I always tell my class that "time flies when you're having fun" and this week was a PRIME example! WOAH... I don't even know where this week went!!! I want to give the class a HUGE shout out for being so amazing for the substitute on Tuesday. I came back to a wonderful note about their behavior. I cannot even begin to tell you how happy that makes a teacher!!! On Wednesday, my class practiced Habit 6, Synergize, by working together on a Break Out Box. This is pretty similar to a break out room like Clue Pursuit. We had to solve a series of clues to get our locked box open and save Tom the Turkey from being served on Thanksgiving Day. In Science this week we were focusing on weather phenomena. Specifically storms, thunder and lighting. We made tornadoes in jars on Monday and on Thursday we even made thunder in a brown paper bag. On Thursday we also took a virtual field trip to Plymouth Plantation! We wrapped up our week by celebrating Thanksgiving as a class and eating in our classroom together on Friday! SUBSTITUTE...AGAIN
I absolutely hate being away from the classroom but I will be working with a committee on our district reading and writing standards at Central Office on Tuesday, November 28th. There will be a substitute in my classroom. PICTURE RETAKES Don’t forget that picture retakes will be on November 21st. Every class will also be retaking their CLASS pictures as well. SHOEBOX FOR SOLIDERS We are filling a box to send oversees to a solider this holiday season. Some suggested items are: lotion, toothbrush / toothpaste, band-aids, chapstick, baby wipes, beef jerky, hard candy, gum, mints, white socks, Ramen noodles, Q-tips, etc! Please check Dojo for a picture with other suggested items. All items need to be at school NO LATER THAN December 4th. THANK YOU! HELPER SCHEDULE Mon.– Maddox Tues.– Olivia Wed.– Raegan Thurs.– Reese Fri.– Braydon Happy Birthday! WOW! What an exciting week we had in first grade! We read all about pumpkins and started writing our very own non-fiction books about them this week. These are coming along great and are so adorable. I can't wait for you to see them. Tuesday we welcomed Maddox's dad as our guest speaker. He told us all about how he started carving pumpkins, the tools that he uses, and about his experience on Halloween Wars. He even brought in a pumpkin that he carved as well as one that Maddox carved! After he was finished, we welcomed a few more parents and guests as we tried to tackle another STEM challenge. Each team was given candy pumpkins, candy corn, and toothpicks with the goal of building the tallest free-standing structure they could. We built for about 15 minutes and then we took a few minutes to gather ideas and learn from the other teams before completing our structures. These challenges are always so much fun. We learn to listen to each other, work together, communicate, and recognize the strengths of our teammates and the BEST part - we are totally learning about science, technology, engineering, and math while we do it! This specific challenge required us to think about how the shapes and characteristics of our objects (candy and toothpicks) helped, or.... didn't help, the function of our structure. Ask your student to share which of the habits they used while completing this challenge! NO SCHOOL Don’t forget that school will not be is session Friday, Monday OR Tuesday! Also, remember to set your clocks back on Saturday night for Daylight Savings! TURKEY PROJECT Your child brought home a turkey project yesterday. Our kindergarten classes do this too, so you might be familiar with the concept. Your child should disguise his or her turkey to save it from being eaten on Thanksgiving day! The possibilities are endless and there are TONS of ideas online as well. Please have your child send his or her turkey back to school by Friday, November 10th. VETERAN’S DAY ASSEMBLY We will be having our annual Veteran’s Day assembly the morning of Friday, November 10th. Breakfast will be served for all Veterans from 8:30-9:30AM in the gym. The assembly will begin at 9:30. EXTRA MATH PRACTICE I also sent home an extra math practice page today. This is COMPLETELY optional! No need for your student to return it to school! HELPER SCHEDULE Mon.– No School Tues.– No School Wed.– Parker- Happy Late Birthday! Thurs.– Daniela Fri.– Eden We had another fantastic week in 1st grade! In writing we have transitioned to writing non-fiction "teaching books" about topics of interest. We have been reading a lot of non-fiction books and using PebbleGo a lot to support our writing. Next week we will be writing a teaching book about pumpkins! I can't wait for you to see them! In math, we continued to work hard on our subtraction strategies and wrapped up our Topic 4 assessment on Friday. Next week we will begin Topic 5, which continues to reinforce work with addition and subtraction strategies and equations. We also enjoyed some wonderful books this week, which includes one of my all time favorites, Creepy Carrots! This is a clever book about a rabbit who loves to take carrots out of a field. The carrots decide to devise a plan to keep Jasper the Rabbit far away. Ask your student to tell you about this adorable book! CONFERENCE INFORMATION AND TIPS
Don’t forget that next week is conference week! It is so important to me that I get to meet with each family. * I will do my absolute best to stay on schedule. Please help me by arriving on time to your selected conference time. * If you need to reschedule, please let me know and I will be happy to help find another time that we can meet. * Our time together is SO short. You should receive an email from Mastery Connect with your child’s progress report. Please feel free to look over it before our conference. * As always, please let me know if you have questions or concerns. I am happy to help! VETERAN’S DAY ASSEMBLY We will be having our annual Veteran’s Day assembly the morning of Friday, November 10th. Additional information will be coming home soon. Please let me know if your child will be bringing a Veteran with them as an honored guest to our assembly. Thank you! HELPER SCHEDULE Mon.– Braydon Tues.– Cael Wed.– Chase Thurs.– Colton Fri.– NO SCHOOL *** Please note that a NEW / updated snack calendar came home for November. I accidentally put helpers on our fall break days. Sorry about that! I don't know about you but I am LOVING The Leader in Me! I really think the students are grasping the habits, knowing how to apply the habits, and recognizing the habits when they see them in action. I hope you will take a minute and watch this short little video I made. Huge shout out to Mrs. Reynolds for being the photographer! Each student was asked to finish the sentence " In first grade I want to ..." Here is what they said: HAYRIDE TO HIGH SCHOOL
The high school agriculture department will be picking up each class next week and taking them on a short hayride! All of first grade will be going on Monday. They will drive us down the street that runs next to our playground. Once we get to the high school we will check out some of the pumpkins that the high school students are have been growing before heading back to our building. Unfortunately, we were told that we will not be room for extra guests but I promise I will share lots of pictures!!! Thank you WHS for this great opportunity! WELCOME SAVANNA! We are so excited to welcome a new student, Savanna, to our class on Monday! We cannot wait to share this year with her! MATH ASSESSMENT We will take our Topic 3 math assessment on Tuesday! We will take a practice test to help review during on Monday. PICTURE DAY! Individual school pictures will be taken on Tuesday, October 10th! HELPER SCHEDULE Mon.– Jack Tues.– Kaiya Wed.– Kira Thurs.– Riley- Happy Birthday! Fri.– Layton During first quarter, we have been focusing on writing narrative stories during our Writer's Workshop. It always amazes me to see how much growth young writers can make in such a short period of time. I have been so impressed as I am reading stories about their experiences. I cannot wait for you to read some of their amazing writing at Open House next week! This week, students got to share some of their stories with their peers. They were able to ask each other questions to help make their partner's story stronger. They had so much fun and it was wonderful to see them so excited about writing! OPEN HOUSE Please join us Tuesday, October 3rd for Open House! The fun will begin at 6:00 PM. Come visit our classroom, check out your student’s work, sign up for conferences, and visit the Book Fair in the library! Don’t forget to pick up your fundraiser items in the GYM as well. BOOK FAIR Just a few tips: * We will visit the Book Fair on Friday during our regular library time. * If you send money for your student, please put it in a baggie or envelope with your child’s name on the outside. * Students need to check in at their classroom before going to the Book Fair in the mornings before school. * The Book Fair will also be open during Open House! PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCES The fall parent teacher conference sign up sheet will be out at Open House. Conferences will be offered on Monday, October 30 and Thursday, November 2nd. I will offer a few additional times on the 31st and 1st as well. I would really like to meet with each family! HELPER SCHEDULE Mon.– Colton Tues.– Daniela Wed.– Eden Thurs.– Grayson Fri.– Henry I cannot believe another week has already come and gone! We had another fantastic week in Room 203. Did you see our incredible Mission Statement? Having a class and personal mission statement is one component of The Leader in Me. Since this is pretty new to Willard East, I had never done this with my class before. I am going to be REALLY honest and say I was a tad nervous of how it would go. Would they "get it?" What would they come up with? Would it be something we could remember? We started by brainstorming exactly how we wanted ourselves and other kids to act in our classroom. We made a huge list. If it was shared out, it was written down. Then we started looking for common themes in our list. Kids started sharing ideas for our statement and we started writing them down. We had several options / suggestions but when our final product was shared, we all KNEW it was "THE ONE!" I wish you could have been there. It was AWESOME!!! Just as we were finishing up (or so we thought), one friend raised his hand and said " I think we need to add that we stick together." We made the final addition and BOOM. Here is what we ended up with.... We also welcomed a few important visitors into our classrooms this week! On Tuesday, Reese's mom came and talked to us about how she helps our community by being a nurse. On Wednesday, Dr. Teeter came and told us all about his job as Superintendent of Willard schools! Today, we welcomed Mrs. Jeffres (mother to Chase from Mrs. Waddell's class) and learned all about how the Red Cross helps our community! We loved learning from each of these amazing people! BOOK ORDER
Your student brought home a Scholastic Book Order yesterday. I probably will not send these home monthly but do make them available from time to time. This is a great way to build your library at home with age appropriate books that kids love. This month’s options are fantastic! My favorite author, Mo Willems, has several books available. Please note that there are MANY more options available online {click here} that you can choose from. Our class code is GPBLR. Orders and money are due by Thursday, September 21st. Please note that if you choose to send an order you will need to pay with a check. TOPIC 2 MATH TEST Our 2nd math assessment is scheduled for next Friday! I will send home a study guide again early next week. Please remember that the study guides are completely optional but are a great way to review with your student. OPEN HOUSE Mark your calendars now!!! Our Open House will be on October 3rd beginning at 6:00 PM. Come visit our classroom, check out your student’s work, sign up for conferences, and visit the Book Fair in the library! HELPER SCHEDULE Mon.– Raegan Tues.– Reese Wed.– Riley Thurs.– Adalyn Fri.– Alexis I know the first big assessment of the year can be a little scary but overall, students did FANTASTIC on on Topic 1 Math Test. The standards on this assessment will be revisited during the year, so there is still plenty of time to master the content! We started Topic 2 this week, which will be based around addition and subtraction fluency within 10. We also worked on writing our class mission statement and our personal mission statements this week. My heart may have melted a little as I heard students discussing what kind of learners they want to be. SWOON! They wrote an amazing class mission statement: "In Room 203 we are LEADERS and LEARNERS who stick together. We are kind, respectful, and responsible. We love our classroom!" WE NEED APPLES! CAN YOU HELP? We will be using apples over the next two weeks for multiple projects and experiments. We are in need of at least 30 apples! I have created a Google Spreadsheet to help with donations for those that are willing and able to help us out. Apples need to be at school by FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15th. A couple of things to keep in mind: * Google Spreadsheet works best either with the app or on an actual computer. * If you have trouble signing up just message me through DOJO or email and I will happily enter your information into the form for you. * TIP: If you want to donate 3 red apples you will enter your name in 3 separate red apple spots on the spreadsheet. You can find the sign up sheet on DOJO or here: https://tinyurl.com/kramerapples DOT DAY ON FRIDAY The Dot is a wonderful story about confidence and making your mark on the world. We will be celebrating DOT DAY on Friday in class. Your child is welcome to wear dots if he or she would like! FUNDRAISER MONEY DUE MONDAY All fundraiser orders and money are due on Monday! Thank you for helping make our fundraiser a success! HELPER SCHEDULE Mon.– Kira Tues.– Layton Wed.– Lyda Thurs.– Olivia Fri.– Parker This week we continued to lunch our leadership classroom by beginning a brief overview of the 7 habits. We starting learning what it means to be responsible and how to use proactive language with ourselves and others. We also started working on our class mission statement! We will finish that up next week and use it to guide us during the school year. THE 7 HABITS 1. Be Proactive 2. Begin with the End in Mind 3. Put First Things First 4. Think Win-Win 5. Seek First to Understand, Then be Understood 6. Synergize 7. Sharpen the Saw On Thursday, we made a special Friendship Snack to represent the types of behaviors and attitudes we like to have in our classroom. Be sure to ask your student about the different ingredients! And don't forget to ask them about the rotten banana! STUDY GUIDE / MATH TEST
* Our first math test will be WEDNESDAY! I will get them graded and sent home hopefully by the end of the week. * STUDY GUIDE: I make a study guide for each assessment. These are completely optional BUT I promise the study guide is extremely close to the actual assessment. If your child does well on the study guide and understands the concepts, they should do very well on the assessment. Study guides came home yesterday. You do not need to return them to school. I also posted pictures on DOJO in case your child did not make it home with his or her copy. FUNDRAISER INFO * All money and orders are due by Sept 12th. * Sadly the amazing coupon books do not count towards chickens or other prizes. * Make checks payable to Willard East. * Please return the coupon book if you do not plan to purchase it. HELPER SCHEDULE Mon.– No School Tues.– Grayson Wed.– Jack Thurs.– Kaiya Fri.– Henry Happy Early Birthday! |
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