UMS Holiday School Sing a Long

On Wednesday we enjoyed a school song a long! Ms. Mutz had been teaching the boys and girls a variety of songs during the month of December. Although the video is a bit dark you can certainly hear our young singers! Please click here to watch.

In Search of...

I am looking for a large United States and/or world map for our classroom.  If you have a current map and would be willing to donate it to our room please let me know!  Thanks!  We will be using it/them to track Skype calls with other classrooms as well our Global Classroom Project (more to come about that later!).

Holiday Party

On Friday, December 20th from 1-2 p.m. we will have a small holiday celebration in our classroom.  Please use this sign-up if you are able to contribute something for our party.  I hope to see many of you there!

We Are Thankful!

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

Technical Difficulty

I love blogging because I truly think that a picture is worth a thousand words.  Unfortunately, I have been having some difficulty uploading photos recently on my home computer.  Please keep checking back...I will figure out a way around the issue soon!

More Community Helpers

We were treated to a visit from the Colchester Center Volunteer Fire Department on Monday, October 28th. Since it was pouring rain, we did not get to go out to see the trucks and all of the equipment. Captain Jeff Leete assured me we could schedule a field trip to the firehouse (just down the street from our school) to see everything up close in person. We're excited to make that happen!

 

Great Website!!!

Mrs. Flanagan recently introduced me to an incredible new website called:  Book Flix.  This site pairs fiction texts with non-fiction texts about the same topic.  Students can read the books independently or can listen to the book be read to them.  You can now access this site from Mrs. Flanagan's blog as well as ours.  I like it so much I have added it to the left sidebar on our blog as well under the Daily 5 tab.  Please take a minute to check out this useful and fun literacy website!

Word Study (SWR) Word Sort

As an introduction to this week's word family words (-in family and -im family) students worked with a partner to brainstorm as many rhyming words as possible.  This simple activity naturally allows for differentiation as some students used blends and digraphs while others stuck with a consonant, vowel, consonant pattern.

 

Halloween Math Fun!

Today was the first rotation of our Halloween math stations.  Students enjoyed practicing their measurement skills with candy corn.  They combined technology (iPads) and creepy shapes to demonstrate their understanding of different patterns and lastly worked on partner skills while playing Pumpkin Jumble.  It's fun when holiday excitement can be used as a teaching tool!

 

Burnham Library Visit

 

We had a great trip to our local library this morning!  Hannah and Pam shared some interesting facts with us (Did you know the Burnham Library houses about 52,000 books?!), explained how different parts of the library work, read us a story, and then let students who have a library card check out a book!  Librarians are definitely community helpers!  Both classes were incredible listeners and made the trip really fun.

Daily 5

The Daily 5 is a component of our reading workshop.  The '5' refers to the five literacy choices that students have:  read to self, read with someone, listen to reading, word work, and work on writing.  Each day students will self-select a Daily 5 station.  During the Daily 5 time (once we are fully independent and have developed good routines) I will meet with reading groups.  Stations will be differentiated when appropriate at a later point in the year.  Right now we are focused on making this block of time an independent work time.

 

Students choose from a variety of activities to practice spelling words

 

Work on writing is a popular station (especially for writing letters and cards)

Who doesn't love to read with a friend?

At the listen to reading station students can access RAZ-kids or prerecorded audio books through our blog.

Homework Bags

You may have noticed that your child's homework did not come home in a plastic bag today.  I am going to try having students pack it in their green home/school folders each week instead.  Although it is a small thing the extra step of packing up one more bag takes time and I'm feeling as though I want our afternoon pack up to be less rushed.  If there is ever a time when your child does not bring homework home please let me know (oftentimes a paper or two get dropped during clean up and I won't always know who it belongs to).

Guest Reader

It is always fun to have special adults visit our classroom. On Thursday afternoon Mrs. Flanagan (our school librarian) came to read us a story about - librarians!  We will get to visit with more librarians and learn more about their job next Friday when we walk to the Burnham Library!

Community Helpers, Fire Safety, and Skype - All in One!



Our current social studies theme is 'community helpers' and October is fire safety month.  Mrs. Sorenson took these two topics and combined them with technology to organize our first Skype visit!  On Thursday morning we joined Mrs. Sorenson's class to Skype with fire fighter Dayna and her fire dog Molly from Clarksville, Arkansas!  She read us a book about fire safety, taught us a song, had students take a junior fire fighter oath, and even showed us a picture of our Vermont flag hanging outside Sparkles Clubhouse (where she was Skyping from).  Our students were a wonderful audience!  We are hoping to continue to connect with people from all over the country and possibly even the world!

Waiting for our Skype call to begin

Fire fighter Dayna and Molly the fire dog

Fire fighter Dayna reading to us (you can also see the iPad we used to access Skype at the bottom of the photo)

       

Library Visit

I am not sure what has happened to one of my widgets (different parts of our blog), but currently I am unable to update important dates.  However, I wanted to make you all aware of a walking field trip we will be taking next Friday, October 25th.  As a part of our social studies unit 'Community Helpers' we will be walking to the Burnham Library.  All are welcome!  Please meet us on the playground by 9:10 a.m. We will return to UMS by 10:50 a.m. 

Math Time

This week in math we have had two main objectives.  The first has been to continue building our independence around routines and expectations.  I have been very impressed with how hard students are working!  Secondly, we have been learning how to count combinations of pennies and nickels as well as write number models.  We really have some amazing mathematicians in our room this year!

 

Working in math journals

Exploring pattern blocks at the 'hands on' station

  

Working on number writing at the 'all by myself' table

Playing Top-It (an Everyday Math game)

Social Studies Unit - Community Helpers

Community Helpers

Our latest social studies unit is about Community Helpers. We were fortunate to have Officer Jeff Fontaine and Chief Jennifer Morrison visit our school on Friday afternoon. We joined Mrs. Sorenson's class for this special activity. We had prepared questions for the officers, and our students displayed excellent audience behavior. I wonder how many first graders want to be a police officer when they grow up?

 

 

I'm Back!

Today was my first day back at UMS since having my boys.  It was a very warm welcome and I was excited to meet my new students!  I look forward to getting to know the boys and girls better over the next weeks and months.  I know it is strange for me to include this in my first blog post since returning, but through the eyes of a first grader Halloween is extremely important so....

We will have our Harvest/Halloween party on Thursday, October 31st from 1-2 p.m.  Families are of course welcome.  I am attaching a link where you can sign up to send/bring something for our celebration.  Thank you in advance for your help and I promise there will be more academic posts coming soon!

Click here to sign up: Halloween Party Sign Up

Welcome to First Grade!

As you all know by now I am currently out on maternity leave.  I will be returning to school on Thursday, October 10th.  Miss Yates and I will work together for that Thursday and Friday and then I will resume teaching full time on Monday, October 14th.  While I am out please visit Miss Yates' blog for updates about what is happening in our room!  I look forward to seeing familiar faces and meeting new ones very soon!  Enjoy these first few weeks of fall.

My Family

I'm not sure who will see this post in the midst of the first nice stretch of weather we've had, but I wanted all of my families to see why I missed the end of the year.  My husband and I are elated and proud to introduce you to Jonah and Drew!  Although I've always known what a responsibility and honor it is to have your children all day long in my care I now also have a deep understanding of the trust you as parents have had in me.  Thank you for sharing your son/daughter with me!  Have a wonderful summer!

The Eggs Have Arrived!!!

The day that the eggs arrive in first grade is probably one of the most exciting days of the whole year (outside of the day they actually hatch)...and that day was today!  For the next 21 days we will care for and nurture our 13 fertilized eggs.  Please ask your child each day how the process is going and what new information they have learned.  I guarantee that your child will become quite a chick/chicken 'egg-spert'.

Science Unit - Weather

Before vacation first graders started learning about the four components of weather:  precipitation, wind, cloud coverage, and temperature.  We have been busy recording weather data, learning songs to help us remember the water cycle, and today we began a cloud book.  It's amazing how quickly students pick up new science words and use them correctly!

Four Winds

Today we enjoyed another visit from Mrs. Kerner!  Our learning focused on beavers and muskrats.  Students watched a puppet show and slideshow, ate pretzels like beavers, and then tried to build their own mini-lodge out of twigs and clay.

Taiko Drumming

I hope to see you all at our student performance tonight!  The boys and girls will be showcasing what they've learned over the last week of work with Paton Sensei.  The performance will begin at 6:30 in the Colchester High School gym, but students may meet their teacher at 6:15 to get ready!

Spelling 'Blends'

This week during SWR we are focusing on 'l' blends.  Here I am preparing the secret recipe for 'sl' 'bl' 'cl' 'gl' and 'fl' blends.  The boys and girls were only slightly disappointed to learn that we were cooking up words rather than a snack.

Special Guest Reader

We are fortunate to have a principal who stops by our room often, but it is an added bonus when he stays to read a book!  This visit was in honor of all of the great reading students did over the February vacation.  Way to go UMS Champs!