Bug Story Problems

First grade mathematicians created bug story problems in class.  We traded math problems and solved each other's mathematical stories.  The pictures were uploaded into storyjumper online and with the help of props, brand new problems were created for you at home.
Challenge yourself.  Don't forget to show your thinking in many ways.  In class, we use a traditional number sentence (5+1=6, for example) and we quickly sketch our thinking, so we can show how we arrived at our answer. Smart mathematicians always justify their thinking!

Here is the link to our new book:http://www.storyjumper.com/book/index/6696232/Bug-Story-Problems

Reading Buddies

We had our first meeting with our Reading Buddies from Ms. Davison's Kindergarten class earlier this week.  We collaborate weekly and share books and various forms of technology.  Hope you like our movie.

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
I have some exciting technology news to share with you!  The students and I started using twitter today as a class and we're inviting you to follow us at home to see what we're up to in school. We will tweet daily as a class and share our learning with you and others around the world, who will hopefully find us soon.  So far, Ms. Davison's Kindergarten class and Ms. Power's 1st and 2nd grade class follow us.  We hope to expand our followers and invite you to sign up at home as well.  Our twitter name is @McCormackPals 
Twitter is an online social networking site and it is currently used by millions of people worldwide.  People have different reasons for joining twitter.  Our purpose is to make connections with classrooms around the world, and to share our learning through collaboration and communication with you at home.  We also hope to celebrate our learning and see what we have in common with other first and second grade classrooms around the world.  If you do not have a twitter account but would like to create one so you can follow us, please go to twitter.com and sign up for an account.  Once your account has been created, search for @McCormackPals and when you find us, click on the follow button.  When we tweet again, you will get a message from us.
As a class, we carefully decide what is important to share with the world.  We take time to carefully decide what we learned in a particular class and what might be of interest to somebody else.  We have a poster in our classroom entitled "Tweetable Moments" to which we add suggestions.  As a class, we vote on one thing to share.  I log on, type the tweet message and a student clicks "tweet".  We do this tweet together on the projector so we can all participate and see.  When other classrooms tweet back, we also see it on the projector.  It is very exciting.  Today, for example both Ms. Davison and Ms. Power's classes shared tweets with us.  Tomorrow, we hope to learn how to tweet a picture.  Stay posted.  If you would like to tweet us back @McCormackPals we would be delighted.  Thank you for supporting your child's literacy and communication skills using technology.
I have more exciting technology news this week.  The students learned how to log onto their email accounts last week and tomorrow, we will learn how to respond to an email message from me.  On Monday, Bonnie Birdsall, Williston Schools Technology Specialist, will join us and discuss how we can make safe, kind and responsible choices online using email.We are very fortunate in our school district to have access to email, even for young learners, and it serves as a great communication tool.  It also enhances opportunities for students to think critically, problem-solve and use literacy skills in a digital format.  In my classroom, we strictly use email for academic purposes.  For example, I might ask the students to retell an event we did together by sending a picture, a podcast or a link.  I might also ask them to listen to a story online and respond to me, using email.  (This type of email is just like our reading logs, but it is online!).  We also use email to share our learning with our families.  Your child can email you as a parent or a grandparent to share some of the exciting activities we do together.  You can also, of course, email your child and ask about his/her day.  I ask that all emails are directly linked to our learning and that no links and spam emails are sent along.  It is a privelege for us at ABS to use it.  Let's do our best to keep it safe, kind and responsible for all.
If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to ask me.  I will send all the account information and password information to you via email.  Thank you.

Lastly, I usually start volunteering in our classroom in the month of October.  Many of you indicated that you were interested in helping out, but I understand that people's schedules change.  If you are still willing, and able, to help out in your child's classroom, please let me know.  If you email me, we will set something up.  I hope to get started in the next few weeks.  Thank you.

Thank you again for supporting your child's learning every day.  The reading logs are terrific.  I enjoy reading them every week.  I am very happy to see that the students are writing more and more on their own.  We wish to encourage writing stamina and confidence as we always try our best!  Keep it up.
Maria

Our First Reading Buddies meeting

Dear Friends and Families,
We are so excited to share our learning and love of reading with Ms. Davison's Kindergarten class this year.  Today, we had our first get-together.  We visited Ms. Davison's classroom and listened to the story Crysathemum by Kevin Henkes.  We met our new reading buddies and shared our names too, just like the main character in the book.  We also had time to read a book together.
When we meet our reading buddies, we will rotate between the classrooms.  Next Monday, Ms. Davison's class will visit our classroom.  As the progresses, we will also explore our learning using different forms of technology such as ipads for blogging, email, podcasting and twitter. Stay tuned for more updates on our reading buddies.

Link to "Do the Honey Bee"dance

Here is a direct link to the song/video "Do the honey bee", a song we listen to and dance to often at our school.  I have linked it on our team wiki as well, where many of the songs we sing in Kiva are also linked. 

Click here to get to the wiki, with links to our songs.


Have fun singing and dancing.  If you have suggestions for songs, please let me know and perhaps we can add more!

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
We had a terrific week together in our classroom with many new projects and learning activities to share with you all.

In writing, the students continued working on their story-ideas for writer's workshop.  They learned about the differences between "Heart" and "Head" stories.  In mini-lessons, we exploreed these ideas through discussions and read alouds.  We read the book "The Flower Garden" by Eve Bunting as an example of a heart story.  A heart story is about something or somebody you really love, like a family member, a pet or a special trip or activity.  We read the story "How kittens grow", a non-fiction story which introduced the students to stories that tell us new information.  Head stories are stories we can write about real things that we already know a lot about.  We can write about how soccer is played, what equipment is needed in baseball, or how we make a picture.  We can also write about how we take care of a pet, do the dishes or choose "just right" book.  The students will continue writing these types of stories in our writer's workshop next week. This week, the students also learned how to write personal stories about things that has already happened to them.  These stories can be about a trip to the beach, when the student learned to ride his/her boke, etc.  These stories can also be about ordinary events, such as our first library class, school Swarm Party or a special math class.  We call them "small moment" stories. We discovered that stories are all around waiting to be written! 

In reading, the students continued practicing choosing "just right" books more independently and reading with more stamina.  Your child should have brought home books from our Book Clubs last week.  Please make sure these book bags and books come back on Thursdays as other children at our school read them too.  Thank you!

We had our first Guest Reader this week as well and it was Mrs. D, our team para.  Once in a while, we have a mystery person join our class to read a book to us.  The students have to guess who this guest reader is.  I will provide some clues and the students guess.  It is wonderful to invite and share our joy of reading with other people at our school and in our community.  If you are interested in becoming a mystery/guest reader in our classroom, please let me know so we can set up a time.  Thank you.

Our school curriculum night was last night. I understand it is difficult for many parents to come at night, so I compiled all the papers we handed out and placed them inside your child's Thursday folder today.  Many of the handouts are already familiar to you if you have explored our team web-site as I have linked most under "Family Resources" for your convenience.  Please let me know if you have any questions.

Next week, the students will start podcasting.  Thank you Milena Wright for wanting to take this project on along with me and the students.  The students will learn how to use our MP3 players as they focus their reading on fluency and prosody.  More information will follow next week.  If you did not yet send in ear-buds, or head-phones, for your child to use in school, please do so as soon as possible.  We need them for podcasting, but also individual head-phones are also more sanitary.

We had our first school-wide celebration for filling the buzzy jar in the office.  The students decorated their buzzy hats in our classroom and we danced to our school song and the "Bee Dance"  in the gym.  Here are some pictures from this  very special celebration.

Lastly, I wanted to remind you all that there is no school next Wednesday.
Have a great rest of the week and weekend,
Maria

Reading

The students are learning about what our reader's workshop looks like and sounds like in class.  Here is a picture of a poster we created together.  We practice these skills and habits every day.

The students are also learning to read like "detectives" and pay attention to words that might be tricky to comprehend.  We started our Vocabulary Tree last week.  We will add words to it as the school year progresses.  The word will be represented on one side of a leaf, and its definition on the other.  We hope to grow our vocabulary tree by adding many, many leaves this year. Please come by and visit.

Happy International Dot Day!

The students and I have published our first book online.  It is a book celebrating International Dot Day, created by the author and illustrator Peter Reynolds.  Please take a few moments and read this amazing story, a compilation of the students' hopes and dreams for the year and the future.

Here is the link:
http://www.storyjumper.com/book/index/6550252/HarmonyTeam

This book can be read online anytime for free.  It can also be ordered in hardcover.  Please follow the directions at the site for directions.  Thank you and Happy Reading!

Counting by 10s and 5s

1st grade mathematicians are practicing counting by 10s and 5s.  They are discovering that chunking our numbers help us do math more quickly and more accurately.  They are also discovering that chunking, or grouping, objects help us make better predictions.  Here are some pictures showing how these mathematicians are testing their strategies.

Celebrating

We celebrated earning warm buzzies again with ice pops.  Yummy in the heat.  We have almost filled the jar again by being safe, kind and responsible.

Weekly Update

Dear Families,

Another week of learning is almost over! With this warm and sunny weather outside, it is hard to believe that school has started.  Thank you all for sending in water bottles for your child.  It is hot outside and our classroom is even hotter.  Water keeps us hydrated and ready to learn.

This week, we started celebrating International Dot Day.  International Dot Day is based upon the book "The Dot" written by Peter Reynolds.  It is a story about a little girl, who feels discouraged in art class, but her confidence starts to blossom after her art teacher praises one of her first creations; a picture with a little dot.  The girl in the story signs her picture proudly and discovers that she is good at drawing dots. She draws big dots, little dots and colorful dots.  She also draws dots with white centers and dots next to each other.  As she's drawing, her confidence grows.  At the end, she encourages another student to take a risk in school too and start a new project.  Dot Day celebrates our potential for greatness, our innate ability to always make a new, and better choice.  This week, we went online and listened to Peter Reynolds read his story live.  He has an amazing web-site, if you like to explore it at home with your child.  It is already linked on the school web-site, under Author links.  I have also linked it here

Reading assessments also started this week.  I will read with all first and second grade students this and next week.  At ABS, we assess many aspects of literacy and in reading we assess reading comprehension, reading accuracy and fluency.  Reading groups are fluid in my classroom.  Students move between levels and groups depending upon assessment data and genre studied.  We are very fortunate to have comprehensive assessments here so we can address all of our students' needs.  Dani, my intern from St. Michael's College will be my substitute teacher when I do these reading assessment.  I started today and will continue tomorrow, Friday.  The students and Dani had a great day today, I heard.  Ask your child to tell you something they did together.

The students also had their first science experiment this week.  In class, we read a book about apples, by Gail Gibbons.  Afterwards, we tasted different types of apples and voted for our favorite kind.  Yellow apples won!  The students wrote about this experiment in their new Science Journals.  In scientific writing, the students learn to clearly label their drawings, give their writing a title, and even include the time and the date.  The students also learn to be very specific with their word choice as they are describing "real" events or occurrences.  The students learn to carefully inquire, observe and back up their thinking with real evidence.  They also learn to rely on their senses, rather than feelings about something.  We will continue with more science next week and even share our writing pieces with you online, so you can see what 1st and 2nd grade scientists can do.

We have our first computer lab time tomorrow.  We will visit the computer lab every Friday.  The students will learn how to access our network, web-sites and even Animation-ish, a computer program created by Peter Reynolds.  Next week, we will start our podcasting in literacy.  I have multiple MP3 players for the students to use in the classroom, but I would like to ask all new 1st graders to bring in their very own ear-plugs, if possible.  (2nd graders who brought their ear-plugs home last year should bring new ones in as well.  Thank you).  Please put them inside a small ziplock bag with your child's name on it.  That way, students will not share germs. Thank you.  Small ear-plugs are available at places such as Walmart or Best Buy.  I think drug drug stores sell them too.  I have extra ear-plugs in the classroom, if your child needs them. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about this.

Lastly, some reminders:

Don't forget to return Homework Folders and Book Bags on Thursdays!  Thank you.

Our school-wide Curriculum Night is scheduled for 6:30-7:30pm next Wednesday, September 19th.  I hope to see you then!

Regards,
Maria

Praying Mantis

We had a praying mantis join our classroom for a brief moment on Friday.  It was climbing on our door.  The students got a chance to observe it up close.  Hopefully you can some of its details in this picture.

Reading Logs and Homework Folders

Dear Families,
Tomorrow, your child will bring home his/her homework folder for the first time this academic school year.  Inside, you will find our reading logs.  Your child is expected to read for about 20 minutes every night and write about these books in our reading logs on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. 

To help parents and students come up with writing  ideas, I have included a list of possible topics.  These ideas are there to help your child, but if he/she wishes to write about another aspect of the book read, he/she can, of course, do that. This is what the list looks like:
 

Writing ideas for the weekly Reading Log

My favorite part and why

My favorite character and why

Compare yourself to a character

How the character changed in the story

How the character is the same (or different) between different books (or chapters)

How a story reminds you of something

Write about the ending...did it surprise you, and if so, why?

Make a prediction before you read the book (then read the book and check.  Was your prediction correct? Why/Why not?)

Write about which reading strategies you used and how they helped you

Compare your book to another book (or author)

Is your book a fictional story or a non-fiction book? How do you know?

Homework folders are due back on Thursdays.  Thank you.

Your child will also bring home a Book Bag tomorrow.  Inside you will find books to read at home this week.  Some of the books were chosen by the students themselves.  We call them "Choice books".  At this time in the year, as we are learning to become critical readers and understand what type of books are "just right" for us, you might notice that some of these books do not reflect the text complexity you would expect.  Please ask your child why he/she chose the books.  Invite your child into a conversation about the different reasons why we choose books (ie we like the author, the character, we want to learn more about a specific topic, etc).  The book bag will also contain a book from me.  You will recognize this book by a colorful round sticker on the back.  These books are leveled and "just right".  Your child should be able to read these independently.  These books are also familiar to your child as we read them together in our Book Clubs already. 

Your child does not have to write about the books inside the book bag, although I encourage students to write about the "just right" book at least once a week.  The book bags are due back on Fridays.  Please help your child care for our books at home.  Please help your child pack these books so they return to our school as other children will read them as well.  Thank you for your assistance.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Maria

PS.  When math homework comes home, it always comes home inside our Homework folders on Mondays.  Your child can return it any day of the week, or inside the Homework folder when it comes back on Thursdays.  Thank you. First graders will not have any math homework this week.

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
We have almost completed our second week of school.  Time flies already!  I hope your children are still coming home excited about our learning together and making new friends on Team Harmony.
This week saw many changes to our young learners as math classes began in full and our spelling classes began to take form, with beginning of the year assessments.

In math, first grader mathematicians continued to explore geometric patterns through pattern blocks and polydrons.  The students learned about "repeating patterns" and how we can use our language to "justify" our mathematical thinking to prove our mathematical ideas.  Ask your child to define what a repeating pattern is and what attributes make it repeat.  Also ask your child to explain how we use "Private Reasoning Time" in our math classes.  We have talked a lot about the importance of sense-making in math and private, quiet think time allows all of us the opportunities we often need to make sense out of a mathematical problem.  The students are so kind and respectful of each others' thinking.  The love to contribute to the group and share their observations with each other.  Please visit our math blog for more updates.  Thank you.

In reading, the students began to participate in our guided reading groups, which we call Book Clubs.  Guided reading groups are small groups of students that meet with the teacher (me) several times a week to read and discuss books that are on an instructional level of the child in terms of text complexity, vocabulary and sentence structure. The students in the group take turns reading to each other and me and there are several different comprehension tasks associated with each book.  Your child will take home his/her book bag on Monday.  Book bags always come home on Mondays so please make sure you check your child's backpack.  Inside you will find one "just right" book from our Book Clubs.  You will recognize this book by its colorful, circular sticker on its back.  These books belong to our school library and your child is borrowing this for the week.  Please make sure your child brings this book bag on Thursdays when the book bag returns to the classroom so other children can read the book too.  Thank you.  Your child will also bring home a choice book or two.  Please discuss these choices with your child.  Are these books "just right" for your child? In other words, can your child read and make sense of it? Are the words easy, or hard to read? Are there pictures to help with the comprehension?  In the next few weeks, the students and I will discuss more in depth what makes a book a "just right" book and we will share our strategies with you.  For now, simply having the conversation at home and experiencing knowing what a "just right" book looks like will help your child immensely in the future.

In writing, the students continued revising their stories by adding details to the pictures and words.  This week, we focused primarily on COPS.  COPS is an acronym that encourages the students to approach their own revision as detectives, searching for clues that need fixing. C stands for capitalization.  The students learned that in 1st grade, we say "good-bye" to capital letter writing, except for in certain situations, such as when we start a new sentence, use names of people and places and use the word "I".  O stands for organization.  We focus on finger-spacing between words.  P stands for punctuation.  We learn not to write tun-on sentences.  Periods are there to indicate a complete thought and allow the reader to breather.  S stands for spelling.  We learned to tap all sounds out, so all letters are represented.  We always do our best spelling.  If we do not know how to spell a word, we try and we do our best.  The students learned these strategies as a quick introduction this week because we will publish our first books tomorrow.  We are so excited.  We are all authors and we write to share our wonderful thinking with others in our classroom, at home and the world.

Our schedule changed this week as well.  Library was moved to Wednesdays to allow for an extra 5 minutes of lunch time for the students on Team Harmony.  I will email the updated schedule to you so you have a copy.  Please remind your child that library books are now due on Wednesdays.  Thank you.
In other Related Arts news, I wanted to ask all parents to send in an art smock to our classroom.  The students need one for art class, on Thursdays.  The smock will stay in your child's cubby for the year.  Thank you.

On Tuesdays, the students rotate their classes between art, music, guidance and PE.  For the first several weeks, my class has art. 

Have a great rest of the week.
Regards,
Maria

Our first math class

Dear families and friends,
First grade mathematicians had their first math class on Thursday last week.  This class was very special to us because we get to meet other Harmony students from our team.  We played a name game to get to know each other better.  We also explored some math stations together.  We mathematically explored pattern blocks, polydrons and bugs (which are not real, but rather made out of plastic!!).

Celebrating Reading together

The students and I started discussing what good readers do as they explore new books together. We talked about the importance of finding a quiet and restful space to read because reading requires thinking. We practiced together by going outside, quietly reading our new books together in the shade. Here is a picture. Do you ever read outside at home too? Perhaps you have another favorite place to read? Please share your reading spots with our class.

Celebrating in our classroom

The students filled our warm buzzy jar on the 2nd day of school!! They are already experts at being safe, kind and responsible.  We celebrated our joint achievement by having extra explore time.  The students were able to spend some extra time partner reading, drawing pictures and creating artistic crafts.  Some students chose to organize our new supplies, which all of our parents so generously donated.  Thank you all!