Highlights of the Week

Hello families,
With 2 early release days this week flew by even faster than usual. Even still the Fox Kits worked hard and showed so much HEART. They filled their heart jar again! This time they chose to watch a movie for a celebration which we'll make time to do next week!

We began reading groups as part of our Readers Workshop routines. While I confer with groups of students working on similar skills the rest of the class does their independent reading choices that we've been practicing all year so far: read to myself, read to someone, work on writing (free writing), and word work (trick word word searches, roll and record letters or sight words). We also learned one more way we read sometimes--Listening to Reading! Students will be able to listen to an audio picture book each week. This helps students access higher level texts than they can read independently. This helps to expand their vocabulary, learn about more complex story structures, and it's fun! On Friday we practiced by listening to a favorite book, Pete the Cat: Rocking in my School Shoes.

We read a few more books this week and did response to literature writing projects about them. After reading Alphabet Mystery we took our own alphabets off on adventures to: Italy, a water park at night, a forest, the beach, prehistoric times, under the sea, and more!

After reading Pete the Cat: 5 Little Pumpkins we practiced writing trick word the and made a picture to match the story.

All the WIN groups are up and running now in the afternoons. Some groups meet everyday and some groups are just once a week. Students do WIN work Monday-Thursday. Students are working in skill-based groups dependent on what area they need extra practice or extra extension. Ask your child what skills they are working on and who their WIN teacher is!

In math we continue to work with story problems, equality and comparing numbers. We began some number line work, thinking about patterns and filling in the missing numbers. On Wednesday we also did an assessment to see what basic addition and subtraction calculations your child can do independently at this point in the year. This is an assessment we do each fall, winter, and spring.

Nurse Liz came in to do a special lesson on germs. We learned about how germs spread and how to prevent them from spreading. The best way is through proper hand washing. We used a special lotion and a black light to practice washing away all our germs. By the end of the lesson all the Fox Kits were germ busters!

Dates to Remember:

• November 13 - PTO Meeting
• November 15 - All School Morning Meeting 8:15
• November 17 - PTO Craft Fair
• November 21- Early Dismissal 11:00; No student activities; Parent/Teacher Conferences 12-8
• November 22- Early Dismissal 11:00; No student activities; Parent/Teacher Conferences 12-3
• November 25 - 29 - No School for Thanksgiving Break

Have a great weekend!

❤ Mrs. Fox

Highlights of the Week

Hello families,

We had a fun week together. We read many books together with the focus on identifying feelings and discussed ways we handle our feelings in appropriate ways. We read: Visiting Feelings, Grumpy Bird, and Mindful Monkey, Happy Panda.

We did one more writing project to get to know each other: "Me, Myselfie, and I." The kids had a lot of fun making these little books and reading them to each other. They loved finding out if they had favorite things in common! 
Did you see it come home? Check it out!

These students noticed that they all chose writing as their favorite school activity!

I finished doing reading assessments this week and next week will begin meeting with groups of kids during our readers workshop to work on individual skills at their level. The whole class will also be working on developing reading strategies and practicing these together.

In math we started to mix things up and solve addition and subtraction story problems. We had to think about what was happening in the story to know if we needed to add or take away. The Fox Kits are really improving in how they represent their thinking in clear and organized ways!

In FUNdations we began using our magnet boards to build CVC words--words with a consonant-short vowel sound-consonant (i.e. hat, mud, lip). We are also practicing how to spell trick words (common words that don't follow traditional spelling rules): a, is, his, of, the, and.

Dates to Remember:

• October 24 - Picture Retake Day
• October 24 & 25 - Early Dismissal 11:00 (activities available with prior sign-up)
• November 13 - PTO Meeting
• November 15 - All School Morning Meeting 8:15
• November 17 - PTO Craft Fair
• November 21- Early Dismissal; No student activities; Parent/Teacher Conferences 12-8
• November 22- Early Dismissal; No student activities; Parent/Teacher Conferences 12-3
• November 25 - 29 - No School for Thanksgiving Break

Have a great weekend!

❤ Mrs. Fox

Highlights from a True Autumn Week

Hello families,

This week in readers workshop we used a new tool to "sign up" for our reading choices and practiced switching between choices more quickly and quietly. Students continued to meet with me to check their sight word knowledge. Sight words are commonly used words that don't always follow traditional spelling/reading rules (i.e. what, was, am). Knowing these words on sight helps students spend less energy decoding these common words so they can focus their brain power on decodable words (i.e. cat, spell, name). Some students also did 1:1 reading with me using the Fountas and Pinnell reading assessments to check on their current levels for reading accurately with comprehension. I will continue this next week.

In math this week our big focus was on story problems. Last week we did some visual story problems together. This week we learned how to read story problems to get the information we need to solve it. Then we made clear representations of our thinking and wrote equations to match.

On Monday we had a special guest reader at JFK, Bill Jameson, so we went to the library to hear him read one of his books! We also read a bunch of books in our classroom: Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes, Pete the Cat: Rockin' In My School Shoes, Pete the Cat and the Magic Sunglasses, and The School Book. To go along with our read alouds we wrote a book about what we do at our school.

This week we began to practice meeting with different teachers during our WIN time. WIN is "What I Need." It's a time for students to get more practice with a skill they are developing or receive enrichment in an area where they are consistently demonstrating skills above grade level. During WIN students will work in differentiated groups with any of the first grade teachers, our ELL teachers Ms. Sarah and Ms. L, our reading interventionist Mrs. Weimer, or our math interventionist Mrs. Thomas. This week we practiced moving as a whole class into one of the other first grade rooms to meet another teacher and get used to switching spaces.

We had a great pajama day/toy day celebration on Thursday!

I will be out on Monday but will return on Tuesday! Have a great weekend!

Dates to Remember:

• 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

Highlights of the Week

Hello families,

Well the first six weeks of school and our focus on learning routines and expectations has been hugely successful. The Fox Kits are demonstrating their understanding of how we engage in schoolwork, how to work independently and in groups, and how to have fun and support each other. They are doing a great job! We will continue to develop these skills throughout the year.

We read many books and did writing prompts based on including others and friendship. We read: One, I'm New Here, Who Are You?, Be Who You Are, and  The Invisible Boy. We also had guest readers, Ms. Sarah and 2 students read a story they wrote together last year!

During readers workshop students continued building stamina with read to myself, read to someone, and work on  writing. They also practiced doing these choices independently while kids took turns meeting with me to do some reading.

In the next weeks I will begin doing some literacy assessments to check in on what skills your child already has for reading accuracy/reading comprehension/sight word knowledge/letter-keyword-sound knowledge and what skills they need to work on. This will help me to meet each child where they are at and provide differentiated instruction during readers workshop.

In math we continued comparing numbers and started representing on paper how we know which number is bigger. We also used videos to help us visualize story problems (word problems) and began to work on solving and representing our thinking on this type of math problem.

We finished up our first FUNdations (word study) unit on letter formation of lowercase letters and reviewing the letter-keyword-sounds they learned in Kindergarten. Knowing these cues helps us in reading and writing words!

In social studies we finished up our formal learning about growth mindset though it is something we talk about and practice all year long. We are also talking about our feelings, how to identify feelings in ourselves, and how they effect our bodies using the "How Does Your Engine Run" ideas of "too low, just right, too high." We brainstormed some strategies of what we could do if our engines are too low or too high to get back to the just right state where we do our best learning.

Dates to Remember:

• 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