Hello, families!

I hope you enjoyed the long weekend, and are looking forward to a little bit of a warmup over the next couple of days!

We had a great week in first grade, learning about "doubles" facts, writing our how-to books, and doing a fun chemical changes experiment in STEM!  We also learned a bit about the Iroquois from a BrainPOP video, and took a virtual tour of the Mayflower on Scholastic.com!

Our Mystery Reader this week was Christine Frost-Bertinet, our new Assistant Superintendent.  She gave us a challenge to create a piece of art for her office-we can't wait to show her what we created!

We are learning how to THINK about math problems, COMPARE our strategies, and SHARE our ideas with other mathematicians!

Next week, we will do a bit more learning about the first Thanksgiving and some of the native Americans who live in our part of the country.  We'll continue our doubles/doubles-plus-one work in Math and make a special Thanksgiving how-to book together.

Thanks for marking our clothing with your first grader's name!

Book orders were due today-I will wait to submit the order til tomorrow morning if you'd like to place an online order this evening.  Our class code is H63NZ.  I'm not sending home a book order in December so feel free to order from those catalogs as well.  If there are any holiday gifts in your order, just let me know and I will hold them here until you are able to get them. :)

Have a fantastic weekend!  I am looking forward to some DIY projects around the house and hopefully getting a start on holiday preparations.  I hope you have a lovely time with your family!

Becca

Hello, everyone!

We enjoyed a visit from Dr. David Jefferson, DVM this week!  He told us about being a horse vet and read a funny story called Bark, George!  

We learned more about chemical and physical changes this week, and did a sorting activity to go along with that learning.  We also continued our addition/subtraction word problem work, started writing How-To books, and made some text-to-text connections!  Next week we're looking forward to learning more about Pilgrims and Native Americans.

Thank you to everyone who signed up for conferences!

The iReady assessment data is in your child's Eagle News today.  We took the assessment quite some time ago, at the beginning of the year.  It is measured against an end-of-year expectation, so it's fine if kids aren't "there" yet :) .

Have a wonderful weekend!  I'm headed for Washington, DC tonight with my twin daughters.  We're taking Kola with us-we'll be sure to send you some pictures and updates!

:)

Becca

Happy November!

It's hard to believe that Halloween is over-I hope everyone had a fun time despite the weather!

Aside from the holiday, it was a very busy week here in first grade!  We enjoyed our Drum Song Story assembly today, learned about Empathy with Mrs. Patch, earned our 25th Caught You Being Good card, had our first Mystery Reader (Superintendent Chris Howell), learned about physical and chemical changes, and shared lots of great books!  We're looking forward to continuing our learning in STEM and meeting some new Mystery Readers next week!

Monday is Sharing Day!
Green homework folders with menus are due this Monday as well.
Eagle News is due every Monday.
Home Reading Folders with both books are also due every Monday.

Thanks for helping your first grader remember his/her snack each day!

Have an awesome weekend!  I have another presentation to give tomorrow, then I'll be spending some time getting my house ready for the next season.  Enjoy your family time!

Becca

Happy Friday, everyone!

It's definitely feeling more like autumn!  We learned all about bats and spiders this week, and many of our trees around the school no longer have their beautiful leaves.  The kids are very excited about Halloween and the WPS Fall Festival this weekend!

Apparently, my schedule was not yet launched in PTCFast; here is a screenshot of the conference schedule for November.  I have emailed the office and the schedule should be open on Monday for you to sign up.  I'm including this so you can start thinking about which times might work for you:



We had our first evacuation-to-WMS drill this morning.  The kids did a great job following directions and getting to/from the other building quickly and quietly.

Our Guidance lesson this week with Mrs. Patch was really fun!  She talked with us about Respect and what it means to be respectful.

Next week, we will have our first Mystery Reader!  :D  We will also walk up to WHS on Friday morning for a Cultural Arts Assembly.

Stay warm!  I heard many big plans for pumpkin carving and costume making this weekend!  I will be presenting at the Maine Education Association conference and wrapping up the last weekend of my play.  I hope you all have a wonderful end-of-October!
Becca

Hello!
I hope you all have power back after the exciting weather yesterday!

This week, we continued our work with addition/subtraction word problems in Math.  In Writing, we learned about "unfreezing" our characters by making them "MOVE" and "TALK" in our stories.  Our STEM lesson was really cool-we learned how rainbows are formed and used some prisms to make our own rainbows!  There was also a safety drill and Picture Day!

I took a fall photo of the kids, but it is on my camera-I'll post it when I get home from the theater tonight.

Next week, we'll have a Guidance lesson with Mrs. Patch, practice an evacuation drill to another building on campus, and have our first substitute teacher (Mrs. Cole is a presenter at the Maine School Management Association's Fall conference on Thursday).

Congratulations to Kainen and Aurora on earning the privilege of taking home Darla and Kola again!

What is due next week:

Home Reading Folders (with both books) on Monday
Eagle News on Monday
Library Books on Thursday

Green homework folders and menus are due on November 4th.
Our next Sharing Day is November 4th.

Have a great weekend!  My play is in its second weekend, which is very exciting.  I also have some DIY projects on my list.  I hope your days are fun and productive, too!

Becca

Hello!
The kids are very excited for their long weekend! This week, we learned about a couple of other math applications we will be using in first grade, Sumdog and Prodigy.  Other learning included Fire Safety, Estimating, a STEM lesson on chromatography, and understanding our schema and making inferences.  Wow!

One extra-special thing that happened this week was the arrival of our new classmate, Narjis!  Welcome, Narjis and family!

Please return the reading books and the homework menu on Tuesday-I have the new and improved home reading/homework folders all ready to go at last! :D

I took Kola and Darla for this extra-long weekend-I'll send the kids some updates as the weekend progresses!

Book orders were submitted and should be here in about a week!

Have an amazing weekend!  My play opens tomorrow night and I have plans to finish cleaning the basement and work in our classroom.  I hope you get some extra special time with your family!
:)
Becca

Happy October!

We were busy this week with many things: learning how to use the counting-on strategy to subtract as well as add; thinking about how partners work together to peer edit in writing; learning about our schema and how we use it to understand what we are reading/make inferences; trying out a new math program on our computers (Prodigy) and discussing how the seasons change.

We should finally have our homework folders for Monday!  Our home reading folders will be sent along as well.  Please read the letters on the outside of each folder and help your first grader keep track of their books and homework menus. :)

The first Monday of the month means Sharing Day!  Please help your first grader remember to bring one non-valuable, non-electronic item, and to be prepared to tell us why it is special to him/her.

There will be no school next Friday, October 11 (Teacher Workshop Day) or the following Monday (Indigenous Peoples' Day).

Check out the Upcoming Events for more important dates!

Congratulations to Lucas and Miyah for earning the privilege of taking home Kola and Darla!

Have a great weekend!  I have a committee meeting with MEA all day tomorrow, and technical rehearsal for the play I am in will take up most of Sunday, but I'm hoping to spend some time outdoors getting my yard ready for winter.  I hope you get to accomplish both "have-to"s and "want-to"s this weekend!

Becca