Hello Stupendous First Graders and Super First Grade Families!
I hope everyone has a wonderful and relaxing break!
THANK YOU so much for my wonderful wreath with 28 complete sentences and gift cards to my favorite places! I am so touched by your thoughtfulness and generosity. I can't wait to read all of your sentences; you kids are all such great writers!
Thank you so much to all the parents who donated time and supplies to make our party great! Today was SO much fun! The kids had a great time at our party and they really enjoyed all of the Christmas centers. The party centers were:
1. Shoebox Snow Scene - The kids made a snow village in a shoebox! They used coconut for snow and they used candies, cakes and cookies to make houses and animals for the snow scene. They are cute and tasty! Thank you Mrs. Sullivan and Hannah!
2. Hand and Footprint Reindeer - This was a fun and MESSY center! The kids made a picture of Rudolph using one foot (covered in paint!) for the body and two hands (covered in paint!) for the antlers. They added googley eyes and a red nose. These are adorable! Thank you Mrs. Rowland and Mr. Johnston!
3. Movable Santa and Rudolph - The kids colored and cut Santa and Rudolph pieces and put them together with brads. They look very cute! Thank you Mrs. Seiferth!
4. Finger Puppets - The kids colored different Christmas pictures, cut them out and taped them to turn them into finger puppets. They loved this! Thank you Mr. Sullivan!
After lunch we heard Christmas stories and solved Santa math. The kids went to PE and when they came back they had a special treat of hot chocolate and popcorn and we watched Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. Thank you Mr. Tees, Mrs. Felix, Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Rowland!
It was a great day!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Have a wonderful break! See you next year!
Mrs. Johnston
December 20, 2012
December 17, 2012
Weekly Update, December 17 - 21
Hello Cheery First Graders and Cheerful First Grade Families!
Wow!! It’s the last school week of 2012! The kids are so to share their family Christmas traditions and for our party on Thursday. It’s going to be a great week in first grade!
Supplies
If you have not already done so, please:
* Send in a shoebox with your child by this Wednesday. We'll use these for a fun activity at our party!
* Send in an empty plastic water bottle with the cap for our upcoming weather unit.
Christmas Pajama Party Information
* Our party is this Thursday, December 20 from 9:00 - 11:20. The children will do 4 different holiday centers.
* We are having an all day pajama party! Your child is invited to wear PJs to school.
* We will have popcorn and watch The Polar Express in the afternoon. It will be a fun day!
This is our third week in our Christmas social studies, guided reading and writing unit and the children are really enjoying it! This week our theme is Sharing Your Favorite Family Christmas Tradition. Children are invited to bring in their favorite Christmas books to share and parents are welcome to come in and read Christmas books to the class.
The kids had a lot of fun in centers today! They visited 2 centers. The centers for the week include:
1. Math - The kids created a shopping list for Christmas. They practiced addition by adding up their total.
2. Art - The kids made a darling Christmas book marks.
3. Writing - The kids wrote a story on snowman paper about a snowman.
4. Art - The kids made Christmas pencil toppers.
5. Puppets – The kids made Christmas tree puppets.
6. Writing - The kids made a Santa sign man to say Merry Christmas.
There are no new spelling words this week. Spelling will resume after break!
In reading and making words, we are learning how to read and make words with long e. This week we are focusing on the ee and ea blends.
In writing we are working on writing Christmas messages in cards. We are also writing thank you notes to parents and teachers who help us. The kids are wonderful letter writers!
In math we practiced addition and subtraction facts. We have a variety of fun Christmas theme math practice problems and games to complete this week.
Our party is Thursday! Check the blog on Thursday for a recap of our party.
Have an A+ week!
Mrs. Johnston
Wow!! It’s the last school week of 2012! The kids are so to share their family Christmas traditions and for our party on Thursday. It’s going to be a great week in first grade!
Supplies
If you have not already done so, please:
* Send in a shoebox with your child by this Wednesday. We'll use these for a fun activity at our party!
* Send in an empty plastic water bottle with the cap for our upcoming weather unit.
Christmas Pajama Party Information
* Our party is this Thursday, December 20 from 9:00 - 11:20. The children will do 4 different holiday centers.
* We are having an all day pajama party! Your child is invited to wear PJs to school.
* We will have popcorn and watch The Polar Express in the afternoon. It will be a fun day!
This is our third week in our Christmas social studies, guided reading and writing unit and the children are really enjoying it! This week our theme is Sharing Your Favorite Family Christmas Tradition. Children are invited to bring in their favorite Christmas books to share and parents are welcome to come in and read Christmas books to the class.
The kids had a lot of fun in centers today! They visited 2 centers. The centers for the week include:
1. Math - The kids created a shopping list for Christmas. They practiced addition by adding up their total.
2. Art - The kids made a darling Christmas book marks.
3. Writing - The kids wrote a story on snowman paper about a snowman.
4. Art - The kids made Christmas pencil toppers.
5. Puppets – The kids made Christmas tree puppets.
6. Writing - The kids made a Santa sign man to say Merry Christmas.
There are no new spelling words this week. Spelling will resume after break!
In reading and making words, we are learning how to read and make words with long e. This week we are focusing on the ee and ea blends.
In writing we are working on writing Christmas messages in cards. We are also writing thank you notes to parents and teachers who help us. The kids are wonderful letter writers!
In math we practiced addition and subtraction facts. We have a variety of fun Christmas theme math practice problems and games to complete this week.
Our party is Thursday! Check the blog on Thursday for a recap of our party.
Have an A+ week!
Mrs. Johnston
December 14, 2012
Computers, 12/14
Free Choice Day!
Let's start by voting in this week's poll. After you vote, please come to the floor in front of the Smart Board and we'll learn about this week's activity.
Today is our last computer class of the quarter and of the year 2012! That means it’s free choice day! You may visit any of the websites on the links section on my blog. Have fun!
Have fun!
Mrs. Johnston
Let's start by voting in this week's poll. After you vote, please come to the floor in front of the Smart Board and we'll learn about this week's activity.
Today is our last computer class of the quarter and of the year 2012! That means it’s free choice day! You may visit any of the websites on the links section on my blog. Have fun!
Have fun!
Mrs. Johnston
December 10, 2012
Weekly Update, December 10 - 14
Hello Stupendous First Graders and Super First Grade Families!
From the pictures I’ve seen it looks like the 1st grade play and the performance at Barnes and Noble were adorable! The kids looked and sounded great!
It's hard to believe this is our second to last school week of 2012! The kids are so excited for our Christmas study, the 1st grade play and next week’s party. We have a lot of learning and a lot of exciting activities planned for the next few weeks!
Supplies
* Please send in a shoebox with your child by this Thursday. We'll use these for a fun activity at our party!
* Please send in an empty plastic water bottle with the cap for our upcoming weather unit.
Christmas Play
The play is this week! There is a dress rehearsal at 2:00 on Thursday, December 13. The play is at 6:30 pm.
Christmas Pajama Party Information
* Our party is next Thursday, December 20 from 9:00 - 11:20. The children will do 4 different holiday centers.
* We are having an all day pajama party! Your child is invited to wear PJs to school.
* We will have popcorn and watch The Polar Express in the afternoon. It will be a fun day!
This is our second week in our Christmas social studies, guided reading and writing unit and the children are really enjoying it! Today we learned about the characteristics of reindeer. We learned the word synonym and that caribou is a synonym for reindeer. The kids worked collaboratively to write 5 reindeer facts. After they wrote their facts, they colored and cut a cute reindeer to glue on their paper. We also learned a little bit about the history of Rudolph and the kids made a darling Rudolph puppet. Tomorrow we will learn about the history of St. Nicholas. The kids will make a St. Nicholas puppet and they will write St. Nicholas facts on the back. On Thursday, we will learn about Christmas around the world! We will learn about Christmas traditions in the USA, Italy and Mexico. The kids will identify the three countries on a map, write 1 tradition from each place and write which country they would like to visit for Christmas. On Friday we will learn about needs and wants. The kids will learn the importance and difference of each, and they will sort various items into the correct category.
*The children will have play practice all day on Wednesday to prepare for the play on Thursday.
The kids had a lot of fun in centers today! They visited 2 centers. The centers for the week include:
1. Listening - The kids listened to a cute story called "Olive The Other Reindeer," and they worked on sequencing the story by writing what happened in the beginning, middle and end.
2. Art - The kids made a darling angel ornament!
3. Writing - The kids wrote a persuasive letter to Santa to convince him to bring presents to them.
4. Math - The kids made snowman math flash cards. They picked their own problems to write on the snowman's body and then they wrote the answers on the back.
5. Reading – The kids did a Christmas word find and sorted Christmas words into word families.
6. Card Making - The kids made Christmas cards to send to our US Military to thank them for their service.
7. Art - The kids traced their hands on green paper and then glued them to a paper plate ring to make an adorable hand print wreath.
8. Art – The kids made a stand up Santa. It is a darling Christmas decoration!
There are no new spelling words this week. Spelling will resume after break!
In reading and making words, we are learning how to read and make words with long a. This week we are focusing on the ai and ay blends.
In writing we are working on adding details to our work. We call these detailed words "juicy words." Be sure to ask your child about using juicy words! The kids are learning to write so that their writing gives the reader a clear picture in his/her head.
In math we practiced addition and subtraction facts. The kids correctly solved color coded problems to color a penguin. Tomorrow we will make a Christmas tree glyph and on Wednesday we will play Christmas bingo! We are also finishing our report card assessments.
We have a fun activity planned for our last computer class of 2012. If you'd like to see what the kids will do, check back on Friday for the blog posting called, Computers, 12/14.
Have an A+ week!
Mrs. Johnston
From the pictures I’ve seen it looks like the 1st grade play and the performance at Barnes and Noble were adorable! The kids looked and sounded great!
It's hard to believe this is our second to last school week of 2012! The kids are so excited for our Christmas study, the 1st grade play and next week’s party. We have a lot of learning and a lot of exciting activities planned for the next few weeks!
Supplies
* Please send in a shoebox with your child by this Thursday. We'll use these for a fun activity at our party!
* Please send in an empty plastic water bottle with the cap for our upcoming weather unit.
Christmas Play
The play is this week! There is a dress rehearsal at 2:00 on Thursday, December 13. The play is at 6:30 pm.
Christmas Pajama Party Information
* Our party is next Thursday, December 20 from 9:00 - 11:20. The children will do 4 different holiday centers.
* We are having an all day pajama party! Your child is invited to wear PJs to school.
* We will have popcorn and watch The Polar Express in the afternoon. It will be a fun day!
This is our second week in our Christmas social studies, guided reading and writing unit and the children are really enjoying it! Today we learned about the characteristics of reindeer. We learned the word synonym and that caribou is a synonym for reindeer. The kids worked collaboratively to write 5 reindeer facts. After they wrote their facts, they colored and cut a cute reindeer to glue on their paper. We also learned a little bit about the history of Rudolph and the kids made a darling Rudolph puppet. Tomorrow we will learn about the history of St. Nicholas. The kids will make a St. Nicholas puppet and they will write St. Nicholas facts on the back. On Thursday, we will learn about Christmas around the world! We will learn about Christmas traditions in the USA, Italy and Mexico. The kids will identify the three countries on a map, write 1 tradition from each place and write which country they would like to visit for Christmas. On Friday we will learn about needs and wants. The kids will learn the importance and difference of each, and they will sort various items into the correct category.
*The children will have play practice all day on Wednesday to prepare for the play on Thursday.
The kids had a lot of fun in centers today! They visited 2 centers. The centers for the week include:
1. Listening - The kids listened to a cute story called "Olive The Other Reindeer," and they worked on sequencing the story by writing what happened in the beginning, middle and end.
2. Art - The kids made a darling angel ornament!
3. Writing - The kids wrote a persuasive letter to Santa to convince him to bring presents to them.
4. Math - The kids made snowman math flash cards. They picked their own problems to write on the snowman's body and then they wrote the answers on the back.
5. Reading – The kids did a Christmas word find and sorted Christmas words into word families.
6. Card Making - The kids made Christmas cards to send to our US Military to thank them for their service.
7. Art - The kids traced their hands on green paper and then glued them to a paper plate ring to make an adorable hand print wreath.
8. Art – The kids made a stand up Santa. It is a darling Christmas decoration!
There are no new spelling words this week. Spelling will resume after break!
In reading and making words, we are learning how to read and make words with long a. This week we are focusing on the ai and ay blends.
In writing we are working on adding details to our work. We call these detailed words "juicy words." Be sure to ask your child about using juicy words! The kids are learning to write so that their writing gives the reader a clear picture in his/her head.
In math we practiced addition and subtraction facts. The kids correctly solved color coded problems to color a penguin. Tomorrow we will make a Christmas tree glyph and on Wednesday we will play Christmas bingo! We are also finishing our report card assessments.
We have a fun activity planned for our last computer class of 2012. If you'd like to see what the kids will do, check back on Friday for the blog posting called, Computers, 12/14.
Have an A+ week!
Mrs. Johnston
December 7, 2012
Computers, 12/7
Christmas Comments!
Let's start by voting in this week's poll. After you vote, please come to the floor in front of the Smart Board and we'll learn about this week's activity.
It was fun learning about the history of Christmas and the Christmas tree! Today we're going to explore Christmas and practice writing comments on the blog. Go here: http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/holidays/christmas/ to learn more about Christmas! We'll go to the website together to learn how it works.
After you've explored the website, you'll work with a partner to post a comment on the blog. Here is what you need to post:
1. I learned...
2. I want to know more about...
Remember to post your names!
Watch and we'll review how to post on the blog.
If you have time after you're done, you may explore the links on the website.
Have fun!
Let's start by voting in this week's poll. After you vote, please come to the floor in front of the Smart Board and we'll learn about this week's activity.
It was fun learning about the history of Christmas and the Christmas tree! Today we're going to explore Christmas and practice writing comments on the blog. Go here: http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/holidays/christmas/ to learn more about Christmas! We'll go to the website together to learn how it works.
After you've explored the website, you'll work with a partner to post a comment on the blog. Here is what you need to post:
1. I learned...
2. I want to know more about...
Remember to post your names!
Watch and we'll review how to post on the blog.
If you have time after you're done, you may explore the links on the website.
Have fun!
December 3, 2012
Weekly Update, December 3 - 7
Hello Charming First Graders and Cheerful First Grade Parents!
The kids are really enjoying our holidays social studies and guided reading/writing unit! Today we began our study of the Christmas holiday. Today we learned about the history of Christmas. We also learned about one symbol of Christmas, the Christmas tree. The kids began a very neat Christmas writing/art project today. They each received a large Christmas tree that they cut out and colored a stem on. They wrote 3 facts on red ball ornaments and they glued them on the tree. Each day this week we will learn about a different Christmas symbol and there will be an ornament to match. The symbols we will learn about this week are: lights, presents, candy canes and stars. The kids will write facts on each ornament and, by the time the week is over, they will have a fully decorated tree filled with ornaments with great Christmas facts! They really enjoyed working on this today. The trees are hanging up all around the room and they are wonderful! This week in social studies we will also learn about needs and wants, a very timely subject!
In reading we are working on reading about common subjects, such as Christmas, to learn new information and make connections.
The children had a great time in our centers today. The centers for the week include:
1. Listening - The children listened to Santa's Adventure, a story about Santa and how bad weather affected his Christmas Eve travels. The children made a Somebody - Wanted - But - So graphic organizer. They wrote a Somebody - Wanted - But - So to organize the events of the story.
2. Art - Shhh! It's a surprise! The kids are working on a gift for YOU!
3. Writing - The children wrote friendly letters to Santa on a Santa beard. They told Santa about themselves and asked him questions. After they wrote, they colored a picture of Santa and they attached it to the beard.
4. Math - The children made advent bells. They used a template to trace and cut a bell. Then the children numbered red and green strips of paper to make advent chains. They made the odd numbers green and the even numbers red to form an a-b pattern with the red and green paper loops.
5. Reading - The children read 1:1 with me. We focused on assessments for reading level and sight words.
This week in writing we are also working on fact writing and acrostic poetry. The children have had a lot of practice writing facts and they are getting quite good at this skill! The kids had a bit of practice with acrostic poetry last week and they are enjoying poetry writing.
We have new spelling words this week. The kids came home with Rainbow Words and they are due tomorrow. This week in working with words we will practice alphabetizing to the 1st letter. In making words we are working on words with long o and long u sounds.
This week in math we will review many of the concepts we have learned this semester in order to complete our assessments for the report card.
We have a fun activity planned for computers on Friday! If you'd like to see what the kids will do, please check back at the end of the week for the blog posting called “Computers, 12/7.”
Have an A+ week!
Mrs. Johnston
The kids are really enjoying our holidays social studies and guided reading/writing unit! Today we began our study of the Christmas holiday. Today we learned about the history of Christmas. We also learned about one symbol of Christmas, the Christmas tree. The kids began a very neat Christmas writing/art project today. They each received a large Christmas tree that they cut out and colored a stem on. They wrote 3 facts on red ball ornaments and they glued them on the tree. Each day this week we will learn about a different Christmas symbol and there will be an ornament to match. The symbols we will learn about this week are: lights, presents, candy canes and stars. The kids will write facts on each ornament and, by the time the week is over, they will have a fully decorated tree filled with ornaments with great Christmas facts! They really enjoyed working on this today. The trees are hanging up all around the room and they are wonderful! This week in social studies we will also learn about needs and wants, a very timely subject!
In reading we are working on reading about common subjects, such as Christmas, to learn new information and make connections.
The children had a great time in our centers today. The centers for the week include:
1. Listening - The children listened to Santa's Adventure, a story about Santa and how bad weather affected his Christmas Eve travels. The children made a Somebody - Wanted - But - So graphic organizer. They wrote a Somebody - Wanted - But - So to organize the events of the story.
2. Art - Shhh! It's a surprise! The kids are working on a gift for YOU!
3. Writing - The children wrote friendly letters to Santa on a Santa beard. They told Santa about themselves and asked him questions. After they wrote, they colored a picture of Santa and they attached it to the beard.
4. Math - The children made advent bells. They used a template to trace and cut a bell. Then the children numbered red and green strips of paper to make advent chains. They made the odd numbers green and the even numbers red to form an a-b pattern with the red and green paper loops.
5. Reading - The children read 1:1 with me. We focused on assessments for reading level and sight words.
This week in writing we are also working on fact writing and acrostic poetry. The children have had a lot of practice writing facts and they are getting quite good at this skill! The kids had a bit of practice with acrostic poetry last week and they are enjoying poetry writing.
We have new spelling words this week. The kids came home with Rainbow Words and they are due tomorrow. This week in working with words we will practice alphabetizing to the 1st letter. In making words we are working on words with long o and long u sounds.
This week in math we will review many of the concepts we have learned this semester in order to complete our assessments for the report card.
We have a fun activity planned for computers on Friday! If you'd like to see what the kids will do, please check back at the end of the week for the blog posting called “Computers, 12/7.”
Have an A+ week!
Mrs. Johnston
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