Mrs. V's All Star Learners Classroom: 11/2/13 Newsletter

Dear Parents of First Grade All Stars,
     This past week certainly looked and felt like "Halloween Week" in our classroom! Throughout the week we read many Halloween books, did Halloween-themed writing, brainstormed and discussed trick-or-treating safety tips, decorated "foamy" pumpkins, and even got to watch a short video, "Arthur's Scary Stories", before our class Halloween party. Yes, the class Halloween party on Thursday would win the award for the big hit of the week! A GREAT BIG THANK YOU to the Room Mothers, Mrs. Stein and Mrs. Vener, for organizing the party and to all the generous parents who supplied the awesome munchies! Another thank you to Mrs. Vener and Mrs. Stein for the clever coffin craft project you did with the children! They absolutely LOVED it! I want you to know your children are very polite. The Room Mothers and I received "thank yous" all over the place for the party treats and the little Halloween "goodie bags" I put in the children's mailboxes! In fact, one little boy made my day by making it a "three-hug day" for me. First he gave me a hug and said, "Thanks for the goodie bag!" Then he came back and gave me a second hug and said, "Thanks for our party!" Then he came back a third time, gave me a hug and said, "Thanks for everything!" Talk about touching my heart! Is it any wonder I love this class??!! Another one of my favorite parts of our class party was when the students requested that they perform one of our Halloween poems AND our short i poem for the parents and for Mrs. Bonacquist. Way to go, All Stars! We loved both your visit and your cool Halloween tights, Mrs. Bonacquist! Truly a great time was had by all at our super-duper class Halloween party!
     Tuesday was the third and final half-day for parent conferences. I want to thank all my All-Star Parents for your polite participation, fantastic input, kind words of support, and active participation in your child's education. I just loved our conversations and honestly could not do it without you! Thanks so much!
     Our literacy work this week included work on short i words. We developed our class anchor chart of short i words throughout the week, and the "word detectives" were hard at work again discovering short i words in their readings. Before reading their just-right books, the students selected and read short books like Kip Went Zip, Six Kids, Jim Wins, etc. that are chock-full of short i words. They read-to-self and also read with a buddy. Many students were "caught" adding these short i books to their book bins and doing rereads! Hooray! That would definitely qualify as "caught being good"! Both Ms. Stella and I worked with small groups of kiddos on letter sounds and word attack skills. The children enjoyed working with Ms. Stella using the letter tiles and picture clues. We continued reading and practicing our October poems. Again during snack time some children were reading the October poem charts on their own and were using my letter stamps and ink pads making words and sentences! THANK YOU again for all the awesome at-home reading logs you've been sending in. 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!
     The children recorded their short i and priority spelling words in their spelling journals and practiced with "look, say, cover, write, check." Although we did not have time in class this week to do our "Pictionary" spelling activity, some students actually did this as "extra" practice at home! Wowie-zowie! I'm so glad they brought their "Pictionary" practices in to show me, so I could congratulate them! We did learn how to practice spelling words with a classmate partner. I loved hearing the first graders come up with sentences to say to their spelling "study buddy"! Yesterday our fourth-grade buddies came during the morning to give the spelling tests to their first-grade buddies. Thanks, Fourth Graders! Thanks also for the at-home spelling practices. Without your super extra practices at home, the children would not have done as well as they did on their spelling tests. We took the pretest on the short o base words that will be our focus next week. Please look for your child's list, "Your Words This Week" sheet, to come home on Monday.
     During our writers' workshops we continued our lessons on personal-narrative writing. The children continued to work on their rough drafts of their small moment "me" stories. They are working hard to try to "write across pages" as they build a story with a beginning, middle, and end. The students also had time to continue work on their alphabet books, if not yet done, and also to write in their writers' journals. Some children have asked if they could take home their writers' journals to share with their parents and/or to continue writing. The answer is a resounding YES...with the condition that they come back the next day for writers' workshop. The picture dictionaries and personal dictionaries were out in force again as the kiddos "researched" ideas and words for their writings. Hooray!
     Our math work this week included work on all the different ways to make ten, finding missing addends, the commutative property, and problem-solving strategies. The ever-popular ten-frame "foamies" were in constant use and are a fun way to help the kiddos "see" and think in tens and start to make some more facts "snap facts"! Our graphing questions again this week included math practices. One of the math graphing questions was even created by a boy whose parents had the last conference slot on Tuesday. The students got a "kick" out of solving a math graphing question created by a classmate! Yesterday we worked on fact practice by playing a fun bingo-style game called "Quizmo". It was challenging for some, but the All Stars caught on quickly to our practices using the number lines on their desk name plates to quickly find the sums to facts that are not yet memorized as "snap facts".
   During our science lessons we continued our seed work. We learned how plants make food, read mini-booklets about this process, and worked on sequencing the steps in the growing process of pumpkins. Yesterday we read and discussed the latest "Scholastic News" issue entitled "Chipmunks Chow Down". We not only read and discussed ways different animals prepare for winter, but also worked on nonfiction features in reading. (This issue should have made its way home yesterday for discussions and/or rereads. Please let me know if you did not get it.)
     The first graders were disappointed that we could not have our "Buddy Work" session yesterday because our school pictures time was at that time near the end of our day. Since lunch and recess were before picture time, it was a challenge to try to have them stay neat and "together", but in my opinion they looked great and look AWESOME to me all the time. SMILE!
     Thank you again for all your fantastic support at home.
     Respectfully,
     Mrs. V.