Another Busy Week in First Grade!

Last Friday, we made spirit posters and celebrated Homecoming with the entire school at a Pep Rally in the gym. Some of the Upper School students came to take us to the Pep Rally and sat with us. Genesis and Hannah are members of the "Little Sparks" and were even able to cheer with the cheerleaders! The gym was electrifying with spirit!

Language Arts: Due to the Fall Festival on Friday, we will be having this week's spelling and reading tests on Thursday! Try some new activities on SpellingCity.com this week to help your child prepare! Also, there will be no reading folders going home this week. Enjoy the Halloween festivities as a family, but keep reading! This week's spelling focus is on words with the dipthong /ng/ as in sing. Our wall words are: arms, every, feet, head, school, use, way, and your. The robust vocabulary words introduced through literature are ashamed, mused, soared, athletic, awkward, and superb. In reading, we will be introducing "plot" (the events that make up the main story of a text) and working on recognizing story structure.

Writing Workshop: Children often end their writing "and then I went home," or "I went to bed." We will work to write story endings that stay in the moment with the heart of the story. We will also begin work with our writing partners as "editors" to help us fix-up our writing to ready it for publishing.

Math: We will work with dimes, dollars-and-cents notation, and practice exchanging pennies, nickels, and dimes.

Science: This week we will be talking about ways to keep our bodies healthy. Don't be surprised if your child points out that YOU might be doing something that is unhealthy for your body!

Things to Remember:

• PLEASE help your child remember to bring the word card ring back to school on Thursday. Almost half the class forgot last week!
  
• Picture Retake Day is Thursday! Flyers are coming home in your child's folder today. (Personally, I thought the children's pictures came out WONDERFUL this year! I definitely have the cutest first graders!)
• Fall Festival is Friday! The parade begins at 8:30. Then we will come back to our classroom to celebrate Matthieu's birthday! If you wish to accompany your child to the festival, please be at the classroom no later than 10:00. Otherwise, they will be dismissed to the festival at 10:00.
• Poetry in the Park begins at 8:30 on Wednesday, November 10. Bring your chairs or blankets and enjoy a delightful morning of poetry! (Keep practicing at home with your child!)
  
• There will be no school for students on Friday, November 12, due to a Professional Development Day for teachers.
  

Volunteers this week:

• Tuesday - Art - Kristen Danielson (12:05)
• Thursday - Library Check-out - Julie Piper and Molly Camp (2:05)

Have a wonderful weekend and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Susan

Look Up, Look Down, Look All Around!

Science/Social Studies: Our human body unit continues. Today we learned about the human eye. Cow eyes are very similar to human eyes. Lisa Peck brought cow 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 really 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 we have them drying in our classroom. After a couple days we will be able to lay the lens on a book or newspaper and look right through the lens to see words magnified! How cool is that?


Language Arts: This week are are working on words with short vowel /u/ and reviewing words with the digraph /th/. This week's wall words are live, does, grow, many, be, and food. The robust vocabulary for this week include claimed, dine, groaned, function, nutritious, and classify. We will also introduce initial blends with r, as in truck or crack. We will continue to work on nouns, concentrating on nouns that name animals or things. This week's genre focus will be on nonfiction writing with rhyming text. As we read, we will look for details in the text and focus on adjusting our reading rate, being sure to slow down when we need to focus on important information.

Writing Workshop: We are working on storytelling with our partners and the roles each play, spelling our "no excuse" words in a snap, and revealing internal stories - our "feelings and thoughts" as opposed to the external story which describes the action.

Math: We are introducing a new routine called Frames and Arrows and will be working on counting up and back on a calculator.

Things to Remember:

• Word ring comes home on Monday and is returned on Thursday.
  
• Red reading folder comes home on Wednesday and is returned on Monday.
• Spirit Day will be this Friday, October 22. This week is Homecoming week at Shorecrest! We will be attending an all school pep rally on Friday afternoon.
• Picture Retake Day will be Thursday, October 28.
• Fall Festival will be Friday, October 29. The parade will be at 8:30 and then the children will be dismissed from the classroom at 10:00 a.m. to attend the festival.
• Poetry in the Park will be Wednesday, November 10. The children listened to three different poems and were able to vote for the one they wanted our class to do. The winning poem came home in today's folder. PLEASE practice it at home with your child as often as you can!
  

Volunteers this week:

• Tuesday - Art - Chris Chen (12:05)
• Thursday - Library Checkout - Ailsa Hudson and Liz Jack (2:05)
• Friday - Math Game - Margaret Young
• Friday - Parent Reader - Octavia or Tom Perfetto (1:00-1:30 due to Pep Rally)

Odds and Ends:

Last Tuesday, our first Picture Lady, Esther Happle, introduced the children to Max Ernst, a German surrealist painter. He had a fascination with a particular animal and often put it in his paintings. Ask your child if they remember what animal this was!

Thank you to our wonderful parent readers for modeling such wonderful expressiveness and the love of reading when you come to read to our class! It is definitely one of the favorite parts of our week!

Celebrating the RAYS tomorrow!

Dear Parents,

Okay, so my Gators continue to head south, but the RAYS brought me back to life yesterday! Let's cheer on our beloved home team by wearing Rays shirts tomorrow (with uniform bottoms)! We'll send all our good luck their way! GO RAYS!

Social Studies/Science: Not only have the Rays brought excitement, but Lisa Peck, our favorite Upper School science teacher brought more excitement to first grade today! We have been learning about the heart and circulatory system in our human body unit, so Mrs. Peck brought cow hearts to dissect with the children! They were able to see the valves and four chambers of the heart as they learned about their important functions. Our human body unit will continue for the month of October. We love science and we love Mrs. Peck!



Language Arts: This week we are working on words with the digraph /th/ at the beginning of a word, as in that, and at the end of a word, as in path. This week's wall words are: don't her, line, Mr., new, says, and water. This week's robust vocabulary words are applauded, chatty, gather, duty, envy, and resent. We are learning that a noun is a word that names a person, place, thing, or animal. We read the book, "A Mink, a Fink, a Skating Rink" to help us learn to pick out nouns in sentences. This week we are concentrating on nouns that name people or places. As you work with your child at home this week, have him/her point out nouns to you. This week's genre focus is on realistic fiction, stories that are made up but could happen in real life. We are using a graphic organizer called a story map to help us understand and remember the beginning, middle, and ending of stories that we read. Look for a story map in your child's red reading folder this week!

I am sure you have heard that I am reading my favorite book aloud to the class - Charlotte's Web. The third graders are also reading it as a class novel so we are partnering with Mrs. Hensler's third graders for some fun activities during this time. On Friday, Mrs. Hensler's class came to visit and shared narrations they have been working on along with Wilbur paper bag puppets that both classes made. We love working with our third grade buddies!



Writing Workshop: We are learning that we always have a graphic organizer with us to help tell stories that have a beginning, middle, and ending - our five fingers! We are using our fingers to help us internalize and plan the details of our stories ("first", "next", "then", "and then", "finally"). Ask your child about this strategy! We will also be focusing on the most important part of our story and adding details to that part.

Math: In math, we are reviewing basic number-line concepts by counting, adding, and subtracting on the number line. We will also be practicing telling time to the half-hour, and will be introducing a new routine called Frames-and-Arrows.

Things to remember:

• Rays Day tomorrow! Children may wear a Tampa Bay Rays shirt with uniform bottom.
  
• Red reading folder comes home on Wednesday and is returned on Monday
• Word card ring comes home on Monday and is returned on Thursday
  
• Please complete the online parent opinion survey if you have not already done so.
• No school for students this Friday due to a Professional Development Day for teachers
• Spirit Day will be Friday, October 22
  
• Picture Retake Day will be Tuesday, October 28
  
• Fall Festival will be Friday, October 29.

Volunteers this week:

• Tuesday - Art - Ailsa Hudson (12:05)
• Thursday - Library Check-out - Valerie Pillot and Kristen Danielson

Go Rays!
Susan

Rays Day Tomorrow!

We are celebrating our hometown team tomorrow by wearing our Rays shirts! Children may wear a Tampa Bay Rays shirt to school with their uniform pants. GO RAYS!

Week of October 4th

Dear Families,

It’s starting to feel a little like fall! Let’s hope the cool, crisp air that we feel in the early morning decides to hang around! The season of fall brings many exciting events – not only football games, but also the Fall Festival and Halloween are right around the corner. The Leo Club of Shorecrest’s upper division is collecting gently used or new Halloween costumes for the YWCA for children that otherwise would not have them. Look through your closets and stashes and bring any that you would like to donate to this worthy cause.

We have a busy and exciting week ahead! Let’s take a look at it!

Language Arts: 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 words are chorus, odor, shoved, assemble, consume, and enthusiastic. We are also learning about word endings ed and ing. In the past couple of weeks, we have worked on constructing telling sentences and questions and using the correct punctuation for each. This week we will practice constructing exclamations. When reading, we will 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 and this week’s focus is on the genre of fantasy. We will be reading several versions of “The Little Red Hen” and the children will enjoy retelling the story in a variety of ways, including creating their own version!

Don’t forget that our red reading folders will begin this week. They will be coming home on Wednesday.

Writing Workshop: We have begun our new unit of study - Small Moments: Personal Narrative Writing. The children are learning to take moments from their own lives and use details to stretch them across several pages to write stories.

Math: In Math, we will be working on patterns… number patterns, visual patterns, and even and odd number patterns. The children will practice creating and continuing repeating patterns.

Social Studies/Science: We continue working on map skills. In science, our human body unit continues. We will be learning about our magnificent brain. Today, UD teacher Lisa Peck, came to first grade to dissect sheep brains with us! So exciting! On Tuesday, Vinh’s parents will be coming in to help us learn about the human heart. We are so lucky to have so many resources to draw from! Thank you to all of our volunteering parents!

Things to remember:

• The red reading folder is coming home Wednesday and should be returned completed next Monday. This will be the routine each week.
  
• The word card ring needs to be returned on Thursday. Please be sure to practice reading AND spelling the words with your child. Have your child write sentences using the words!
• Please remember to complete the online parent opinion survey. Here is the link. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZBYF22R
• There will be no school for students on Friday, October 15, due to a Professional Development Day for teachers.
• Spirit Day will be Friday, October 22.
• Picture Retake Day will be Tuesday, October 28.
• Fall Festival will be Friday, October 29.

Volunteers this week:

• Tuesday – Art - Mai Nguyen (12:05)
• Thursday – Library Check-out - Julie Piper and Molly Camp (2:05)
• Friday – Math Game – Molly Camp (9:00)
• Friday – Parent Reader – Jennifer Lewis (2:15)

Happy Fall!

Susan

Parent Opinion Survey

Hello Parents!

I have so enjoyed meeting with each of you to discuss your child's progress. Our partnership is so important. I am really looking forward to the rest of the year!

The window is now open for our parent opinion survey. You may access the survey through the link posted below. Please help us identify areas of strength as well as opportunities for improvement by taking the survey. It should take approximately 20 minutes of your time. Also, if you live in a two-parent household, we encourage both parents to take the survey. Thank you so much for your participation in this very important reflective process!

Have a great weekend!
Susan

link:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZBYF22R