WARNING: Picture overload!

Here are some pictures of what we have been up to in 1H!

Below are some of the kids having fun in the fitness room! The kids love it!

Students are making representations of data we collected about eagles and whales! If you could be an eagle or whale, which one would you be?

 

Below the students are playing a games called "What's Missing" using the 100's chart.  

 Below students sorted buttons by an attribute {size, number of holes. texture, shape) and then recorded it with their partners.

Buddy Reading An Egg is An Egg!

Check out our towels! We are laying on the beach on beach day!!

Happy New Year!

It's the new year and time to get back into the groove! Here is an update on what we are doing. Pictures to be posted soon {I left my camera at school!}

Math: We have started a new unit on collecting and representing data. Students are completing surveys and working with manipulatives {buttons} to choose and identifying attributes as they sort them. Ask them about the attributes we have been discussing! {shape, texture, number of sides, number of holes, size}. 

As stated in a note that went home a couple of weeks ago, some of the workbook pages may come home unfinished. These are pages that we did not get to do together and may be done for extra practice at home! 

Math vocabulary words we have been using: describe, attribute, sorting, data, survey, greater than, less than

Reading: We have been reading many books! Last week we read, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Jasper's Beanstalk. We worked on double sounds: "er," "ir" and "ur."  /er/ as in "Jasper", /ir/ as in "girl" and /ur/ as in "churn." Ask your child to find this sound in books you read! Ask your child what who Jasper is and what he was looking for at the end of the book. 

We will be enjoying a beach day tomorrow for filling our token bucket and following the Marion Way! We are looking forward to learning on the beach tomorrow. 

Thanks for checking in. As always, please contact me at anytime! 

Mrs. Hamilton :)

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 :)

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

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

A Month Under Our Belts!

Happy end of September! I can't believe September has come and almost gone. Time flies when you are having fun! Our class of 1H friend's is really coming together. The students are forming a community of friendship, respect and remembering that we have a safe place for all of us to learn in.  

Here is what we have been up to during this 6th week of school! {once again, I can't believe it!}

Science: We spent a short time learning about the thermometer and what the degree symbol is and had a discussion about measuring in Fahrenheit. Ask your child what the symbol for degree is! We started talking about evaporation and what happens when when it rains, a puddle is formed and then what happens after time passes. Right now, we are watching our "homemade" puddle and recording our findings in our puddle books. Ask your child what we have discovered as we have watched our puddle evaporate! Ask them what evaporate means. Silly me forgot to take a picture of it before I left tonight! 

Reading: We have started reading the story, The Relatives Came. We have been discussing the differences and similarities of a relative and people in our family. Ask your child what we have discovered! We are continuing our learning about making connections to the text that we read. "When I read _________, it reminds me of _________." This is something that you can do as you read with your child each evening.

Writing: "I can" statements have been integrated into our daily routines to help the children and teachers set a purpose for learning. Our writing "I can statements" have been:

• I can use the right colors 
• I can draw a person (no stick people in first grade!)
• I can color in all of the white space
• I can write my letters on the line

These are all statements that you can encourage at home, as the students draw and write about what they know about! We are working hard on building our stamina to become strong readers and writers.  

Math: We are working on addition, number recognition and combining two numbers to make a various number of sums. Combining numbers to make a sum of 7, 9 and 10 were our "I can's" of this week! 

You will be seeing workbook practice pages coming home. Please use these to practice math skills at home! I am also sending home the directions to the games we are playing. I encourage you to play these together! 

playing Three Towers!

Three Towers- sum of 10

Here students are playing Three Towers! The directions came home today! 

We also read the story, Rooster's Off to See the World. The student's were then asked to find a solution, while showing their work to the following question: How many animals are there all together? Then, they shared their findings with a partner! Here is what some of the students came up with! It was fun to see all of the different ways to find the solution.

 We hope you are having a great week! As always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks for visiting and sharing in our exciting first grade journey! 

Mrs. Hamilton 

Weather, Vocabulary &Literacy Block...OH MY!

Hello to all! I hope this finds you well. I have completed my beginning of the year parent phone calls. I have tried to contact all of you to answer any questions and/or concerns you may have about the start of First Grade. I left many voice messages, so please feel free to contact me if I can help in any way. 

Here is what we have been up to this week:

Science: We are continuing our unit on weather. Your child spent the week talking about wind speed. They even made their very own flag to test the wind speed in 3 different places around Starry! Ask them if they had no wind (0), some wind (1) or strong wind (2). We have started talking about thermometers and the different types in our world. Your child brought home a list of different types today. See how many of them they can find at home! We will spend a short time learning about how to read a thermometer and what temperatures may be hot, cold and warm. 

Here is what we know before starting our "wind speed" lesson

Literacy/Reading Block: Your child has started spelling and a small guided reading group. While not at small group, they are taking part in Daily 4. These are centers done independently: read to self, writing, spelling and the teacher {small group} center. Some students are going to other first grade classrooms, so we can meet the varying levels and needs of all of our First Grade friends. There will be a note coming home regarding more information. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me. 

Below 1H friends are writing and reading to self during Daily 4 time. 

They are working on building their stamina {ask them what this means!} to become strong readers and writers. 

 

Shared Reading/Vocabulary: In first grade we have a curriculum for teaching and learning vocabulary called, Text Talk. This week, we read Little Polar Bear and the Brave Little Hare. Ask your child what the following words mean and give an example and non-example of each. Your child will be required to know an example of each word and it will be recorded and saved for report cards. There was a yellow note that came home earlier in the week, regarding these words and an example of each. 

Math: This week we have been continuing with numbers and adding two numbers to get a sum. We also are working on recording and showing how we know the sum of two numbers. The games, Five in a Row and Roll and Record have come home this week. Please play and keep in a safe place at home. An idea: put them in sheet protectors, use a dry erase marker and play over and over again!

Here a 1H friend is playing Five in a Row!

Here a pair of friends are playing Record and Roll

 As you can see, we have had a fun and busy week in 1H. Have a great night!! 

Mrs. Hamilton :)