SQUEAKERS

I have added a link, called Volunteer Spot. You can easily click this to sign up to help with Squeakers for the weekend. Please note: There are some longer weekends for MEA, Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Number Bonds

A math standard we work on, in first grade, is adding numbers to 20. The kids always do well with finding a strategy to do this, usually counting on or the use of a number line. We also use number bonds to help show the kiddos what it really means to add numbers together. Partners worked together to come up with possible combinations of numbers, using cubes. They then put the combinations into the number bond form.

Word Walls

Classroom word walls serve an important purpose. They are a constant reference to the children for sight words. Obviously, every word can't be added to the word wall. The word wall is saved for high-priority sight words. They are those words that we want kids to know how to write quickly, "fluently". After the words are added to the wall, the kids are expected to spell them correctly, either by knowing them or looking to the wall for help. A word isn't added to the wall until we have done work with it during spelling time. At this point, we have very few words up. They are words that the kiddos worked on in Kindergarten.

Here's a homework challenge: Using these 4 word wall words: like, can, the, will, compose 4 sentences. Each sentence should contain one of the sight words. Remember.... each sentence must start with a capital, have finger spaces and include punctuation. Bring in the sentences to share with your classmates!!

 It was great meeting with so many of you at Open House. This is a great group of kids with a great group of parents, and I look forward to our year together!

Meet Squeakers

We have a very special member of our class....Squeakers! The kids love this cute little guinea pig. He's very entertaining and loves the attention of the children. Thanks for sending him veggie treats. Through read alouds, we have gained some knowledge about our little class pet, but this video provides some more fun facts.

Squeakers

Building a Community

We are off and running! Our first two weeks have been full of activities that help us get acquainted and build a positive classroom community that is so vital. A big part of back to school is procedures, procedures and MORE procedures. It is so important to take time, in the beginning, to work on procedures and routines. The time we take, early on, helps us to work well throughout the whole year.

The kids are working on "rainbow" names to display in the classroom.

 Playing Pass the Paper! Kids work as a team to try to write to 120.