Have a great weekend!
​Miss Wolfe

We had a very busy day!  We reviewed writing the letter S, worked with word wall words to bring them to fluency, and practiced writing sentences using spaces, a capital letter to begin the sentence, and punctuation at the end.  
We have started learning about landforms.  We took a very special "field trip' to the west to see some of the beautiful landforms in our country.  We saw canyons, hoodoos, buttes, arches, and amazing slot canyons.  There were only a few human-made things in the video.  We talked about how nature made these beautiful landforms.  I happen to have a video from our "field trip" that you can watch.  Ask me to tell you about the landforms and the human-made things in the video.

We talked today about what our best effort looks like when we are showing what we know.  At times, some of the children hurry or don't really listen to the directions to show what they know.  I used pictures the children drew of what they would look like if they were scruffy and what they would like when they are spiffy.  We talked about how they could fix up these pictures to better show their understanding of these words.  Using a picture was a good way to begin to talk about revising, which we will be doing in writing next week.  We looked at the details in the pictures, or lack of details, and talked about what needed to be done to make their understanding more evident.  We also talked about making sure the drawings were not cluttered up with random scribbles or drawings.  

We watched this video of first graders talking about best effort.

I forgot to send home Read to Me, Talk to Me books today.  We had a few distractions at the end of the day!  I'll send them home tomorrow!

Have a nice evening!
​Miss Wolfe

Today we looked at this unusual map and talked about what we noticed.  We found that as unusual as it is, we learned some information about the continents and countries on the map.
We played calendar bingo this afternoon in math.  We studied the calendars and found the name of the month, the days of the week, and the number of days in different months.  We played a game with number clues such as put a counter on the number that tells how many people are in your family, or place a counter on the number that is one less than 19.  

Have a nice evening!
​Miss Woilfe

Today we read a poem about seeds.  We looked at different seeds and matched them to words in the poem that described them.  Then, we took a couple words out of the poem and worked with them.  We took a short a word and a short i word and made new words from them.  For example, we took the flat and made new words using at.  We wrote the words on white boards, spelling words such as bat, chat, and pat.  Ask me to tell and spell three words I can make using at.  We also used it to tell and spell more words.
We listened to the story The Spiffiest Giant in Town, by Julia Donaldson.  This is a beautiful story of a giant who is scruffy.  We used word bird strategies to figure out what the word scruffy means, so we thought about what the text was about where we found the word, and we used the illustration to give ourselves more clues.  We determined it meant the giant was a bit sloppy in his dress.  We did the same for the word spiffy.  In the story, the giant is scruffy at the beginning of the story.  He sees a new shop for giants has opened in town and buys himself a new outfit.  He looks quite spiffy!  As he leaves to walk home, he meets a giraffe with a cold neck.  The giant gives the giraffe his tie to wrap around his neck to keep the giraffe's neck warm.  As he continues his walk home he comes across other animals who need help, and he gives away his shirt, his shoe, his sock and his belt.  Ask me to tell you why he gave away his new clothes and how they were used.  The giant then continues to walk home, but his pants fall down, since he gave away his belt, and he is cold.  He goes back to town and finds his old clothes and becomes the coziest giant in town.  He returns home to find a beautiful crown and a thank-you note from the animals he helped, and is called the kindest giant in town.  We discussed whether it is more important to look spiffy or be kind.  There was a good discussion about this, and most students felt it was more important to be kind.  Then I asked, could you be both spiffy and kind, and we continued our discussion.  Ask me to tell you what spiffy and scruffy mean.  We showed our understanding of the words by drawing a picture of what we look like when we are looking scruffy and when we are looking spiffy.

We had some very happy news today shared by one of our classmates.  Ask me to tell you about the good news!

We are into the cold weather now, and kids are doing a great job of zipping and getting all their cold weather clothing on independently for the most part.  I told the children it's my expectation on these cold days that their coat is on, zipped and their hood, hat and mittens are on and stay on at recess.  We take their cold weather clothing to the cafeteria, and I have them sit on their coats so they don't drop food on their coats as they eat.  I told them to put their mittens or gloves in their hat and put it in one of their sleeves so they don't get lost on the way to the cafeteria or in the cafeteria.  You might want to practice that with your child at home.  What we are having a rather big problem with is kids wearing tie shoes that they don't know how to tie.  We have a few kids who can tie, many more who believe they can tie but aren't quite there yet and get knots in their shoes or shoes of their friends which I get to untangle.  We have a lot of untied shoes that we have to deal with throughout the day, and several children who are playing with their shoe laces, tying and untying during lessons.  I need your help in teaching your children to tie their shoes.  Just five minutes of practice would go a long way in helping them learn.  Start with having them do the first part, then help with the tricky part of looping and pulling them through to make the bow. 

I'm attaching a video of the book The Spiffiest Giant in Town.  It's a British version, so you may need to translate a few words!  It sounds very fancy with the storyteller having a British accent.  The video has two parts.   Enjoy!
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Have a nice evening!
Miss Wolfe

I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends!

We had a very busy day!  I love Mondays with the children because we don't have specials, so that means I can do something special with them!  Today we had our November birthday celebration.  We had an art workshop, and the children got to choose an art medium they would use to create a picture of a tree from one of the four seasons.  They had their choice of collage, watercolors, tempera paint, markers or oil pastels.  They could go to more than one station as long as they had completed their art and it showed their best effort.  It was such a nice time, and surprisingly calm.  We listened to a jazz version of the Four Seasons so maybe the jazz mellowed them out!
We listened to the story If You Plant a Seed, by Kadir Nelson.  This book is so beautiful, and the message is so important.  If you plant the seed of kindness, you will get kindness in return.  The book is about a rabbit and a mouse who plant seeds in a garden and nurture them until they have a very beautiful harvest of vegetables.  As they begin to eat, a group of birds approaches and looks at them.  At this point, the story is told through pictures.  I asked the children what they thought would happen next.  All of the answers at first had to do with the rabbit and mouse sharing with the birds.  This was so refreshing to hear that the children were wanting the rabbit and mouse to share because they had so much, but the illustration shows the rabbit and mouse kind of protecting the food they were eating.  I had to work hard to get them to think that there were other things the rabbit and mouse could have done that weren't so positive.  We talked about that it could even be a bad choice, and finally some children suggested the rabbit and the mouse could not share with the birds.  Ask me to tell you what happens.  We went back and reread the book a second time to talk about how characters' feelings often change throughout a story.  We identified the feelings and found support from the text and illustrations to support our understanding.
In math we reviewed counting strategies for counting scattered groups, arrays and circles, and did some problem solving using more and fewer. 

Have a nice evening!
​Miss Wolfe

Today we welcomed a new birdie into our flock!  Ask me to tell you about our new friend!
We listened to the story Turkey Trouble, by Wendi Silvano, read by Marc Maron.  The story is about a turkey who doesn't want to get cooked!  He comes up with a plan to fool the farmer.  Ask me to tell you what the turkey does!
Your child made little puppets to help them retell the story.  This will be the Read to Me, Talk to Me for the week since we do not send home books over the break.  I hope you enjoy this story as much as your child did!

We collected data to find out if our class would rather have turkey or pizza for Thanksgiving.  Ask me to tell you about our pictograph.

We watched a video that took us on a couple virtual field trips to Plimoth Village and to see how the Wampanoag indians lived.  We compared how the pilgrim children lived and how the Wampanoag children lived.  We found out they are more alike than different.

We had entertainment at lunch today.  Winston Churchill High School's theater group came over and performed songs and dancing from their upcoming show "If the Shoe Fits," by Rogers and Hammerstein.  The children enjoyed the entertainment, and the performers came around and talked to the children after they performed.  I am including the flyer from the Churchill website in case you are interested in going to the show.  I'm still smiling after watching those young people not only perform beautifully, but talk with our students.  What a great group of kids!

Have a nice evening!
Miss Wolfe

Happy After Snow Day!  I heard a lot of great stories about what the kids were doing on their snow day, so we decided to write about it after we all shared.  We focused today on writing longer words we don't know how to spell.  We used what we know about syllables to break the words into parts and write down the sounds we hear in each part.  
In math, we reviewed vocabulary words more, less, fewer, equal and than.  We also reviewed how to show how we know one group is more or less than the other.  We talked about how to think about the group and the appropriate word to use in comparing the two.  Then we did some problem solving with making equal parts.  We read three story problems, identified what the problem was asking, what information we needed from the problem, and then we used tools on the Promethean Board to copy and drag players to make equal teams.  We will continue with this problem solving next week, and students will make equal groups on their own.

I am not sending home Read to Me, Talk to Me books this week due to the holiday next week, but Monday will include an online story and questions you can use to read and talk with your child.

Have a great weekend!
​Miss Wolfe

Busy day!  We worked on the Chromebooks this morning.  We practiced keyboarding, logging on, signing off and shutting down.  I set up a Google classroom for the kids that we will use going forward that will have specific games for students to practice skills they need.  
We worked with learning the vowels today.  We practiced their sounds, identifying the five vowels, and found them in a poem.  Ask me to name the vowels.

Yesterday your child brought home two papers from a visit with Mrs. Kanter.  The lesson she did with the children was about being touched.  She talked with the children about telling people when they don't want to be touched, and appropriate and inappropriate touches.  I wanted to be sure you saw those pages so you can follow up with your child.

I enjoyed meeting with all of you during our conferences.  Please do not hesitate to e-mail me anytime with questions, celebrations or concerns you have about your child and their progress.  The conference days we just had are the only ones that we have release days for, but you may request a conference at any time, so please do not hesitate to let me know if you would like to meet when you need to talk or have questions.

Have a nice evening!
​Miss Wolfe

We had a busy day, trying to squeeze in some assessments and get to our fashion show!  We listened to a story this morning called Excellent Ed, by Stacy McAnulty.  This is a book about a family dog who doesn't understand why he can't do the same things the other family members can do.  Ask me to tell you what Ed wanted to do.
Ed wants to prove to his family he is excellent so he can earn do the things the rest of the family does, but each time he thinks he finds something that makes him excellent, someone else in the family is excellent at it too.  Ask me to tell you what Ed finally finds out about what makes him excellent!
We had a visit from Mrs. Kanter today.  She talked to the students about I-Messages.  The kids are bringing home an example of an I-Message written with Mrs. Kanter.  Ask me to show you the I-Message and tell you about it.
We had our weather fashion show today.  Several of the kids forgot but were able to model what they wore to school or their outerwear so it all worked out.  The important part was talking about the specific type of weather and why the clothing they were wearing was appropriate for that.  It was interesting to see that some of the children are mixing up seasons with weather.  We are working on making sure we use precise language that accurately describes what we are talking about, so this is something we will talk more about this week and next as we talk more about seasons.  
I will post pictures from our fashion show today or tomorrow.  I will do it from home because it's a little easier and takes less time than here at school.  

Remember, tomorrow we do not have school due to Election Day.  I hope some of the kids get to go to the voting booth with you tomorrow so they can tell the class about it!

Have a nice evening!
​Miss Wolfe

We talked today about the president and what they do.  We have been studying how as we read, we can learn from studying both the text and the illustrations and photographs.  We studied photographs of a president and what they do as part of their job, then we talked and what we noticed and learned from the photographs.  We then wrote text to go with the pictures.  Ask me about something I learned about the job of the president.  Some of the answers may be off track because we also talked and wrote about what they would do if they were the president.  
We watched a video of a fashion show that showed children walking the runway.  We talked about how they walked, posed, slowly turned to show their whole outfit, then walked back, turning and posing again.  The children are excited for their fashion show Monday!  I will post pictures from our show!
Have a great weekend!
​Miss Wolfe