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!

Field Trip Reminder

Remember, tomorrow morning all four first grade classes will be going to the Flynn Theater to see a play about Junie B. Jones! Today we had an actor from the Flynn come to school to spend a little bit of time with each class to prepare us for what to expect during the play. Make sure to remind your child about the trip in the morning and then ask about it when they get home tomorrow afternoon!

Readers' Workshop

During Readers' Workshop our class is working on choosing successful reading spots around the room, choosing books that are "Good Fits" for them, and building stamina reading quietly for a little bit longer each day! Today I introduced the class to the Kids A-Z reading program so that they can begin using that as well. Once a week on their sharing day kids will get to use their A-Z accounts during silent reading time. This way they will have four days a week reading in their books and one day a week reading with their A-Z account.

I want to let you know A-Z Kids is available for reading at home as well! This is especially helpful if your child is reluctant to read at home or if you have trouble finding books that are good fits for them. A-Z not only provides a collection of books at students good fit reading level but is also exciting and motivates kids to read. Kids earn starts for each book read that they can then cash in to "buy" parts for customizing their own robot or rocket ship within the A-Z program.

We explored the program today as a class and the kids started trying it out at reading time. Give it a try at home as well! The more good fit books the students read the better they will get at reading. Click the "Reading A-Z" tab at the top of this blog for directions and a link to your child's account.