Fun Wesbite!

ABCya!!! is a leader in free & exciting computer activities for elementary students to learn on the web. All educational computer games and activities were created or approved by certified teachers! Activities are modeled from primary grade lessons and enhanced to provide an interactive way to learn. The activities incorporate content areas such as math and reading while introducing basic computer skills. Many of the kindergarten and first grade games are equipped with sound to enhance understanding. You can also find great elementary holiday activities here! Holiday activities available in grade level sections!

We will be playing a Holiday Light game to practice math facts at our next computer lab time! I hope you have fun exploring the site!!

Letters To Soldiers

Good Morning! This year for Veteran's Day, our class drew pictures and wrote letters to my cousin who is currently stationed between Iraq and Kuwait. He shared the letters and candy with his other soldier friends. He received his package already and his letter back to our class is below!

1st Graders,

Hello I want to thank you for you letters and pictures you sent to me. I am doing fine over here just counting down the days to come home for Christmas. It is always nice coming back from a mission and having packages waiting for you. I hear that it is starting to get cold there and it is here also. My job over here is to guard semi trucks full of supplies for other solders all around Iraq. It is starting to get into the raining season over here so instead of snow it just rains and its really cold at night. You will have to let me know of some questions that you have and I can answer them for about Iraq or Kuwait. Most the people here are pretty friendly and fun to talk. Once again thank you for all the support.

Many Thanks,
Michael

Animoto.com

World Hello Day

Saturday is World Hello Day. World Hello Day has been a wonderful opportunity for our class to learn about different cultures and about the value of simply saying "hello". World Hello Day began in 1973 in response to the war between Israel and Egypt. The goal is to promote peace through increased communication, simply by asking people all over the world to simply say "hello" to ten new people. But why stop there? Go out of your way to talk to people you wouldn't normally talk to or see if you can learn to say hello in a different language.

The students and staff at Big Woods have been learning to say "hello" in different languages. To celebrate the day, I made a short little video for the Big Woods Buzz which features classrooms around Big Woods saying "hello" in different languages. Hope you enjoy the video!

Pennies, Nickels, and Dimes... OH MY!

The past two weeks we have been practicing counting combinations or coins using pennies, nickels, and dimes. This skill can sometimes be tricky for students. Here are three simple things you can work on at home to help your child develop money sense:

1. Talk about how many pennies are in a nickel and dime, how many nickels in a dime, and how many pennies, nickels, and dimes in a dollar.

2. Find some loose change and have your child practice counting different amounts of money. While counting change, ask your child if they can make trades, and encourage them to explain their thinking.

3. For a fun activity, click here. A new link will appear on your computer with a counting coin on-line activity!

GERMS!

This week our theme in Health is Staying Well. We have been talking about how germs spread, the importance of washing our hands, and overall how to stay healthy. The students had a lot of fun with looking through the Scrub Club website with me. They also LOVED the germ video we watched! Hope you enjoy the links!!

We Are Becoming Sign Language Machines!

We have been working hard on our sign language skills! We have learned some basic phrases as well as colors, animals, foods, and commands. Since October was Disability Awareness month our class learned how to do the Pledge of Allegiance in Sign Language and were featured on the morning announcements! WE HAD SO MUCH FUN! Click below to watch the video Ms. Brown created for us!

Harvest Mania!

We had a great week in first grade! The students have worked hard this week to finish our second math unit and our first science unit on air and weather. They successfully completed their end of the unit tests earlier this week! We will begin Unit 3 in math next week and take a break from science to start our first social studies unit on Citizenship.

The highlight of the week was the Harvest Party today. We started off our day by making and graphing Harvest Stew for math. We then completed three fun Harvest rotations. We played moonlight bowling, hit the chicken, farmer farmer where's your corn, spider toss, pin the stem on the pumpkin, and harvest golf. We also made skeleton hands and stained glass pumpkins. Students had the opportunity to have their face painted and get fake tattoos! After lunch we watched the Magic School Bus Air video and went to P.E.. It was a GREAT DAY! I am so thankful for the amazing behavior and great manners I saw from our class today!

Thanks to everyone who made the day a success!! Have a safe and happy weekend!!

MEA WEEK!

I can’t believe I forgot to make a post last week! Time flies too quickly! We had a great time last week going to the Apple Orchard and learning all about apples! This week was also a lot of fun! e students enjoyed having three special guest readers, Ms. Brown, Mrs. Dahl, and Mr. Hackett. They shared fun stories with our class this week! Since it was a short week we didn’t do a reading story in our reading book. Instead we made some fun projects. Polly’s Cracker Sight Word Game, A Dog House Word Building Activity, and An Owl Writing Project are just some of the fun activities we enjoyed! In Science we learned about meteorologists, made thermometers, and explored air pressure! In math we had explorations and learned how to tell time to the o’clock. It was a short but busy week! We also started learning the Pledge of Allegiance in Sign Language as well as our alphabet and animals! Enjoy your long weekend!

Week Four: Homecoming Week

Homecoming Week is Over!

This week was crazy! We celebrated homecoming week with Sport Day, Clash Day, PJ Day (my personal favorite), Twin Day, and finally Spirit Day! Despite the change in our routine with the special days, the students did pretty well. Some of our highlights from this week included:

• Using vials to see if there is air underwater and making parachutes to see how air affects their flight to earth in science
• Learning about car and bike safety in Health
• Bringing a mystery object in a bag for morning meeting to tie in with our story of the week Sam and the Bag
• Finishing Unit 1 in math with our 1st math test today
• Wrapping up all our reading assessments so we can start our reading groups next week
• Making a class book called It’s Ok To…. After reading our book It’s Ok To Be Different
• Learning our 4th Daily Five skill: Word Work
• Turning the trees on our classroom bulletin board turn from summer to fall

Thanks to everyone for turning in your field trip money and slips on time! Watch for October's homework pack in today's Friday Folder! Next week is our field trip to the Apple Orchard and Fire Safety Week! It will be another jam packed week! Enjoy your weekend!

We're Awake, Alert, Alive, Enthusiastic

Week Three was Fantastic! We have been SO busy! Here is a quick update of what has been going on in our classroom!

We started our reading series and read our first story The Hat. We also started a couple of reading groups to get everyone reading some books at their own levels. Last week we began Daily 5 and launched Read to Self. The students have been reading steadily for 9-12 minutes which is AMAZING! This week we launched Read to Partner. We will continue to work on this next week and then add in writing! We also completed a writing project about our favorite hats, created an at book, and talked about sequencing. We took our first spelling test and comprehension test today!

In math we have been comparing and ordering numbers. We played a new game called Top-It and raced to put our number cards in order with a Beat the Clock activity. We also practiced making tally marks with dice rolls, rock, paper, scissors, and coin flips. We discussed the importance of calendars, and wrote the numbers 5 and 6. The highlight of math this week was when we made our bodies into tally marks and practiced being human tallies!

In health we talked about how to be safe at home. If your family doesn’t have a meeting place for emergencies, I suggest you talk about one as a family. We started our Air and Weather unit in science and did some air explorations. To see some pictures of this, check out our photobucket site! We also read the book I Like Me and talked about how we are all special. To go along with our story we created miniature paper people that looked like us for a bulletin board. We also met Mrs. Thomas, Big Woods Social Worker and she shared a song with us called Awake, Alert, Alive, Enthusiastic. The song was a big hit and the kids love to sing along while I play the keyboard.

Next week will be a big week with Homecoming Dress Up days! I am sure we will continue to have excellent behavior and line basics even with the dress up days next week! Have an enjoyable weekend!

Let's Do The Alphabet Boogie!

What a great week in 1st grade! Here are some highlights of our week this week!

1. We finished reviewing all our letters of the alphabet and to celebrate had a big party on Friday. We did alphabet races, BINGO, play dough words, the alphabet boogie (click here to see it play), and much more.


2. We started our math curriculum. This week we played Monster Squeeze, the Penny Dice Game, and Bunny Hop to review our numbers. We also practiced writing 1 and 2, talked about one more and one less, and practiced counting by 10’s, 5’s, and 2’s!


3. We made hot air balloons with our hopes and dreams for first grade on them, completed a pencil craft, and had some free time on Friday.


4. We learned about the preamble to the constitution, had a special Big Woods buzz, and wore red, white, and blue for constitution day.


5. We had bus evacuation and learned about the danger zone as well as how to evacuate the bus in case of an emergency.


6. We learned the days of the week in sign language and Spanish and played a new game called zoom.

We are going on day 9 of green cards, have had four compliments on our line basics, and overall have demonstrated some great behavior! Thanks for another great week in 1st grade!!

What A Week!!

I don’t know about your child, but I am EXHAUSTED after a great week! We have been so BUSY learning all about 1st grade! It has been an amazing first week of school! Here is a quick summary! Tuesday everyone came to school (and went home) happy and smiling! We had a good day getting to know each other and learning about our school and classroom expectations. We played outside, made a classroom book, and talked about above the line/below the line behaviors. Wednesday we reviewed bus safety and started working on some beginning of the year assessments. Thursday we took the DIBELS test, made time capsules with our 3rd grade buddies (A HUGE hit for both grades), started using the SMART board, and began our alphabet review. Friday we continued the alphabet review, participated in math stations, played The Cold Wind Blows, and had some free time after a long first week! This week we also have learned how to sign the following colors in sign language and say them in Spanish…red, blue, green, white, purple, yellow, orange, black, brown, and pink. We also read some of my favorite stories… Brand New Pencil’s, Brand New Books, 1st Day Hooray, Wemberly Worried, and A Fine Fine School.

To end, I would just like to give some thanks…

1. Thanks to everyone who turned in their forms, money, and labeled school supplies on time! This has been a huge help!
2. Thanks to all of you who taught your children to tie their shoes before 1st grade! I can’t tell you how nice it is to have 19 sets of shoes tied for gym without anyone needing help!
3. Thanks to all the parents who donated supplies to our classroom from my wish list! Your donations are much appreciated!
4. Thanks to all the 1st graders for the hugs and great behavior during the week!
5. And finally a big THANKS for trusting me with your child for the year! We are off to a great start and I look forward to watching your child grow and develop over the year!
   

There is a lot of information about Big Woods in your child’s Friday Folder. Please look over everything and let me know if you have any questions! For all those who have e-mailed me, I will send photobucket info to everyone next week. I am working on organizing it this weekend! Have a great weekend!

Welcome To 1st Grade!

I am so excited for another great year in 1st grade! I look forward to meeting you and your child at Open House on Monday Aug. 31 from 6:00-7:30. At Open House you will receive a lot of information about how our classroom works, have the opportunity to explore our school, meet some of your new classmates, and unload your school supplies. I look forward to seeing you then! Enjoy the rest of your summer!