Post Thanksgiving Update

Hello Friendly Families!

We've been busy in class over the past couple of weeks. We've finished up our Small Moment stories (coming home soon), we've kicked off our study of the senses and continued our hard work on our day to day tasks. I really appreciated the time I got to meet with all of you about your child's progress thus far this year. I really value the relationships we are beginning to/continuing to form. I am always here as a listening ear, someone who you can brain-pick or anything else you may need or be wondering about. Don't hesitate to get in touch.

A special thanks to our School Garden group, who allowed us to enjoy the garlic and squash grown in our amazing small collection of raised beds. This has been the year with the most adventurous "I'll try a bite" all the way to "Can I have thirds?" I think I can speak for us all when I say Thank You!

 We have finished our Small Moment stories and will be taking those home soon. We will soon be doing a "show what you know" writing prompt to see how they do with an unassisted one draft shot at the same kind of prompt. The purpose of this is to see what skills the kids have picked up and which they need more practice with.

In literacy we have continued our hard work on our sight words, reading and independent writing. The kids are doing such a great job on all of this. At home, check in with your kiddos to see how these different areas are going.


In science, we will be exploring taste, smell and touch later this week. The kids did a great job working in their science journals when thinking about sight and sound. As scientists, these senses (and a wondering mind!) are the building blocks we need to always have engaged when engaged in an investigation (no, I am not going to get into observer's effect for those of you who may be wondering...).


We continue to work hard on maintaining a kind, caring, and helpful culture in our room.
With the addition of a new friend in our class this week, I always get to see our hard work in these areas put to the test. Tammy and I have been so pleased with how inviting and friendly our group has been. This group has been exceptional in this area all year long. Along this theme, I was happy to hear that some of you got to see the movie "Wonder". In the primary unit, we will be using literature to really stress kindness in our everyday interactions with friends, families, and new faces.

Other Notes

• Please remember to support the Food Drive our school is doing and feel free to send in non-perishable goods to school with your child to add to our collection. 
• We will not be doing a Secret Snowflake or something like it. We do a candle lighting ceremony in class on the last day before break (the 22nd). I'll be asking someone to put together some refreshments for after our candle lighting.

I think that's about it. Please be in touch with questions, concerns or celebrations!

Best,

Ben and Tammy

First Week of November and the Post Halloween Doldrums...

Hey Folks,

We have been hard at work in our class over the past couple of weeks! I hope you have been getting lots of great updates. The kids did a great job on their Halloween recovery, I am sure I have you all to thank as well. Can you believe that we are only a couple of weeks out from Thanksgiving????

We will be starting science next week, exploring all of our senses. We will start with exploring sight and moving into sound. If we have time we'll move into some of the others. We'll be using our beautiful science journals to explore theses ideas.

Next Friday is parent conference day. I've set up times outside of this day for you all to do as well. Check out the link below to see what is available.

http://grades.wcsuonline.org/rumney/conference/

In literacy I've been working with small groups on reading and it has been amazing to see their growth. They are becoming more and more confident with their skills as we go along. We are practicing skills like looking at common sounds in words, looking for word families in words and using context to help word solve unfamiliar words. check out the reading section of my blog to look more into what we do.

We've done a great job on our small moment writing pieces. I can't wait for you all to see them at your conferences. They have been working so hard on them and have done a great job. We will be doing a writing assessment in the next couple of weeks. For the assessment, the kids are given the same tools we used to write our story and we see what they can produce without the guidance of a teacher.

In first grade math we are working on number patterns as well as making 10 as many ways as we can by rolling 1 dice. The kids make the combinations to make ten in as many ways as they can. We are working so hard on learning out sight facts to 10 (all the ways to make 5,6,7,8,9 and 10) and are making great progress.

I'll be adding pictures to the blog later but the batteries on my ipad in the room are dead at the moment. Ahhh, technology...

I hope you are all well and have a wonderful weekend!

Best,

Ben and Tammy