Week of September 28th

Dear Families,

I apologize for my tardiness in my weekly updates - better late than never! I hope you all had a great weekend enjoying the beautiful fall weather.

This week we completed our study about apples. Last week we had a taste test, learned about how apples grow and learned all about Johnny Appleseed. To wrap up our learning, we celebrated Johnny Appleseed's birthday by making applesauce. The students worked very hard this morning to slice and dice apples before putting them in the crock pot. Unfortunately, my crock pot had a small glitch - when I plugged it in, the circuit breaker tripped and I never noticed it until midway through the day! Knowing that warm, somewhat hard apples wouldn't be too appetizing, I spiced up the treat with an added bonus - ICE CREAM!  I think my mistake was a HUGE hit with the students!

Our science curriculum will continue as we learn about seeds. We will explore various seeds within the foods we eat and we will also have fun dissecting and growing lima beans. This is sure to be a fun science unit!

Our reading will continue to focus on Daily 5. The students have been doing a great job of Reading to Self, Working on Writing and we have started learning to Read to Someone. When we read with a partner, we sit EEKK (elbow to elbow, knee to knee). We also learned how to whisper read with a partner. While the students are independently working, I have been reading with students in order to form guided reading groups. I hope to start reading with formal groups early next week. The students will be bringing home reading bags with books that we have been working on in class. This is a great way for you to see how well your child is reading and using strategies to decode words. Please take these opportunities to celebrate the great work that your child is doing in first grade! I also ask that you read the book with your child the night it comes home and send it back within a day or two so that other students may begin reading them as well.

In Math we will wrap up our unit on adding numbers and part-part-whole. We will have our first assessment (test) tomorrow. I do my best not to make this a stressful time for my students. In fact, I never even mention the word test. I tell them that it is simply a chance to show what they know so that I know if I did my job well! Once the assessment is scored, I ask that you review, sign and promptly return to school. On Wednesday we will begin our second math unit - Subtraction. In this unit, students will be able to subtract whole numbers (I have 8 pencils, I gave my sister 5. How many do I have left?), identify the missing part (I have 8 pencils. If 5 are on top of my desk, how many are inside?), and compare quantities (I have 8 pencils. My brother has 5 pencils. How many more pencils do I have?).

During Writer's workshop we will continue working on our personal narratives. We have talked a lot about how we can write a whole story just from one small moment in our lives. In class we have discussed that a small moment is just like the seed of a watermelon. We want to stick to tiny/small moments instead of telling large watermelon stories. The students were also given their very own writing partner. These partners are there to help us brainstorm ideas and to ask us questions that will make our writing better.

Please remember to return your child's reading log each Friday. I am planning on starting our first grade homework regimen next week. Please be on the lookout for math homework to begin on Monday or Tuesday. I will hold off on spelling homework for a few more weeks. I figure it's better to start off small.

I hope you all have a great week!

Kerry

Week of September 21st

We have finished another fun and successful week in first grade! Your first graders have impressed me so much with their attention and stamina to complete tasks. This week in Reader's Workshop, we dove right in to Daily 5 which will promote good reading habits and independence. My goal is for each student to have fun while reading and to also become independent readers at their own reading level. During Read to Self, we learned about the 3 ways to read a book - read the pictures, read the words, and retell a story. We also learned how to choose "good fit" books to put in our book bins. They were so excited to hear that many of the books in their bin will be books they get to choose. We learned a fun song called "I-PICK" to help us understand how to pick a good fit book. See below for the acronym.
I - I choose
P - Purpose (Why are we reading this book - for enjoyment? Do we like the character? Is it part of a         series that we enjoy? Do we want to learn something new?)
I - Interest (Do we like the book, topic, characters, pictures?)
C - Comprehension (Do we understand?)
K - Know (Do I know most of the words in the text?)

Next, we learned the 5 finger rule to picking a "good fit" book. After looking at the cover and flipping through the pages, we discussed how we need to turn to a page and start reading. The students were instructed to lift one finger each time they come to a word they are not able to read in a "snap." Books that are too easy are represented with 0-1 finger, books that are too hard have 4-5 fingers and JUST RIGHT books have 2-3 fingers. The kiddos really enjoyed "shopping" for new books and are looking forward to adding lots of books to their bins. We talked about what read to self should look like and sound like. Some of us had some fun showing what this should NOT look like, which of course made us giggle and laugh! Believe it or not, my first grade friends built up their independent reading stamina to 12 minutes. Next week we will start talking about the second part of Daily 5 called Work on Writing. Each student will have a special notebook in their book bin for many writing purposes: journaling, book reviews, lists, letters, etc. We will talk about what this should look like and sound like in a first grade classroom. The students will also learn some strategies for what to do when they get stuck and cannot figure out a word or they have difficulty coming up with a writing idea.

We began our formal Writer's Workshop this week as we discussed Personal Narratives. My writers are certainly full of wonderful stories and I am excited to see their folders fill up with outstanding writing! So far we learned that good writers THINK of an idea and PLAN before writing. When we plan, our writers will touch and tell their story across the pages, jot key phrases in the top corner of the page and then sketch a quick picture. Once our stories are planned, we begin adding the text. Many writers have finished or are nearing the end of their first books. Some writers have even started revising by adding more with their revising pencil (colored pencils)! We are off to a great start. In the week ahead, writers will learn to stretch words to spell them, zoom in to focus on small moments, and we discover that writers talk to other writers about their writing by storytelling their ideas out loud.

In math the students have started playing several math games that are helping them recognize patterns with numbers as well as part-part-whole number relationships. We are going to continue working on part-part-whole using a variety of manipulatives to help us create a concrete understanding as we build up towards an abstract representation of addition sentences. At our October conference I will provide each family with a password to an Xtra math account which will help your child build on his/her math facts this year. I highly encourage you to use this resource once we discuss it at our conference.

This week we will have a lot of fun learning about apples and fall. We will read about and investigate apples this week. We will taste apples, learn about their parts and their life cycle, weigh apples, measure with apples and even experiment with them later this week. We will read about Johnny Appleseed and discover his many contributions. His birthday is on September 26th. We will plan on making applesauce on Monday September 28th instead of Friday the 25th because we have PE at the end of the day. This is always a lot of fun!

I apologize for the lengthy post, but my goal is to keep you as informed as possible. Please contact me with any questions or concerns. I hope you had a terrific weekend!

Kerry

Week of September 15th

Dear 1st Grade Families,

I would like to thank everyone for making it to our Open House this week! I hope you were able to get a sense of my teaching style, goals for your children and the curriculum for the year. It's a lot to pack into 45 minutes, so please feel free to contact me with any questions. I will also apologize again for the difficulty I had with operating the Smart Board! I even came into school last Saturday to go through the presentation to make sure it worked - go figure!!

I have enjoyed interacting with and getting to know each student this week! They all have such wonderful yet different personalities - together, we complete the perfect puzzle! 

This week we have spent a lot of time getting to know one another and going over classroom rules and expectations. We engaged in some fun "get to know you" activities. The students even went on a fun scavenger hunt throughout our classroom to learn about me! One bonus question was to guess how old I was - I have to say I was a little disappointed at some of the guesses : ) Each day in our class a new student will be appointed as the "Person of the Day." This person will be our line leader, messenger, and will also help with various tasks throughout the day. For the first 22 days of school we will have a small celebration for each student in an effort to learn a bit more about them. We will count the letters in his/her name, create a name puzzle, cheer their name, have a question and answer session, and finally we will each create a portrait of this student. Be on the lookout for the pictures and certificate in the weeks to come! This is always an exciting activity for the students. 

We read many books this week to guide our discussions about new learning, rules, expectations and building friendships throughout this year. One of my favorites is called My Brave Year of Firsts. This book will serve as our motto - to be brave (trying new things and never giving up no matter what), being true (good decision making), and being strong (exercising our minds)!

We also read the book The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes - the story of a little girl who is a perfectionist. She was known as the girl who never made mistakes...until one day she did! 

We learned that mistakes are going to happen this year and they are A-OKAY!  This year we will embrace our mistakes and learn from them.  I told the students a story of a good teacher friend of mine named Miss Take. She ALWAYS made mistakes. She forgot to do so many things like taking attendance, giving the students snack, sending them to the wrong special, misspelling words, wearing two different shoes, and calling a student by the wrong name. When we finished, I told them that Miss Take was really ME! They got a kick out of this!  

This week we have added our first poem to our poetry binders as well as made two journal entries. The students also took their very first spelling test. This was actually a quick assessment of 30 priority words that the students will be expected to spell correctly by the end of the year. I can show you these at our October conferences.

In the week ahead we will dive into our Daily 5 program. I plan to begin with "Read to Self" and will set a stamina goal of 15 minutes by the end of the week. I also plan on beginning to explore "Work on Writing" by Friday as we will start our first Writing Workshop unit on Wednesday. The first unit is Narrative writing. The students will be asked to write a pre-assessment piece for me on Tuesday just so I can see his/her writing abilities which will help me guide my instruction for individuals/groups of students. We began our first Math unit - Understanding Addition - and we will continue this week also. Throughout the unit students will 

1. understand the numbers 6-9 can be broken into parts of the whole in different way.

2. understand parts of a whole in relation to addition.

Our language arts curriculum will focus on a review of kindergarten skills as we will focus on initial and final consonants. We will also look at basic sentence structure. We will look at various sentences and ask ourselves 2 questions: Does it look right? Does it sound right? We will review proper sentence structure (capitals at the beginning, spaces between words, and punctuation) as well as forming complete sentences that make sense. 

Whew! Week one is done and we've already done so much and next week proves to be busy (yet fun) as well! I'm here to help, so please let me know if I can be of assistance. Please note that reading logs went home today and should be returned on Friday. As stated at Open House, students should be reading 5 out of 7 nights for at least 15 minutes and they (or you) should record their reading on the chart. Please return the log to school each Friday and a new one will be sent home. Thank you in advance for helping to promote independence and a love for reading with your child!

Fondly,

Kerry

kgaudiello@bcsd.neric.org

First Day of School Reminders

Dear Families,

I'm excited to meet all of my new first grade friends tomorrow 

morning! Here are a few important reminders (noted in the 

summer letter) of things that your child will need on his/her 

first day:

1. all school supplies 

2. Plastic pencil box

3. Art smock

4. A summer photo of your child (family can be in it also) 

Thank you in advance for helping your child be prepared for 

our 1st day together!

Kerry Gaudiello