I hope that you are all enjoying your spring break with your families!  I'd like to share a few notes with you about our work last week as we wrapped up the third quarter.

First, thank you all so much for helping us with our force and motion construction project.  The students explored the concepts we researched in our force and motion unit, for example:  friction, types of surfaces, speed, and motion along a straight, zig-zag, or circular path.  In addition, the children had the opportunity to work as a member of a small team.  They had to compromise, take turns, and use their words to solve problems together.  I wish I had taken a picture of their faces when I first explained the assignment.  Their excitement was priceless!

Here is the link to the March Motion Science Project video, in case it doesn't appear above:  http://youtu.be/fIt7O8HU6tE

Second, the children celebrated their work as writers in small sharing circles.  With a class our size, it is not reasonable to ask the children to maintain their attention so that all students have a turn to read to the class.  However, it is important that the children do share their writing aloud with others.  Small sharing circles is one way we celebrate our work.  Please enjoy the slideshow below of our sharing time.

As you can see, our sharing circles took place on "Wear Green" day.  We had 96% participation, so our class had the best showing among all the first grades!  Hooray!

Finally, please allow your child some time on the computer to log in to reflexmath.com to get some practice with math fact fluency.  When your child has demonstrated measured progress with a certain fact, the small circle in the top right corner will turn green.  This green light indicates that your child can exit the program without losing any progress.

Thank you, again, and I hope you continue to enjoy the break!

We are in need of several items in the classroom.  We have almost depleted our pencil supply for the year, so any donations of pencils are most appreciated!

Also, for an upcoming project, we will need an abundant supply of items that might be in your recycling bin.  Please send in any paper towel tubes, toilet paper tubes, various-size cardboard boxes (like cereal boxes, cracker boxes) and clean yogurt or tofu containers.  We will also be grateful for any donations of clear tape, masking tape, duct tape, and string.  If you're looking at something made of thin cardboard or plastic, and you're not sure, please send it in!  I promise to recycle any materials that come in that we don't use.  :-)  I don't want to spoil the surprise of why we need so many materials, so please stay tuned to the blog.  We will use these items the week of March 18.  Many, many thanks in advance for your help!!

We have already collected more than 400 box tops, so we are getting very excited about our chances to win the March contest.  Thank you to everyone for your help with this.  Every box top helps raise money for our school!  

In academic news, we will be finishing our math unit on fractions and moving into addition and subtraction.  We will build on strategies we practiced in the second quarter to solve harder problems and story problems.  We will also write our own problems.  When solving a story problem, students will be asked to show their thinking in pictures, numbers, or words.

We are also wrapping up our unit on matter and beginning a unit on force, motion, and energy.  Most likely this unit will continue into the fourth quarter, but we will begin by focusing on types of motion and pushes and pulls.

In reading, we are continuing to practice comprehension skills for fiction and nonfiction.  In nonfiction, we are paying attention to key vocabulary, the author's purpose for writing, and formulating questions that can be answered in the text.  In fiction, we are continuing to build fluency by reading in the character's voice, and we are thinking about our reading by visualizing what is happening and making inferences.

In writing we are finishing writing small moment personal narratives.  We have begun to work with a writing partner to help plan our writing and revision.  We are focusing on adding details to our writing to make our stories more vivid.

Coming Soon:

*  Picture day is Tuesday, March 12.  

*  Wednesday, March 13, we will attend an assembly provided by our wonderful PTO.  Wednesday is also "Wear Red" day for Youth Art Month.

*  The Mill Run Carnival is Friday, March 15.  By all accounts, this will be a fun family event.  "Just chill!"

The children were very excited to take part in a scientific experiment this week.  This was a preview of concepts we will discuss in more detail later in the year during our unit on states of matter.  This project will be on display during Mill Run's Science Expo February 6th.  Here are the steps of our project:

Question:  Can two types of matter be in the same place at the same time?

Hypothesis:  We considered the materials needed and the procedure.  We each made a prediction of what we thought would happen.

Materials:  a bowl of water, a cup, and a paper towel

Procedure:

First, fill a bowl with water.

Then, crumple a small paper towel and stuff it in the bottom of a cup.

Next, turn the cup upside down and put it in the bowl.  Hold it firmly.  Count to ten.

After that, take the cup out of the bowl.

Finally, look inside the cup.

Results:  We discovered that the paper towel was still dry inside the cup.  We noticed that when we placed the cup in the bowl, it made a smacking sound when it touched the water.  Also, it took strength to hold the cup in position in the bowl. 

Conclusion:  We decided that two types of matter cannot be in the same place at the same time.  Air was trapped inside the cup, and the air kept the paper towel from getting wet. 

As we begin the third quarter, we are beginning some new units of study.

In math, we are beginning a quick unit focusing on place value.  We have been touching on place value all year during our calendar time within our morning meeting.  Key concepts in this unit include:

• understanding the expanded form of a two-digit number (74 = 7 tens and 4 ones), 
  
• representing a two-digit number with a visual diagram of tens and ones, and 
• solving to find the number when you add or subtract one, or when you add or subtract one ten (74 + 1 = 75, 74 + 1 ten = 84).  
  

We will also continue using Reflex Math and the Math Masters program (aka Rocket Math) to measure our progress in recalling basic addition facts quickly and accurately.

In reading and writing, we will use question words to enhance our understanding and our work.  In reading, we will ask and answer wondering questions to monitor our understanding of the text.  For example, Where is the story taking place?  Who is important?  What has happened so far?  Why did the character do that?  How did they get here?  Providing the answers to questions like these can improve our written work as well.   

In social science, we are learning about famous Americans and their contributions to society.  Specifically, we will focus on Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington Carver, and Eleanor Roosevelt.  We have also learned about Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks.  Our "I can make a difference" essays, inspired by the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. are on display in the hallway.

Question:  If you were in charge of first grade curriculum for the Virginia Department of Education, what famous Americans would you add to our list?

One of my main goals in writing this year is to help build the children's confidence.  When students are first mastering sight words, new spelling patterns, and reading more difficult texts, writing can be a daunting task.

We are practicing each stage of the writing process, from getting ideas, drafting, revising, editing, and celebrating our writing.  At the beginning of the year, writing a pattern book was a huge accomplishment.  Now, in the middle of the year, the children have written a personal narrative.  They chose an incident from their lives when they had a strong feeling, and they wrote about what happened from the beginning, to the middle, and the end.  When they identified the heart of their story, they added paper right in the middle to stretch out the most important part.  Wow!    

We want to take a moment to thank you for your encouragement.  We would also like to share our "writers' mantra" that we use to begin our writing workshop each day.  Enjoy!

In case the 'embed' feature doesn't work, here is the link:  http://youtu.be/czehR4bkOTc.  

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are thankful for so many things in first grade!  If you didn't get to see the students' computer lab project, please scroll down to the blog post from last week.  The children were given the prompt, "I am thankful for," and we quickly brainstormed as a class different things that might make their lists.  This is a somewhat brief writing project, since the children needed time to be able to type their work.  As the year progresses, we will be publishing our writing more and more on the computer.  If your child needs extra keyboarding practice, you may want to explore: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/.

This is a free online resource that encourages children to become more familiar with the keyboard.  First graders often find it difficult to use the traditional hand positions for typing since their hands are still pretty small, so for us, we are aiming for the children simply to develop their familiarity with a qwerty keyboard rather than traditional touch-typing skills.  

I received a couple of questions from parents about the "tardy" policy at school.  Our school day begins promptly at 7:50 am.  Children need to be in their classroom (not just in the school building) at 7:50 to be on time for school.  Children who arrive after the 7:50 bell must check in with the school office and get a tardy slip.  However, please consider that the children often benefit from a few extra minutes to take care of their morning routine.  Children who arrive earlier are able to turn in their daily folder, pack their coat in their backpack, make their lunch choice, and sharpen two pencils to be ready for the day, all without rushing or worry.  Having a peaceful start to the morning can make such a difference.  So, even though it is not required, please consider helping your child arrive at the classroom no later than 7:45.  Thank you for your consideration of this suggestion!

Now that it is getting colder, I am asking the children to wear their jackets to recess.   I generally ask the children to wear whatever jacket they wore to school in the morning.  Our usual recess time is close to 10 am, so it is often still chilly.  Please make sure that your child's jackets are labeled with his/her name.  Thank you!

Next week, we will be finishing our history unit focusing on past and present.  You may want to discuss some concepts with your child such as:
- How have schools changed from long ago to today?
- How have houses changed from long ago to today?
- How has transportation changed from long ago to today?
- How has family life (children's games and chores, e.g.) changed from long ago to today?

We will also be finishing our math unit on skip counting.  You can help your child be prepared by practicing counting to 100 by ones, twos, fives, and tens.  The students also need to be able to count backward from 30 to zero.

Finally, one of our goals in first grade is for the students to share their writing with others.  One way we will do this is to take turns sitting in the "author's chair" and reading our writing to the class.  Almost all of the children had the opportunity to share their writing in the last few days.  I will add the last couple once we return to school next week.  The children were reading their favorite pattern book.  Next week, we will be writing nonfiction question and answer books.  

Thank you again for your tremendous support and enthusiasm during AEW week.  I told the children that I would be mentioning them by name as I make my "I'm thankful for" list on Thanksgiving.  I am also thankful for the gift of working with a wonderful group of parents.  Thank you!!

It is wonderful to see the progress the children are making every day.  They are becoming much more familiar with our classroom routines and expectations for positive classroom participation.

I hope you have noticed a new sticker inside your child's red daily take-home folder.  This sticker gives you a summary of our first-grade grading policy.  Student work that is completed for a grade will have a letter:  E, M, P, or B.  These letters correspond to the following descriptions. 

E:  The student exceeds expectations for this standard at this time.
M:  The student is meeting expectations for this standard at this time.
P:  The student is making progress toward meeting this expectation.
B:  The student is performing below grade level expectations at this time.

Please note that these grades reflect the students' academic achievement for the specific standard;  they do not necessarily reflect student effort or work habits.  We will discuss these in more detail at our conferences in a few weeks.

Also, there is a fifth option for a "grade":  the smiley face!  There are many opportunities for the students to practice skills in various areas throughout the day independently.  Things like morning work and math practice sheets may come home with a smiley face. 

Finally, below you will find a slideshow of the children's most recent writing project.  We practiced each step of the writing process together for the first time.  We brainstormed words related to apples, we made a draft paragraph, we checked our paragraphs for upper-case letters at the start of each sentence, and we published our work on fancy apple-stamp paper.  Many of the students relied heavily on the examples that we composed as a group, which is absolutely fine at this point in the year.  Other students added personal flair, and in these pieces you are more likely to see creative spelling.  Phonetic spelling is an essential step in developing confident, fluent writers.  Enjoy! 

I hae been asked to share some information with you regarding the Northern Virginia Writing Project.  A variety of writing workshops for families and parents are available at George Mason University.  If you would like more information, please visit:  http://nvwp.org/youngwriters/saturdayworkshops/

We've finished the first week of school, and I still can't believe how lucky I am to have your children in class this year.  We have had a very busy week, learning classroom routines, school routines, having our special classes, and even having our first all-school fire drill!

I would like to share with you some of the activities that we have begun.  We have our first piece of writing hangin on our author board.  The children drew a picture and wrote what they were hoping to learn in first grade.

We have also been talking about our classroom community and how we can all work together as a team.  We read Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann, and we made a list of ways we could be good classroom citizens.  The children chose their favorite advice and wrote their ideas on paper stars.

In math, we have worked to establish our morning meeting routine.  Every day we will use our morning meeting time as a great way to practice our counting skills, practice calendar skills, and practice collecting and describing data about our class.  We will add other skills (e.g. working with money and telling time) as the year progresses.  We have also used the Promethean board to collect data about the number of boys and girls in our class and the different ways we

Today, we have another piece of writing in the hallway.  The children developed a list of everything they like about school.  They then took their favorite idea and completed an "I like school because" writing prompt.  For the beginning of the year, I am very impressed with what the children can do!  It makes me even more excited to see their work later in the year.

I wish you all a wonderful holiday weekend.  Take care, and I will be waiting for the children Tuesday morning.