November is here!!!  Studying our seasonal patterns in Science this year remains interesting as the weather continues to change from summer to fall like weather!!

Thank you to all of the volunteers who helped out and sent in materials for our amazing pumpkin bat craft on Halloween!!  What a good time and such hard-working first graders!!

We will continue to work on our bat Unit next week.  We are researching bats to collect information to write our own non-fiction bat books.  Last week we researched bat habitats.  This week, we will research what they eat and who their enemies are.  We are reading bat books and watching bat videos to collect information.

I look forward to seeing many of you at Conferences the next two Wednesdays.  You will receive your child's status report page for the November report card on the Monday before your conference.  Please look it over and bring any questions or concerns to our conference.  We only have 20 minutes, so I want to make the best use of our time.  Thank you in advance for this.

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. P

Class Code - H7899 Order
Due Date - 11/30/2017

Subject: Scholastic Book Clubs Class Order Due Date is approaching!

Dear Families, This is a friendly reminder that your Book Clubs orders are due by 11/30/2017. You can place your orders online at scholastic.com/bookclubs using my class activation code: H7899 Happy Reading,

DENISE PETRUCCI

10/20/17

What a FULL week! 

Highlights -

Starting our non-fiction Bats unit.  We are researching and learning about Bats.  We made Bat diagrams that will be hanging in the hallway outside 1P!

Math - Lots of Math games helping us to work on combinations of numbers up to a total of 15.  Some games are - Double Compare, Double Compare Dots, Roll and Record, Heads and Tails, Peas and Carrots, Three Towers!!

Working with Pam Golden, Sheehan School's Artist in Residence.  We worked with clay to create our animal/people faces!  We loved this and all helped Pam to clean up when we were finished without being asked!  I was so impressed with their kindness and thoughtfulness, everyone earned Gold Tickets for this!!  Check out our pictures below!!

Thank you to all of the volunteers sending in supplies or volunteering to help with our Pumpkin Bats on Halloween!!  Your help and support is so appreciated!

My apologies - the Topic list for Small Moments will come home on Monday with the Homework log!  Thank you for your patience!

Keep Reading and have a nice weekend!!

Mrs. P  :)

The end of a short but very busy week!!  We accomplished so much this week -

Some highlights -

 - Continued to work on our weather, temperature and seasonal patterns unit in Science
 - In Math - learned the Math Slide app, continued to work on games that help us work on combination that add up to numbers up to and including 10.  We are getting faster at knowing these combinations!
 - Setting goals for our daily independent reading and working hard to reach these goals!
 - Writing Assessment - wrote non-fiction books about Lions and Tigers after researching by reading a story and watching a video.  Also, continue to work on Narrative Writing.
 - Finished our study of Christopher Columbus

All this in only 4 days!  The students in 1P continue to work everyday on showing good character traits, such as - Being Kind, Hardworking, Thoughtful and Humble. 

Looking forward to our Non-fiction unit about Bats starting next week, as well as Learning the IXL Math with Mrs. Comer!

Homework on Monday will include a sheet to brainstorm writing topics for your child to use in class.  Please help them to choose Small Moments - for example, instead of choosing to write about a Family Vacation or a trip to the Amusement Park, help them to choose when they went into the freezing water or the most fun ride they went on.  These are the Small Moments we want to be writing about - the seeds from the Watermelon rather than the Big stories that are the Watermelon itself.

Snack Reminder - children have 10-15 minutes for snack each morning.  They have time to eat 1-2 small snacks.  Please do not send too much as the children will not have time to eat it.  Please save messy snacks for home as well, as we do not have a sink in our classroom.

As always, reach out by email or phone if you have any questions or concerns!

Mrs. P

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

Here we are!  End of the first full week of the school year!!  We are off to a great start!  What a busy week!  Here's a quick peak at our week!

Classroom Routines - We are continuing to get to know one another and learn our classroom routines.  We have 5 classroom rules that we use and we use hand signals to let Mrs. P know when we need something.  We are learning our schedule and will be meeting our Reading and Learning Buddies next week.  We began earning our Golden Tickets and learning about the different things you can choose to purchase with your tickets.  Golden tickets are earned by Following Rules, Being Kind, Making Good Choices, Being a Role Model anD following The Core Four.

Reading Workshop - We are working on building our Reading Muscles!!  As the year progresses, we will work on increasing our Reading Stamina to read independently for longer and longer periods of time.  This week, we found cozy reading spots in our classroom - spots that are comfortable so that we can focus in a quiet environment and concentrate on our reading.  Next week, we will work on book shopping - choosing books and materials to have in our book bags to read during Reader's Workshop.  We will also be getting reading partners to read with and talk about reading with.

Writer's Workshop - We are just getting ready to begin our official Writer's Workshop next week.  We will begin by working on Narrative writing - writing small moments stories.  Small moments stories are stories w write across pages that tell about something that we have done or that has happened to us.  Instead of writing about a big event like a birthday party or a vacation, we choose one small moment to write about and include details.

Math - After exploring math materials for a few days and sharing the important math learning that we can do with each material, we began to play some math games and get ready to begin our Math Workshop.  We are working on playing math games like:  Collect 20 together, Start with/Get to, Staircases and Mystery Boxes in order continue to develop strategies for accurate counting, develop an understanding of the magnitude and position of numbers and learning to show our mathematical thinking and strategies on paper.

Social Studies - We are working in Open Circle on Creating a Caring Classroom Community by getting to know one another and helping one another brainstorm solutions and solve problems that arise in the classroom and on the playground.  We will begin learning about the life of John Chapman, also known as "Johnny Appleseed"  next week.

Science - We are talking about weather and using our senses to notice the seasonal changes that are happening.  We will be spending more time talking about our senses and noticing the seasonal changes with all of our senses.

Our year is off to a wonderful start!  Our class has been receiving many compliments from many staff members in the building, including Mrs. Evans on our behavior in the classroom, the lunchroom and in the halls!  We are off and running with our curriculum and learning and I look forward to seeing all of you at Curriculum Night to share more about this and to introduce our First Grade homework.

Feel free to email me with any questions or concerns - dpetrucci@westwood.k12.ma.us.

Mrs. P

We did it!!  We survived the first day of school!  We actually had a great day!!  It was so nice to see everyone's smiling faces after the summer!!

After learning about our coat hooks and cubbies, we got to check out our new classroom.  We ahd lots of questions about how things work in first grade so we talked for a bit and then jumped right in.

We learned hand signals and the classroom rules to help make everything run smoothly in 1P!!  Ask your child to tell you about these.

By now, you have probably seen our Pencil Poem that we worked on today.  This poem helped us to check out our new pencil boxes.  We practiced writing our names in all of the different colors - I think the most a child did was 28 times!!

We had Physical Education with Ms. Cook this morning and read a few stories - First Day Jitters and The Night of the Veggie Monster.

After lunch and recess - we had the whole playground to ourselves today and for this whole week until kindergarten begins their full days.

In the afternoon, we did a writing activity, we had to finish the sentence "My favorite thing about recess is..." and add a colorful detailed picture.  They came out so nice that Mrs. P wants to hang them up in the hallway!!

Then we had Math Workshop where we spent time exploring 4 different math materials that we will be using this year in First Grade!

Then it was time to pack up and get ready to end our day!!  We already started earning extra  "Oh yeah"s  for our good behavior and awesome listening.  We also got a great report from Ms.K at lunch for having a clean and quiet table!!

Our year is off to a great start!  Come back often to check in on what we are up to.

Remember that First Graders can buy extras at lunch for $0.50.

I would love to post pictures of the kids from our days - please let me know if I have permission to use your child's photo on this site.

Thanks!!  Time to get ready for tomorrow!!

Mrs. P :)