Update October 13th

There is no school Monday, October 14th or Tuesday, October 15th.

*Since this is a short week, we will not be sending home a spelling list.  I will send home math homework on Thursday only.

*In Math, we will finish up Unit 2.  Our focus during this unit has been on solving addition and subtraction number stories and using multiple strategies and tools to solve.  We will finish this week with a math assessment to check where students are and allow me to plan for the next unit.

*Last week in writing, we focused on the inside story of our small moment stories.  The outside story is what happened.  For example: We went apple picking with our cousins.  The apples were high up on the trees and hard to reach.  My big cousin had to help me."  The inside story is how you felt.  For example,"It was the best time ever!"  In first grade, many students inside stories are simply "it was fun."  Last week we created a list of interesting and different ways of saying "it was fun."  This week, we will create a list of ways to say "it was not fun."  Students will practice using these interesting ways of sharing their inside story in pieces they have already finished.

*Last week, we began Recess Club.  In Recess Club, we use the new Mindfulness Space in our school to learn social skills needed to navigate first grade.  Last week, we reviewed what expected behaviors we should see at school (listening to the speaker, hands are for helping, safe bodies.)  This week, our focus will be on what we think friendship is and what is expected and unexpected in friendships.  We will read a book called "You Are Friendly" by Todd Snow.  Student's training assignment for the week will be looking out for expected and friendly behaviors.  They will also practice expected behaviors at recess, school, home, one the bus and in the community.

*On Friday, we will meet our 4th grade Book Buddies from Crisafulli. The 4th graders will come to visit us at Robinson.  Each student will be paired with one or two 4th grade buddies.  They will converse, read with one another and get to know each other over the course of the school year.  Next month we will travel to Crisafulli.

*Just recently, we welcomed a new student to our classroom.  Everyone did such a great job of welcoming her! I have updated the friendship list with her contact information.  You can access the list here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10idzniGVzYc9hg9ncmcAe6JUzbt0Jvw-RYWB8-vHCI8/edit?usp=sharing

Update October 7th

*This week, the students welcomed a new fish into our classroom.  Our fish is named Chicken and he is very happy to join our classroom.  Students are taking turns feeding Chicken and reading to him during Read to Someone.

*In Math, we will practice using a calculator and work on change to more and change to less number stories.

**In Writing, we are writing "small moment" stories.  Small moment stories are taking a big story like going on a trip and picking one small moment from the trip to write about.  For example, the plane ride or your favorite ride at Disney.  

*In Science, we will talk about what body parts help different animals to survive.  We will observe our new fish, Chicken.  We will also discuss how parents take care of their offspring.

*On Wednesday, we will have an all school community meeting to talk about the "i" in Spirit, Inclusion.  Our class will lead community meeting by teaching the school a morning greeting we do often called Snowball.

*If you have not signed up for Seesaw yet, please join us. I'm updating often with student work and fun information about things going on in our classroom. The link to sign up and follow your student's work is here: https://app.seesaw.me/s/438-654-585

*Last week I emailed volunteer times to everyone who sent back a volunteer form. If you think you signed up to volunteer in our class and you haven't heard from me, please send me an email.

*Our Harvest (Halloween) party is on Thursday, October 31st in the afternoon. We have 3 parties in first grade. I am asking each student to send in a $6 donation to help with the costs of the 3 parties. If you could send in the donation by the middle of next week, that would be helpful!

Looking Ahead:

Monday, October 14th- No School, Columbus Day

Tuesday, October 15th- No School, Professional Development

Update September 29th

*On Saturday, along with my girls, my mom and some great teachers from Robinson, I walked in the Middlemiss Family 5k.  The 5k supports the Joseph Middlemiss Big Heart Foundation and the LaCoste Family.  The weather was perfect for the event.  It was nice to see so many Robinson families!

*On Wednesday, we have picture day!  Please send back forms students need to have their pictures taken Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.  We are lucky to have the first time slot for pictures so the kids will still be camera-ready!

*On Friday, we will welcome our first Mystery Reader.  This year, I'm trying to schedule Mystery Readers on or close to their child's birthdays.  I know many of our students have summer birthdays (I'm one of them) so we can do those any time of the year or closer to the end of school.  If you haven't signed up to be a Mystery Reader, please send me an email. 

*I will be working on getting the volunteer schedule done and schedule any new mystery readers this week!  September really flew by! I hope to start with volunteers sometime next week.

*The second week of spelling homework will begin this week.  This week was are working on words with the short vowels a, o and u.

*The plants that went home on Friday are kidney bean plants.  Students had observed their seeds for two weeks in their original paper towel habitats.  They observed and transplanted them on Friday before going home.  This week in science, we will observe how different animals and plants take in air, food and water.

*In Math, we will continue to practice addition and subtraction number models (facts/equations.)

*In handwriting, we have finished our review of uppercase letters.   The class are now experts! We will begin to practice lower case letters.

Update September 21st

The weather is perfect this weekend.  We spent some time at the Maker Farm on Friday afternoon and then spent this morning at dance class for Arya and Kit.  I can't wait to hear about all of your weekend's on Monday when we work on "Weekend News."

*In school this week, we will take part in "Start with Hello" week.  Over the course of the week, we will participate in activities to increase kindness, make new friends and create a sense of community in our school.  

On Monday, every student and staff member will wear a name tag.  Kids and adults will be encouraged to say hello to someone new.  In our class we will practice, "Hi, I'm Mrs. Conway.  What's your name?"

On Wednesday, students are encouraged to wear their favorite socks, sneakers/shoes. We will talk about where our shoes have traveled.

On Friday, we will wear anything that will bring smiles to others.  Examples include, a smiley face shirt, bright color, emoji shirt, Robinson shirt, LaCoste Strong shirt.  We will talk about small acts of kindness and spread these across our school.

To learn more about "Start with Hello" week, take a look at this website. https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/startwithhelloweek

*Starting this week is Spelling Homework.  On Monday, students will receive their spelling list as well as a Spelling Tic Tac Toe.  Students will have activities to choose from to practice their words.  We encourage two nights of practice each week.  If your child already knows the words, you do not have to do the activities.   New activities are shared each week to work on spelling words.  If you find an activity that works well for your child but isn't on that week's list, please do it!! We will also practice these words in class this week.  On Friday, we will have a spelling check-in.  

* Unit 2 will start on Monday.  Our focuses this week are:

*counting on (starting at 5 to count up 3 more)

*turn around facts (1+2=3 so 2+1=3)

*2 Fisted Penny Addition (combos of 10)

*Subtraction Number Stories

*In Daily Five, we continue to practice Read to Self, Read to Someone, Work on Words and Work on Writing.  We will introduce Listen to Reading (Raz Kids) this week.  Last week we began reading groups (the earliest we've ever been ready since they've been working so well independently.)

Looking Ahead:

October 2nd- Picture Day

October 14th- No School, Columbus Day

October 15th- No School, Professional Development for Teachers & Staff

Update September 13th

*I hope to see many of you on Monday night (September 16th) from 7-7:45pm for Back to School Night.  We will quickly chat about curriculum and spend time learning about important information for all parents to know.  Please note, this session is for parents/guardians only (no students) in order to discuss what to expect in first grade.  If you haven't already, please take a minute to fill out this questionnaire about Back to School Night.  https://forms.gle/eXfMYJQf64ZBW7F98

*Students began taking out 2 books at Library last week.  Please be sure to send books back to school each Tuesday so your child can take out another book.

*September 21st is International Day of Peace.  We hope you enjoy our display of peaceful pinwheels outside when you arrive for Curriculum Night on Monday.

*Students will have a writing ideas homework assignment this week that will be due back to school on Friday.  The paperwork and information about this will go home on Monday.  We will be using these ideas for writing throughout the school year.  Please continue to send it sticky notes on Mondays to help students remember what they did over the weekend. Every Monday, we will write about our weekend and share with our classmates.  Some students get stuck on what to write about and having a reminder from home will be helpful.

*Our Focus in Math This Week:

*data collection

*counting by 1s and 5s

*exploring math materials

*solving simple number stories

*counting larger numbers

*In Science this week, we will explore how animal's body parts help them.  Students will see how animals use their fur, blubber or feathers to keep them stay warm.  

*We will continue building the components of the Daily 5.  Students are building their stamina in Read to Self and Work on Writing.  We will introduce Read to Someone and Work on Words this week.

*In Writing, we will discuss what to do when you think you're done with a piece of writing and how to continue a story.  We will also explore how you can use known words to spell tricky words.

*On Wednesday, Mrs. Boylan will read us a book about Peace.

*On Friday we will begin the first of three guidance lessons with School Counselor, Mrs. Rivet.

Update September 6th

**Last week, we began our routine of doing "Weekend News Writing." Each Monday, students will write about something they did over the weekend.  Often times, students forget what they did over the weekend.  Please recap your weekend with your child on Sunday night or before school on Monday.  If it's helpful for your child, write a sticky note with a couple of ideas to bring to school.

*Homework will begin this week.  We will send home math homework on Tuesday and Thursday only.  Please return the next day.

**We will continue to introduce the components of Daily 5.  Last week students worked on building their Read to Self reading stamina.  This week, we will introduce Work on Writing and finding I-Pick Books.  I-Pick Books are books that students feel they can read on their own and are of interest to them.

**We will continue our Science Unit- Plants and Animal Parts.  This week, we will find similarities between offspring and their parents.  

**In Math, we will focus on 1-more, 1-Less Number Stories, Comparing and Ordering Numbers and Introducing Tally Marks.  We will also learn the rules of some important math games.

**Our classroom tends to get warm throughout the day.  We take frequent water breaks to fuel our bodies.  Please consider sending your child to school each day with a refillable water bottle.

*As a class, we created a long list of rules that will keep us safe at school and allow us to learn best.  We introduced the new elementary core values, SPIRIT to the students.  Later in the week, we put the rules into the core value categories.  We will review these rules this week.

*On Friday, we will celebrate Dot Day.  Students will listen to Peter Reynolds books throughout the week and we will some fun Dot art activities.

Looking Ahead

**Grade One Back to School Night is Monday, September 16th from 7:00-7:45pm. 

These sessions will be for parents and guardians only. This will allow much needed time for teachers to focus on curriculum topics and for parents to ask questions. I hope to greet many of you as I discuss the first grade curriculum.
Please take a minute to fill out this short questionnaire about Back to School Night: https://forms.gle/dGeMSM8r4kPxkp6d7

Update August 29th

Hello!  I hope you enjoy Labor Day Weekend with family and friends!  I had such a great time meeting and getting to know the class this week.  What a great group!  We practiced many classroom routines and will continue to practice everyday routines in the coming weeks.  Students will continue to build independent skills with morning, lunch and afternoon routines.  One of our goals in first grade is to foster independence with everyday tasks both at school and at home.

**If you have not returned any important forms to school, please do so this week.  Getting the office updated on important student information is essential.  Forms that need to be returned are: Living Lab Permission Slip, Robifulli Trail Permission Slip, Allergy Information, Student Handbook Info, Dismissal Form and Email Address Sign Up, Friendship List.  If you need new copies of any of these forms please email me, cconway@westfordk12.us

**Each week I will update the blog with important information about our week.  When I do update the blog, I will send out an email to let you know.

**I was informed this week that on days that we have a half day of school, breakfast will not be served at the Before School Program.  The reason for this is because there is no staff in the cafeteria on half days.

**Please continue to send water bottles into school.  We take many water breaks throughout the day and I like to have students keep water bottles on their tables while we're in class.

**We will begin our Science unit "Plant and Animal Parts" this week.   This week we will focus on how plants and animals are like others of the same kind.  For example, what makes a dog a dog and a tulip a tulip?

***We will begin Unit 1 of our Everyday Mathematics 4.  This unit will build upon skills already learned in Kindergarten or Pre-1st.  We will play familiar games like Monster Squeeze and Bunny Hop. In addition, we will continue to learn about the math tools that will help us throughout the year.  Students will practice basic counting, skip counting and counting on the number line.

**We will begin to establish the routines of Daily Five.  Please visit the Reading & Daily 5 page on my blog to learn more.  This week we will begin exploring "Read to Self" and the 3 ways to read:

1. Read the words

2. Read the pictures (make up your own story)

3. Retell the story (retell a story you have listened to before)

**Students will practice reading and writing the 25 Kindergarten Spelling Words over the next three weeks.

Looking Ahead:

Monday, September 16th 7:00-7:45pm First Grade Curriculum Night, parents/guardians only please.