Mrs. V's All Star Learners Classroom: January 2014

Dear Parents of First Grade All Stars,

Our four-day week last week seemed even more hectic than usual, if that's possible. I think perhaps it may be because we work super hard to try to fit five day's worth of lessons into four days! At least I can tell you for sure that the children have earned the weekend! I am such a creature of habit that I bet some of you were looking for this new blog entry yesterday since Saturdays are routinely my blog-work days. My son surprised us and came home for a visit Friday night and Saturday. A treat...and the reason for the delayed entry.

Our literacy work focused on a review of long a, e, and i words and readings. We brainstormed and developed our class-anchor review chart of long a, e, and i words. The smart cookies noticed that the morning practices were all review work! As they settled in and worked, I loved overhearing comments like, "I remember these words!" and "This is easier now." The students again worked to be called "word detectives" by finding long a, e, and i words when reading their just-right books. This "word detective" work was more challenging this week since they were seeking words with more than one sound. As usual, the All Stars rose to the challenge. They were recognizing the long vowel sounds in some mighty difficult words! The excitement continued as the children talked about their at-home readings of Charlotte's Web for our One School, One Book program and had fun with some trivia questions. The students who chose to do the optional work for Charlotte's Web had just cause to be proud of their work! Thanks SO MUCH to my All-Star Parents for reading Charlotte's Web with your child/children so they feel a part of this community project! I met with guided-reading groups to work on using context clues, how to check for understanding, and comprehension skills. This class has such fun with poetry! We worked on our January poems. The favorite poem for the month is still to be determined, but I believe the frontrunner is "Mr. Smeds and Mr. Spats". (If you wish, please ask your child which one had all the heads and which one had all the hats!) The children are so "into" poetry that we even had a Student Guest Reader, (Luke), read us a book of funny poems called Dirt on My Shirt! We were laughing together on the rug, and some kiddos even said to Luke, "Read that one again, please!" We also had some more Student Guest Readers sharing easy-read informational books to go along with our writing work. On Tuesday Ms. Verma, Vikash's mom, came in to be a Guest Reader. The children loved the humor and the rhyme in Ms. Verma's first book: Night Before the Night Before Christmas. When Ms. Verma read her second book, We're Sailing to Galapagos - A Week in the Pacific, the kiddos joined in on the refrain parts. This reading even led to some map-skills work as we located Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands, and the Pacific Ocean! Thanks so much to Ms. Verma for taking the time to come in! What a treat!
THANK YOU again for all the awesome at-home reading logs you've been sending in. (LOVE seeing Charlotte's Web on the reading logs so many times!) The children are very proud to hand them in to me and to share what they are reading at home. Reading to, with, beside your child is not only a fun together time, but also a tremendous motivator that helps to build the love of reading as well as skills. I truly appreciate your at-home reading time with your child!

Next week our normal spelling practices and routines will resume. The children will bring home their "Words for the Week" lists of long o words on Monday. Thanks so much for all the at-home spelling practices. They really do help the kiddos "cement" the learning of the spelling words.

During writers' workshop times the students worked on both writers' journal entries about weekend events, lost teeth, etc. and on first-try attempts of their informational books. If the children are writing across three pages for their information first-try books, their goal was to finish by Friday. If they were getting carried away trying to be "writing machines" and were writing across more than three pages, they knew they have more time to complete the first-try of their informational books. Lessons about and "try its" for informational writing are upcoming.

Our math work continued to focus on using addition to help with subtracting, practicing subtraction using models and number lines, fact families, and making pictures to help solve word problems. We even had some challenge math that started during our science weather work. We used number lines to explore negative numbers for some challenge questions! On Friday the class had another try at timed practices of addition and subtraction facts to see if they are memorizing any more facts as "snap facts". We will continue our fact practices in class and any short, at-home practices of addition/subtraction facts would be a great help, too. Thanks!

We continued our weather work for science this week. The children recorded their weather symbols each day on their individual weather calendars. The "child of the day" recorded the weather symbols each day using the stamps on our class weather calendar. (I must tell you, this is a mighty popular job!) If you could remind your child to draw the little weather symbol on weekends or days off, it would be a not only be a big help with our weather observations, but would also make them happy because they will get to use the weather stamps! Thanks! We read and discussed an article about the work of meteorologists and a little first-grade girl who loved weather observations and grew up to work for the National Weather Service. Our first outside weather experiment had to be postponed due to the severe cold. Instead we prepared for our wind work by watching and discussing a science video called "All About Wind and Clouds". I told the kiddos that if they did not yet have an idea for our Science Fair, perhaps they could do a weather experiment. Lots of the students told me that they already had their plans for the Science Fair! Hooray! If your child has not yet signed up for the Science Fair but would like to participate, it is not too late!

On Wednesday Mrs. Palagyi and her Student Teacher came in to work with the class on the first of a series of lessons on friendship skills and communication. (I'm sad to admit that I do not remember Mrs. Palagyi's student teacher's name. Ms. K., I believe. I should have written it down...so sorry!) Ms. K. shared with the students a "tool box" of social skills and read them a great book called Heartprints. As the children discussed "heartprints" I was so pleased to see them make the connection with our "random acts of kindness". Thanks for the great lesson, Mrs. Palagyi and Ms. K.!

Congratulations to Ellie, Thomas, and Kaan who earned "Blue Ribbon Awards" for their excellent manners and behaviors in the cafeteria! We talked as a class about how even though there are MANY others who deserve the award, not everyone can be recognized at once. The children understood this, and being the good sports they are clapped and clapped for their award-winning classmates! (Of course, I did my "happy dance", too.) I just know lots more of our kiddos will be honored!

Mrs. McCall came in again this week to present another Reading Award. Congratulations to Trey on his awesome reading achievement! (Another "happy dance"!)

On Thursday I had the hardest conversation I've ever had in forty years of teaching. After my replacement teacher, Mrs. Fronheiser, was chosen and all the selection protocol was completed, I was allowed to talk with my kiddos about my retirement. I was honest with the children and answered any and all of their questions. (Of course, this was on a level of understanding for first graders.) We talked for a long time on the rug. Some of the very observant students even commented that they have sometimes seen me struggle to get up out of the chair or off the floor, so I believe they understand the reasons behind my retirement. There were many, many hugs being given and accepted. Then Mrs. Fronheiser came in to work with me and the class on Friday. (She will be in again next week.) Mrs. Fronheiser is so kind and seemed to fit right in. With her personality and experience in kindergarten and first grade I'm confident that the transition will be smooth and successful. (So the resilient first graders and Mrs. Fronheiser will be fine, but yours truly will be the "basket case".)

In lieu of the two half-day conference days in February, I asked to be allowed to have those two half-day conference days in January before I must retire. I am very happy to say this was approved. However, because the district considers these conferences optional, there are only two instead of three half-days. Therefore I must make the conferences shorter than my normal conference-marathons...LOL! (You may even be thinking this is a good thing...ha.) If you wish/are able to meet, use this link http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0944AEA62BA1FB6-optional   Then please select a conference day/time and click "submit and sign up".

Thank you again for all your fantastic support at home.
Respectfully,
Mrs. V.