Holiday Party in Mrs. Grill's Class

We had such a fun time at our Holiday Party!  Thank you to all the parent helpers who made this possible.  The students had such a wonderful time!  Just sharing a few photos from then.  I get so excited during these things and find it a great time to visit with parents as well, that I forget to take too many photos, but here are a few.  See if you can find your student....

Week of December 10, 2012

We have had an amazing week!

I can't begin to say how impressed I am by the amazing growth that your children are showing in both reading and math.  Students are really starting to make the realization that they are reading!  They are so proud of this.  Have them read for you and show you all that they know.  In math, today we were actually doing word problems with solving for a change unknown equation.  For example.  There were 37 children on the bus.  Some more got on.  Now there are 67 children on the bus.  How many more got on?  Students were able to make the connection about counting on from 37 to 67, and eventually students realized that this was just jumping on the hundreds chart by 10's.  I'm SO proud!

In reading, I have done a lot of shifting of student reading groups because of the growth students are showing.  I'm working hard to keep students with other students who are at or slightly above their levels to keep them growing.  For the last month, students have been going to reading groups (focus groups) with other first grade teachers to work on certain skills to help promote growth.  This has been very effective.  These groups will also be changing in January because of the amount of improvement that students are showing.  As a first grade team, we are also going to be doing these special reading groups 5 days per week, rather than the 2 days per week that we have been doing thus far.  If any of you have questions about this, please email me.

Finally, I am attaching a few photos of our final butterflies that we made last week.  It was a messy and fun project!  As much as you might love them, all you get for now is photos, because I love having these up on my wall until May.

Working on our butterflies!

Busy day today!!! Worked on our tissue paper butterflies...just a few photos to enjoy,

Mrs. Grill's Class's Snowmen At Night!!

We got them done today and I think they look AWESOME!!!

Snowmen At Night Art Continues

Students began tearing little pieces of white paper.  It was funny to hear them say how tired their fingers were getting from tearing a bazillion of them.  After they had a stockpile of paper, students started to glue the pieces on to create their Snowman.  As we did this, we realized that this is going to be a bit of a process to make sure that all the washed black background that we painted will be covered.  I'm hoping that tomorrow students will be able to finish up with the white scraps, and add black scraps to create the eyes and mouth and a nice big orange carrot nose.

Close up of the start of one of our Snowmen

Snowmen At Night

Yesterday we read the book "Snowmen At Night".  It's a story about all the fun activities that snowmen do at night.

For our art activity, today we began by doing a crayon resist to create the background for our "night".  Students used white crayons on white paper to draw their "invisible" snowflakes.  Some chose to use yellow to make a beautiful moon.  The kids were then super excited when we "washed" their white paper with a watered down black and all of their snowflakes magically appeared.

We will continue tomorrow with tearing white paper to make our snowman's profile.

I Am a Butterfly

This week we will be reading a story called “I am a Butterfly”, which is a Nonfiction selection that discusses how a butterfly egg finally becomes a butterfly. Our sound of the week is /ch/ as in chip, and –tch- as in catch.

Here is our spelling list for this weeks story:

Spelling Words I Am a Butterfly
Directions : Cut the spelling words out Sort the words into ch words and sh words (not all the words fit into these categories) Sort the words into 4 letter words and not 4 letter words Sort the words into words you know instantly and words you need to sound out Practice writing the words (with your finger in the air, with your finger on a smooth surface, with your finger on a textured surface, and with a pencil on a piece of paper)  For a challenge on a sheet of paper Rainbow write the words three times Write them in a sentence Write them in ABC order Go to www.spellingcity.com and practice
chip	chin
inch	itch
catch	match
wish	shop
how	many

Scholastic Book Orders

Dear Parents,

Please remember to send in your Book Club orders!

You can view this month's selections and submit your order online, or you can return the printed order form with payment directly to me.

It's always a special moment to see an entire classroom bursting with excitement to open the book box, so place your orders soon!
_____________________________________

Your child's teacher

P.S. When you place your order online, you'll help earn FREE Books for our class and you also get a $5 FREE Book Pick Coupon to use on your next online order!


Ordering online is fast and easy:
REGISTER at https://orders.scholastic.com/DVL7L
CHOOSE from thousands of print titles, value packs, and Storia(TM) eBooks
SUBMIT the order to your child's teacher
EARN FREE books for you and the classroom, too

Place Value

Base 10

Base 10 Bingo

Fruit Shoot Place Value

Pirate Waters Place Value

Crocodile Place Value

Grouping and Grazing

Number Word Place Value

Place Value Bingo

Writing about Fish

In conjunction with our story "Fun With Fish", students worked on a writing piece this week.  We worked on having a topic sentence, three detail sentences and a conclusion that would tie it all together.  This was our first attempt at a pretty intricate writing project and I think students did really well.  Here are a few samples.

Fun With Fish!

Our Anthology story this week is called "Fun With Fish".  We have been working on creating a class mural.  The class worked together to watercolor the background and then on their own sketched their fish.  Once the fish were sketched, they used chalk to add color and uniqueness to them.  Today, they cut those out.  Some of the students watercolored green, brown and black paper to help create the sand, rocks and seaweed.  It was a great way to integrate art, reading, science and math this week.

My fabulous group!

Painting the background

And more painting

Our finished product!