Happy Owlidays

Wishing you "Happy Owl-i-days" this holiday season.
A very special thank you to all the parents for the gifts Mrs. Mueller and myself received. Your generosity is truly appreciated.

Good Bye Miss Wescott and the Grinch

This week marked the end of Miss Wescott's student teaching experience in our classroom.  The students and I both learned so much from this experience.  We treated Miss Wescott with a special cake along with Miss Gizelbach's class, class made pencil/marker holder and t-shirt. We will miss her.

In the final week of  2013 in our class we will be celebrating the work of Dr. Seuss by learning through "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."  We will culminate this special week by having "Grinch Day" on Wednesday, Dec. 18th.  We are going to share this special day with Mrs. DeSantis' class too.  Your child is invited to wear as much green as they can.  We are allowing Santa hats to be worn on this day too.  We will have a lot of fun and at the same time learn about the author's message of this special story.

Planets and Gingerbread

This week has been out of this world.

On Tuesday we went to the Star Lab and learned about the constellations in the sky.  Star Lab is a portable inflatable classroom that the students and teachers crawl through to experience space in the middle of the day.

On Wednesday, we had a great time with Mrs. Hoffman's class orbiting around the gym to different space centers.  A special thanks to Mr. Walsh, Ava's Dad, for making up a fantastic, out of this world planet race.  Here are a few pictures of the our Planet Day fun.

The second half of the week we turned our attention to gingerbread men and girls.  We enjoyed making them in class and eating them even more.  Our delicious treats were sent home to share with families members too. Hopefully they made it home and did not RUN AWAY!!!

We also used all of our reading, public speaking, and acting skills in our own version of the play called The Gingerbread Man.  Each child had lines to read and a special part to say.  Our audience was Ms. Black.  I must admit we have some budding actors and actresses in the class.  Watch out Broadway.

Thank you to all the generous donations for this year's PTA holiday Basket Drive.  Of all the classrooms, our box was overflowing with donations.  Our special little girl is going to be all smiles this Christmas thanks to your donations.

We have been learning some really neat things this week and I thought I would share them with you.  In writing, we learned how to expand our writing by writing “twin sentences”.  A twin sentence follows the first sentence with more detail to help the reader paint a better picture in their head.  For example: Turkeys have feathers.  The feathers on a turkey can be brown, black, white and reddish.

In math, we are moving our skip counting a notch above.  Frames and arrows help us with that leap.  The students are doing very well with their rote skip counting but now we can put rules to our skip counting.  We are also learning more about half past in time.

In science, we have finished up our solar system unit.  There are a few more things to learn but we are anxiously awaiting Planet Day with Mrs. Hoffman’s class.  Here is a favorite youtube video we like to sing.

We also learned about the phases of the moon with the oreo.

Our class has also teamed up with Mrs. DeSantis’ class every week for M.A.D. Math. It stands for Mueller and DeSantis Math.  This week we worked on our addition facts with a game called football bump.  Here are a few pictures of what we did.

I have enjoyed talking with you during parent teacher conferences and thank all those who came in during American Education Week.  I hope you enjoyed yourself.

Pumpkin Characters and Military Heroes

The pumpkin character projects were awesome. I wanted to make sure everyone got to see all the hard work that went into it. Enjoy the pictures

Our Military Heroes

   

We would like to celebrate the military in our community by honoring them with an amazing display in our school.  Please fill out the information below for EACH veteran or military person in your child’s life to display at school.

If you would like to add a photo of your military person(s) that would be great.  Please label the picture with the name, student’s name, branch of service, and classroom teacher. Photos will be returned.

Please detach and send back to Dr. Mueller by Friday, November, 15^th.

My Hero

_______________________________                             ____________________________________

(Hero’s name)                                                                                                       (Student Name/ Teacher)

__________________________                                      

 (Branch of Service)

Have a great weekend.

End of October

 

Veterans Day is coming up.... If you have a family member that is currently serving or served in the past for our country please let me know so the class can do something special to honor him/her on that day.  Please include: name and branch of their service. (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard)

 

Word Study: The students this week will be learning the SH blend. However, since this is a SHort week, there will be no word study homework.  We will be learning all of our lessons in class.

 

In science will start our Solar System unit.  This unit will go throughout the month of November. It will culminate at our Planet Day on Dec. 4th.  Information about this day will be coming home this week.

 

Turkey, turkey, turkey.  Directions about how to make your family turkey will also be sent home this week.  This is a FL Walther tradition.  Turkeys are due back by Nov.14th.  If you have it completed before then, you may send it in. Each class displays their turkeys proudly throughout the hallways of the building.  Have fun, be creative, and enjoy your time together creating it.

 

A special thank you to all the parents that made out Halloween party such a great success.  It was so much fun.

 

 

Finishing up a busy week

We are coming up on finishing another month of school and lots of learning is going on.  I am not sure if you have seen a difference in your child at home but I have seen it in the classroom.  I now am seeing the students beginning to write with more lowercase letters than uppercase. Students are making connections to all sorts of things in class, whether it is within the lesson to their own experiences or whether it is between subjects.  The light bulbs are turning on and it is exciting to see.

In reading we are finishing up our reading strategies and what readers do when we get to a tricky word (word detective) unit.  Next month we will turn our focus to non-fiction books.

In writing we will be celebrating our "how to" books.  The students have learned transition words and where to place them in their writings.  Last week we learned how to write an introduction to our how to books to grab the readers attention.  In addition, we also learned how to write a ending to our how tos.  Next month we will write non-fiction chapter books.

Our math lessons have introduced the class to combining coins (pennies and nickels, right now).  Students are working hard on trading in coins to another coin and counting on.  In addition, we still continue to work on addition and subtraction facts and telling time. 

In word study we learned about the letter u.  Next week we will review all the short vowel sounds and pick up the constant digraph -ck.

This week also worked on our week of respect.  Surflight Theater from Long Beach Island came to FLW with a very funny "Frog and Toad" play.  The students loved it.

Lumberton Police also came in to talk to the class about Halloween Safety.

Don't forget, October 31st, Halloween Parade. Get your cameras ready and we will meet you outside as we walk around the bus loop and front of the building.  Parade starts at 1:30PM.

If you have not signed up for a parent teacher conference please do.  If you are having trouble sign up for a time slot email me and I can help you out.

Conference Time and Halloween

Don't forget to sign up on line for a meeting time and date to discuss your child's progress with me.  This year YOU pick the time and date.  All conferences will be conducting in our classroom Room 10.  I look forward to meeting and talking with all of you.

 

Halloween is coming.  If your child will NOT be participating in the Halloween parade and party please send me an email and let me know.  They will be an alternative activity in school for those students who do not celebrate the holiday.

 

Halloween parade is scheduled for 1:30 PM on October 31st. 

A stormy week

Rain, rain go away.  We like to run, skip, and play.

On Monday we dashed through the drip drops and helped in planting daffodil bulbs all around the school.  The FLW students planted over 500 bulbs.  Now, all we need is Spring to come and see what all of our hard work turns into.  I cannot wait to see. 

Tuesday brought the beginning of our “How To” writing section of the curriculum.  We learned how to write step by step directions on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  Don’t worry; we used paper models to recreate our sandwiches.  No allergies were in jeopardy.

 

On Wednesday in science, we learned that a bat can eat up to 600 mosquitos in 1 hour.  We are learning many different facts about bats.

 

 We ate Oreos Thursday and wrote a how to story about it. Yum, yum. Food really lends itself nicely to "how tos".

 

On Friday, the Lumberton Fire Department came to school to teach us about fire safety. On a sunny day, the fire truck will come and visit our school.

 

Remember  NO school on Monday.  Enjoy your long weekend.

The last week of September......Really????

Where did the first month of school go?  Can you believe it?  The class is doing a great job getting into the routine of the day.  We also concluded our first reading and writing unit.  Friday morning we had our “Small Moments Writing Celebration.”  We visited Miss Gizelbach’s classroom and shared our reading with our Kindergarten friends.  Below are a few pictures of us reading our own writing.  We are authors!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In math we also finished our first unit.  The next unit we will be introduced to skip counting by 2s, solving number stories, addition and subtraction facts.  Getting our basics in math will strengthen our foundation on which to build from.

Handwriting through the alphabet is still continuing into next week.  This is a skill that will be ongoing throughout the year.  The biggest bad habit that we must focus on breaking is where the letters begin formation.  Please remind your child that letters (and numbers too) NEVER start from the bottom.

Coming attractions:

October 19^th, you will be able to sign up online for your child’s November parent teacher conference.  More instructions will be coming home soon.

SAVE THE DATE:  Planet Day, Dec. 4^th.

Next week:  Bats, short sound of o, informational writing (how tos), and reading strategies.

A week in review

On Monday we brought our smiles to class and had our class picture taken, as well as, our class photo.

On Tuesday, we worked on our handwriting, as well as, strengthening our reading skills during our partner reading .  We met our reading partners and practiced our fluency using our just right books.  We will have the same reading partners for the next few weeks.  Reading partners are just like our classroom seats, they are forever flexible and changing.

On Wednesday, Ms. Black came into our classroom during our Guided Reading time and listened to us read and watched us learn. Miss Wescott also showed us how to do rainbow writing with the letter Jj.

On Thursday it was Johnny “Appleseed” Chapman’s birthday.  We did some apple centers at the end of the day.  We also watched some YouTube videos about apples.  One of our favorites is a catchy song about apples.  This video gave Miss Wescott and me an idea.  Below is the video.  Feel free to click on it.  If your child hears it, they will begin to sing and dance to it.

 

Friday was jammed packed with activity.  We started the day with Ms. Black’s assembly about “How to Fill your Bucket”.  This is a monthly meeting that Ms. Black meets with all the first graders and teaches them about respect, responsibility, compassion, and friendship. At the end of the day, we taste tested 10 different varieties of apples.  We ate the following: Gala, Pink Lady, Macintosh, Fuji, Jazz, Sweetango, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Red Delicious, Opalescent.  Our favorite was a new apple for this season… Sweetango (purchased at Wegmans) and the apple that was not liked by most of the class was the Macintosh (too soft). Here are some pictures of our taste testing. 

Things to remember:

 

If you have not filled out and returned your PTA paperwork from Mrs. Haworth (class head room mom) please do so.  If you need another paper let me know.

 

Starting Oct. 1st "Just right books" will be sent home daily for your child's reading practice.

 

Please practice your handwriting daily.

Owl Pellet Dissection

Whooooo’s child came running off the bus with excitement on Friday?  I hope all of them did.  We concluded our owl unit with an owl pellet dissection.  We went to the library for some extra room and had a great time becoming scientist.  We used tweezers, probes and magnifying glasses to discover what our owl ate.  Many of us were surprised (including me) that some of the owls ate more than one animal.  We found parts from shrews, rats, mice, moles, birds and voles.  The discussions during this activity was amazing.  The students did a great job.  Below are some of our scientists hard at work.

 

Next week:  Picture Day on Monday BRING YOUR SMILE, short e words, Johnny Appleseed, and handwriting     

First week of school 2013

We have made it through a full week of school.  It has been full of new experiences and procedures. We have learned how to get lunches in the lunch line and visited each of our special area classes.  We will go to music class on Monday. 

This week I will be working on reading individually with each of your children to get them their "just right" reading level books. 

In Math we are working on reviewing some Kindergarten skills including tally marks, counting by 1 and 5s, and number writing and formations.  On Monday, I will start the 100 Club.  This is a “club” that all children participate in.  They write their numbers from 0-100 in order in a book.  I am looking for correct sequence and number formation. This is great practice.  If the student can correctly write their numbers their name goes on a star and placed on the 100 Club cabinets.  Students work on this while waiting for the rest of the class to finish a task.

In Writer’s Workshop we are planning what we want to write about, touching and turning the pages of our booklet, and then working on stretching out the sounds of words and writing them down.  In addition, we are making sure that our pictures match the words and stories we are writing about.

Has your child come home talking about keeping their “colors”?  “Colors” are what I refer to as part of our classroom behavior plan.  We want to stay “In the Green”.  That means we are having a good day.  If I need to speak to your child about their behavior, they lose a color (yellow).  They need to write their name in the book and hand in their color.  If I need to speak to them again, in the same day, then they lose their Red.  If a red is taken away, a note/email will be set home to you about their behavior. All “colors” are returned to your child the following day and they start new.

Things to remember:

Back to School Night…  Come in and check out what we have been doing. Wednesday night.

If you are sending in money for lunch, please have it in an envelope with your child’s name on it.

Don’t forget….. We eat a small snack daily in our class.  Don’t forget to send in a small snack.