Happy long weekend 1P families!!

One important announcement - Homework will continue to come home on Monday but log does not need to come back until the following Monday so that you can fill in Friday as well!!

Reminder - please send in headphones for anyone who has not sent their child in with a pair of headphone for using the iPads in class!  Thank you!

What a busy week this was!! We are definitely into our routines and focusing on our themes of Being Kind and Working Hard!  Every morning, we start our day with our 1P Warm up Song/Dance - Get Loose/Get Funky - this allows us to get our energy out to be ready to focus on listening and learning.  We have 3 verses - one is Be Kind, one is Work Hard and the 3rd is Have Fun! 

Math -  We continue to work on developing accurate counting strategies for a set of objects.  We are working on how to record our math thinking on paper to show our strategies, as well as our solutions.  We have begun to work on story problems - how to find the important information and how to find the most efficient way to solve it.  We are playing several math games working on combining quantities - Double Compare, Double Compare Dots, Collect 20, Roll and Record, as well as iPad game - Find Sums.  Each morning during meeting, we play Start with and Get to, and practice strategies for counting and finding the difference between two numbers.  Ask your student about these math games.

 
Word Work - We have finished our First Unit in Fundations which is a review of all of the letters of the alphabet with each each letter's keyword and sound.  We have been practicing the correct formation of all of the lowercase letters.  Next we will do a quick review of the Uppercase letter formations, as well as work on reviewing how to tap out small, short-vowel words.

Reader's Workshop - This week we began using our Reading Tools folders.  We have a Reading Mat that we use to keep track of the reading we do during reader's workshop.  We make tallies on a sticky note to keep track of how many books/chapters we read during Reader's Workshop.  We are practicing good reading habits- taking a sneak peek before we read, checking our sneak peek, do something after you read a book (reread a favorite part, reread the book, retell the story), read more and more and keep track of our reading!

Writer's Workshop - We are working on good writing habits - how to choose a good writing spot, how to plan for writing - Think about what to write, plan what you want to say across pages, sketch pictures to remember your story, go back and write!  We are working on writing personal narratives - story of what we do or what has happened to us.  Homework for next week will include a Topics list for you to help your child brainstorm a list of possible writing topics. 

Science - We continue to talk about Seasonal Changes and Weather.  This week, we began to look at thermometers and using them to tae the temperature both inside and out.  We talked about the weather factors that change the temperature outside, which started an interesting discussion of how we could change the temperature inside.  Ask your child about their thoughts on this.

Social Studies - We are learning about Christopher Columbus and the holiday of Columbus day.  It is an interesting topic as it was once thought that he discovered America.  Of course, we now know that he found a new route to the Americas and Natives already lived there.  We will continue to talk about Christopher Columbus next week.

We had a special visitor this week!! On Wednesday, Mrs. Lynch, who worked with Mrs. P in kindergarten came to visit and read us a story!  It was so fun to see her!

Student Council Updates

October Spirit Days:

• Halloween Colors  - Tuesday, October 31st

October Service Project:

• Kindness Grows!  Support the Sheehan Student Council's Joanne Hadalski Scholarship fund. Each spring, this money is awarded (in partnership with the PTA) to a graduating former Sheehan student. Our goal is for each class to try to raise $30. Each class will track how much money is raised on their Kindness Grows donation flower (which will be located in a safe spot in each classroom).

**The first School Store will be next Friday (10/13)! $5.00 limit please.

As always, feel free to reach me by email with any questions, concerns or comments!

Mrs. P

It was so nice to see so many of you at Curriculum Night last Thursday!!  For those of you who couldn't make, your packet should have come home with your child on Friday.  We will be starting First Grade Homework this week!  As I mentioned on Thursday, the goal is 20 minutes of homework a night - 10 minutes of reading and 10 minutes of math.  Please fill out the log and sign each week so that I know what your child has been working on.  Homework will go home on Monday and is due back on Friday.

Literacy - We have been very busy learning about Johnny Appleseed.  His real name is John Chapman.  Ask your first grader to tell you (or read to you from their mini-book) about John Chapman and what he did.

We are learning the routines for Reader's and Writer's Workshop.  Writer's think, plan and then write.  During Reader's Workshop, we are learning about good reading habits - we read independently for 20 minutes (so far - we are working on our stamina! -Building our reading muscles!) and then we read with partners for another 10 minutes.

Math - We began using our classroom iPads learning the game Find Sums.  In this game, we work on finding combinations to 10.  This game helps us work on remembering the variety of numbers that combine to make ten.  We are working on Double Compare and Roll and Record as games that help us work on simple addition.

In Science, we are talking about weather and the seasonal changes that we can observe using our senses.  This has been interesting considering the crazy weather we have had lately!  We are learning about temperature and how scientists (and all of us) use thermometers to check temperature.

In Social Studies, we will be learning about Christopher Columbus in anticipation of the holiday coming up.  We will be wrapping up our learning about Johnny Appleseed with a short video from Brain Pop Jr.

 Reminders - Please send in a pair of headphones (not ear buds) with your child as soon as possible.  The headphones should come in in a large Ziploc bag with your child's name on them please.  This helps us to use the iPads in the classroom without disturbing other friends who are working on other tasks.  Thank you.

I am adding pages to the blog that will help you find appropriate websites and iPad apps to use at home with your child.

Have a great week!

Mrs. P