Dear Families,

Happy New Year!  I wanted to first thank all the families for the generous gift of the Bertuccis gift card and the snuggly mittens!  It so nice to work with such caring families!  I also wanted to thank Mrs. Dodge, Mrs. Nolan, Mrs. Roux and Ms. Wambolt for a fabulous winter party.  The children had so much fun!

I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome Lauren Ingoldsby.  Lauren is a freshman at Endicott College and doing her student teaching in our classroom during the month of January.  We are so excited to have her in our classroom!

Here are is what's going on in Room 24 this month...

In reading, we have been focusing on non-fiction to pair up with our new writer's workshop unit  which we just introduced.  The children are so excited to be trying out a new type of writing.  We have many experts in our class that are ready to teach us many new things!

In Fundations, we are finishing up our unit on suffix "s" and will be introducing more glued or welded sounds in the next couple weeks.  We will start with the -ng ending (-ing, -ang, -ong, and -ung) and then move into the -nk ending.  Ask your child to show you our way of tapping using 3 fingers for these sounds.

In math, we are finishing up Topic 6 on survey questions and data collection.  The children have become very good at showing data in the form of tally marks and a picture graph.  They have also worked on interpreting this data using the words most, more than, fewest, fewer than, and equal.  On Friday, we did a quick survey on how many children were left and right handed in the class.  We learned out of 22 students only 1 was left handed and 21 were right handed.  We talked about how most of the class is right handed and the fewest was left handed (Lauren and I are also left handed but we weren't included in the survey:)

In science, we continue to learn about solids.  This week, Mrs. Pollock, Mrs. Elrick and I will be combining our classes to do some solids science experiments.  In years past, the children have really enjoyed working with friends from the other classes.

We have begun learning about Martin Luther King and this will be what many of our activities revolve around this week in preparation for our no school day on 1/16.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, feel free to email me at hherring@email.medfield.net

Thank you,
Heather

Dear Families,

Happy holidays!  Here's what's happening in Room 24...

Last week, we read many versions of the Gingerbread Man.  We compared the characters, setting and major events in the story.  I think the children really enjoyed The Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett.  We have continued reading more of these versions this week.

In reading groups, we have been "reading closely" using non-fiction text.  The children all read a book and put a sticky note on a page where they learned an interesting fact.  Then they shared their fact with the group and drew a picture and wrote their fact.  These are hanging on our bulletin board in the hallway. If you are in the building, check them out!

In Fundations, we have started discussing basewords and the suffix "s".  We have talked about how "s" can either have the "s" sound or the "z" sound such as in the word cats and bugs.  We have also discussed sigular vs. plural (cat/cats).

In math, we have begun Topic 5.  In this unit, we will learn about missing addends, true and false equations and adding 3 addends.

In Writer's workshop, we are finishing up our narrative unit and when we return from winter break we will start learning about non-fiction writing.

In science we have begun learning about solids and liquids with Mrs. Elrick's and Mrs. Pollock's class.  We will be looking for volunteers to runs some science centers when we return from break. More to come on this..

Exciting news... all the first grade classrooms just received 6 new iPad minis as well as new headphones!!!  This past week we have used the ipads for Raz-kids and also during math.

Lastly, I wanted to thank all the families for donating for Brooke's presents.  We raised so much money that we were able to put the extra toward a 12 year old little boy named Ryan's presents!!!  THANK YOU AGAIN!  I think it was a great lesson to teach the children what the holidays are really about, so thank you again for your generosity!  Here are some pictures of the gifts that were purchased.

Thank you for all your support and if you have any questions or concerns, you can email me at hherring@email.medfield.net

I hope all your families have a wonderful holiday and a relaxing break so you can spend some quality time together!!!

Heather

Dear Families,

It has been so great meeting with each of you and discussing your child's progress in the classroom!  Thank you for taking the time to meet with me:)

This week I had many requests for the list of sight words to be sent home.  With that said, know that the children have only been explicitly taught list 1 and that is the list they are responsible right now to be able to read and spell.

In Fundations,  we continue to talk about words with bonus letters (words that have short vowels and end in s, l, or f-miss, fall, puff)  We have also started talking about glued sounds.  Have your child show you how to tap out a word with the glued sound of -all.

In math, we have switched gears a bit and have started talking about subtraction.  The children will continue to work on addition to 20 throughout the year.

In writer's workshop, we continue to write small moment stories.  It was fun to share some of those stories with you at the conferences.  Next, we will be looking at the stories they have wrote and learning about about editing their writing.  I will be teaching the children that their writing should have an uppercase letter at the beginning of a sentence, some sort of end mark, lowercase letters, finger spacing between words, and spelling the trick words correctly.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Heather

Dear Families,

I hope you had a nice weekend.  It will be nice to have 5 days of school this week, because the children definitely thrive off that consistency.  Here's what's going on in the classroom...

In Fundations, we will be focusing on the digraphs sh, wh, ch, and th.  Last week, we learned how to tap these digraphs with one finger because they make 1 sound.  Ask your child to show you how to tap out a word with these digraphs (example: ship, chat, thud).  We also have learned 4 new trick words which we will be building, reading and writing throughout the week (as, has, to, into)

In reading groups, we will be reading 2 fiction stories this week and practicing how to retell a story using first, next, then and last.

In math, we are finishing up Topic 2-fluently adding and subtracting within 10.  We have practiced using a part-part-whole mat, the number line, counting on, using doubles, and the tens frame.  Topic 3 will focus on addition facts to 20 and using efficient strategies.

In writer's workshop we continue to write small moment stories.  The children are getting really good at writing across a 3 page booklet!

Thank you to all the families who have donated wikki stix to the classroom. I can't wait to have the children build words using them!

I placed our October scholastic order on Friday, so hopefully we will get the books by this Friday:)

Here is a great picture that Mrs. Groden took in library class.  The children were exploring with the castle blocks and made this great creation!  They begged Mrs. Groden to take a picture of it before they knocked it down:)

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email me at hherring@email.medfield.net

Heather

Dear Families,

I hope you have had a nice week. We have been working hard in Room 24 to continue learning routines that will set the groundwork for the rest of the year.  One thing we have been focusing on is a whole body listening look.  A whole body listening look is when we are being a good listener with our eyes, ears, brains and shoulders (which are pointing at the person speaking).  These things are considered "on" (and green on our visual) while our arms, legs, and mouths are "off" (red on our visual).  This is a great conversation piece that you could discuss with your child to support the learning environment in our classroom.  Thank you for your help with this!

Here are some things we have been focusing on the past 2 weeks...

We continue to work on the Daily 5 (Read to Self, Read to Someone, and Work on Writing).  The children are doing great with this and we are now introducing word work stations.

In Fundations, we continue to practice tapping CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words, building them with letter tiles and writing them on whiteboards.  We have also introduced 6 new "Trick Words" (a, and, the, is, his, of) Trick words are words that the children need to know in a snap and can't be tapped out. These will be the words that we focus our word work on throughout the week.  They are also words that can be practiced at home (reading and writing them).

In Writer's Workshop, we continue to write small moment stories about either things we like to do or something that's happened to us.  We have learned to plan a story by touching the pages, sketching a picture to hold our thoughts and then go back and do the writing.  We have also learned that when we are unsure how to spell a word, we can tap it out, use the Trick Word Wall and if neither of those work, write the sounds we hear, underline the word,  and continue writing.  This way, we get our thoughts on the paper and know we will go back and figure out how to spell the word we were unsure of.

In math, we have worked hard on addition and subtraction story problems.  We have learned to show our thinking by using "pictures, numbers, and words".  By this I mean, drawing their picture to match the story, writing an equation and labeling the answer.


A few things...

*  Next week I will be introducing Raz Kids.  We will be up and running by the end of the week and I will send home the log in cards.

*  Poem notebooks will also come home next Thursday.  We have learned enough poems to start singing at home:)

*  donations- thank you for the extra paper towels and tissues that have been donated.  If you are looking to donate to the classroom we would love these items:

-wikki stix-we will use these to build words during word work

-colored copy paper-we will use this during writer's workshop to put a cover on our stories

Thank you again for all your support.  If you have any questions or concerns feel free to email me at hherring@email.medfield.net

Heather

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Dear Families,

Welcome to our classroom website!   I will be putting any important information on this site as well as updates on what's going on in our classroom.  I usually update the website every other week.  My goal this year is to send out a class email each time I update it.  Here's what we have been working on for the last 12 days of school!!!!


In the past 2 weeks, the children have worked really hard at learning the routines for our literacy block.  This is the time when I will be working with groups of children in reading groups.  We have now learned 2 of our Daily 5 jobs: read to self and read to someone.  The children have built their stamina and can independently read a full 7 minutes!  They should be very proud of themselves.  We have also learned how to work with a partner reading.  They have learned how to sit EEKK (elbow, elbow, knee, knee), how to choose a partner, where to sit, and whether to help their partner when they are stuck by coaching (helping them decode the word) or giving them time.  This week we will focus on work on writing.

Here are some  photos of the children doing Read to Someone.


 

In Writer's Workshop, we have begin our narrative unit.  The children are learning how to write a true story about something they do or something that has happened to them.  They are doing a great job at this and seem to really enjoy it!  We have worked hard to put spaces between our words and use lowercase letter.

In Fundations, we have reviewed all the letters and the sounds thye make.  This week, we will begin tapping out short vowel words using our fingers. and learn a few "trick words" (high frequency words)  On Friday, ask your child to show you their tapping skills (this will give us the week to practice:)

In math, we have reviewed counting and are learning strategies that are flexible and efficient for addition and subtraction.  The children have learned some fun games and worked hard in their math journals on word problems.

Scholastic update... On Friday I sent home an order form for Scholastic books.  There are some great selections in the catalog.  The children have really enjoyed the Elephant and Piggie books in my classroom.  The Bob books are also great to practice sight words and the just right readers packs are good for your child to be reading on their level.

I hope you have a great week and I really enjoyed meeting all the families at parent night.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns at hherring@email.medfield.net

Heather

Dear Families,

I hope you are enjoying the nice weather!  We have had a great week in Room 24.  Thank you to all the families who sent in lilacs.  Our classroom looks beautiful and smells divine!!!

Here's what we have been doing in Room 24.  Ask your child...

*  what 3 attributes describes a 2D shape (sides, vertices, and is a closed shape).

*  what are the 4 American symbols we have been learning about (the bald eagle, the American Flag, the Liberty Bell, and Statue of Liberty)

*  what they are writing a review on in Writer's Workshop (a restaurant, toy, place, song, etc)

*  what book they have read in reading group this week

*  what silent e at the end of a word does to the vowel (makes the vowel say it's name) and what a syllable is (a word part-1 breath for each word part)


Here are some photos from when Curious Creatures came to visit us!

"Heads Up"

In the next week or so, I will be sending home an invitation for our Open House.  I will be looking for families to donate coffee, munchkins, fruit, muffins, etc. for our special morning...more to come on this.....

Thank you for all your support!  If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to email me at hherring@email.medfield.net

Heather