Learning Independence

We are another week in to first grade and we are doing a great job at learning how to be independent workers. It has taken some time and and a lot of practice but we are finally able to go to all Daily 5 stations independently!!! This week we finally met our Read to Self and Read to Someone goal of 20 minutes. It took quite a bit of persistence and practice and attention to our rules but we were able to be successful and now we are able to go to our Daily 5 stations every day! These stations are crucial to our day. Not only are we able to work independently but we are putting skills we have learned into practice as well. We are still learning how to problem solve and remember that during stations it is important to stay on task the entire time.Watch the video below of our friends practicing our Read to Self station:

This week we were able to finally use our outside classroom space. Right outside of our classroom we have picnic tables and a marker board where we are able to take our learning outside! On Tuesday, our friends were able to take their interactive reading journals outside and apply the information they learned from our story that day into an activity in their journal. We have very specific rules for our outside classroom and we know that if we don't follow those rules, we have to come back inside to finish our work. We will continue using our outside space as long as we have nice weather and then again in the spring. While the weather is still nice, you can send a towel in your child's backpack for them to use if they would like to sit on the ground rather than a table.

Not only did we use the outside space for work but we also had early finishers this week on some work and they were able to go outside for a little extra free time/ down time to exercise and get some energy out.

This week was also the first week of Library! We met Mrs. Loper, our librarian, and learned ALL of our library rules. We learned the ins and outs of what to do and how to find the books we want and then got a chance to pick out books! As first graders, we are able to check out 2 books instead of 1! We will have library every Thursday and it is going to be very important to send your books back every Wednesday! This is different than last year but Mrs. Loper will need them back the day before our library day so that she can get them all checked in ahead of time!

We are looking forward to going to library every week and finding new and exciting books every time! Make sure to send your books back so that you can enjoy the library and all of the potential that it's book hold!

As always, homecoming week brings a lot of fun and excitement. We have been enjoying each of the daily themes. A favorite was Bring Your Favorite Stuffed Animal to School Day. Everyone thought it was so fun to bring an animal with them and get to do their work with their animal throughout the day.

I loved seeing everyone in their STAR t-shirts on Friday! What a great way to end the week and represent our school well! We are ALL working hard at being Safe Trustworthy, Accountable and Respectful! Keep it up firsties!!!

Looking ahead in Math, we will be continuing our unit on addition and subtraction within 10. This has been somewhat difficult for some of us and do, however we are learning new strategies to help us and I have been seeing improvement in the use of those strategies to help!

In skills we will be continuing our beginning of the year review of letters and sounds as well as working hard at blending and segmenting words. Within our skills we also spend a lot of time practicing how to write the letters. We want to make sure we are writing our letters correctly whenever we are doing writing work. All of these skills will help us become better readers and writers.

Our first unit of knowledge will be wrapping up this coming week. I am looking forward to some fun culminating tasks as we put into practice some of the new concepts and vocabulary that we have learned while listening to and having discussions about fables and folktales. Next, we will be learning all about our Body Systems!

Science and Social Studies will begin next week. We will be doing things a little different this year than in the past. This year, we will be switching between the two subjects after a unit is complete. We will be starting a unit on Families and Rules on Monday. When we have completed this unit then we will move on to science!

I am looking forward to meeting you at conferences and having conversations about how your child is doing and what we will be working on this year! As always, you can visit our home page here for upcoming dates and events. Additionally, our viking page is always a great resource as well!