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Tuesday, September 22, 2015

The First Few Weeks of School

We have had some fun getting to know each other and the rules the past few weeks.  Here are some pictures of what has been going on in the classroom: 

Room 111 Are Bucket Fillers!


The entire first grade has read and discussed the book How Full Is Your Bucket? This book describes how we all have invisible buckets which are either filled by kind and helpful thoughts, actions and words or "dipped into" by unkind thoughts, words and actions.  Each child has his/her own bucket displayed on the wall.  When they are seen being kind and helpful to others or following the rules of the classroom, they put a coupon into their bucket.  

After the children earn 5 tickets, they receive a reward coupon.  You may have seen some of these coupons coming home.  Reward coupons include: lunch with the teacher; sitting in  Check out the books shown below!  The children beg to have them re-read to them over and over again!  Ask your child how (s)he is being a bucket filler at school.



Lately we have been receiving  for our buckets by remembering to do the following upon arrival to school each morning (without being reminded by the teacher).

                                        

This is what we have been doing over the first 2 weeks!

Morning Meeting:
During morning meeting we practice greeting each other; learn to listen when others are speaking and read the "Morning Message." 

Hope and Dreams:
We discussed and shared our Hopes and Dreams for our year in first grade -- you can see them posted on the wall when you come to Open House on Tuesday.

Rules:
After sharing our hope and dreams we discussed and made rules as a classroom that we thought would help us achieve our goals.  They are also posted on our wall.

Here we are acting out the Classroom Rules:








Here are photos of the children relaxing and getting to know each other with play dough on the first of school:






Here we are playing a math game called "Shake Those beans"










Here we are practicing our STmath passwords:











We read, discussed and made connections to the book Chrysanthemum:



We have practiced patterns, counting and adding with a daily calendar activity:


We discussed and wrote about how we can follow the classroom rules throughout the year:


We did a name activity with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom


We practiced and labeled what a good listener looks like:


We learned about "Good Telling" through the book A Bad Case of Tattle Tongue























Tuesday, August 18, 2015

WELCOME TO FIRST GRADE!




By now you have probably received the Welcome Letter that I sent in the mail!  If not, it should be arriving soon!

I hope your child enjoyed his/her letter and is having fun decorating the puzzle piece!

Here are a few reminders to make the first day of school easy and take away the First Day Jitters (for you and your child):

Transportation Form: Please fill out and send this form to school with your child on the first day of school.  I know that some children may have different dismissal instructions for different days of the week -- please note that on the form. 
Also, I realize that sometimes dismissal on the first day of school is different from other days...if this is the case, please attach a note with your special instructions for the first day of school (for example: your child will usually go to after school on Mondays, but will be a walker or take the bus on the first day of school.)

Bus Sticker:  Please add your child's Bus Number  to the sticker and then attach the sticker to your child's backpack. (If your child is a walker you can just write walker on the sticker).
What to Expect:  The first day of school makes students (and parents) excited and nervous.  Believe me when I say that I still get nervous on my first day of school -- and I've been doing this for 19 years!

We are gong to play name games, get to know each other, explore the classroom, make graphs, orient ourselves to the school, sing songs, read books, draw and play together.  At the end of the day your child will bring home a Communication Folder. 



This communication folder will have a "Keep Home" side and "Send Back" side.  Please have your child bring this folder back to school every day regardless of whether it is empty or not.  This will be our daily form of communication.  Please send any notes to me in this folder and look in this folder every day when your child brings it home to find any written correspondence from me.  

You can also correspond to me via email at farmer@bpsk12.org or just call!  I'm not always available to answer right away but will get back to you at my earliest convenience when I'm not teaching.  If it is an emergency, please call the office. 

Another form of communication is this blog.  Please sign up in the "follow by email" space at the top right hand corner to receive automatic updates every time I post a new blog.  It's simple and easy and looks like this:


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Click on the additional resource tabs on the right to receive more specific information about sight words, apps, free websites and more. I will continue to update these tabs as the year progresses. Look at the upper right hand side and find a tab list that looks like this:


Additional Resource Pages to Explore:

Overwhelmed?  Don't be!  I'll go over this again when we meet each other at Open House!  In the meantime, enjoy the remaining days of summer vacation with your child and I will see them on August 31st!