Questions to ask your child…

What is a noun?

What is a proper noun?

What is a pilgrim?

Why did the Pilgrims leave England?

Where did they go first?

How many ships did they have?

What were the names of the ships?

PTA Family Fun Night Fundraiser

The next PTA night is at one of my family favorites Chick-fil-a. If you have not been there it is on Howe Avenue by Chapel Hill Mall. I am in need of volunteers to help with the prize wheel and maybe even hold signs to bring people in to the restaurant. This “Spirit Night” as they call it will provide Woodland with 10% of the proceeds. This fun will all happen on Monday 11//16 between 5-8pm. I hope to see you all there!

From Pumpkins to Pilgrims

As you have discovered, we are doing a “Pilgrim Pageant” in first grade. I am so excited by the progress many of the children have made already. With only a few short days with their parts, the first graders in room thirteen are better able to read these challenging words, as well as know how to follow along so they are ready to read/say their lines at the appropriate times. I even have one or two students that have memorized their lines. Thank you for all of your time and work with their play parts as well as their overall academic progress.

I hope it is obvious that you are all invited to come to one or all of our performances. I usually have three performance options to cover all family schedules. The performances are open to all the loved ones that might want to come and show their support and pride. Below are the time options that are possible with our school schedule. This also gives the students some time to share the learning we are currently doing in our classroom about the Pilgrims that help to develop a free New World. Please respond to my school email or the comment option here on the blog.  You will not see your comments post but I do get them all. I greatly appreciate your input. I will post the performance times and days by Monday. Thanks!

Monday, November 23…choices am or pm (10:00-11:00) or (2:00-2:45)

Tuesday, November 24…choices am or pm (10:00-11:00) or (2:00-2:45)

Wednesday, November 25…choices am or pm (10:00-11:00) or (2:00-2:45)

It’s Pumpkin TIme

This week is all about pumpkins as we use the pumpkins that were received from the apple orchard to learn many new things. We will even have a day all about pumpkins this Thursday. If you didn’t check under We Need part of the blog, we are in need of some volunteers for our pumpkin day activities. We will have a day full of activities including cleaning and carving our pumpkins. I would love some extra hands. You could be a an am volunteer (9:00ish-11:00ish), a pm volunteer (1:00-2:00ish), or an all day volunteer. No one will be turned away! (You will even get a special treat!) Just let me know if you are interested and when you will be coming. I already have two for sures!

I am also asking for child safe pumpkin carvers. I will return all kits, if they are labeled by Friday. Please write a note if you are donating them! Thank you so much in advance for your help…you are always so generous with your time and support.

 

Wrapping things up!

Wow, what a great week in first grade. We completed our study on apples which encompassed all of the following first grade standards:

• basic needs of organisms (plants)
• food sources (apple trees)
• nature of matter (solids, liquids and gases and how they can change states.)
• economics (resources)
• production and consumption (from orchard to home)

In first grade, there are standardized science, reading, writing and math assessments. Your children all passed the science test with flying colors. I am proud of their hard work and their ability to retain the information over the course of six weeks. They really do know and understand the concepts above.

We will also able to solidify their with a fabulous trip to Beckwith Apple Orchard. What a fabulous way for the children to experience all of the concepts we have been learning about for the first quarter of school. I would like to thank the Woodland PTA for paying for the buses for this fabulous first grade experience!

Testing Week

We are taking tests this week in all academic areas. We have completed the science test that covers plants and seasons. Today we will begin our reading test. Then on Thursday we have the field trip and Friday we will complete the reading test and do the writing test. There is also a short math test. The math test will cover adding zero and one.

You can help your child to succeed by working on writing short sentences at home with capital letters at the beginning and lowercase letters throughout. Have your first grader write the three sentences in fifteen minutes or less. Then have them go back and check capitals and periods. Trust me, your children are well prepared for these tests so no studying is necessary, but these are a couple of ways that you can check to make sure your child is prepared.

More about the field trip…

The first grade teachers have been talking… We have decided that it might be in the best interest of the students if they all packed their lunches. We will be back for lunch but we will be cutting it close, and having a packed lunch will allow them to go into the lunch room without worrying about a long line or interfering with the secondary hall lunch. If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to respond here or any other way that works best for you.

Beckwith Field Trip Information

Good Morning! I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend! I spent most of it nursing my children back to health…I am just glad we had the extra days to do it.

It has come to my attention that everyone may not have received the information home about the Beckwith Apple Orchard field trip. The field trip is this Thursday, October 22nd, and we are all very excited. All 22 first graders and six chaperones will attend the field trip as well as Mrs. Fankhauser’s and Mrs. Pockl’s classes. The buses will be at Woodland to pick us up at 9:00 am and will return us to school. The fee for the field trip is $5.00. Please send that in by Wednesday the 21st. If you have questions regarding the field trip please let me know.

ThankYou

The Rice family is donating the cider. Thank you Rice family! (Just letting everyone know so we do not get a bunch!:) )

This week in room 13 (September 26)

Language Arts:

We wrote a thank you letter to Johnny Appleseed. The thank yous were filled with thoughtful thanks to a man that truly made our first grade world a little more beautiful. The children were introduced to the form of a friendly letter but found it hard to duplicate. We will revisit this task over the course of the year.

Sequencing: The children wrote sentences to go along with pictures that they put in sequential order. Please take some time to read their books with them when they bring them home in their portfolio folders next week.

Math:

We continued to work on pattern this week. Discussed how students can make more complex patterns, and how they are named.

We also work daily on breaking numbers down into parts.  For example the number 10 can be 2, 5s or 5, 2s. We write these in number sentences 5+5=10 and 2+2+2+2+2=5. Feel free to work on these activities at home. We have a number of the day and that number is the date. The cool part of this activity is that it reaches children at all levels. I will have answers like 99-89=10 and 0+10=10. I ask children to do as many as they can, and they are given counters to use so they can “prove” their thinking.

Science:

We continue to work on the four seasons and how our world around us changes as the seasons change. We also learned about gravity this week. Ask you first grader about Sir Isaac Newton and what made him think.

In addition to all the above , we really focused on our vowels this week. We made vowel sticks and played a game where we listened to words and put the stick up that matched the vowel sound in that word. It was fun to see who was the fastest “draw”. Please feel free to play a game like that at home…just make sure those vowels make their way back into their homework bags for school! (Thanks:))

Your child also received an apple poem book. Feel free to read the poems to your child or have them read the poems to you. You may find nouns. adjectives or verbs in the poems. You just a word that they might be working on learning. You may also have your child draw a picture to go with the first three poems. We will do more of the poems in class.

If you want to donate please check out the “We Need” page at the top of the blog. Thank you…I couldn’t do all of our taste tests and other fun activities without your donations!