Happy Halloween!

Today the children had so much fun on our Halloween parade and at our Halloween party! Thanks so much to everyone who volunteered to send in items for our party, and to the fabulous moms who helped run our party. Our first graders looked so cute in their costumes and they had a great afternoon! Have fun tonight!!

Weekly News!

What a fun filled week we’ve had in first grade! Here’s what we’ve been working on:

Reading:

This week was our Treasures review and assessment week, which means we had no new spelling words or reading focus strategies. We used the Mimio Vote system to assess our reading skills we have been working on in Unit 1. We continued to meet in our Guided Reading groups and review our reading strategies. Next week, our Treasures theme will be “Animal Families”. Our spelling word pattern for the week will be words with the short /o/ sound. Our comprehension strategies will include summarizing and identifying the main idea and details in a story. The grammar lessons for the week will be about nouns. During Guided Reading time, I will be reassessing the students' Guided Reading levels, so you will not see their book baggies coming home! The students may also mention that their reading groups are changing. That is because I will be moving the children around to better meet their reading needs according to their progress thus far.

Writing:

This week, we continued to revise our personal narrative writing. We stretched out our words to include beginning, middle, and ending sounds. We checked our sentences for capitals at the beginning and an ending mark at the end. Then, we wrote an opening sentence and a closing sentence for our narratives. Next week, we will begin publishing our writing in a story board format. On Friday, we finished up our October handwriting books, and brought those home! Make sure to have your child read their book to you and show off their hard work with their letter formation. If you notice that your child’s handwriting is difficult to read, and you would like another handwriting packet to practice at home, please let me know and I would be happy to send one home with your child!

Math:

We began math instruction this week by studying number grid patterns. Tuesday was an Explorations day, followed by counting on the number line. Finally, we studied number line addition and subtraction, and practiced writing number models. Next week, we will not have regular math instruction on Monday, but we will resume our normal math routine on Tuesday, with telling time to the half hour. We will follow this up with an introduction to the “Frames and Arrows” routine. (Make sure to read the family note at the top of the home link each night, as this will help to explain what the students are working on in the classroom!) We will wrap up math for the week with more practice with Frames and Arrows problems.

Science:

We continued to practice our Matter chant this week, as well as a study on the changing states of matter. Students observed how heat can change an ice cube (solid) to water (liquid), and finally from water to steam (gas). We talked about how the liquid could be changed back into a solid by freezing it. Next week, we will explore with a mystery substance called Oobleck after we read the book, “Bartholomew and the Oobleck” by Dr. Seuss. Is it a solid? Is it a liquid? Our first grade scientists will find out next week!

Pumpkin Carving Day:

Friday was a very special day, as it was our pumpkin carving event! Thank you to all of the moms, dads, and grandparents who joined us! I think the kids had a blast, and they were so excited throughout the day. I began wondering if perhaps I should have made a shirt to wear that said “2:00” on it, because I cannot tell you the number of times I said that on Friday, answering their questions about what time their special guests would be coming for pumpkin carving! In the morning, we picked our pumpkins (generously donated by Joe Caputo & Sons Market!), cleaned them, and then did a pumpkin math book about them. We counted how many lines our pumpkins had, weighed our pumpkins, and measured how tall our pumpkins were with unifix cubes. Once we had fully assessed our pumpkins, we did buddy reading with our pumpkins. It was so nice to see how conscious our first graders were about showing their pumpkins the pictures, and making sure they were reading in a clear enough voice for their pumpkins to hear the story!

Upcoming Events:

10/31: Halloween Parade (1:15) and party

11/9: School photo retakes

11/11: Veterans’ Day (No school for students)

11/17: Dads & Donuts 8:30 am in the gym

11/18: High Touch High Tech in school field trip

11/18: Progress Reports sent home

11/21-11/22: Parent Teacher conferences (No school for students)

11/23-11/25: Thanksgiving break (No school for students)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESSE!

Today our friend Jesse celebrated his birthday at school with us! Happy birthday Jesse- we hope your day was special!

Weekly News!

I cannot believe we are already wrapping up another week in first grade! The picture above is of a group of our students practicing retelling our Treasures story for the week with our retelling cards. It's one of our favorite weekly activities! Here’s what we have been up to:

Reading:
This week, our Treasures theme was "Teamwork". We identified the author’s purpose in the stories we read throughout the week, deciding if the author was writing to persuade, inform, or entertain. Our spelling pattern and making words lessons focused on words with final blends. Next week is an assessment week for Treasures, so we will be taking our Unit 1 Treasures assessment and continue to monitor our progress in Guided Reading groups. Our whole group instruction next week will be a Text Talk focus. Text Talk is the program that I mentioned at Curriculum Night that we will be inserting in our routine from time to time to provide explicit vocabulary instruction using rich literature!

Writing:
This week, we continued to work on our Small Moments writing with our personal narratives. The authors in our class have been working hard to stretch their small moment and add details to their writing. They have also been stretching words to make sure they are including a beginning, middle, and ending sound to make it easier for their audience to read. Next week, we will continue to perfect these pieces, and will then publish them! We will also finish up our October handwriting book next week!

Math:
In math this week, we focused on number stories before taking our Unit 2 test. We used the Mimio Vote tools to conduct a math review the morning of our test, and the students were very motivated by this! On Wednesday, we began Unit 3 with visual patterns, followed by even and odd patterns on Thursday. We also learned a new game, “Before and After”, which allows students to practice identifying the numbers that come before and after a certain number. We will begin next week with a lesson on number grid patterns, followed by an explorations day where we will do math centers related to patterns. Then we will practice counting on the number line, and finally adding and subtracting on the number line. Don’t forget to keep practicing skip counting at home! It is so important for the students to be able to count by 1s, 2s, 5s, and 10s automatically. These counting skills will be the foundation for many of our upcoming lessons!

Science:
This week, we continued our Matter unit by experimenting with gases and learning about molecules. The students discovered that when a gas gets hot, it expands, and when it is cold, it contracts. We learned about how molecules make up solids, liquids, and gases. We also used the iPads to make a class nature book with the items that were collected on your nature walk in preparation for our Collecting and Examining Life unit that will begin in November. For this unit, we will do a fall wild walk and a spring wild walk so that the students can make comparisons between the two. You can view this book to the right side of this post! Just click under "Nature Book".

Next week, we will experiment with matter and heat to find out what role heat plays in the changing states of matter. We will also be sending home an optional take home experiment with mixtures! Here we are acting as molecules in solids, liquids, and gases:




In other news…
Don’t forget about our Pumpkin Carving next Friday from 2:00-2:45 pm in our classroom! Please let me know if your child will have an adult guest to help them carve or if I should arrange for another helper for them! It’s going to be a fun afternoon!

Also, the pink conference forms that came home have the wrong due date on them! Instead of being due on the 28th, they are actually due on Monday, October 24th. I know that is a quick turnaround, but it is so important that we have those in on time so that I know what everyone’s preference is when the entire Dryden staff meets to schedule our conference times! Thank you for your cooperation!

Today brought our very first Art Appreciation lesson of the year! Mrs. Colias came in to teach us about the painting, “St. George Killing the Dragon” by Bernat Martorell. The students were very interested and had some great observations to share while viewing the painting! This painting can also be seen in person at the Art Institute of Chicago. Thank you, Mrs. Colias, for coming in to teach us about this beautiful artwork!


Upcoming Events:
Monday, 10/24: CONFERENCE SCHEDULING FORMS DUE!
Thursday, 10/27: JESSE’S BIRTHDAY!
Friday, 10/28: Pumpkin Carving Day 2:00-2:45 pm
Monday, 10/31: Halloween Parade and Party 1:15 pm
Wednesday, 11/9: School Picture Retakes

Have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs. Glaser ☺

Royal Reader!

Yesterday, Luca's mom surprised us as our Royal Reader! She read the book, "Dear Polar Bear" by Barry Ablett. The students were very excited to see that this book had special pull out letters that the polar bear's friends had written to him. We also learned about different bears from around the world, even though this was a fictional story, it was one that listed facts about a few bear species, and the students thought this was especially neat! Thanks for coming in to read to us!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LUCA!

Over the weekend, our friend Luca had a birthday! We are happy we were able to celebrate with you today, Luca!

Weekly News!

We had another short, but productive week in first grade! Thanks for checking in. Here's what we have been working on:

Reading
This week, our Treasures theme was "Pets". We did a fantastic job of identifying the characters and settings, as well as what happened First, Next, Then, and Last in the stories we read and heard throughout the week. We will continue to work on this skill both in whole group Treasures instruction, and small guided reading groups. Our spelling words and words we used during our making words lessons focused on words with /r/ blends. Next week, our Treasures theme will be "Teamwork". We will be discussing and identifying the author's purpose as we read. Our spelling pattern will be words with final blends. And speaking of spelling, today we went to the computer lab and practiced entering our spelling words on Spellingcity.com and playing games to practice! So now, your child should be able to show you how they can do this independently at home. Enjoy!

Writing
During Writing Workshop this week, we began our "Small Moments" writing. We selected one thing we did over our long weekend, and we stretched out that moment into what happened First, Next, Then, and Last. (Are you noticing a pattern here?) Once we had one sentence for each of these categories, we went back to add more to our writing to make it more descriptive and really stretch it out. We will also celebrate the conclusion of our Autobiography unit with a first grade author share tomorrow with the students in Mrs. Coyle and Miss Bandur’s classes! Next week, we will continue to work on our personal narrative writing skills with our Small Moment writing. We are also continuing to work on our October handwriting books to practice correct formation of our letters.

Math
This week in math, we practiced counting pennies and nickels in combination, and worked with writing addition and subtraction number models. A game we learned this week was Penny Nickel Exchange. Have your child show you how to play this game at home! It’s very simple, all you need are pennies, nickels, and dice. This hands on practice with real coins is very beneficial for them to work on not only counting coins and making exchanges, but also identifying coins. Next week, we will work with number stories on Monday, followed by our Unit 2 test on Tuesday, and then we will learn about visual patterns and even/odd patterns.

Science
This week we introduced our Matter unit by starting a flip book where we recorded what we think a solid, liquid, and a gas is. At the end of the unit, we will revisit these flip books and record what we discovered about solids, liquids, and gases. Next, we learned the first two stanzas of our Matter Chant. Today we experimented with solids with Play Doh explorations. We discovered that no matter how we shaped our Play Doh, it was always visible, and kept it’s size and shape once we shaped it. We learned that these are the properties of a solid. Tomorrow, we will explore with liquids in order to determine what the properties of a liquid are. Next week, we will continue our study of matter as we explore with gases, and how heat can affect matter.

In other news…
On Tuesday, we were visited by the Arlington Heights Fire Department for our extended fire drill. After the drill, the firefighters stuck around to give us a tour of the fire truck. Students were able to ask questions and even walk through the backseat of the fire truck to see how neat everything on the inside is!




Have a fabulous weekend, and don’t forget that tomorrow is Spirit Day! Wear your Dryden gear, or the school colors, red and white!

☺ Mrs. Glaser

Upcoming Events:
Friday, 10/14: Spirit Day
Sunday, 10/16: LUCA’S BIRTHDAY!
Friday, 10/21: Art Appreciation
Friday, 10/28: Pumpkin Carving Day, 2:00 p.m.

Mark Your Calendars!

Our annual pumpkin carving event will take place on Friday, October 28th, at 2:00 pm. Pumpkin carving normally lasts around 45 minutes. Each child may bring one adult volunteer to help them carve a pumpkin! If there is no adult volunteer available during our pumpkin carving time, please let me know and I can make arrangements for an extra volunteer to assist them. As in years past, our pumpkins are being generously donated by Joe Caputo & Sons Fruit Market. This is always an exciting event in first grade. We are looking forward to it!

Weekly News!

This week has flown by! Even though we had a short week, we still accomplished a great deal in first grade! Here’s what we did:

Reading:
Our theme in Treasures this week was, “Growing Up”. Our reading strategies focus was on text structure and identifying sequence of events. The word pattern for our spelling words and making words lessons consisted of short /i/ words. During our making words lessons, the students use the tiles they have in their desks to copy the letters we use for each lesson. Then, they follow directions to manipulate the letters we have to make various words that follow our word pattern. Next, students come individually to the board to make the words on the Mimio screen. Then, once we have made all of the words, we use the Mimio to sort the words. So far, we have been sorting the words by their beginning letter, but these sorts will become more involved as the year goes on. We continued our Guided Reading groups, and the children are already starting to demonstrate the reading strategies we have worked on in their independent reading. We are working in all of our groups to read with fluency and expression. When we finish a story, we have been practicing retelling that story, naming the characters and setting, followed by what happened First, Next, Then, and Last. Next week, our Treasures theme will be “Pets”. We will focus on identifying characters and the setting in our selections. Our spelling pattern and making words lessons will be words that have /r/ blends. Speaking of spelling patterns and making words lessons, these word patterns are also found in our poem of the week. Don’t forget that each Friday, your child will be bringing home their green poetry folders. Their job is to re-read each of the poems in the folder, practicing their fluency and expression. They keep all of these poems in the folder, and bring their poetry folders with them to school on Monday. The following Friday, they will be sent home with another poem to add to their poetry practice routine!


Writing:
This week, our writing focus was on writing statements, and including capital letters and periods in these statements. I tell the students we also call these “telling sentences”, so you may hear them refer to statements as telling sentences as well. Next week, we will focus on writing questions (“asking sentences”) and exclamations correctly. We have finished our handwriting instruction (hooray!) and will continue to practice the correct formation of letters as we begin our October handwriting book next week. During Writing Workshop, we will begin our “Small Moments” writing. This will focus on writing a personal narrative, and writing about an event in the correct sequence. We will also work on developing our sentences to add more details and descriptive (or “juicy”) words.

Math:
This week, we had a day of Explorations, followed by pennies, nickels, and a time review. Next week, we will count pennies and nickels in combination, number models, and subtraction models.

Social Studies/Science:

This week we concluded our Map Skills unit with the flip book we made, illustrating our Continent, Country, State, and City. These are helpful to keep at home as a reference for students to keep reviewing this tricky concept! We also used our Mimio Vote system to review the concepts we covered in our Map Skills unit! The students loved this game show-type review, and were eager to see how well the class did after each question! The system takes all of the anonymous answers and creates a pie chart to show how many students chose each of the three answers. They were very proud of how well they did answering those questions! We also spent some time discussing Christopher Columbus in preparation for our holiday on Monday. Next week, we will switch gears, moving from Social Studies to Science. We will begin our States of Matter unit with an introductory activity, learning the beginning of our Matter Chant, and a lesson exploring and identifying solids.

Have a nice, unseasonably warm, long weekend!

☺ Mrs. Glaser

¬Upcoming Events:
Monday, 10/10: Columbus Day- No School
Tuesday, 10/11: Monday Schedule **BRING LIBRARY BOOKS!**
Friday, 10/14: Spirit Day
Sunday, 10/16: LUCA’S BIRTHDAY!

From Head to Toe Video

The first graders in Mrs. Glaser's class read the book, From Head to Toe by Eric Carle this week during Treasures instruction. We then created a movie of our own based on this book, showing the ways in which we can move. The students used our class digital camera to record one another's performances, and Mrs. Glaser helped us put it all together to make this video! We hope you enjoy it! It is posted to the right side of our blog, right above the spelling lists.

Royal Reader!

On Friday, we were surprised with another Royal Reader! Our Assistant Principal, Mr. Robinson, joined us to read the book, "Duck at the Door". The students loved hearing the story of Max the duck, who decided to stay behind when the other ducks migrated south for the winter. Max was a funny houseguest for the nice woman and her pets who allow him to stay with them, and although annoying at times, they find that they really miss him when he is gone! Thanks for coming in to read this sweet story to us, Mr. Robinson!