pencil with 4 fingers as long as they are not holding it like they did when they were just learning how.

Assignments--Please try to have your kids only do assignments assigned on the days assigned.  We will only assign packets to do a few pages at a time to have work for multiple days at home.  They should only be on lesson 2 and 3 for remote days in the Drops in the Bucket.  If you let them work ahead, then they will not have much to do on remote days at home.  Thank you!

Birthday treats!--Try to send in individually wrapped treats where no one is touching the same treat or reaching for a treat out of a container.  Little Debbie snacks, goldfish, etc. are great!

We will be beginning our new My Math curriculum when A group comes back on Thursday and Friday.  B group will begin it on Monday and Tuesday next week!  Homework pages from our math book will be included in assignments soon!

I also put a laminated ten frames sheet in your child's remote folder  to stay.  It  will be used for math groups, but can also be used as a dry erase board in remote sessions!  

Binders--I think the binders are working great for organization and the kids having supplies at their fingertips wherever they are.  However, three of the inside metal parts have come apart from the cover.  I am happy to buy replacements at Walmart that are more sturdy unless you are able to get there before me!  Dollar Tree did not hold up for all we are putting in them!  Bummer!

Group B on the playground dome

Group A enjoying music class with Ms. Donovan

Sept. 14-18

 We had a great start last week!  I know it's quite crazy, but you all are doing great keeping up with the craze!  It definitely takes time to get on a system with the Hybrid setup, but we'll get there!  I appreciate any questions you are asking, as I'm sure others are having the same questions!

Specials Teachers are only teaching in person on Zoom on C Days.  They have the A/B kids in person when your A/B child is not in school, so they aren't able to teach on Zoom on A/B days.  I believe you should be able to go to their Schoolwork tab now and find what they have assigned for the specials we have each week.  We had library and counselor this week.  Ms. Hartigan our counselor added a video.  Ms. Arter is having difficulties with her Schoolwork or iPad, so hasn't been able to upload anything yet.  

I went over how to get on the Zoom and activities on Schoolwork the last two days.  It will get easier as we keep using it.  I showed the kids to look for the dates to help them find things.  I will make sure to add dates for all links and activities to help you know when they are to be done.

C Days-- Tomorrow I will be beginning small groups with your children.  I meant to send the lesson plans for this week by paper but I forgot so, you can find it in an email I sent last Friday.  Your child will just hop on my Zoom at their time. Here are the group times:

10:00-10:30:  Kinsley, Viviana, Hadley, Dylan, Maika, Will, Wyatt

10:45-11:15: Ke'Vontae, Aiden, Annelise, Madeleine, John, Freddie

11:25-12:00. Lunch

12:00-12:30.   Hunter, Coltt, Blake, Olivia, Alison, Jade, Seeley

I will be having the kids write numbers so they will either need a dry erase board or paper.  They will also need to have the linking cubes in their math toolkit with them.  So,  if they go to JCPRD or another daycare, please send those in their backpack on C Days.

Please make sure to help your child get on my Zooms each day they are not in my class.  I do have to count them absent if they are not on.  Sorry.  I especially would like them to get on C days as I will be teaching on those days.  We have to get in any teaching we can with them on C Days.

Thank you for all you are doing at home!  It's a lot for all of you with your own jobs and families!  I appreciate you!

Reminder!  The Zoom meeting will hopefully answer any questions you may be having about Zoom or Schoolwork or Ipads in general.  I put the Zoom address in the email.  The meetings are at 6 pm either tonight or tomorrow night.

First Day of First Grade!

We had a wonderful first day of school for both groups!  I hope your child had a great day too!  We learned a lot about our new first grade "things".  We took pictures too!  See below.

I introduced the parts on an Ipad (power button, volume, home button, microphone plug in and charge cord plug in),  We talked a little about the Apple crayon but did not use it.  We found where the power button is and learned to hold it down for it to turn on, and to not tear off the rubber piece to get to the plug in.  Most importantly, we talked about keeping it safe in our case so we don't lose it.  If it gets lost, we won't be able to write with it anymore or draw with it.  So, please always check that it's in there before closing the case for the day.  We also learned that it's important to keep it charged before coming to school, so we can use it!

As you can see, our binder is already full with the supplies in the pouch.  I'm hoping it will hold up this year!  I hope you had a chance to pull out the papers to keep from the Take Home Folder and the remote assignments from the Remote Folder.  The remote assignments will come back in that folder.  If there are any school homework assignments or notes for me/school, please send them back in the Take Home Folder.

Headphones--Please send in headphones when you can if you weren't able to get them yet.  Make sure they aren't earbuds as they aren't as comfortable as headphones.  Thank you!

Lanyards--I will try to take off their lanyards at the end of the day to keep here in their schoolbox.  They are definitely needed when the kids eat lunch to hold their mask.  If it comes home, please send it back.  Thank you!

C day is tomorrow!  We will begin at 9:00 and be on for about 45 min.  The rest of the day will be spent completing the Sept. 11 assignments that are in your child's remote folder. See you tomorrow at 9:00!

Group A

Here's our First Grade classroom!

These are our cubby lockers!  Since we don't have lockers, we are calling them that!

Group B

Welcome to First Grade!

Hello Parents,

Some of you are familiar with me as a Kindergarten teacher here at CCE, and a few of your children were in my class last year!   I am so excited to teach your first graders this year!  This is my first year teaching first grade at CCE, although I taught first grade several years ago.  So, I'm very familiar with the first grade standards.  

With the added Optional Remote classes this year, and those teachers teaching in their classrooms, I am able to stay in my classroom.  Therefore we will be located at the end of the Kindergarten hallway by the playground.   It will be nice for your child to be familiar with where they classroom is!  We will definitely be following the first grade schedule just like if we were in the first grade hall!

There are so many changes this year, and I will do my best to keep you informed at school and at home.  I am a huge believer in communication, so will always do my best to respond back to you as soon as possible!  

This blog is not used to communicate back and forth, but to share what's happening in our classroom while in the school setting.  I love adding pictures for you to download to keep!  

I'm going to thank you ahead of time for all of your support, patience, and communication!  Working together this year will make it a wonderful year in first grade!

The week of March 9-13.

I can sure tell the weather has changed!  It has been a crazy day with crazy behaviors!  I'm hoping each day gets better as the week goes on.

We are going to be talking more about the weather and writing in a weather book each day.  We will check the temperature and fill in a paper thermometer to understand how a thermometer works!

Today we talked about how we can measure how much snow or rain we get.  I know we depend on the weatherman to tell us how much snow we got. We talked about how we can use a ruler to measure the snow and a rain gauge to measure the rain.  Do you have a rain gauge at home for your child to check how much rain we got?   That would be fun for them to check!

Reading this week!  We are reading science books on weather and climate.
sight words:  your, they (4th quarter sight words)
Letters of the week:  Vv, Qq   (never a q without a u)
I am finishing up benchmarking this week, so no reading groups this week.  Please read at home with your child!  We'll begin again after spring break!

I am so proud of how hard your child has worked on their sight words!  Thank you for continuing to practice at home!  Now on the 4th quarter!

Spelling lists and tests!  The first spelling list will come home this Friday!  Please work on the "an" word family words with your child.  The test will be on March 27!

Math this week!
Topic 8 test tomorrow!  Please work on the addition math facts to 5 at home!  I will be sending the subtraction math facts home this week for you to cut up and put on the ring also!

Topic 9 will be on More addition and subtraction.  We will be making fact families!
2 + 3 = 5 
3 + 2 = 5
5 - 3 = 2 
5 -2 = 3

Coming up!
Mar. 10                     KDG round-up for incoming KDG @ 6:00 in the gym
Mar. 16-23               spring break
Mar. 23                     End of 3rd quarter
Mar. 26                      Fritz' night
Mar. 27                      Grades posted for 3rd quarter
Mar. 27                       First spelling test!

April 24                    Kindergarten Open House!  It will begin at 2:30. It will end around 3:00-                                      3:15.

Imagination Station Time

Subtraction Fish Activity

The week of Mar. 2-6.

The weather has just brightened our day today!  It was so nice to go out for recess and not feel the wind!  Even though it was cool, it didn't feel bad at all.

Spring pictures are tomorrow!

We are not going to be having reading groups the next two weeks, as I need to benchmark the kids to see if they have progressed on their reading.  It's so fun to watch them jump up levels in their reading, as it is really clicking with a lot of them!

Feb. Book it Calendars are due Friday!

Read Across America!  Also known as Dr. Seuss week, for us.  Dr. Seuss' birthday is today.  He would have been 116 years old today!  We learned today that Dr. Seuss (Theodore Seuss Geisel) would use pen names for his name on the books.  Besides using his middle name, "Seuss" on his books, he also used Theo. LeSieg.  LeSieg is Geisel spelled backward.  

I love reading Dr. Seuss books to the kids, so we will have fun reading about his funny characters and rhyming books!  We will also be doing some fun activities this week!  Do you have any Dr. Seuss books you can read to your child at home?  Talk about what rhymes and have your child try to sound out his silly character names!

Science!!!  We are jumping from social studies to science the rest of the year!  We have begun our weather unit by reading books about weather.  Next week we will be reporting the temperature on a graph each day and writing the weather and what we should wear in a weather book.
More to come about weather !

Reading this week!  Weather and Dr. Seuss books will be our fun in reading also this week!  
sight words:  word, when (these are the last two 3rd quarter sight words)
I will be sending home your child's sight word testing sheets at the end of the quarter.  If your child needs to learn 3rd quarter words, I will be writing them on a note for you to practice at home this week to hopefully pass them in the next two weeks!

Please keep taking time to read our paper little books that come home too!  Each student is able to sound out words to read them now.  Make sure to keep them in their bucket to reread them!  I'm sure the bucket is full, so please take out easier books from last fall to replace with books on their level!

Math this week!  We are continuing with subtraction and solving problems in different ways.  We drew a picture in our journal of a tree with birds that flew away and wrote the problem for the picture.  We had fun with teddy bears in a cave and taking some out of the cave and seeing how many were left.  (We used our counting bears and a paper bowl with a hole taken out to show the cave door. ) . The recording sheet went home last Thursday.  
Today we used a number line and a teddy bear to count back when some were taken away in our word stories.  Tomorrow we will use the number line and dry erase marker to hop back to take away by drawing loops to each number we count back.  
Then, the end of the week we are going to do a goldfish activity, making up story problems and eating the goldfish that are taken away!  Using food is always a fun way to solve problems!
Shh!  It's a secret!

Coming up!
Mar. 3                       Spring pictures tomorrow!
Mar. 10                     KDG round-up for incoming KDG @ 6:00
Mar. 16-23               spring break
Mar. 23                     End of 3rd quarter
Mar. 26                      Fritz' night
Mar. 27                      Grades posted for 3rd quarter

April 24                    Kindergarten Open House!  Time to be determined, but plan on 2:15-2:30.

The week of Feb. 24-28.

It's hard to believe we are on the last week of February!  The kids have progressed so well and it's so fun to watch them read and write sentences!

We are going to be authors and illustrators of our first book this week!  The first step last week was brainstorming ideas for our Favorite Holiday.  Then, we drew pictures of our holiday, the season it is in, and two more details about why it's our favorite. This week we will be transferring our picture ideas to our book and adding sentences about our pictures.  It's such fun watching them get excited about being authors and illustrators!

In reading we are reading two short stories about weather.  One is a nonfiction about and Ice Hotel!  We couldn't believe there was such a thing and who would want to sleep in it!!  The 2nd one is a realistic fiction story about a family in a snowstorm.  We will compare the two stories and how they are the same and different.

sight words:  it, there (We learned that "there" has a homonym.  It is "their"!)
letter:  Kk

Handwriting:  We are learning the correct way to write lowercase letters!  Yay!  I am also asking the class to erase any uppercase letters they write in words and sentences that should be lowercase letters.  It's a hard habit to break, so if you see them doing it, please give a reminder to fix them!  Thank you!

Math:  Today we went over their math test, so it should be in their folder.  I introduced what subtraction is and how it is different from addition.  Please work on the addition math fact flashcards at home.  Each will have another set at school to practice.  

Science:  Our first science unit will be on Weather.  We will be reading stories about weather and learning what climate is and how it affects the land where we live.  More to come on our weather unit!

Coming up!
Feb. 28                       Dental screening if you opted in for your child to get screened.
Mar. 3                       Spring pictures
Mar. 10                     KDG round-up for incoming KDG @ 6:00
Mar. 16-23               spring break
Mar. 23                     End of 3rd quarter
Mar. 26                      Fritz' night
Mar. 27                      Grades posted for 3rd quarter

April 24                    Kindergarten Open House!  Time to be determined, but plan on 2:15-2:30.