Highlights on a Thursday

Hello families,

What an exciting week we've had. We enjoyed having many family members join us for our closing circle on Wednesday and we had fun celebrating filling our heart jar with a stuffie day on Thursday! We learned and practiced HEART expectations for a few new places and events this week: using the school grounds, going to the buddy room or SSR (Student Support Room), going to an assembly (like the All School Morning Meeting on Friday morning) and having a guest teacher. As a class we also wrote a morning message together to use with a guest teacher. They will have a chance to practice showing HEART with a guest teacher again tomorrow, Friday, which is why I'm sharing our highlights a bit early this week.

In reading we continued to increase our reading stamina and worked on our volume to make sure we are doing our best and giving a quiet learning space to others. We also kept adding to our stamina graph, trying to be engaged in reading for a longer overall time.

We love to read in the library too after we choose new books!

We finished reviewing all the vowel and consonant sounds and continue to practice lowercase letter formation.

Our read alouds gave us great opportunities to have meaningful conversations about individuality, what makes you you, and what we need to feel calm when the world around us is loud and chaotic. We practiced listening and responding to each others ideas. A few books we read this week are: It Feels Good to Be Yourself: A Book About Gender Identity; Charlotte and the Quiet Place; Angus All Aglow; Neither; and Only One You.

In math we continued working with the part/part/whole concept with teen numbers. In our Ten Frame booklet we started using 2 colors to show the two parts of a whole number and wrote equations to match. Then we started playing a game, Double Compare, to continue to deepen this understanding and work on ways to show our thinking about how we know what the whole number is and how we know which whole number is bigger.

Ask your child, "Who won this round of double compare? How do you know?"

We also continue to develop our growth mindset, watching a few videos to spark conversation and practicing working hard and fixing mistakes in our own work! 

I know the Fox Kits will be kind, flexible and show lots of HEART for the guest teacher on Friday. Check in with them tomorrow to see how they think it went!

Dates to Remember:

• October 2 - Walk to School Day. Meet at the Rite Aid at 7:35 AM to participate in this schoolwide event.
• October 8 - No School
• October 16 - PTO Meeting
• October 18 - All School Morning Meeting 8:15-8:45
• October 24 - Picture Retake Day
• October 24 & 25 - Early Dismissal 11:00 (activities available with prior sign-up)

Have a great weekend!

❤ Mrs. Fox

Hopes and Dreams

Here are the Hopes and Dreams 

we have for this school year!

Highlights from a Great Week!

Hello families,
It's hard to believe we just finished our 4th week of school. The Fox Kits are really remembering our routines and becoming a supportive learning community.

This week we read many books about growth mindset and goals. We read: Happy Dreamer,; Ricky, the Rock Who Couldn't Roll; Drawing Lessons from a Bear; Bunny Cakes; and The Big Orange Splot. This tied into our own writing about our hopes and dreams. We each wrote an academic (learning) goal and a social (friendship) goal. I also sent home a sheet for you to complete for any hopes and dreams you have for your child this year. Thanks to those of you who returned these already. If you haven't yet send it back as soon as you can!

We are building our classroom word wall to help us
spell words we use a lot when we write!

We also sent home invitations to join us next week for a closing circle. This is a daily routine where we reflect on our day and do a game or activity when we have time. If you come for dismissal a few minutes early next Wednesday please join us so you can see what closing circle looks like in first grade. Our closing circle is 2:45-2:55 and then we'll be dismissing as usual at 3:00.

We filled our heart jar again and this time really got to do our slime celebration. Mr. Fox came in as our slime expert to make tons of gooey goodness with the class.

In math we practiced being more accurate and organized in our counting and representations. We noticed how having clear, organized representations helps us know what number is being represented easily. This week we did a lot of work with tens frames to build this organization.

We added onto our reading habits this week. We practiced showing HEART while doing read to myself and read to someone. We learned about picking good fit books that are not too easy and not too hard. Just right books help our brains stretch and grow in their reading skills!

Dates to Remember:

• September 25 - Family Closing Circle 2:45-3:00 pm in room 25
• September 27 - All School Morning Meeting 8:15-8:45
• October 2 - Walk to School Day. Meet at the Rite Aid to participate in this schoolwide event.
• October 8 - No School
• October 24 - Picture Retake Day

Have a great weekend!

❤ Mrs. Fox

Highlights of Our Week

Hello families,

What a great week we had. We filled our heart jar last Friday so on Tuesday we dumped our hearts into the heart monitor and had our first celebration: making paper airplanes.

We explored more areas of our classroom through guided discovery. We uncovered the leveled books bookcase and the 3 big bookcases of books grouped by type (i.e. fiction, nonfiction topics, poetry, chapter book series). This week we practiced how to show HEART by using books responsibly, choosing "I PICK" books (thinking about the purpose of reading, being interested in the book, comprehension, and knowing the words), and reading to ourselves. We started the week being able to read quietly by ourselves for just 2.5 minutes. By the end of the week we were reading for 10 quiet, engaged minutes!

In math we expanded on our ideas of counting by learning and adding to the ways we represent numbers. We are learning about how to show our thinking on paper in organized ways by grouping and labeling our representations.

In social studies we continued to learn about growth mindset. We watched the Class Dojo video series on this topic and talked about ways we have shown determination and learned from mistakes to stretch and grow our brains. We looked at many fun posters to help us think about how having a growth mindset gives us super learning powers and to help us think positively.

In writing we finished publishing our class rules, wrote about our learning super powers, and began to work on writing our Hopes and Dreams for the year! We brainstormed academic or learning goals at school then wrote and illustrated our individual goals.

I was out sick on Wednesday but returned on Thursday to a great report from Ms. Rafeef who spent the day with the Fox Kits. I am so proud of them for showing HEART and working hard when I was out unexpectedly.

Remember, this upcoming Monday is picture day. Even if you don't order photos each child will have their photo taken. If you still want to order pictures please send your order form in by Monday morning!

Dates to Remember:

• September 16 - Picture Day
• September 18 - Half Day for Teacher Inservice - 12:15 dismissal; activities available for sign-up
• September 27 - All School Morning Meeting 8:15-8:45
• October 2 - Walk to School Day. Meet at the Rite Aid to participate in this schoolwide event.

Have a great weekend!

❤ Mrs. Fox

Highlights of the Week

Hello families,

This week we learned more about each other and our individual personalities and attributes that we bring to our classroom learning community. We read a few books on this topic: The Colors of Us; Two Eyes, a Nose and a Mouth; I Like Myself; and One Light, One Sun. We also did a few projects to go along with this theme. We made self portraits and individual suns to display creating one huge sun representing the whole first grade learning community! Take a look in the hallway next week to see it!

Passing the energy ball.

Making our own "Colors of Us" picture like in the end pages of the book!

We used skin color paints and mixed different shades to paint our self portraits.

In math this week we began experimenting with different math manipulatives: unifix cubes, pattern blocks, connecting cubes, counters, counting boxes, tens frames, and hundred charts. We also practiced counting accurately and learning how to prove you know how many items are in your counting box. We continued playing math games: In the Doghouse and +1 Fact Power game.

We started to talk about having a growth mindset. That means believing in yourself and trying your best even when something is hard. We read a great book, Not Yet, and made our own "not yet power bracelets" to remind us that even if we can't do something yet we should keep trying and practicing and we'll get there--you bet!

We learned HEART expectations this week for safety drills: secure the building and fire drill (egress). We also practiced HEART expectations for meeting times, read alouds, and visiting the Food Bank. Coming home today are some fresh veggies from the VeggieVanGo food truck. They visit our school the first and third Friday of each month!

Dates to Remember:

• September 16 - Picture Day
• September 18 - Half Day for Teacher Inservice - 12:15 dismissal; activities available for sign-up
• September 27 - All School Morning Meeting 8:15-8:45
• October 2 - Walk to School Day. Meet at the Rite Aid to participate in this schoolwide event.

Have a great weekend!

❤ Mrs. Fox