Happy New Year!

I hope your holidays were merry and bright!  I've almost reclaimed my house from all the excitement!

Before the break, we spent some time creating our gifts for our families, enjoying lots of seasonal literature, and learning combinations of numbers with sums of 6, 7, 8, and 9.  This week, we've been learning ways to build the number 10, reflecting on our vacation, and talking with Mrs. Patch about growth mindset and perseverance.  We learned about snow and how William "Snowflake" Bentley used a special camera to photograph individual snow crystals.  Next week, we'll learn more about the number ten, continue with our opinion writing, and start to investigate Polar Regions!

No pictures from class this week, as it was a short one, but here's one of Kola and Darla on Christmas Eve!  And, a thank you message for reading the blog! :)

Have a great weekend!  I have a meeting in Augusta all day tomorrow, and Mr. Cole and I are meeting some friends in Boston whom we haven't seen for several years.  I hope you get to have some fun, too!

Becca

Happy Friday the 13th!

Wow-it was certainly an exciting week!  We had a great concert, TWO Mystery Readers, celebrated another 25 Caught You Being Good Cards, read lots of seasonal books, and practiced writing reviews.

I'm including photos from our rehearsal and our performance:

DJ A.J. Dukette from WHOM and news anchor Kathleen Jordan from WMTW came to visit!!

-Next Friday, December 20th will be Pajama Day for our whole school.

-We return to school on Thursday, January 2nd.

-Green homework folders/homework menus are due on Monday, January 6.

-Our next Sharing Day will also be on January 6.

Have a great weekend!  I'm looking forward to seeing some friends in their holiday shows, finishing up holiday preparations, and...cleaning the basement. :)  Have fun!

:)

Becca

Happy December!

It's amazing that we are 1/3 of the way through the school year!  We worked hard this week-practicing fact families/number bonds, fine-tuning our how-to books, and talking about kindness, gratitude, and what it means to be a friend.  We had our first snow day, and read a lot of stories about snow.  Our Mystery Reader was the President of the Maine Education Association, Mrs. Grace Leavitt.  She taught us some Spanish words and gave us some handouts to take home and practice.

Next week will be our Holiday Concert on Wednesday evening!  Please be sure your first grader is at the high school auditorium no later than 6:15 so that I may help him/her find the right spot on the risers.  I will let you know on Tuesday, after our rehearsal, just where our class will be standing.  Please do let me know if your child is choosing not to attend the concert so that I can make our plan for where each person will stand on the risers.  Thanks!

Thank you for sending a coat, snow pants, boots, hat, and mittens/gloves with your child each day.  I do have a few pairs of mittens they can borrow in an emergency, but it is better if everyone has their own.  If you need help obtaining these for your child, please let me or the office know and we can assist you.  Thanks!

Thank you also for letting me know in advance, whenever possible, if your child will be absent or picked up early/dropped off late.  I really appreciate it!

Please try to avoid sending food in glass containers.  We had a bit of a scary accident earlier this week when someone dropped their glass container in the very busy hallway and it shattered.   Thanks for your help!

We earned another 25 Caught You Being Good cards!  We will vote on Monday for a special activity next Friday!

On Friday the 20th, we will have Pajama Day.

Have an awesome weekend!  I will be in Augusta most of Saturday and Sunday for an MEA  Board of Directors meeting, but am hoping to get some holiday preparations completed!  Mr. Cole is in a production of "A Christmas Carol", so I may get to see that as well.  I hope you have a fun and festive time, too!
Becca

Happy Thanksgiving!
I hope everyone is healthy and looking forward to a great holiday!  I know that the kids are excited about being with family and jumping into the holiday season!

This week, we read lots of seasonal books, learned about nouns and verbs, and wrapped up our doubles/doubles plus/minus one work.  We continued creating how-to books, which we hope to publish soon.  Our STEM activity was an engineering project which helped us practice using the how-to language from our writing (first, then, next, finally).

Our Mystery Reader this week was Mr. Seth Berner!  He is an attorney in Portland, and we talked with him about how we resolve conflicts with people by talking things out and making it right.

Mr. Howell and Mrs. Bertinet, the Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent, came by to visit so we could give them each a special gift.  They had asked for our help in creating some artwork for their new offices, so we thought about the books they had read to us and designed some colorful pieces to brighten their spaces!

Next week, we will only have school on Monday and Tuesday, so we won't have a regular blog post. Please do let me know if you are planning to attend our Project Day on Monday, as all volunteers must have turned in a Volunteer Form with the office prior to helping out.  The form is available on the school site;  just go to rsu14.org, find the Windham Primary page, and look under the Forms tab.

Fall picture retakes will be on Tuesday.  If your child is having retakes, please be sure to return the originals.  Thanks!

Please do also let me know if your child will be absent next week (or anytime) so we can try to make sure they don't miss anything special!  Thanks!

I hope you all have an awesome weekend!  I am going to the Gardens Aglow event at the Coastal Botanical Gardens with Mr. Cole-it's our November tradition and always puts me in the holiday spirit!

Thanks for all you do!
Becca

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