December 22nd Highlights

Hello families,
We've had another heart-filled week. Even with the excitement leading up to vacation students remained engaged in their learning throughout the week. We did notice our energy ran high more than usual so we did some extra mind and body practices to try to help us feel just right. We worked hard this week to have quieter transitions and use kind words all day.

In readers workshop we continue to read non-fiction books. We also practiced the decoding strategy of tapping individual sounds out and then crashing them back together in words. We did this with short and long words. We also looked for word families or other parts we know and then crashed the other sounds in to make words. Finally we looked at endings on words (s, ing, ed) and broke them off to figure out the base word and then crashed them back together to read the whole word.

In math workshop we reviewed our concepts on Monday and then had our end of unit test, or as I call it our "Show me what you know," on Tuesday. This went great! Many of these "show me's..." showed that we needed a little more practice modeling on paper how we know if equations are true or false. We looked at student samples and then practiced this on our own on Wednesday. We did lots of fact power this week, which the students love! On Thursday we also went to the 5th grade math game arcade! This was super fun to see games and math videos that the 5th graders have worked hard to create.

In writers workshop we continued to practice writing trick words/word wall words correctly. We also did some response to literature writing with The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats and the Scholastic News article of "A Real Snowy Day." We compared and contrasted the real and fictional events and thought about what we like to do on snowy days. We also did response to literature work with a new song, "5 Little Snowmen." We searched for missing words to finishing writing the song and then illustrated it to match the song the best we could.

On Tuesday the school heart monitor was filled again! On Friday we had our whole school celebration, pajama/comfy clothes day! We also got to watch "Monster's Inc." in the afternoon with the other K-2 classes. On Thursday we filled our class heart jar! We had our class celebration on Friday also. We built forts in the classroom and played and read together in them!

Thursday the 21st was the official first day of winter--the Winter Solstice. It's the longest night and shortest day of the year. We had a small Solstice Celebration on Friday (a day late) where we sang solstice and sun songs. We made wishes for ourselves, our families, our communities, and our world. We "lit" LED candles to remind us that even on the darkest day the light, warmth and hope will return. We also had a small solstice snack (sunny oranges) and Ms. Judy and I each gave the children a small gift. It was a beautiful celebration.

Next week is vacation. I hope you all have a wonderful week. See you in the new year!

Dates to Remember:
December 25 - January 2 - Winter Break -- No School
Wednesday January 3 - School resumes
Wednesday January 10 - Early Dismissal 12:15 -- Teacher In-Service
Monday January 15 - NO SCHOOL - Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Monday January 22 - Library 11 - 11:30

Have a great weekend!
❤ Mrs. Fox

December 15th Highlights

Hello families,

On Friday we earned a record breaking 144 hearts! This filled our heart jar and we celebrated with more time to do Kodable on the iPads on Monday.

We've begun to focus on features of Non-Fiction books during our readers workshop. Learning about the text features associated with non-fiction helps us as readers to gain as much information as we can from this type of book. Next month we'll use what we've learned and apply it to non-fiction writing as well.

This week we continued to read on our topic of light and daylight patterns. We read: Sun Up, Sun Down, Sun: Our Nearest Star, Light Up the Night, and Earth Cycles. We began talking about the daylight cycle throughout the year as we lead up to the shortest day and longest night--Winter Solstice! Next Friday we will have a Winter Solstice Celebration as a fun way to wrap up this short science unit.

We also did another light exploration, experimenting with different materials to see which things reflect light. We tested many objects and looked to see if we could see the light waves bouncing off and reflecting onto the ceiling or ourselves!

In math we continue to use patterns to help us problem solve and do many kinds of math: story problems, combination problems, skip counting, fact power, and equality exploration. We had great conversation and modeling this week to prove if some equations were true or false. Here are some examples of how we showed our thinking when determining if an equation is true or false:

Now that winter weather is here to stay please make sure that your child comes to school each day with: boots, snow pants, coats, mittens/gloves, hats, and indoor shoes. We go outside each day unless it is below 10 degrees. If you need assistance in getting winter gear for your child please let me know ASAP.

Thanks to all who came out to the Winter Concert last night. I was so proud of our first grade fox kits--they were great performers and showed a lot of HEART as a respectful audience for others as well. I hope you enjoyed the show!

Dates to Remember:
Monday December 18 - Library 11-11:30 am
Friday December 22 - Winter Solstice Celebration 10:00-11:00
December 25 - January 2 - Winter Break -- No School
Wednesday January 3 - School resumes
Wednesday January 10 - Early Dismissal 12:15 -- Teacher In-Service
Monday January 15 - NO SCHOOL - Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Monday January 22 - Library 11 - 11:30

Have a great weekend!
❤ Mrs. Fox

December 8th Highlights

Hello families,

We've had another wonderful week together. During our morning meetings we continue to practice math and literacy skills within our usual routines. This week we looked for sight words in our morning messages and our December songs. We practice math skills when doing our calendar routine and "counting the days" in which we are keeping track of how many days we've been in school and how many days are left of school.

Our read alouds this week followed one of our favorite authors, Mo Willems, who does a great job of bringing characters to life, using ellipses to show that there is more going on, writing exact actions, speech, feelings and thoughts, and makes important words pop out. This week we read together: I Really Love Slop!, I'm Invited to a Party!, and  A Big Guy Took My Ball! 

On Tuesday we participated in the schoolwide "Hour of Code" using the Kodable app on our iPads. We practiced Sequence, putting directions in order to make the puffball robot follow a path to the end. We practiced giving left/right, up/down directions, putting in a color to help the puffball know when to turn, giving repetitive directions in an efficient way with a repeat code, and using brackets to show a longer repeated direction code.  It was so much fun!!

In math we continue working with patterns. Each day we focused on a different skip counting pattern (10, 5, 2). We highlighted the pattern and used this to help us orally count forward and backward following the skip count pattern of the day. We practiced adding to 10 to make our teen numbers. Adding to 10 was really fun and easy! We then learned how to "find 10 and add on" when adding other numbers to make adding easier. Knowing our combinations of 10 really helped us use this strategy. Here's what it looks like:

We are beginning to use the "Find 10, Add On" strategy when solving addition story problems. We continued using patterns to help us solve combination problems. We also highlighted skip counting patterns by 10, 5 and 2 on our 120 charts. We used these to help us play "number zip."

We are beginning to wrap up our Small Moments writing unit. Many students this week worked with a partner to revise their latest story, adding more details to make it even better. Then they did editing on their own: checking for punctuation, capital letters where they belong, word wall words spelled correctly, most of the sounds in the words they wrote (inventive spelling), and spaces between words.

In word study we continue practicing spelling consonant-vowel-consonant words like: hip, not, lug, pet, mad. We also study sight words/trick words (common words that don't always follow the spelling rules). So far we've studied these trick words: the, a , and, his, is, of, my, we, in, it, let, do, on, I, me, had, can, get. 

We also began a new science unit this week about light waves and properties of light. We'll connect this to another science study: daylight patterns and our place in space. We read Sun Up, Sun Down as an introduction to these new science concepts. Next week we'll continue having read alouds connected to our science concepts. Here are some snapshots from our first light exploration, trying out different materials to see what things let through all light, some light, or no light.

Dates to Remember:
Wednesday December 13 - Early Release at 12:15 (Teacher In-Service) - no after school activities -- all students dismissed at 12:15
Thursday December 14 - Winter Concert (students in classrooms at 6:00 pm; performance begins in the gym at 6:30 pm)
Monday December 18 - Library 11-11:30 am
December 25 - January 2 - Winter Break -- No School
Wednesday January 3 - School resumes

Have a great weekend!
❤ Mrs. Fox

December 1st Highlights

Hello families,

This week absolutely zoomed by! It was great to be back all together after the long holiday break. Our fox kits easily got back into our school routines and showed an amazing amount of HEART all week!

In Readers Workshop we practiced a few new reading strategies: think of words that might make sense, look for small words inside of bigger words, and try it 2 ways (flex your sounds--especially the vowel sounds). At the beginning of each workshop I model a skill and then we practice it that day and share out about how it went at the end of workshop that day.

In Writers Workshop we used one of our reading strategies to help us write! If we know how to write small words (at, in, and) this can help us write longer words within these families 
(at->splat, in->spin, and->land). We also focused more on bringing our stories to life by adding drama and making our characters move, talk, think and feel! Many of us are nearly done with another small moment story! Then we meet with a partner to help us ask questions and revise. Finally we edit for conventions of writing (capital and lowercase letters where they belong, spaces, punctuation, sight words, matching pictures). In our writing we use inventive spelling, putting in as many sounds as we can hear in our words. The goal is that we can read our own writing back and a friend or parent can read it without much help too.

This week in math was all about patterns. We used patterns to help us find all possible combinations of numbers. We practiced skip counting using +2, +5, +10 patterns. We organized our representations into groups of 2, 5, or 10 to more easily count and double check our work. We also noticed patterns for adding and subtracting while doing an activity called today's number. We played a few games about 10 with our St. Mike's buddies on Friday: make 10 go fish and +10 pathways.

In Word Study we continue spelling CVC (consonant-short vowel-consonant) words. This week we introduced 3 new sight words to practice spelling: is, his, of. We also began linking our practice words together into complete sentences--focusing on spelling our CVC and sight words correctly, leaving spaces between words, having capitals at the beginning of sentences and lowercase letters throughout as well as punctuation at the end. (Here are a few sentences we did this week: Ted had a dog and a cat. His hat is red. Meg sat on a log.)

On Monday we had a class celebration since we had filled our heart jar the last day before break. We watched the "Happy Turkey Day" episode of Wild Kratts. On Tuesday we dumped our hearts into the JFK Heart Monitor. We also saw a circus performance put on by the middle schoolers on Wednesday.

Thanks to many of you who sent in library books this week. We'll be going to the library again on Monday so hopefully you'll see some new books coming home to enjoy!

Each day as we transition from a high energy time of recess back into a learning afternoon we take 10-15 minutes to practice mindfulness (during our mind and body practice). It is one of our favorite times of day and sets us up for a productive afternoon. If you'd like to read more about mindfulness for children check out this link.


Dates to Remember:
Monday December 4 - Library 11-11:30 am
Wednesday December 13 - Early Release at 12:15 (Teacher In-Service)
Thursday December 14 - Winter Concert (students in classrooms at 6:00 pm; performance begins in the gym at 6:30 pm)
Monday December 18 - Library 11-11:30 am
December 25 - January 2 - Winter Break -- No School
Wednesday January 3 - School resumes


Have a great weekend!
❤ Mrs. Fox