Dear Parents:

First of all, Gooooooooooo RAYS! Tomorrow the children are allowed to wear their Rays shirts again in support of our hometown team in the playoffs!

This morning at Town Meeting Mrs. Densa's class helped to kick off our first grade service learning project with the SPCA. This year each grade will lead a service learning project that, if possible, will involve the entire lower division. The first grade is leading a donation drive for the SPCA and is asking that each child in the lower division bring in at least one donation on the SPCA's wish list. At the end of the month the first graders will load up all the donations and hand deliver them to the SPCA followed by a tour. Some easy donation items are dog & cat snacks, newspapers, paper towels, shoe boxes, blankets and towels. Please see the link below for a look at their wish list!

http://www.spcatampabay.org/page.aspx?pid=396

Don't forget that Conference Day is this Thursday. The students will not have school. Please refer to the schedule that I sent home last week. If you cannot make your time, please let me know as soon as possible! Also, due to Conference Day, we will have our library check-out on Friday right after lunch before our lesson with Mrs. Smay.

Even though we only have four days of school this week, we are busy and learning! Here's a look at what we are doing:
Language Arts/Reading: This week we are working on words with short vowel /e/, words with "l" blends such as clap, and reviewing short vowel /o/. This week's wall words are day, eat, first, said, time, and was. This week's robust vocabulary (WOW) words are chorus, odor, shoved, assemble, consume, and enthusiastic. We continue to work with words with the word endings ed and ing. During the past few weeks, we have worked on constructing and comparing telling sentences and questions and using the correct punctuation for each. This week we will practice constructing exclamations and learn when to use the exclamation point as punctuation. During reading workshop we will continue to work on reading with a smooth/storyteller voice by going back and rereading, noticing punctuation, and not reading too slow or too fast. Partners will also learn that they are "coaches", coaching each other through the "tricky" words rather than telling their partners the words. As we read we will also be working on the comprehension strategies of comparing and contrasting and answering questions to help us understand what we read. We have been learning about different genres of literature. This week we will talk about the genre of fantasy. We'll be reading several versions of "The Little Red Hen" and the children will see that different authors can put a different spin on a story. The children will also enjoy retelling the story and create their own version.

Writing Workshop: In our Small Moments: Personal Narrative Writing unit, the children are learning to plan details to stretch their stories across several pages. We're also reminding ourselves to use high-frequency words, to incorporate word endings, to use punctuation, etc. as we write.

Math: We will continue to work on number stories, complete our Unit 2 assessment, and begin to work on visual patterns.

Science: Our human body unit continues. Last week, we enjoyed three special presentations on the brain, the skeleton, and the eyes. Enjoy the pictures! This week we are learning about our amazing hearts. This morning, Mrs. Peck brought cow hearts to dissect! Did you know that we actually have heart strings? So, when someone says "pulled on my heart strings"... Last week, one of our classmates shared that he had had a bad kidney when he was born. So, today she also brought a kidney to share with the children as well as models of the heart, kidney, and digestive system. She has loaned first grade those models to use for the next couple of weeks. We are so lucky to have Mrs. Peck! We are also conducting a little experiment (with the chicken bones) in our class to see what happens to our bones without enough calcium. The children should be able to tell you the results in a couple of weeks!

And we are packing all of this in in just four days!!! THAT is amazing!

Other things to remember:

Word card ring needs to be returned on Friday this week! Please be sure to practice reading AND spelling the words with your child. Have your child write sentences using the words!

No school on Friday, October 14 due to a Professional Development Day for teachers.

Picture Retake Day will be Tuesday, October 18.

Fall Festival will be Friday, October 28.

Field Trip to SPCA on Thursday, November 3. Parents are welcome to join us. We will leave school at 10:45 and return at approximately 1:30. We will eat lunch at the SPCA. Please complete and return the Sage form that your child brought home today.

Volunteers this week:

Tuesday - Art - Jill Emerson (12:05)
Wednesday - Math game - Kelli Cross (1:00)
Friday - Parent Reader - Marshall or Natalie Ames (2:15)

Have a great week!
Susan

Week of September 26, 2011

Dear Parents:

Our celebration last Wednesday of International Peace Day was beautiful. For those of you unable to join us at our special Town Meeting that morning, the children joined the rest of the lower school in putting peace symbols that they made in art in the center courtyard to fill in diagrams of both a peace symbol and a heart. We also sang "If I Had a Hammer" together with the entire lower school. First graders, in correlation with studying the senses during our human body unit last week, read the book What Does Peace Feel Like? by Vladimir Radinsky. Check out our "peace people" in the windows of the first grade hall. We used our five senses to think of what peace "feels" like, "sounds" like, "smells" like, "tastes" like, and "looks" like. If the rest of the world could think like our children, the world would be a better place.

This is going to be a very exciting week at school! We will be having lots of visitors. First, the accreditation team is here evaluating our school. The head of the team just happens to have been MY very own favorite English teacher from high school! Obviously, she was a very young teacher when I had her! It's so nice to see her again after all these years.

We will also have three more special visitors this week to help us learn more about our human body in science. Mrs. Peck will return on Wednesday to dissect sheep brains with us as we learn about our amazing brains! On Thursday, Dr. Burke, Ainsley's dad, will help us learn more about the bones of our skeleton. I also heard that he has a special surprise for the children... shhhh. Then on Friday, Dr. Carmack, Chelsea's dad from Mrs. Densa's class, will make a special presentation about our eyes. We are so fortunate to have such wonderful resources to help us learn. Thank you to our fantastic parents and Mrs. Peck!

In Social Studies, we will begin working on map skills which will continue throughout the year.

In Math, we will work on both addition and subtraction number models and making up and solving number stories. Last week we began exchanging pennies for nickels and this week we will learn to play a game called Penny Nickel Exchange. We plan to complete Unit 2 this week and take our second math assessment next Monday.

In Reading Workshop, we will continue to talk about and practice the strategies for figuring out "tricky" words. We will also talk about and practice reading with a smooth storyteller voice by implementing the strategies of going back and rereading as well as noticing and using punctuation to help us read more smoothly. Reading with a smooth storyteller voice will help us to better understand what we read.

This week our word work will focus on words with variant vowel /o/a as in "all". This week's wall words (sight words) are: how, make, of, some, and town. This week's robust vocabulary words are locate, search, symbol, overflowing, commotion, and muffle. We will continue to learn about contractions and homophones as well.

Today in Writing Workshop, we read a book written by some of our very own Shorecrest high school student authors, Jack and Hannah S. What a great mentor text for my young writers to hear the "small moments" of Jack and Hannah's lives written and published! This week as we continue our personal narrative writing on the small moments of our lives, we will establish partnerships for writing (as we already have for reading). Also, as we have been learning to stretch words for reading, we will practice stretching words to help us write them. The children are seeing that the strategies we use to help us as readers, we can also use to help us as writers.

In handwriting, we will continue to work on lowercase letters. I will share more about the handwriting program at our conference.

Tomorrow I will be sending home flyers from Highlights, a magazine for children. If you are interested in ordering, they are offering it at a great price! I know my children always loved Highlights. Even if you are not interested, please sign and return the yellow flyer to school. Our class will receive a free gift just for returning all 15 flyers - whether orders are placed or not!

Things to Remember:

Conference Day - Thursday, October 6th - No school for students

The Adventures of Stuart Little in JR Theater - Friday, October 7th - You are welcome to join us.

Professional Development Day - Friday, October 14th - No school for students

Picture Retake Day -Tuesday, October 18th

Fall Festival - Friday, October 28th

Field Trip to the SPCA - Thursday, November 3 - Parents welcome!

Poetry in the Park - Friday, November 11th - Mark your calendars now!

Volunteers this week:

Tuesday - Art - 12:05 - Debbie Boensch
Wednesday - Math Game - 1:00 - Natalie Ames
Thursday - Library Check-out - 12:00 - Kim Burke and Susannah or Brian Malison
Friday - Parent Reader - cancelled due to Dr. Carmack's visit with first grade

It's going to be a wonderful week!
Hope your week is too!
Susan

Week of September 19, 2011

Celebrate, Celebrate!

First of all, I want to thank you all again for my wonderful birthday celebration last week. I so appreciated everything! You made my day so very special. Counting my birthday, we celebrated four birthdays in 6 school days! Reid, Victoria, and Jackson all celebrated turning 7 - a few years younger than me!

This week we are celebrating our accomplishments in reading and writing. We have worked hard and learned so much as readers and writers.

Last week in Writing Workshop, each child selected a piece from their writing notebooks and worked to "fix it up" for publishing. Today they shared their published stories with the class as we enjoyed our first Writing Celebration! We are writers!

Tomorrow we begin our new unit of study in Writing Workshop – Small Moments: Personal Narrative Writing. The children will learn that they can create stories out of the details of their own experiences. The opportunities that children have to take the moments of their lives and spin them into stories play an important role in their literacy development.

In Reading Workshop this week, we will be practicing several strategies to help us figure out “tricky” words. During the next several weeks, we will also be focusing on the importance of making meaning of our reading. As children work to become proficient decoders, they sometimes forget that the words they read are making a story or lose their understanding of the story as they work hard to figure out “tricky” words. We will focus on using three sources of information (meaning, syntax, and graphophonics—although we don’t use those words!) to figure out the words in books. This week we will also be celebrating all that we have learned so far as readers. Before shopping for new “just right books”, we will choose a favorite book from our book boxes and begin recording ourselves reading them on our new classroom i-pod! We love reading!

In Language Arts/Spelling, we are focusing on words with short vowel /o/. We will continue reviewing the naming and telling parts of sentences and practice identifying nouns that are found in the naming parts of sentences. When reading and writing, we work on story structure by answering the questions “who, what, where, and when”. You can help your child recognize story structure by asking questions when they read or write such as “who is the story about”, “where are they”, “what is happening”. We will also be using graphic organizers to help us recognize the story structure and summarize the beginning, middle, and end of the story.

I have begun introducing robust vocabulary (or as we call them in our class, WOW Words). The purpose of our robust vocabulary is to introduce the children to a stronger vocabulary for use when speaking, and ultimately writing. We will not focus on the spelling of these words, but rather the meaning to enrich their spoken vocabulary. This week’s robust vocabulary words are: horrible, invigorated, presented, aid, persistent, sweltering.

Please don't forget that the word card ring of sight words should be worked on (reading and spelling) daily at home and returned to school on Thursday. This week's sight words: find, thank, tree, mom, and much.

In handwriting, we continue to work on lowercase letter formations. When your child is doing homework, please encourage neatness and proper letter formation.

In math this week, we will explore the penny and nickel and work on counting combinations of them.

I'm sure you will hear about Science today! After focusing on our five senses last week, we learned all about the human eye today. Upper Division Science Teacher, Lisa Peck, brought cow eyes, which are very similar to human eyes, to dissect with the children to help them see how the eye works. We learned about the different parts of the eye and their functions. One of the interesting things we learned is that the job of the lens is to focus the light in our eye to project the image of what we see back to the optic nerve and then to our brain. Mrs. Peck removed the lenses from the cow eyes and, after they dry, we will be able to lay the lenses on a book or newspaper and look right through them to see words magnified! How cool is that? We also learned why our eyes sometimes show up red in photographs. Ask your child about that! Over the next several days we will learn all about the framework of our body – the skeleton!

Things to remember:

International Peace Day will be celebrated Wednesday morning beginning with a special Town Meeting gathering in the morning. The children may wear "peace-themed" t-shirts if they have them and uniform bottoms. You are welcome to join us at the Town Meeting gathering if you can.

Students in grades JK-2 will see "The Adventures of Stuart Little" on Friday, October 7 at 1:00 in the Janet Root Theater. You are welcome to join us.

Please send photos of your Summer Travels for possible inclusion in the 2012 yearbook. Please send your photos by this Friday, September 23rd. Email your photos to: nap@shorecrest.org.

Spirit Day is every Friday. The children may wear Charger spirit wear to school instead of uniforms.

Conference Day is October 6. There will be no school for students.

Homework should be done in pencil only. That way if there is a mistake made, it can be corrected easily. Ask your child what Mrs. Owen says about mistakes!

Please help your child learn responsibility for returning the word ring to school every Thursday. We are having difficulty getting them all back on time! Also, please have your child practice spelling the words as well as reading them.

Library books should be returned by Thursday each week. However, if your child isn't finished

Dress Code: Please remind your child that the dress code at Shorecrest requires that their “shirts are tucked in” and that “belts in a neutral color must be worn with all items that have belt loops.”

Volunteers this Week:

* Tuesday - Art – Mary Harris (12:05)
* Wednesday - Math Game – Kim Burke (1:00)

*Thursday - Library Check-out - Marion O’Mullane and Kim Burke (12:05)
* Friday - Parent Reader – Kelli Cross (2:15)

I wish everyone a peaceful week…
Susan

Week of September 12, 2011

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Dear Parents:

I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful weekend. I went to Gainesville for the weekend and enjoyed time with my husband, son, and future daughter-in-law. Spending time with my children is still my most favorite thing to do in the world! Next to that, is spending time with YOUR children at school! Here are some of the things we will be doing this week:

In language arts, we will be focusing on the digraph /k/ spelled ck. The spelling words are on the sheet attached to the homework calendar. Don't forget that it is your child's responsibility to make the word sort cards for the spelling word homework. They no longer need the baggie attached to their folder and do not need to return the words to school. Several children have brought in the dictionary they are making at home with these words! If they bring it in to show me, they are getting their name in the happy face five times! One time deal - they do not need to bring it in again. Just keep working on it at home. This week's wall (or sight) words are late, oh, yes, fast, and asleep. Please practice reading, spelling, and using the words in sentences. In grammar, we will be learning about the telling parts of sentences. The telling part (who or what a person or thing does) is usually found at the end of a sentence. We will also be working on the comprehension strategies/skills of summarizing as we read and understanding simple story structure. All stories have events that happen at certain parts of the story. As we read, we will begin to distinguish what happens at the beginning, middle, and end of the story.

Along with the individual reading assessments that I have done with each child, we have spent the better part of the first few weeks of school learning the rules, routines, and procedures for our time in Reading Workshop. The children have practiced book shopping for their “just right books” and spend time each day reading these books independently and now with partners as well. There is explicit teaching during our daily mini-lessons in Reading Workshop that the children then spend time practicing as they read independently and with their partners. We also spend time each day with teacher read-alouds. The main purposes for these read-alouds are to teach the children to think and talk about books and to build excitement for reading. I use read aloud time to model making predictions – “Let’s look at the cover and ask ourselves, What do we think this book is going to be about?” I also model thinking aloud while reading by asking myself questions such as: “Who are the characters in this story?” “Where is this story taking place?” “What happened first, then next, then next?” This helps the children learn to talk in ways that keep them close to the text. I love seeing the children practice the concepts that are modeled during the read-alouds during their independent reading time! This week our mini-lessons will focus on the jobs that partners have, learning that smart readers reread books, readers use strategies such as picture clues to help them when reading books they have never seen nor heard before, and practicing making our voices sound like characters would sound like by noticing how characters are feeling in the pictures and in the words. When you read with your child at home, practice these strategies!

In Writing Workshop, we are getting ready to publish our first piece of writing! Today the children spent time going through all of their writing done so far and chose a piece of writing that they love and they think others will enjoy hearing or reading. We will spend the rest of the week "fixing it up" for publishing which at this point means rereading, adding to the drawing, adding to the words, coloring the sketches, and making a cover. Then we will share them as a class at our first celebration.

In handwriting this week, we are playing a magic c mystery letter game to help us remember to "start the letters at the top" when writing. We will also be learning some physical motions with our hands to help us size and place our letters correctly. Please send in a clean sock for your child to use if you have not done so. We are still missing quite a few!

In math we played "2 Fisted Penny Addition" for sums of 10 today. It's a great way for the children to "see" and understand math facts! Please play this at home as often as you can. The directions were on last week's blog. We will also be introducing unit labels for numbers, calculators, and the analog clock this week.

In science, we began our study of the Human Body today! To kick off the unit, we read the book Parts by Ted Arnold. If you haven't read it, it is hysterical! This unit will last through the month of October as we study the heart, skeleton, muscles, brain, skin, and so much more! I told the children many of the exciting things we will be doing. You should have seen their faces! Priceless! One of Shorecrest's wonderful upper school science teachers, Lisa Peck, will be bringing animal body parts to share and dissect with us as we learn about them. So cool! I also want to thank those of you who have offered to come in and share your expertise with us. The children and I can't wait!

Things to remember:

Word cards (sight words on ring) need to be worked on all week and returned on Thursday.

Picture Day for the Lower Division is tomorrow! If you want to order pictures and have not returned your envelope, please send it in with your child tomorrow.

International Peace Day is Wednesday, September 21. We will be having a special assembly that morning. Please join us.

Parent and teacher conferences are on October 6.

Students in grades JK-2 will see "The Adventures of Stuart Little" on Friday, October 7 at 1:00 in the Janet Root Theater. You are welcome to join us.

Please send photos of your Summer Travels for possible inclusion in the 2012 yearbook. Please send your photos by September 23rd. Email your photos to: nap@shorecrest.org.

Volunteers this week:

• Tuesday - Art - Eva D'Agostino (12:00)
• Wednesday - Math Game - Susannah or Brian Malison (1:00)
• Thursday - Library Check-out - Natalie Ames and Kimberly Burke
• Friday - Parent Reader - Kevin Williams or Marion O'Mullane(2:15)

Have a great week! Susan

Dear Parents:

Another soggy start to our week! While it may cause some cabin fever, I like to look at the positive side of things... we do need the rain! I hope you all enjoyed your Labor Day weekend. It was fun to listen to the children tell about their adventures. It sounds like many of you were busy having a lot of fun! Even though it is a short week of school, we will be busy having fun learning. Here are a few of the things we will be doing in our class this week.

This morning our class made their first visit to the Computer Lab as first graders. It was a rescheduled visit from last week. The children were introduced to making webs in Kidspiration. We will be practicing this skill on our classroom computers now.

Writing Workshop: When writing, it is common for many children to summarize the event on the first page and then, to make the story longer, they add-on other pages. The story is not focused, or in any kind of order, and often does not make sense. We will be working on planning and writing stories/books that span several pages, focusing on one event and thinking about what happened at the beginning, then..., and finally. We'll also widen our writing possibilities learning that writers write for lots of reasons and in lots of genres. Writers make lists, write agendas, write letters, make signs, etc. The real world possibilities are endless! Today we talked about writing stories about other people. In order to find out information about that person, the writer must "interview" them. We interviewed Reid and wrote stories about him. These will be made into a book for Reid and we will read the book at his birthday celebration on Friday!

In language arts, we will be focusing on short vowel /i/ words. This week it is your child's responsibility to make the word sort cards for the spelling word homework. This has been done in class the last couple of weeks so your child should know the routine! These are the spelling words that we have been keeping in the baggie in your child's folder. They no longer need the baggie attached to their folder and do not need to return the words to school. Your child can glue them into the spiral dictionary that I suggested you make last week. It makes a great resource for helping with spelling when writing at home! Also, don't forget that your child is responsible for knowing how to read and spell the sight words on the word ring as well. These should be worked on daily at home and returned to school on Thursday. This week's words are hold, soon, so, home, and get. In grammar, we will be learning about the naming parts of sentences. The naming part (who or what the sentence is about) is usually found at the beginning of a sentence. We will also be working on the comprehension strategies of categorizing (gathering together information that is the same or almost the same) and classifying (giving that information a name).

In Reader's Workshop we have been begun talking about "just right books" for reading. We have talked about finding books that not only interest us, but that are at a just right level for reading. Ask your child about the ways we find books that are right for us and about the "five finger rule". We will be forming partnerships for reading and learning how the jobs of those partners help us as readers. We continue to work on the comprehension strategies of making predictions, asking ourselves (and now our partners) questions while we read, and using picture clues to help us.

In handwriting this week, we are working on the lowercase letters a, c, d, and g which are all made by beginning with magic c. Ask your child what this means! Please send in a clean sock for your child to use if you have not done so.

In Math we took our first written assessment today on Unit 1. These will come home tomorrow. The children are learning how to take tests and "why" we take tests. The main reason we take tests is to let Mrs. Owen and you know what they need help with. We will begin Unit 2 tomorrow. The Math Family Letter for Unit 2 will come home in your child's take-home folder today. Please read it and keep it in a safe place so that you may refer to it if needed. It will give you lots of useful information on what we will cover in this unit, vocabulary used, several "Do-Anytime Activities" that are helpful, and directions for games that you can play at home with your child to help them with the skills we are working on in the unit. This week in class we will practice counting up and back on the number grid as well as working with complements of 10. The children will learn to play a game called "2 Fisted Penny Addition". Please play this at home as often as you can. Here are the directions: Place 10 pennies on a table. Ask your child to grab a handful of pennies with one hand and pick up the rest with the other hand. Have your child provide information using this format: "I have 3 pennies in one hand and 7 pennies in the other hand." Using such language reinforces the idea that each number is a count of objects. Take it further by having them say "3 plus 7 = 10". This is great practice for addition facts! Your child's Math Journal will be coming home on Thursday for homework. PLEASE complete page 8 together with your child and return it to school on Friday!

Social Studies: We continue our character education unit through our author study of Kevin Henkes' books. We will begin our study of the Human Body next week. The children will love this unit! I am looking for doctors, nurses, EMTs, or others that work in the health care field that would like to volunteer to come in to share during this unit. If you are interested, please let me know!

Things to remember:

Word cards (on ring) need to be returned on Thursday.

Our Homework Calendar begins this week! Look for it in your child's folder today! As we discussed at BTSN, please have your child turn in only the homework that is due each day. All homework should be done in pencil only, no ink. Please be sure to always note the reminders on the right-hand side!

Picture Day for the Lower Division is next Tuesday, September 13th.

Volunteers this week:

• Tuesday - Art - Kimberly Burke (12:00)
• Wednesday - Math Game - Mai Nguyen (1:00)
• Thursday - Library Check-out - Eva D'Agostino and Kimberly Burke
  
• Friday - Parent Reader - Mary or Charley Harris (2:15)
  

It's going to be a great week!
Susan