September 2009

Hello students, parents, and friends!
We’ve been busy as ever in room 56! The students practiced daily to prepare their lovely dance “Las Cortadoras” for the Multicultural Festival. All of their hard work paid off, as they were true performers and shined like true stars!

We’ve been learning to be more descriptive in our writing. We’ve been using our five senses to describe the season fall. To prepare, we read many books about what makes fall special, as well as taking note to the changes that we’ve observed outside. The students are really blossoming as writers! In addition to writing about fall, the students have been creative artists, painting silhouettes of a fall tree in front of a beautiful sky at sunset.

For math, we spent a lot of time exploring the part/part/whole relationship for addition and subtraction. We are excited to be starting a geometry unit and are looking forward to making plane shapes using geoboards and solid figures using marshmallows and toothpicks. We will also be enhancing and developing our position word vocabulary.

For social studies, we have studied many different kinds of occupations. We have explored the tools, training, equipment, etc. for various jobs. The students have thought a lot about the type of job they’d like to have when they grow up and have been writing about what their dream job entails and why the job is important.

For our next Language Arts unit, “Things That Go”, we will study various types of transportation. Students are encouraged to bring any books, photographs, or memories with them to school to contribute to our concept/question board. Students will write about trips that they’ve taken and the types of transportation that have gotten them to their destinations.

Thank you to all of the parents for coming to parent-teacher conferences. It was so nice to speak with all of you and tell you how special your child is. Room 56 is full of superstars!

August 16, 2009

The first graders in room 56 have been busy learning many new things. For math, they have been ordering and comparing numbers using new vocabulary such as more than, fewer than, least, between, and greatest. We also began an introduction to addition where we are looking at parts of a whole to see how many parts there are in all. Try to review these concepts at home using fun household items such as food, coins, and toys. Making math a fun part of everyday life will ensure your child will be a great problem solver.

For reading, we have been busy learning to read words with the following sounds: a, h, i, m, n, p, s, t, u, o, r, b, and d. Thank you for listening to your child read their decodable at home and for signing their book to show that you’ve listened to them read. They have been making excellent progress with learning to read thanks to your support at home! I’m sure you’ve noticed that the books are getting increasingly harder each day.

For science and for our language arts unit, we are studying animals. We have studied hippos, raccoons, zebras, elephants, sharks, polar bears, ostriches, and giraffes. Your child knows many interesting facts about these animals so be sure to ask them what they’ve learned!

Check the July photo album as I added new photos today. See you tomorrow!

July 19, 2009

Hello students, parents, and friends!

We have been busy beavers in room 56 over the past two weeks. We are enjoying getting to know one another and learning how to be kind friends. We are learning about classroom and playground rules and discussing why it is important to follow rules. We have completed our alphabet books, practiced rhyming, painted, and made spatial patterns to represent numbers using counters. We have also read some wonderful stories such as The Giving Tree, Horton Hatches An Egg, and Rainbow Fish. Students, be sure to tell your parents about these stories and about what we learned from reading them. Reading these stories again and again at home would be much appreciated by the students, so parents take a trip to the library if you have a chance.

Exciting events this week include Back to School Night on Tuesday, July 21st. The students have made a special invitation that will be going home tomorrow to remind you of all of the details. Report to the auditorium to meet with our principal, Ms. Schneider, and then report to room 56 after her meeting. Make sure you visit the book fair in the library (buy a book, get a second one FREE!) Don’t forget that we get out an hour early every Tuesday (1:23pm, as opposed to 2:23pm for all other days of the week.)

Our class has been invited to a watermelon party (yum!) on Monday thanks to all of our supportive parents who filled out and signed emergency cards and all other paperwork sent home on the first day of school. The students and I appreciate having such helpful parents as partners.

New decodables are coming home starting on Tuesday. Be sure to listen to your child read the book until they can read it without mistakes, with expression, and at a pace that’s not too fast or slow. Sign the book and return it to school the next day in the little plastic bag provided. If their book comes home with a “Wow” stamp on it, they have mastered the book and may now keep it at home on the ring that I sent home the first week of school.

I have added the first batch of pictures to our photo album. Please visit the Priceless Pictures page (you will always find a link to the page on the sidebar).

2009-2010 School Year

Dear students,
Welcome to first grade! I am delighted to be your teacher. I am so impressed with what a smart, caring class you are. Our first week has been a lot of fun and you’ve already learned how to keep your desk organized, how to print like first graders, how to use counters to represent numbers, and how to be good listeners. We are going to have a wonderful year! This week, you’ll finish your self portraits (using water colors!), finish the alphabet book that we’ve been working on since the first day of school, start an “All About Me” book, and continue to explore numbers 1-20. We will also read a very special book called “Ten Black Dots” and use our own imaginations to create things out of black dots. I’m sure you’ll all have many creative ideas! I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning (in your uniforms!
Love,
Ms. Hanley