Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Halloween Fun!

Just an update on some of the fun from today!! 

The kids had a great time showing off their costume's during the Halloween parade and then enjoyed a party with snacks and a craft, too! 


Students wrote about "The Best Halloween Costume!"



 Have a safe and fun evening! Happy Halloween! 
Mrs. Hamilton :)



Monday, October 29, 2012

Playing Catch Up!

Happy Halloween Week! We have had a great {and very busy} last couple of weeks in 1H!

Reminder: Costume party on Wednesday at 12:45! Families are welcome to come and watch. Please have your child bring {please do not wear to school} their costume in a bag. We will change into it and they will get to parade into the other first grade classroom's to show off their costumes! 

Here is an update of what we have been up to...
Visitors for America Reads: We had some parents and grandparents come in and read to us on October 18th. The students really enjoyed it. Thanks to those that were able to come! My aunt also came the week before! She is a retired music teacher and we LOVED having her come in {I, of course, really loved it!} 
Aunt Jan reading to our class! The kids are still reading her story! Be sure to ask them about it!
Reading: We read Thank you, Mr. Falker, A Little Bit of Winter and The Good Bad Cat. With these books, we worked on comprehension, ABC order and vocabulary words. The students love sharing sentences with our vocabulary words! We add a tally each time we use a word correctly in a sentence! This week we will read Stellaluna! A great story for Halloween week! We will work on retelling the beginning, middle and end of the story for one of our strategies. 

ABC order words from Thank you, Mr. Falker!
Math: We are wrapping up our shapes unit and have started our end of trimester testing for report cards. Below students are working with pattern blocks! We spent our time filling in the pattern, using different shapes to fill it and focused on our vocabulary words: more and fewer.
   We also enjoyed stuffed animal day with all of Starry! We were celebrating our great school behavior and following the Marion Way: respectful, responsible and honest.  Ask your child what he/she does to show each of these. 

      

Our 1H PJ day and Read and Feed was fun, too!! We have had a lot of great behaviors to celebrate!
          


Thanks for stopping by! Have a great week! :)
Mrs. Hamilton


Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Are you a bucket filler?

Hello to all! I know I'm a little late on our weekly updates. Forgive me, as it's been a busy week in 1H and outside of it, too! 
 Reminders:  
1.Please make sure your child is bringing home their spelling list each week. They should be bringing it home on Monday. Please read, write, and cut and sort these words. On Friday, they will be expected to write these words. 
2. If your child is bringing home a word strip, please practice these word wall words. These are words that are to be read immediately and are commonly used in text.  

Take a look inside our first grade classroom...
Science: We have started our last part of our weather unit, clouds. We are studying them, learning some of the names of clouds and will even make our own clouds with cotton balls. 

Reading: We read the book Chick and Duckling, as a big book. Then the students received a "little book" to put in their seat sacks. They will enjoy reading the book to themselves and with buddies, too. This will build their fluency (when reading they: use accuracy {reading words and punctuation correctly,} use expression and are easy and natural to listen to). We also discussed story elements: main characters, setting, problem and the solution. 

Math: We have started Unit 2 in our math curriculum, Investigations. I have sent home the family letter including what we will be focusing on and the goals for this unit. Please take a look at it. We are also working on Addition and Subtraction strategies. You will see addition and subtraction worksheets coming home. Please review these with your children! What is a plus sign? What is a minus sign? What do they look like? What is the difference between them? Have them show you one way to solve an addition or subtraction problem. When designing number sentences, choose single digits (example: 8-2 or 3 + 7).
Below you will see the students starting their first exploring experiences with pattern blocks and fill in patterns.
Other: Students are working on building a positive learning community. We have signed our promise and we have sent that home for you to review the expectations. Please look and review this with your child. 

We are also working on filling each others buckets! We do this by giving compliments and positive comments to one another. Each Friday, your child will empty their buckets and bring them home. 
Here are our promises, posted in the classroom and signed by all!
our bucket filler board!





A bucket filler to Mrs. Hamilton!

 









Hope you all are having a great week! Have you filled someone's bucket today? :) 
Mrs. Hamilton