End of November Highlights!

Hello families,

We showed a lot of heart this week and were excited to fill out heart jar on Wednesday. We celebrated Friday afternoon by making slime!

We continued practicing good habits and strategies readers do to solve hard or puzzling words. This week we practiced doing a slow check (hearing all the sounds), looking for parts we know and crashing them together, and trying a vowel sound 2 ways (short and long sound).

In writers workshop we are really getting the hang on writing small moment stories. Now we are working on adding more details to each page (in words and pictures) and bringing our stories to life by adding speech, feelings, and thinking to understand the characters more.

We also wrote a few thank you notes this week. From the CLIF grant we received a bunch of new books for our classroom library! We wrote a letter together to thank them and say why we appreciate the books. We also wrote thank you notes individually for Ms. Madeline, our part-time student intern from UVM. This upcoming Monday will be her last morning with us.

In math we have been using number patterns to help us solve combination story problems. We also starting practicing counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s -- we will continue this number pattern work all year! We also learned a new math routine called Today's Number. In this activity we think about numbers flexibly and find as many ways as we can to make that number by adding, subtracting or both! Some students even used a number pattern like in combinations to help them find tons of ways to make today's number! It was exciting to see students generalize this idea to another context.

Today's Number

Today's Number using a number pattern!

We were excited about getting more snow this week! It's that time of year to make sure your child comes to school with appropriate outer wear. Please send you child to school each day with: a warm jacket, snow pants, mittens or gloves, a hat, winter boots for outside, sneakers or shoes for inside. Having all of these things makes it easier to have fun in the snow at recess! We do go outside for recess any day we can! If the "feels like" temperature is less than 10 degrees Fahrenheit we do stay indoors that day.

We also had another parent come in to do an activity with our class! We had another fun session of yoga and mindfulness. Just what we need to help us practice identifying our feelings and learning how to settle our monkey brains!

On Fridays we visit Mr. Gile in the library. Don't forget to send your books back each week so your child can choose new books. This week Mr. Gile read us a really fun read aloud that we took turns acting out and singing along to. Check it out!

Dates to Remember:

• Thursday 12/13 Winter Concert 6:30 pm start; students arrive in classroom 6:00 pm
• Wednesday 12/19 Half Day - 12:15 dismissal
• Winter Break - No School Monday 12/24 - Wednesday 1/2
• Thursday 1/3, School resumes

Have a great weekend!
❤ Mrs. Fox

Highlights Before Thanksgiving Break

Hello families,

We've had another fun week together. Can you believe we've had more than 50 school days already?

In readers workshop we continue practicing strategies that good readers use to figure out hard or puzzling words. This week we practiced: check the picture, look at all parts of the word, go back to the beginning and get a running start, go past the puzzling word, and double check--does it look right? does it make sense?

Many of our writers have finished up their first small moment narratives (or are still in the revising/editing process). We learned about revising our work by adding in words with writers carrots or revision strips to make our writing even better. We learned how to check if we have all the parts a small moment story needs. In particular we checked for a beginning to get the reader ready, the story told in order using transitional words, and a good, satisfying ending. We also learned how to edit our writing. We looked for: spaces between words, punctuation, capital letters at the beginnings of sentences and names, and current word wall words spelled correctly.

We were excited about the snow this week! It's that time of year to make sure your child comes to school with appropriate outer wear. Please send you child to school each day with: a warm jacket, snow pants, mittens or gloves, a hat, winter boots for outside, sneakers or shoes for inside. Having all of these things makes it easier to have fun in the snow at recess! We do go outside for recess any day we can! If the "feels like" temperature is less than 10 degrees Fahrenheit we do stay indoors that day.

We only had a few days of math this week because of the half day and some other special events later in the week. We worked a lot on combinations, or different ways, to make 10. We are working hard now to use a pattern to help us figure out all the combinations. It's fun to see turn-around facts too!

On Thursday we were lucky enough to go see the middle/high school play, Alice in Wonderland. It was such a great show! Friday was a snow day!

Please be timely to your conference time next Monday. Many conferences are back-to-back so need to begin and end on time. I look forward to meeting with you all to check in about your child's progress this year! Please also note that there is no school for kids for all of next week.

Dates to Remember:

• Family Conferences, 8am-8pm Monday 11/19 (No School for students due to conferences all day.)
• Thanksgiving Break - No School Tuesday 11/20 - Friday 11/23
• Monday 11/26, School resumes
• Thursday 12/13 Winter Concert 6:30 pm start; students arrive in classroom 6:00 pm
• Wednesday 12/19 Half Day - 12:15 dismissal
• Winter Break - No School Monday 12/24 - Wednesday 1/2
• Thursday 1/3, School resumes

Have a great weekend!
❤ Mrs. Fox

Highlights of Our Week!

Hello families,

We have had a fun-filled week of learning together. We filled our heart jar again and celebrated with a stuffie day. Many children enjoyed having a snuggly friend with them throughout the day. It was fun to play with them at recess too since it was rainy and we were indoors!

In readers workshop we've been reviewing good habits that readers do when they practice reading. This week we practiced: setting goals about how many books we want to read each day, rereading to make our sentences sound smooth like talking, scooping up phrases instead of reading word by word, and rereading a book to see and understand more of what is happening in the story.

This week we read and began writing small moment stories. These are stories of things that happened to us or moments we've lived in which we had a big feeling. When writing this type of story first we zoom into the big feeling. Then we sketch out the story parts in order. Next we write each part on a separate page. After that we add details in our pictures. So far that's what we've been doing. As we continue to progress in this writing style we'll learn more about revising and editing too! To help us understand the concept of small moment stories we read a couple together this week: Night of the Veggie Monster and Dark Night.

We also had a CLiF event on Monday where we met a local author, Tracey Campbell Pearson. We got to see a lot of her work, hear about how she makes books, and ask some questions. It was cool to hear about how long and how many revisions she makes before a book is complete!

We began the next word study unit on CVC (consonant-short vowel-consonant) words. We are practicing tapping out the sounds and then building the words with letter magnet tiles or writing the words on white boards or in notebooks. We are also adding a few more trick words/sight words to our spelling practice. These are words that are commonly used but don't always follow the traditional letter/sound patterns. We are currently working on: the, a, and, is, his, of.

We finished up our first math unit and had a "show what you know" about those math skills: comparing numbers, adding 2 addends under 10, representing numbers in an organized way, adding on the number line, solving addition/subtraction/combination story problems, orally counting to 50, and writing numbers to 50.

We also began our WIN time -- this is a time to do some learning for What I Need. Sometimes this will be everyone doing learning together about new concepts. Sometimes this will be "good fit" learning in small groups to target skills students need to work on. This week we learned about Fact Power. This is a routine that helps students practice addition and subtraction math facts. Students learn and progress at their own pace, working to master each number pattern before moving on. There are a few ways we practice: using flashcards, working in packets, and playing games. 

Thanks to all who returned the Family Conference sheets. I sent back your conference time slot according to the times of day you said you were available. Please keep the top portion of the green note so you know when your time is to meet with me. If the time given doesn't work for you after all please let me know so we can reschedule. Either way please return the bottom portion of the green note so I know if you can make it!

Last chance to order some books through our Scholastic Book Order! There are lots of great deals and books make great gifts! There likely won't be another order until I return from maternity leave in April. Orders are due this upcoming Monday!

Dates to Remember:

• No School, Friday 11/9
• Monday 11/12, Scholastic Book Orders Due
• 12:15 dismissal, Wednesday 11/14
• Family Conferences, 8am-8pm Monday 11/19 (No School for students due to conferences all day.)
• Thanksgiving Break - No School Tuesday 11/20 - Friday 11/23
• Monday 11/26, School resumes

Have a great weekend!
❤ Mrs. Fox

Highlights from the End of October

Hello families,
I will be out tomorrow, Friday, for my monthly UVM class so I'm sending out our weekly news a day early. The Fox Kits have been showing so much HEART and demonstrating their learning all week!

In math we are starting to wrap up our first unit so we are practicing all the skills mixed together: representing numbers in an organized way, comparing two sums, solving story problems (addition, subtraction, combinations), adding on the number line. Next week we will have our first unit test, or a "show me what you know." 

We also finished formal instruction in handwriting for the lowercase letters. We have been practicing matching letters to sounds, writing the alphabet in order, and writing letters neatly and the right size using our handwriting lines. Some are tall letters, going all the way from the ground line to the sky line (b, d, f, h, k, l, t). Some are small letters, fitting between the ground and the plane line (a, c, e, i, m, n, o, r, s, u, v, w, x, z). The rest are drop down letters, going from the plane line down to the worm line (g, j, p, q, y). Today we had  a"show me what you know" about how well they can use proper formation of these letters.

Reading groups are in full swing and first graders are getting so timely in their transitions and routines! Today we also learned 1 more way we can practice reading during readers workshop: listen to reading! Each week we will have a different audio book available for pairs to listen to. This is a great way to access higher level texts that most first graders cannot read on their own yet. We all practiced this with a class favorite: Pete the Cat: Rocking in My School Shoes!

We read two Halloween books this week and did some writing about them too: Pete the Cat - Five Little Pumpkins and Big Pumpkin. Here's a link to Big Pumpkin if you want to read it at home!

Dates to Remember:

• No School, Friday 11/9
• 12:15 dismissal, Wednesday 11/14
• Family Conferences, 8am-8pm Monday 11/19 (More info to come! -- No School for students due to conferences all day.)
• Thanksgiving Break - No School Tuesday 11/20 - Friday 11/23
• Monday 11/26, School resumes

Have a great weekend!
❤ Mrs. Fox