NAP REMINDER

Our class will have our first Nature Adventure Outdoor Program on Monday, October 3^rd!  We will go out from 830-11:30 (roughly).

Please be prepared rain or shine!

Don’t forget:

Water bottle

Backpack for easy carrying

Proper Clothing and Shoes (layers!)

Extra Set of Clothes (if needed)

(We will still have P.E. in the afternoon)

We look forward to having Lara, Shawn, and Kim as volunteers.

We also look forward to having snack prepared by the Muller-Moore’s and the Ibey’s. 

P.E.

PLEASE  help your child remember to bring sneakers for P.E. days (Monday and Thursday). The children need to make sure they are wearing supportive footwear while they participate in movement activities and games.  If your child likes to wear, "fancy" shoes, often wears boots or sandals, please make sure they have sneakers in their backpacks.  We have had numerous days that many of our children have forgotten so any help you can give would be much appreciated! 

Rainy Days

Despite the rain today, our class braved the rain.  It is important for our students to get as much fresh air as they can and being outside running around, helps us to re-energize ourselves for the remainder of the day.  Please remember to pack your child appropriate outwear for rain, snow, sun, etc. 

Self Portraits

Wait until you see how artistic your child has become! We worked on our self portraits today and were quite impressed with how close each of our drawings looked compared to our actual selves!

Reading to Self and Work on Writing

Students continue to Read to Self and Work on Writing everyday.  Check out these hard workers.

Read to Someone

Our third daily 5 choice was introduced this week.  Students have been "reading to someone" during our literacy block.  While reading to peers, students work on building their fluency and help each other, "check for understanding."  After each page of reading, the reader's partner holds up a foam check mark and checks for understanding by retelling what their partner read.  This process goes back and forth between the two children.  INQUIRE with your child what it looks like to sit EEKK while reading to someone. 

Cross Checking

Students have been learning about a new reading strategy that is helpful when working on accuracy, or reading the words correctly.  The children use this strategy when they come to a word they do not know or when they notice they read a word incorrectly.  When this happens, students can try "cross checking."  This strategy is listed under our CAFE menu under the accuracy column.   This is an important strategy to learn that helps them monitor for meaning.  We are stressing the importance of "understanding what we read" and if you do not notice when you read the word incorrectly or simply skip it, you lose the purpose of reading.  Your children have talked about the importance of reading and have discussed the idea that we read to learn and to enjoy stories. If we are not understanding what we read, there is no purpose for it. 

 How can you help your child with this strategy at home?

1. Listen to your child read.  When he comes to a word he is unsure of, remind him to cross check.  

Ask:

• Does the word you are reading match the picture or letters written?

 • Does it sound right?

• Does it make sense?

  

2. If your child is having difficulty with this strategy at home, break down the process:

• Have child stop reading when meaning breaks down.

• Tell her/him to look at the letters and say the sounds or look for word chunks in

words.

• Remind him/her to use the pictures to help.

3. To make your child aware of using this strategy, give him a piece of paper and tell

him to make a tally mark each time he uses the cross checking strategy.  

Ideas and strategies are taken from : The CAFE Book, written by Gail Boushey & Joan Moser

Grams Comes to Visit

Eoin's Grandma, Barb, came to visit our classroom today all the way from Missouri.  While she visited, she read us a poem written by Mary Howitt, The Spider and the Fly. While listening to the poem, we watched a puppet show.  After this was concluded, we created our own puppets and then reenacted the story while Barb read it to us again.  We thoroughly enjoyed having "Grams" come to visit and look forward to having many more visitors throughout the year. 

Look in your child's folder next week for a volunteer form.  There are many opportunities to help out in the classroom. Grandmas and Grandpas are welcome as well! 

Curriculum Planning Days

Throughout the year, teachers need to take professional development days to meet with specialists, plan for curriculum, or conduct 1:1 assessments.  When this happens during the school day, a "guest teacher" will guide your children throughout the day.  Students are expected to follow the same classroom rules. I check in with the guest teacher and follow up with your child about the decisions they make. It is always nice to hear when the guest teacher tells me how great your children were and how hard they worked.  It will help your child to have follow up discussions at home with you when they speak about guest teachers, or substitute teachers.  Thanks for your help in this. 

Tomorrow, Wednesday, September 28th, our team will be meeting with a writing consultant to look over student writing and to help guide our next steps in instruction.  I will be in the building but in another room from 12-3.    I hope your child has a great afternoon and cannot wait to hear about the strong choices he/she makes! 

NAP info from Laury Saligman

Dear Parents,

By this time, many of you will have made it out into the woods with your Kindergartner or first grader.  I hope that your first day went well and that you had as much fun as my daughter's class did!

Your time, energy, and input as a parent is critical to the success of this program. With that in mind, we would like to schedule two meetings - one in the fall (mid-November) and one in the spring -  to share experiences, learn from each other, iron out bumps in the road (yes, there will be many), and make recommendations that will improve the program.  

In addition, we would like to invite you to participate anyone who is interested in developing the program to participate in other ways as well.  Below are some options that the advisory team discussed:

1.  Events - we would like to plan 2-3 events per year - each with multiple goals - community-building, education, and fundraising.  Last year, we had a viewing & discussion of the movie, "Mother Nature's Child" at the Savoy, a year-end celebration & plant sale with the Dave Keller Band, and a garage sale.  We;ve also talked about a winter celebration with hot cider and perhaps a moonlit snow-shoe hike.  So, if you have some good ideas - let's hear 'em.  If you like to organize and run events - then step right up, we need your help.

2. Grant Writing - I have two kind souls pegged for this, but if anyone else wants to be involved in the future, let me know.

3.  Fundraising Committee - Really, number 1 and 2 fit under fundraising.  With this in mind, it would probably make sense to meet periodically to discuss fundraising goals and ideas.

4.  Advisory Committee Input - If you have an interest in helping us mold this program, at a strategic level (eg - determining if/how we can expand into 2nd grade), please be in touch.

5.-100.  Other ideas

We have an immediate opportunity for a few people to help out with the Montpelier Home Tour on October 15th.  Through a very generous offer, we will be able to use this event to raise money for the Nature Adventure Program.  Please contact first grade teacher Susan Koch at susank@mpsvt.org, if you have a little time on October 15th. 
I look forward to seeing everyone in November or around the school.

http://www.montpelierchamberorchestra.org/montpelierhometour2011.cfm

 

Laury  Saligman

Parent Coordinator for NAP

CAFE

To help our students have a visual place to house the reading strategies they are learning, we use the C.A.F.E. menu (Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, and Expand Vocabulary).  The strategies we are learning to help us become a better reader are listed on posters behind our meeting area under one of these headings. We point to the card where the strategy is listed and practice these strategies as a group, before we begin to use them on our own.  The "C' stands for Comprehension.  The students are learning that good readers understand what they read and to help support this, we are learning how to, "check for understanding."  INQUIRE with your child about how they, "check for understanding." 

 How can you help your child with this strategy at home?

1. When reading to your child, stop periodically and say, “Let’s see if we
remember what I just read.  Think about who the story was about and
what happened.”  Do this 3 or 4 times throughout the story.

2. When reading to your child, stop and have them practice checking for
understanding by saying, “I heard you say…”

3. Ask your child the following questions:
• Who did you just read about?
• What just happened?
• Was your brain talking to you while you read?
• Do you understand what was read?
• What do you do if you don’t remember?



 

Home Reading Program

This year, your child will bring good fit books home to read almost every day.  Your child can be reading these or books from your own house, town library, or books from UES library.  The main purpose is to READ, READ, READ!  As a class, we will keep track of the minutes our class reads collectively.  Each week we will add the minutes to a classroom reading goal chart.  Please do your best to help your child document the amount of minutes he/she reads each night and to help your child remember to return his/her book to school. (If your child does not return a book, he/she will not be able to bring home home another.) 

Sometimes, your child will bring a book home that may seem too easy.  That's okay; it's a perfect opportunity to work on fluency.  This includes practicing reading with ease, expression, and correct pacing.  Often books at a child's independent level help them develop confidence in themselves as a reader. 

Books that can be brought home will be those that your child can read in one night. Some students may be working on reading chapter books at school, however, these will stay in the classroom. 

REMEMBER, THE PRIMARY GOAL IS FOR YOUR CHILD TO ENJOY READING!!

6 legged Insect race!

Bug Costumes and parade

Bug Fest! Click on videos to play...

Class Picture...we missed you Cody!

Shapes, Designs, and Patterns

Using pattern block stickers to create insects!

 

Exploration with geoboards.

Sorting

We've been estimating, counting by 1's, 2's, 5's, and 10's, and sorting many many ways.  Our class has doing this using insects, sea creatures, and frogs. INQUIRE with your child what his/her favorite has been and what they sorted them by.  You may wonder what the benefits of sorting are in first grade?  Look at the information  below from the Bridges program to find out why. 

Q:  What is the value of having students do so much sorting?
A:  Young students enjoy sorting the buckets of buttons and plastic bugs and sea creatures in this
unit. They inspect the buttons or creatures closely and arrange them into groups in a variety of
ways, according to different features. Bringing order to a large group of objects in this way
provides many opportunities to create groups of things that can be counted (by 1’s, 2’s, 5’s, and
10’s), combined (addition), and compared (subtraction). In addition to providing a context for
counting, adding, and subtracting, sorting is the first step in finding patterns, organizing data,
and solving problems of all kinds.

 

Reading Strategies

As we read a variety of books during literacy (see shelfari on the side of the blog for book titles) students are continuing to learn how one continuously "checks for understanding" while reading a book.  We are doing this as a class, and students are able to practice this skill in their own reading.  When doing this, we stop reading every few pages and ask ourselves what just happened. We sometimes even retell each other what happened.  Children are also cross checking and asking themselves questions such as, "does this make sense? Does this sound right? and Does this look right?" as they are decoding words.   

Glyphs

Yesterday we created ladybug glyphs that told information about ourselves and our experiences with insects.  This was done as a group and was a great exercise in listening intently to the specific directions that were being given.  By looking at the "code" as the students called it and by examining each ladybug, we can tell who would hold a ladybug, what bugs each child dislikes, whether we are afraid of insects, whether we've caught an insect, or whether we've been  bitten or stung by an insect.

Today we also came up with a list of everything we've learned about ladybugs.  Working in pairs, students wrote down these facts together. We decided to hang them in the hallway so other students can learn about ladybugs as they are walking in the hall!

Writer's Workshop Update

First Graders have been intently working on becoming the best authors and illustrators they can be.  While reading a variety of published books written by school aged kids around the country we are getting inspired to publish our own books in a few weeks (although I have yet to sign a contract with a publishing company..hmm, better get on that!) Anyways, the children are getting excited to go through this first publishing stage, even if it won't look exactly like the bound books we read everyday.  We are continuing to write personal narratives about ourselves while remembering to include pictures and words, just like famous authors and illustrators.  We have been talking about taking risks in our illustrations and not throwing away an idea for a topic just because we don't know how to illustrate it.  We are also paying close attention to making sure our writing and illustrations match.  The students are continuing to work on routines.  A big thrill to students this year is the use of the stapler...and boy does this take practice!  It is amazing to see the focused attention during this time of our day. The children are taking their time to reread their work, and add on to it every day. I am excited to finish off these first few pieces and share with you the progress each child is making every day!

The Times Argus!

Math Problem Solving

We have been using our knowledge of insects to create math story problems.  Our class has been looking closely at butterflies, praying mantis, and beetles, noticing various characteristics of each and studying the similarities and differences of their life cycles.  INQUIRE with your child what the difference between a butterflies life cycle is compared to that of a praying mantis.   To create our math story problems we used ladybugs and came up with a variety of different stories about these insects. We used addition and subtraction to solve the problems. It was a challenge for many of our students to show their math thinking as opposed to just giving an answer.  INQUIRE with your child what it looks like to "show their math thinking."

Guidance

This year, Guidance is being offered as a "special."  Guidance, Technology, and Library will be rotated. The first part of the year we will have guidance, the next, Library, and in the spring we will have Technology.  These classes will be held on Tuesdays at 1:00, our regular specials time.  I am, however, finding time on Tuesdays to visit the library to take out books. We will do this throughout the year.  Eventually, I will do this for Technology as well.

During this first part of the school year, Shannon Baker, our school's guidance counselor will be helping to enrich the social/emotional curriculum that is already in place in our classroom.  Shannon will be teaching lessons designed around our responsive classroom school-wide expectations of CARES (Cooperation, Assertiveness, Responsibility, Empathy, and Self-Control.)  Here is Shannon with our class teaching a lesson on Cooperation and also reviewing what it looks like to stay in our own personal, "bubble." INQUIRE with your child what the boy thought he was going to learn about at school when his teacher talked about space bubbles.

Cooperative and Happy Girls!

I observed the girls in our class working cooperatively to maneuver their way around the gymnasium toward the end of P.E. class today. They successfully managed to connect all the scooters and as a group scoot around the gym, worked on balance, coordination, and strengthening various muscles!  Cooperation is one of the components of our C.A.R.E.S. social curriculum.

Kids Making Change Campaign

To help Montpelier UES students to get connected and involved in flood relief efforts here in Vermont, we have created a connection with Moretown Elementary to help serve the kids and community impacted by Hurricane Irene floods.  We have been told by the administration at Moretown Elementary that the greatest need is having financial resources available for school activities.

To this end, UES will hold a week long "Kids Making Change" campaign.  In each classroom at UES there will be a donation jar/jug where kids in that classroom can contribute change from their home penny jars and allowances that will go directly to help kids in Moretown.  At the end of the week, the monies from each classroom will be added up and parents will be asked to make a 2:1 match of the money raised by their kids.



In our classroom, a reporter came in to take a picture of our students donating to this good cause.  Check out the TIMES ARGUS for our picture!  If someone would like to send in a copy of the newspaper for our classroom, we'd be grateful!  Here's a picture of our class getting their pictures taken by the reporter!  We will be accepting donations throughout the week so if your child has loose change, please feel free to have them bring it to school to help this great cause.

email updates

I cannot seem to figure out how to sign up for an automatic update sent to email when a new post is created. If any readers of our blog have had success, let me know how you did it!  THANKS!

Quiet Cafe

A NOTE FROM OWEN: 

We hope that the word is out about a very special place in our school---the Quiet Café. This is located in the Excel Room, which is just a short distance to the cafeteria. There is a staff member in this room at all lunch times. At the present time 12 students may sit comfortably. The small number of students allows for quiet conversation to occur more easily. The Quiet Café is open to any of our students. Students may come as few or as many days they choose. Students only need to ask Ms. Famette, who oversees the larger cafeteria, for permission to visit the café. There may be days that Ms. Famette, or a classroom teacher, will recommend that a student use the café to practice a certain skill before returning to the larger cafeteria.

IPICK and Voracious Reading

As students are learning how to organize books in the library, they are also learning how to choose "just right readers."  We discussed the acronym, "IPICK" which illustrates to the children how to go about choosing a just right reader.  We relate this to riding bikes and wearing shoes.  INQUIRE with your child how a just right book relates to doing these things.  When we pick out books for ourselves, we want to be sure that we are choosing a book that is interesting, purposeful, makes sense to us, and one that we know most of the words.  We use a five finger rule to determine if the book is just right for us.  We are practicing voracious reading by building our fluency through re-reading just right books.  When the book students choose is on their reading level and they are interested in it, they will be able to practice reading smoothly and with expression. They will understand what they are reading and ultimately improve their fluency. Students who are reading books that are too hard for them, struggle, become frustrated, and never get the practice of building fluency because they are continuously trying to decode and solve for words.  What kind of books is your child reading at home?  Remember, it doesn't hurt to have them reread these over and over again!

Writer's Workshop

This week, we've launched our afternoon writer's workshop.  The class has discussed the idea that if we write every day, we'll get a lot of practice and therefore gradually get to become really good writer's.  Many other students relayed that they believe writing to be fun, relaxing, and much discussion was had about the purpose of writing.  "My mom writes you notes." "We write a grocery list."  My dad types a lot on the computer...I think this is like writing too but without a pencil.  We observed all the writing in our classroom and have been reading many books.  Throughout the year, we will use many books as models for our own writing.  This year, the students are only using a pencil to do their drafting (pictures and words) and will be allowed to use color during the publishing process, which will happen ever 4-6 weeks.  Each lesson begins with a mini-lesson where the students hear a teaching point, hear the language authors use, have a discussion on the teaching point, and find a connection to their own writing.  The students then independently work on their own writing piece while I confer individually with about 5 children per day.  After the writing time, we close the lesson with a share and review of the strategy taught.  The student have been getting used to learning about how to use supplies, where to keep them, what to do when they're stuck, and what to do when they think they're done.  Our current unit of study is personal narratives.  During this unit, students are writing about experiences they've had. 

FYI

Click on the pictures to see them blown up.  

Hit next on the shelfari bookshelf to see more read-alouds.


Participate in the sidebar polls!


 

Birthday Celebrations

This year, your child's birthday will be celebrated the last Friday of the month. On this day, from 8:15-9:00, families are welcome to visit the classroom, connect with other families, and celebrate their child's birthday together. I am looking for families to sign up to bring a healthy breakfast food (muffins, fruit, etc) so if you're willing to help make this a success, sign up for a month or two and join us. Families are welcome each month, not just on your child's birthday month. Our summer birthday's will be celebrated in June.  The dates are listed on the calendar of events and a letter will be sent home soon.  Please email me if you'd like to help out!  

Parents Night

Thanks to all the parents who attended last night's information meeting. I hope that in the little time we had that you were able to connect with some new parents, reconnect with familiar others, and learn a bit about what the children will be doing throughout the day. PLEASE, feel free to ask me any other questions that may still be lingering.  With the brief amount of time we had and after reading the information packets that were provided, I am sure there will be more questions.  As I explained last night, our communication will play a huge role in your child's success this year so stay connected.  If you are reading this blog, please make sure to indicate on the side bar poll. I'm curious as to how many readers are out there!

Rule Creation

After reading our hopes and dreams to one another, we talked about what it will need to look, sound, and feel like in our classroom if we want to do all the things we dream of doing in first grade.  As a class, we brainstormed a GIGANTIC list of rules we thought we needed.  As a class, however, the students agreed that this list was TOO BIG and realized that most of the rules can fall under one of the rules we had listed: THE GOLDEN RULE. We settled on 2 rules to have in our class and made a promise to follow these guidelines:

The Golden Rule

Take care of classroom materials

Our class then reviewed what it looks like if we choose not to follow these rules.  Many of us have practiced what it looks like to take a break to regain self control and be ready to learn.  Today, we also reviewed what happens when students are unable to regain self-control in the break chair and are continuing to be disrespectful and not follow directions.  Responsive Classroom refers to this procedure as "buddy teacher."  In our classroom, if a student is not able to re-gain self control while taking a break within the classroom, the child will go with our "buddy teacher" (who comes to get the student) and take a break in their classroom.  Today, Mrs. Wrigley and I taught our students what this looked like and we were able to learn what happens in this situation and where the buddy teachers' break chairs were held.  In this instance, the student is expected to stay in the buddy teachers room for at least 5 minutes and will process with the buddy teacher what it will look like, sound like, and feel like upon re-entry to the classroom. 

Hopes and Dreams

Over the last few days our class has been brainstorming ideas about what they want to do and accomplish in first grade.  Every child contributed and as a group, we came up with a long list of hopes and dreams.  Then individually, each child thought about what was most important to them and wrote about their own hopes and dreams for the school year.  We are working with watercolors and will write our hopes and dreams on top of the art. These will be on display for most of the year. You will get to see them at open house, but in the meantime, INQUIRE with your child what their hope and dream is for First Grade. If you're a parent or guardian, think about your hopes and dreams for your child.  Think about how we can work together to achieve this hope and dream.

THANK YOU!

I wanted to thank a few specific people for helping us get off to a great start. 

The Lumbra Family- Thanks so much for donating and building 2 brand new beautiful bookcases for our classroom!  They are being put to great use, they help us to stay organized, and of course look spectacular!  (hopefully I'll get around to painting them over a vacation, but if you are looking for a volunteer option and like manual labor, let me know!)

The Joyner Family- Thank you so much for offering to fill our classroom aquarium.  Kellie, Autumn, and Rye graciously came in on Saturday and donated 3 goldfish and supplies to our class.  Unfortunately, one of the fish had a catastrophe on Sunday and only 2 fish were remaining on on Monday.  We are currently brainstorming a list of ideas on what to name our new pets!  


Shannon Gilmour- Thanks so much for spending the extra time these past weeks organizing our 4 winds program and recruiting new parents to get on board!  

ALL FAMILIES- Thanks for helping your child get ready for a great school year. Thanks for communicating with me and allowing for open communication between home and school!  

TOMORROW NIGHT!

Parent Info Night

UES Parent/Caregiver Info Night is Wednesday, Sept.14, from 6:30pm - 7:30 pm. This is different from Open House, which is October 19th. Wednesday's meeting will focus on curriculum; Responsive Classroom and our behavioral expections; homework and other issues and policies.

Wednesday's meeting will start in the UES auditorium from 6:30 to about 6:45. Parents, caregivers and staff will then go to classrooms until 7:30. Just a reminder, this evening is for parents and caregivers only. Students will be invited to the UES Open House on Oct. 19th.

test

Hands on inquiry science

We observed, explored, created, and asked questions throughout the day today and continued our study of insects.  Our students practiced "traveling" and walked to Harrison Field to observe and look for ants as well as other insects.  We participated in a whole class game of "Fishy, Fishy, Cross my Sea" before setting out to explore the grounds.  While reading some books about ants, we were amazed at the similarities that ants and bees have and were quite surprised that ants can lift 20 times the weight of their body! 

 Later in the day we created more insects during math work places.  Using some imagination but knowing that insects have 3 body parts and six legs, we created our own insects.  Some friends also played bugs on board (similar to tic tac toe but using coordinates and insects!

We even had insect centers this afternoon.  All friends enjoyed, "ants on a log" and then explored with a variety of materials. Insect stamps, insect crayon rubbings, insect bingo, "how to draw" insects, 3-D insect observing, and reading insect books.  What an insect filled day!  INQUIRE with your child what they chose to do at centers, who they worked with, and what kind of insects they found in Harrison field.  If you're lucky, maybe they'll share their recipe for "ants on a log."