Weekly Update, January 24 - 28

Hello Awesome First Graders and Amazing First Grade Families!


It was great to see some of you at yesterday's United We Run 5k!  I really love races for a cause and I love seeing young runners!  Congrats to Isabella and Sean for running the race.  Thank you to Ella and Lucas for working at the water station!  It was so wonderful to see the way the Tucson community came together to show support for the events of 1.8.11.  It was a great event!

100th Day Information
The 100th day of school is this Wednesday, January 26! We are counting down to the 100th day and the kids are getting very excited. We have some fun 100th day activities planned on Wednesday and it would be great to have a few extra helpers in the class that day. You are invited to stop by in the morning to celebrate your child. The kids will be 100 days smarter!!!

Nature's Treasures
Our class will visit Nature's Treasures shop on Friday, January 28. The shop is put on by the 5th and 6th graders and it features a variety of small items available for purchase. The children will bring home a list of items available for purchase on Tuesday.  If your child would like to purchase items from the shop, please send the money in a closed and labeled envelope.

This week's lessons center around the 100th day of school! Each day a few children will share their 100th day projects. We began this today and the kids really enjoyed it. Today we began a chapter book called "The 100th Greatest Day of School," and we will read this throughout the week. The kids love reading chapter books! Each day after the 100th day projects are shared, we will make a different 100th day - theme class book.  To celebrate the 100th day of school on Wednesday, the kids will decorate their own 100 glasses (a HUGE thank you to Mrs. Rowland for making the glasses; they are adorable!), string Fruit Loop necklaces with 100 Fruit Loops, and make pennants to display in class that say, "I Am 100 Days Smarter." It should be a great day!

In writing we are working on our class books and thank you notes. The 6 traits focus is powerful word choice. The kids really enjoy making and reading the class books. They are great authors!

The kids came home with Rainbow Words and they are due tomorrow. In making words we are working on patterns with words that end in e when the "ing" chunk is added. We are also working on patterns with words that end in y when "s" is added.

The kids enjoyed our 100th day centers! The centers for the week include:
1. Listening - The kids listened to a funny book called, "My Principal Lives Next Door." This is a book written by kids and it is a riot! After the kids listened, they wrote their own page to the book.
2. Social Studies - The kids played a board game called "Tiny Town." In this game the kids roll dice (a HUGE thank you to Mrs. Jones for putting the dice together!) and practice addition skills and group counting to move on the game board. The first person to reach the 100th day of school is the winner!
3. Writing - The kids made their own 100th day book, in the shape of the numbers 100! The pages include a variety of examples having to do with 100. These turned out so great and the kids really enjoyed having their own book to take home.
4. Math - The kids received a piece of paper with 100 in bubble letters. There are different pictures inside of the 100. The kids colored the pictures inside the 100 based on a color code. After they colored the pictures, they added up each picture to see if there were 100 pictures in all!
5. Reading - The kids read class books in the Bee Quiet Corner.

We were able to extend our community helper week with a visit from Lucas' mom this afternoon! She talked to the kids about her work as a pharmacist. The kids absolutely love having visitors in the class!

We finished chapter 13 in math, a subtraction chapter, and we began chapter 14. Chapter 14 is a review chapter with both addition and subtraction. The kids are doing an excellent job with math and we have done a lot of extension activities to keep them challenged and excited about math.

The kids enjoyed computers today! If you'd like to see what we did, please click on the blog posting directly below this one, "Computers, 1/24."

Have an A+ week!
Mrs. Johnston