Twitter and Blogs

This week and last our class has been doing some very exciting new learning! We began using Twitter and blogs, learning how to use social media to connect with and learn about people all over our country and the world!

We have a class twitter account that you are welcome to follow @mrskellysclass (you can also see the tweets we send out by looking at the left side bar on my class blog where we have a Twitter feed) and we are currently following 5 other classes, 4 first grades (one in Illinois, one in California, and two in Canada), and one Kindergarten (in Williston, VT) because that Kindergarten teacher is the one who taught us how to use Twitter in class! I have spent the last week and a half teaching students about what Twitter is and how we can use it to connect with other classes, what a Twitter handle and a hashtag are, what "following" and "posting" are, and how to make concise, quality comments! Now every afternoon right after recess we have "Twitter time" where we project our Twitter account up on the smartboard, read tweets made by the classes we are following, make connections and reply to them, check what tweets we received, and make a new tweet for the day telling the first grade classes who follow us what we are learning! We are using both giant wall maps of the USA and world as well as an interactive Google map to chart the locations of all the different classes we are connecting with. Our class is loving this experience!

We have also started blogging, which kids are loving as well. We have a classroom blog (this one) and have been using it to start learning about what a blog is and what it is used for. One of my favorite ways to introduce blogging to the kids each year is by familiarizing them with this blog participating, as a class, in a quad blog, which we started last week. Our class is partnering with three other classrooms (one other in VT and two in the UK -- England/Wales) to make the quad and over the next few months the four classes will take turns being the "focus class of the week," posting to our blog and receiving/responding to comments from the other three classes. This is wonderful for teaching the kids about making quality posts, quality comments, sustaining a conversation on line, and learning about students in other places! I am also very focused on teaching our class about being good digital citizens by learning about online safety (not giving out personal information), being kind and appropriate because what we say on the internet is fairly permanent, and connecting with others for learning purposes. The kids are seeming to grasp the idea of being digital citizens in an online community very well after just finishing our unit on Community Helpers where we learned much about being citizens in communities. This was a great segue!

After diving deeper into the features of our blog and checking out the blogs of our quad members students in our class started learning about their own individual blogs (which they love!). Our class blog is supported by blogger but the students' blogs are supported by a much simpler, kid friendly forum called KidBlog. All of the students' KidBlog accounts can be found as links on the right hand side of this blog. Kids are encouraged to use them at home and it would be wonderful if family members checked out the blogs and made comments to the students. They are so excited when people comment on their posts! Each week when it is a students' day to share in class it will also be their computer day during literacy block and they will use that time to use both their RAZ kids reading accounts and their KidBlog accounts. Therefore each child will have at least once a week when they will use RAZ and blogs in class but they are encouraged to do more at home as well! After we have practiced blogging on our own for a bit our class will pair up with the class next door to us so that each student can have a blogging buddy. The two students will get to go back and forth reading and commenting on each other's posts each week, giving them a more authentic audience.

I get very excited about technology and using social media in class (especially since the students are just as thrilled by it) and could go on and on (I see that I already have) but I'll stop for now. Below are some photos of us beginning to blog and tweet. Stay tuned for more social media adventures from room 5 (including Skype connections)!

Free slideshow design created with Smilebox

Firefighters Visit

Today, as part of our unit studying community helpers, we had a visit from two members of the Colchester Volunteer Fire department! They answered lots of questions for us, showed us their gear and how it works, and told us about their jobs and how to become a firefighter! It has been really great meeting and learning so much about different helpers in our community throughout this unit of study. Here are some photos from the fire fighters' visit today.

Burnham Library Trip

Today our class and Ms. Barnett's class took a walking field trip to the Burnham Memorial Library in town as part of our unit studying community helpers! Students got to learn about how libraries and librarians work, learn a little bit of the history of our town library, and read/check out books! Below are some photos from our trip.

Last week we had a visit at school from members of the Colchester Police Department, today we went to the library, and on Monday we will have a visit at school from some of the members of the Colchester Fire Department. We will wrap up our unit studying community helpers on Monday and then move onto a science theme unit studying solids and liquids!

Customize a photo slideshow

Writers' Share

This week our class did a writers' share where students from our class paired up with students from Ms. Barnett's class and got to read some of their writing to a buddy! Here are some photos taken of the students who shared in our classroom (the other half of the students shared in the other room).

This slideshow created with Smilebox

Class Party on October 31

Next Friday, October 31, from 2-3pm our class will have our annual fall/Halloween party! Families are welcome to join us at our party and you may bring or send in party snacks as long as they are nut free (and have an ingredients list with them if they are home made). Please see the sign-up genius I emailed out for details on snacks to sign up for and please let me know if you didn't receive the sign-up but would like to. We will do a few fun crafts and have some special treats at our party but please save all costumes at home for trick-or-treating. We hope to see you there!

Writing Coming Home Today

Dear families,

First graders are at a turning point in our first writing unit so today a stack of student writing to date went home in green folders! We will continue to fill our writing folders with the new things we are working on so you can see that work and conferences and for now we hope that you enjoy reading the work that went home today!

Community Helpers

First graders at UMS have been studying a theme unit called Community Helpers over the past few weeks. We have been reading many books about different Community Helpers and listing the different community helpers in categories based on the ways they help the community (such as making a "healthy" category and listing doctors, nurses, vets, EMTs, a "safety" category and listing fire fighters and police, a "learning" category and listing teachers and librarians, etc). Students each interviewed an adult at home about their job, and we have been sharing these in class and discussing how each job helps the community and where they fit into our chart as well. Students each made a folder (we are calling them lap books) to contain the different things they are learning about community helpers throughout the unit including a list of vocabulary we have been using (our words are school, neighborhood, town, job, volunteer, community, contribute, clean, safe, pleasant).

As part of our unit we are meeting some of the different community helpers in our town. Today the two school officers from the Colchester Police Department came to our classroom to teach us about some of the important ways police officers help the community. Next Friday our class will take a walking field trip to the Burnham Memorial Library down the road to learn about libraries and librarians (family members please let me know if you would like to join us!) and we are hoping to have a visit with members of the Colchester Fire Department soon as well. Below you will see a few photos taken during our unit so far!

Free slideshow made with Smilebox

Math Workshop and Making 10

Our class has been spending the past week and a half on both getting our math workshop/math stations underway and exploring facts to 10 in different ways. We started the school year with whole group math lessons and a big counting project (see a previous post). We are now transitioning into our math workshop model where we will start each math class with a whole group math meeting (where we will review number sense in different ways) and/or a mini-lesson connected to a new topic. After our whole group meeting the students split into three different groups and begin math stations. The stations will be "teacher," (generally working on an activity directly related to the day's lesson) "technology," (using our chromebooks or iPads to do math games and practice -- this week kids have been using a great iPad app called "wet, dry, try" to practice penmanship of their numbers) and "independent," (which will typically be a partner math game station).

As we begin stations we are also working on exploring facts to 10. We came up with the addition facts that make 10 and charted them in different ways in order to help us become familiar with the facts and notice patterns (such as the "turn around facts" ie -- 8+2, 2+8). The students have also been playing lots of great partners games to reinforce these facts. Here is one great partner game for practicing facts to 10 that you can try easily at home. Take 10 pennies, show them to your partner, have the partner close his/her eyes, and grab some of the pennies (hiding them in your hands or under a cup in front of you). Have your partner open his/her eyes, count how many pennies are still visible, and tell you how many you have hidden by using what he/she knows about our facts to 10 (or using fingers to help at first). You can then let your partner check if he/she was correct. The students in our class are getting very good at this game! The game could work well for other facts too just by changing the number of pennies you start the game with.

Below are some photos of kids working on different "make 10" activities in math stations.

Make your own free digital slideshow

Conference Sign Up

If you already sent in your parent conference sign up sheet I signed you up for a time on my schedule and tomorrow I will be sending the forms back to you with your conference time highlighted. Please be on the lookout for those. If you have not returned the conference sign up sheet yet, please send it back to school in your child's folder as soon as you are able to. Thank you!

Parent Conferences

Today UMS teachers sent home forms for families to sign up for fall parent-teacher conferences, which will be held on Monday and Tuesday November 24 and 25. Please look for those in your child's green folder today and please let me know if, for whatever reason, you did not receive a new one and I will send another! I schedule conferences as I receive the forms back at school so please return them promptly. Thank you very much!

Volunteer Reading Program

Just a reminder, our first grade volunteer reading program begins on Monday October 13 from 10:30-11:30! We are excited to have volunteers begin reading with us. If you signed up to volunteer and need me to remind you what day you signed up for please let me know. If you did not get to sign up yet but would like to please let me know as well! We love our reading volunteers!

Burnham Library Field Trip

We just scheduled our walking field trip to the Burnham Memorial Library and I am sending out a "save the date!" Each fall the first grades study Community Helpers as a theme unit. We visit (or have visits from) the fire department, police department, and town librarians as part of our learning about the different jobs in our community. On Friday October 24 our class and Ms. Barnett's class will be taking a walking field trip to the Burnham Memorial Library at 1pm. If you would like to join us it would be wonderful! We could use as many adults as are available to help us walk safely to the library and back. Please email me or send in a note if you are able to join us!

Readers' Workshop and Writers' Workshop

Our class has been working hard in Readers' Workshop and Writers' Workshop each day and I took some great photos to show off some of the things going on!

During Readers' Workshop we begin each day with a mini-lesson (recently we have been learning reading strategies for decoding words as well as learning about the story elements of character, setting, and character traits -- up next: main idea and supporting details), followed by time where students read to themselves (we are practicing building stamina for reading silently for a little bit longer each day), then a literacy center time where students are either partner reading, reading on their RAZ kids online reading accounts, or working on literacy apps on iPads (we will be practicing adding in more center choices such as listening and word work activities one at a time as we go along). We end Readers' Workshop with a group share related to the day's mini-lesson.

During Writers' Workshop we begin each day with a mini-lesson (we are currently learning about writing "small moments" which are personal narratives about things happening in our lives), followed by time for students to work on writing independently, and finally a share time, where students are able to share their work with the class. Yesterday we did a different type of share where everyone partnered up and got to share a piece they have been working on and editing with one partner!

Free slideshow customized with Smilebox

Open House

Reminder! Tonight, Thursday, from 6:30-7:30 is Open House at UMS! I hope to see you there!

RAZ Kids

Today we started learning about (and practicing with) our RAZ Kids reading accounts in class and the students are really excited to start using them. In order to do this at home kids should go to my blog (this one), click the tab along the top that says "RAZ Kids," then click on the link and type in my username (hkellyg) if prompted to do so, then type in their last name (beginning with an uppercase letter) as a password. When you click the RAZ Kids tab you will find these same instructions. The students will then be taken to a page full of books at their good fit reading level that they can both listen to and read on their own. Kids will each have one day a week where they can read their RAZ Kids books during silent reading in class and they are welcome and encouraged to read them at home as well! They will earn stars for books read which can then be used to build a robot or rocket ship in the RAZ Kids program! I did tell students that this bonus part of the program needs to be saved for use at home and that we will only be doing the reading part here at school. Everyone was very excited about this and we opened up our brand new classroom Chromebooks to get started with this today! Please let me know if you have any questions regarding RAZ Kids and enjoy!