Highlights of the Week - November 17, 2017

Hello families,

We've had a fantastic week together. We did tons of learning, some fun team activities and worked together to solve some problems. Having students be active participants in problem solving is a great skill and asset to helping them want to keep everything working smoothly. As a classroom community it's important to all have a voice. We also talked a lot about thankfulness and gratitude. We shared things in our lives that we are glad to have.

We read two Scholastic News articles this week, learning about the lives of Pilgrim kids and Wampanoag kids. We learned about their homes, their chores, their food, their clothes, and what they did for fun. We compared what we learned to our own lives--noticing many similarities as well as some differences. We also read a picture book about Pilgrim and Wampanoag kids lives. It is a book more about their lives in general than the first Thanksgiving.This book is called One Little, Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims by B.G. Hennessy. We also colored some fun fox Thanksgiving placemats that Ms. Judy found for us!

We continue to love (and need) our mind and body practices. We move our bodies between lengthy sitting times and calm our bodies after high-energy times.

Doing Zumba as we transition from Guidance on Monday.

"Melting" with a Flow video to bring our energy down after P.E.

In writers workshop we shared our stories with a partner. Our partner asked questions about the story to help us think of more details we could add. We also brought our stories to life by unfreezing the characters--making them do something or say something. We noticed that Mo Willems, one of our favorite authors, is an author to learn these skills from. We reread Knufflebunny and read I Will Take a Nap to notice how he added detail by bringing characters to life. We also read more small moment stories, The Paperboy by Dav Pilkey and The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash by Trinka Hakes Noble. This final book is a great example of how we tell small moment stories in itty bitty parts, stretching out the small moment of time into a long story. This is a tough skill to master but our first grade writers are working on it!

Students sharing stories and asking questions to help the author add more details.

Students sharing stories and asking questions to help the author add more details.

In math we finished up the first unit and had our "show me what you know" on Tuesday. These scores will be on the upcoming report card (which I'll give out at conferences next Monday). Our next math unit continues developing number sense and building upon the skills we've learned and practiced in the first unit. We are also continuing to build our fact power muscles, gaining fluency and moving up levels. This week we worked a lot with the number 10--finding all the ways to make ten and then using a color and number pattern to organize them. We made 10 rainbows and played a game called "10 Go Fish." This is a great game to play at home--just use the Ace,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9 cards from a standard deck of cards. Deal out 5 to each player. Then try to find a match to make 10 (like go fish). When playing ask "Do you have a 7 to go with my 3 to make 10?" or "Do you have a 2 to go with my 8 to make 10?" If the person asked doesn't have that number the person asking picks up a card from the pile.

Partners wrote equations to match the color pattern on the 10 towers.

Then partners worked together to organize them--put them in order using a number pattern.

We noticed that our 10 tower patterns make a big staircase!

In readers workshop we continued to practice good reading habits. We focused this week on ways readers reread books to grow as readers. We reread to smooth out our reading, to make it sound more like talking. When we do this then we can scoop up phrases instead of reading word by word. We also reread to see more, to notice and learn new things in our stories.

We love to read so much we even read during our free time before morning meeting!

We love to read so much we even read during our free time before morning meeting!

This week I sent home flyers for Scholastic book orders. You do not have to order books but I will send home book orders every 2 months or so in case you want to get any new books for your home. We also have a class wish list if you'd like to donate a book to the class! You can go to this link and enter our class code  LDHF9 to order books online or return the flyer order sheet to me with a check payable to Scholastic Book Clubs by Tuesday November 28th. (Books also make great gifts for the holidays!)


Do you have any old/outgrown coats, boots, snow pants, gloves or mittens hanging around? If so, you could donate them to our classroom. When children don't have adequate outerwear they need to borrow some in order to go outside. I keep lockers for extra winter gear for kids to borrow. If you have any old winter wear feel free to send them in as extras for our classroom--they might fit someone else!

In other news, starting after the break we'll have a new volunteer, Ms. Joy, helping us out on Monday afternoons. She'll be helping us in our math lessons and in our FUNdations word study, science and social studies block. 

I look forward to seeing all of you on Monday for our family conferences! Please remember there is no school for children on Monday due to these conferences going on all day. Here's the schedule again in case you forgot when to come for your conference!

Have a great Thanksgiving break!

Dates to Remember:
Monday November 20 - Family Conferences -- No School for Kids
Tuesday November 21 - Friday November 24 - Thanksgiving Break -- No School
Tuesday November 28 - Scholastic Book Orders due!
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)
December 25 - January 2 - Winter Break -- No School
Wednesday January 3 - School resumes


Have a great weekend!
❤ Mrs. Fox

Highlights November 10, 2017

Hello families,

This week we began to sign up for our readers workshop choices. Guided reading groups also began. I meet with small groups of children to work on reading skills and read just right books. Meanwhile the rest of the class is working on reading or literacy skills by doing: read to myself, read to someone, listen to reading, word work, or work on writing.

Students make their readers workshop choices each morning.

In writers workshop we began to write small moment stories. These are personal narratives that tell the story from a small moment of time. First we zoomed into a moment when we had a big feeling. Then we stretched that moment out to tell details about what happened. We planned, sketched and began to write our stories this week. We also read small moment stories all together during read aloud: Night of the Veggie Monster by George McClements, Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes, and Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems.

Students told a partner their small moment stories. They touched each box to tell each small part of the story.

Students use their planning sheets to write the parts of their stories.

Students use their planning sheets to write the parts of their stories.

This week we began a routine that will continue for the rest of the year. In our block of academic time after snack we will be alternating academics, doing FUNdations for word study some days each week and either our social studies or science work (depending on which unit of study we are working on) a few days each week. This week we learned about FUNdations routines and practice tapping out sounds in CVC (consonant-short vowel-consonant) words (i.e. cat, sip, mop, rug). We finished up our social studies unit on growth mindset. This is a concept that we will continue to practice and learn about throughout the year as we learn and grow together!

I will say ... I will keep trying my best!

In Math we've been reviewing and practicing the story problem, combinations, comparing numbers, number writing, and fact power skills that we've been learning in this first unit. On Monday we'll have our first unit assessment (a "show me what you know").

On Friday morning we got to see a middle school performance of Cinderella! We also met with our St. Mike's buddies again and played +1 or +2 Bingo!

Beginning next week I will be teaching a 21st Century after school class on Tuesdays. Mrs. Poland (our music teacher) will be bringing the class out for dismissal on most Tuesdays until the end of January. Please look for her with your child on Tuesdays.

Now that the weather has finally changed please make sure to send your child to school with appropriate clothing. We go out for recess each day unless it is pouring rain or below ten. A warm coat, hat and gloves are needed! Boots are great too! Once there is snow on the ground send in those snow pants, too!


Today a blue sheet came home to tell you when you are signed up for a conference with me. Please keep the top part for your information and sign the bottom to return to me so I know you can make it to the conference. I look forward to meeting with each of you to update you on the great work your child is doing in class!

Dates to Remember:
Monday November 13 - Library Day 
Monday November 20 - Family Conferences -- No School for Kids
Tuesday November 21 - Friday November 24 - Thanksgiving Break -- No School
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)
December 25 - January 2 - Winter Break -- No School
Wednesday January 3 - School resumes


Have a great weekend!
❤ Mrs. Fox

Highlights November 3rd, 2017

Hello families,
We've had a very fun week together. It's hard to believe it's already November! Here are some of the highlights from our week!

This week we read many books together: Big Pumpkin, T-Rex Trick or Treats, How Do You Grow a Giant Pumpkin?, Pete the Cat: 5 Little Pumpkins, Ish, and If You're Happy and You Know It.

We practice reading skills in so many ways. Along with doing class read alouds we also have our Readers Workshop. This week we began the structure that will continue for the remainder of the year: whole class mini-lesson; 3 choices (independent, partner work, or small groups); whole class share out. First we meet together for a mini-lesson. This is something new to practice to make us stronger readers. Right now we're learning strategies and ways to build good reading habits. Then there are 3 choice blocks (2 reading choices + 1 more choice). We already know how to do read to myself, read to someone, word work, and meet with a teacher. This week we added two more choices to our readers workshop: listen to reading and work on writing. During listen to reading 2 kids at a time listen to an audiobook. Audiobooks help readers at all stages get access to fun books that develop their reading comprehension and vocabulary. These are books that would often be too challenging to read to themselves but they can access this book in audio format. This week our book of the week was Just Say Boo. We also got free writing journals. These are journals where we can write about anything we want. This is different from our work in writers workshop because we are practicing writing certain skills and writing genres then. It's fun to go back and read our own writing or read it to someone! At the end of readers workshop we check in all together to talk about how we did at practicing the new skill from our mini-lesson.

In math we continue to work on building fact fluency, organize our thinking by representing it on paper, and solve different kinds of problems. We are nearing the end of our first unit on story problems, number lines, and combinations. Students are working independently, in partnerships, in small groups, or in whole class lessons.

On Tuesday we gathered as a first grade team to sing some of the October songs that we've been learning this month. It was fun to sing them all together! Here's a short clip of one of our songs.

Our class decided to try something new with our HEARTS. We got a small container to put in the hearts we earn during the day. At closing circle we count them to see how many we got that day and then add them to our class jar. 

On Friday we earned even more than 100 hearts--123 hearts in just 1 day!

On Thursday we filled our HEART jar! We'll add them to the school heart monitor on Tuesday!

We had our class celebration on Friday morning (playing games or building with blocks and legos together) and our buddies came in the afternoon. 

We had an All School Morning Meeting this week and a visit from Officer Dave to talk about safety (stranger danger, 911, crossing streets)!

Family conferences are coming up. If you haven't yet sent in your orange sheet about what times work or don't work for you please send them in on Monday. We're meeting as a team to schedule conferences on Wednesday!

Also don't forget this upcoming Wednesday is an Early Release day. Pick up is at 12:15.
Dates to Remember:
Wednesday November 8 - Early Release at 12:15 (Teacher In-Service)
Monday November 13 - Library Day 
Monday November 20 - Family Conferences - No School for Kids
Tuesday November 21 - Friday November 24 - Thanksgiving Break - No School


Have a great weekend!
❤ Mrs. Fox

Highlights 10-27-17

Hello families,

This week we've been busy s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g and growing our brains. We do this all the time when we choose just right books to read. We do this when we stretch out words to write all the sounds we hear. We do it when we practice handwriting and forming our letters carefully. We stretch our brains when we practice reading new sight words. These are commonly used words that don't always follow traditional spelling patterns so we just have to know how to read them on sight. We got 2 new tools to practice this skill during readers workshop. We have little practice booklets to help us practice reading lists of sight words as quickly as we can read our own names. We also learned a roll and record game to practice reading and writing these sight words.

We began fact power in math that it letting us show mastery of math facts within a pattern and move onto the next more challenging level. With each level our brain gains more power in working with numbers! We are using this power to look for different combinations of the same sum within a story. For example, "I have 9 things on my plate. Some are peas. Some are carrots. How many peas can I have? How many carrots?" This week we used cubes to help us model combination stories like these. We drew pictures to represent the combinations as well as equations to match. Students shared out ways they represented their work and ways to thought about combinations. Some students began using a more organized strategy to try to find ALL possible combinations!

We have also been talking about this concept of stretching and growing our brains in relation to our work in social studies about having a growth mindset. This means being willing to try new things, make mistakes, and keep getting better at things that are hard for us. Sometimes when things are hard we feel like "I can't do this!" It feels frustrating. When we have a growth mindset instead we say "This is hard but I'll try my best!" We read a book to help us learn about the science behind the growth mindset and our brain called Your Fantastic, Elastic Brain: Stretch It, Grow It by JoAnn Deak, Ph.D. We shared lots of examples from our own lives about when something was hard but we kept trying, or when we made a mistake and learned from it.

We read a few books all together this week too. We read the book our class wrote: Fabulous Fox, Fabulous Fox, Who Do You See?, a book about letters and sounds: Alphabet Mystery by Audrey Wood, a book about teamwork: Swimmy by Leo Lionni, and a fun Halloween book: Big Pumpkin  by Erica Silverman.

This week our anticipation and excitement for Halloween continued to grow. We started learning and singing some Halloween songs together. We did a fun "spiderweb" greeting during morning meeting. We also began reading some books with this holiday theme. Next Tuesday is Halloween. We'll do more fun learning activities to celebrate during the school day and we'll have a special snack in the afternoon. Please remember there are no costumes or candy allowed at school.

We continue to have regularly scheduled mind and body breaks to energize when our engines are running low or when we need to expend extra energy (especially on rainy days), or calm down when our engines are running high. We also challenge our brains with cross-body exercises with Mr. Catman!

Dates to Remember:
Tuesday October 31 - Halloween - No Costumes at School
Thursday November 2 - Clothing Drive and Potluck Dinner 5:00-7:00 pm
Wednesday November 8 - Early Release at 12:15 (Teacher In-Service)
Monday November 20 - Family Conferences - No School for Kids
Tuesday November 21 - Friday November 24 - Thanksgiving Break - No School


Have a great weekend!
❤ Mrs. Fox

Highlights From a Short Week!

Hello families,

It's been an exciting, even if short, week! Here are just a couple of quick updates.

Last Friday afternoon we filled our class HEART Jar and voted on another Bonus Recess Class Celebration that we had that afternoon while the weather was still nice and warm.

On Tuesday we dumped our hearts into the school heart monitor and then it was full! So on Wednesday we had an All School Celebration. Each grade level made a banner. First graders made the H banner and we made hearts to carry that show ways we are Honest. As a whole school we had a parade from JFK down to the lobby doors. Our parade led into the cafeteria where we saw a science/magic show! It was a fantastic and heartful day!

In Social Studies we continue to talk about big feelings and how they affect our bodies. This connects well with our work in guidance and mindfulness where we are learning strategies for how to handle big feelings and calm our bodies and minds. We read the book Visiting Feelings and discussed how we notice and explore our own feelings. We also took this theme into our writing. First we read the classic book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. We loved the pattern in this book so decided to make one of our own. Instead of colors and animals we're using feelings and our names! We made our pages on Tuesday and were excited to have the book put together to add to our book boxes for reading today!

We've had many kids with colds, coughs and runny noses this week. I hope this long weekend you have plenty of time to rest and get better. Drink lots of water!

Have a great long weekend! See you Monday!

Dates to Remember:
Thursday October 19 - No School
Friday October 20 - No School
Monday October 23 - Library 11-11:30
Friday October 27 - Picture Retakes
Tuesday October 31 - Halloween - No Costumes at School
Monday November 20 - Family Conferences - No School for Kids
Tuesday November 21 - Friday November 24 - Thanksgiving Break - No School


Have a great weekend!
❤ Mrs. Fox

Highlights of the Week - October 13, 2017

Hello families,

This week we've had many new adventures together. One thing that many of our first graders have been excited about learning is how to tie shoes! Many mornings we practice together. Those students who have already mastered tying are now teaching their classmates!

In Readers Workshop we've been gaining stamina in Read to Myself and Read to Someone. We've also been doing some conferencing to read sight word lists and check for knowledge of letter names and sounds. Next week we'll begin benchmark reading assessments to check for "just right" instructional reading levels. These assessments will happen in class and be done over the course of this month. I'll be using the information to target my reading instruction to the individual strengths and needs of each child in class in guided reading groups.

In Writers Workshop we have begun handwriting instruction and practice for lowercase letters. As we learn how to properly and efficiently write letters we are also reviewing the keywords and sounds that match each letter. We use keywords and sounds to help us tap sounds as we write. (We use the same keywords and sounds to help us read too!) We've also begun to do more response to literature about books we read during Accountable Talk Read Aloud. We read together and share ideas about the story as we read, make connections, make predictions, and say what we learn from the stories. This week we read The Recess Queen and Rainbow Fish. We also read our first Scholastic News article of the year about furry friends!

In Math we continue to work with the number line, jumping forward to add and jumping backward to subtract. We are beginning to use number lines to represent our thinking when solving story problems. We also continue to show picture representations to prove our thinking. On Thursday we learned a new game, Froggy Race, that helps us practice hopping forward and backward as we add and subtract--racing to the end of the number line!

In Social Studies we've begun to talk about feelings and noticing feelings in our bodies. We want to feel good but sometimes when we have big feelings it's hard to feel right. We imagine our bodies as cars. When everything is working right our engine is just right. When we have big feelings (mad, overexcited, anxious, overwhelmed) it can make us red hot and make our engines speed up too fast. When we have big feelings (sad, tired, bored, sick) it can make us feel blue and make our engines slow down too much. During our daily Mind and Body Practices we learn about and practice strategies to help us energize when our engines are low and calm down when our engines are high.

On Monday Nurse Liz also came in to do a lesson on germs and how they spread. We practiced coughing and sneezing into our elbows to "catch our germs." We also used special "germ lotion" and a black light to show us how much we have to wash our hands with soap and water to really get them clean!

Earlier this week it was raining buckets at dismissal. When this happens we try to stay in the hall just before the exit doors as long as possible so we don't get drenched. If you come under the awning so I can see you from inside I will send your child out to you. Once it's cleared out enough we can also come out to the covered area. I know it's extra hard and chaotic on rainy dismissals and I appreciate your patience and understanding!

Our classroom routines are well in place. Having a stable and predictable structure is helpful for students in learning and knowing what to expect. One routine we love is Closing Circle. It's a time to reflect on our day and do an activity together. If you'd like to see what this looks like please join us next Tuesday October 17th from 2:40-3:00!

Please remember next Wednesday is an early release at 12:15 and there is no school on Thursday and Friday!

Dates to Remember:
Wednesday October 18 - Early Release for ALL students 12:15 -- No After School Activities
Thursday October 19 - No School
Friday October 20 - No School
Monday October 23 - Library 11-11:30
Monday October 23 - Picture Retakes


Have a great weekend!
❤ Mrs. Fox