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Burnham Library Trip

This morning our class and Ms. Barnett's class walked down the street to the Burnham Memorial Library to learn about the library in our community and how librarians are community helpers! Here are some photos from our trip.

Police Officer Visit

Today Officer Fontaine from the Colchester Police Department visited first grade to teach us about the ways police officers are community helpers! He is one of two education officers in town whose main duty is working with the schools. We got to ask lots of questions and hear about some of the things he does to contribute to our community.

First School-wide Meeting

This week we had our first school-wide meeting of the year. These run just like a morning meeting (where we have a message, greeting, share, and activity) except the whole school does it together in the cafeteria! We do this once a month as a great way for everyone to get together. At this meeting Mrs. Davis' class led us in a greeting, Mrs. Helfrich's class led us in an activity, and Ms. Collins' class shared a project they did in their class.

Firefighters' Visit

Today three members of the Colchester Fire Department came to visit school as part of our community helpers unit! We got to learn about what firefighters do, how they help the community, and learned about fire safety!

Walking Trip to the Burnham Library

On Friday October 23 our class and Ms. Barnett's class will be taking a walking field trip to the Burnham Library as part of our Community Helpers theme unit (the other two first grades are going a different day). If your child has a library card and would like to bring it to check out a book that is fine but checking out books will not be the focus of our trip. We are going to learn about the library and librarians in our community as well as how to use a library.

If you would like to join us on our trip please meet us in the classroom that morning. We will be leaving school right at 8:45am on Friday and returning to school by 11am. I always appreciate having as many family members come with us as possible when we do a walking trip like this!

Making 10

This week a lot of our math time was focused on practicing all different ways to make 10, which is an important first grade math skill. We played many different games, worked with partners to identify all the facts that make 10, and did lots of activities related to composing and decomposing the number 10. One game we played that you might want to try at home is "Make 10 Go Fish." It plays just like "Go Fish" except that if you have a 3 you aren't asking for another 3. You are asking for a 7. If you have an 8 you are asking for a 2. You ask your partner for the number that complements your number to make 10. We played this a few times this week so students have the hang of it!

Community Helpers

This week students started sharing the community helper interviews they did with a parent in class and it has been a fun way to learn about more jobs that people do and the ways they contribute to the community! We have also been working on our "Words, Words, Words!" activity where we post a couple of important vocabulary words we are learning and put a tally next to them each time we hear the word used (in a book, in conversation, etc). Our words right now are community and contribute. See if you can use them or notice them with your child at home too!

Next week we plan to have visits from Colchester firefighters and police officers to learn more about the ways they help in our community!

The Book Fair is Coming!

Our fall bookfair will be held next week in the school library with preview days early in the week. Here is a link to the online portion of the bookfair, which opens tomorrow, if anyone would like to look or shop early!

Online bookfair

Community Helpers Interview

I am sending the following notice home today attached to an interview worksheet. Please look for it in your child's folder and work on it over the weekend! We will share the interviews in class next week.

Dear Families,                                       10/9/15

This month first graders are learning about Community Helpers. In order to meet some of our community helpers we plan to take a walking field trip to the Burnham library later this month and will have a visit at school from some of the Colchester police and firefighters. We have become very interested in learning about different jobs people in our community do. This weekend students are bringing home a questionnaire to interview a family member about their job! Please help your child fill out this questionnaire and return it to school early next week to help us continue learning about community helpers!

Thank you! Mrs. Kelly and Ms. Barnett

Editing Our Writing

Today students in our class will be bringing home the writing they have done so far to make more room in their writing folders. Over the last couple of days kids have been practicing looking at their work with different checklists to see what skills they are consistently displaying and which they aren't using yet. They picked one piece to attach a completed writing checklist to and that will be in the collection coming home today!

Recent Projects

I am adding some photos of a couple recent projects. The other day we did an apple project as a fun art project, a new fall bulletin board, and to practice our skills counting with tallies. As an ongoing project we have been learning about community helpers and are creating "lapbooks," or folders of all the things we are learning (which you saw in the works at Open House last night). We will be learning about community helpers throughout the month of October.

Open House

Remember, tomorrow evening, Thursday October, 8 is Open House at UMS. Please come visit between 6:30-7:30 to see your childś classroom, meet the teachers, and see some of our recent learning!

Reading strategies

First graders have been learning about decoding, or word solving, strategies during readers workshop as they practice choosing and reading good fit books and building stamina as readers. I am attaching a photo of our reading strategy poster so you can look at it with your child and use the same language about strategies when helping them read good fit books at home. Feel free to print it out to have a copy at home as well!