Arts and PE Class
Our Arts and PE Class next week is PE.
Thursday, January 12, 2017
Let's Read a Good Book
We all have favorite books, series and authors. We thought we would share some of those with you. This might help you find some great new books to check out on your next trip to the library.
Arts and PE Class
Our Arts and PE Class next week is PE.
Arts and PE Class
Our Arts and PE Class next week is PE.
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Spelling
As we continue to work on spelling more words correctly, I wanted to
share a few ideas with you that you can do at home to help your child
work on spelling.
First, I wanted to share this article about spelling:
Why is My Kid Allowed to Make Spelling Mistakes
Commercial Board Games
Have a family game night and play a board game with word play like Scrabble, Scrabble Jr., Boggle, Boggle Jr, Upwords, Bananagrams, Zingo, Word Yahtzee, and many more.
Other Word Play Games
You can also do word searches, crossword puzzles, hangman (or our version called, Melting Snowman ) or other games that just need a paper and pencil. You can buy books of this type of puzzle or you can go online and print some off. Also, many of these games have online versions that are fun to try, too.
You can also just write a long word on a piece of paper and see how many shorter words you can make using just the letters in that word.
Games to Play in the Car
You can have a spelling bee in the car and give each person a word to spell that is at their level.
You can say a word like "hat" and say what would that word be if I changed the "h" to a "c", to an "f" and so on. Experiment with changing beginning sounds, ending sounds and middle sounds.
Play a game based on word families. Name a word family like the "ate" family. Go around the car and have each person say another word in that family: late, skate, fate, date, gate, and so on.
Online Games
Search for word games on your computer, iPad or smart phone for your child to play. There are many, many variations out there.
Be Creative
Make up your own games. Anything that makes kids think about words and how they are spelled will help.
A while back, I created a home page for our crew on SpellingCity.com. This site allows teachers (and parents and students) to create and save spelling lists. Once lists are saved, students can do various activities to learn to spell (and read) these words. I added lists of sight words that our crew needs to master by the end of first grade. The lists labeled 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D and 1E are the lists to master by the end of first grade. I also added some lists for second grade for students who need an extra challenge - these begin with the number 2. After doing some of the teaching activities and games for each list, your child may take a spelling test to see if he or she has learned these words. If not, they can practice some more and if so, they can move on to the next list. We have been using these lists at school and I wanted you to know that your child can use these lists at home on a computer or a tablet. If you use a tablet, you will need to download the app, click on "more lists" and then search for my lists using my name, our school name or school zip code. If you have your child go to the Resources page of our crew blog, they can access it from there on a computer.
First, I wanted to share this article about spelling:
Why is My Kid Allowed to Make Spelling Mistakes
Commercial Board Games
Have a family game night and play a board game with word play like Scrabble, Scrabble Jr., Boggle, Boggle Jr, Upwords, Bananagrams, Zingo, Word Yahtzee, and many more.
Other Word Play Games
You can also do word searches, crossword puzzles, hangman (or our version called, Melting Snowman ) or other games that just need a paper and pencil. You can buy books of this type of puzzle or you can go online and print some off. Also, many of these games have online versions that are fun to try, too.
You can also just write a long word on a piece of paper and see how many shorter words you can make using just the letters in that word.
Games to Play in the Car
You can have a spelling bee in the car and give each person a word to spell that is at their level.
You can say a word like "hat" and say what would that word be if I changed the "h" to a "c", to an "f" and so on. Experiment with changing beginning sounds, ending sounds and middle sounds.
Play a game based on word families. Name a word family like the "ate" family. Go around the car and have each person say another word in that family: late, skate, fate, date, gate, and so on.
Online Games
Search for word games on your computer, iPad or smart phone for your child to play. There are many, many variations out there.
Be Creative
Make up your own games. Anything that makes kids think about words and how they are spelled will help.
Spelling City
A while back, I created a home page for our crew on SpellingCity.com. This site allows teachers (and parents and students) to create and save spelling lists. Once lists are saved, students can do various activities to learn to spell (and read) these words. I added lists of sight words that our crew needs to master by the end of first grade. The lists labeled 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D and 1E are the lists to master by the end of first grade. I also added some lists for second grade for students who need an extra challenge - these begin with the number 2. After doing some of the teaching activities and games for each list, your child may take a spelling test to see if he or she has learned these words. If not, they can practice some more and if so, they can move on to the next list. We have been using these lists at school and I wanted you to know that your child can use these lists at home on a computer or a tablet. If you use a tablet, you will need to download the app, click on "more lists" and then search for my lists using my name, our school name or school zip code. If you have your child go to the Resources page of our crew blog, they can access it from there on a computer.
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Adding with Cuisenaire Rods
On Friday, we used our new Cuisenaire Rods to begin working with addition facts. Working with a partner, the first thing we did was to make one complete set of rods from 1 to 10 that we could use to help us figure out which rod was 4 units long or 7 units long, etc. Then we chose one rod as our base and tried to find as many combinations that we could make that would equal that rod's length. For example, some of us chose the rod that was 7 units long. We found that we could make rods that were 7 units in length in many other ways: 3 + 4, 5 + 2, 6 + 1, 1 +1 + 1 + 1 +1 + 1 + 1, 5 + 1 + 1 and so on and wrote them in our math notebooks. We had a great time trying to find as many combinations as we could. If we thought we had found all of the combinations, we moved on to a different base rod. We were sad when it was time to stop but we will continue working on this during Exploration Stations now.
Monday, January 9, 2017
Learning Basic Math Facts
We are beginning to focus on
learning basic addition
and subtraction facts. Some of us are just beginning to learn them
while others of us are much more comfortable with them. This is such an
important skill to practice at this age. Familiarity with the basic
addition and subtraction facts
will make such a difference in your child's math career. I know I have
mentioned this before but I have taught grades 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8
(including Algebra). I can tell you that those students who had a solid
foundation with their basic facts were so much more ready to tackle new
math concepts and to use those basic facts to solve more complicated
problems. Now is the time to practice those facts with your
child for a few minutes each day. We have begun to learn new games -
both online and offline that will help us practice our basic facts. You
can also help by asking your
child to solve a fact as you are
driving in the car and then ask them how they solved it or you can play various games both online and off to practice
(rules for one game you can play are below). You can use whatever
method you and your child
enjoy. It's just important to work at it a little bit each day and to
keep it fun and interesting.
Having said all of that, I do want to emphasize that what I feel is most important for students to learn in math is how and why things (like addition) work the way that they do. I want to develop their mathematical thinking and problem solving skills. If I had to choose between learning basic facts and developing mathematical thinking, I would absolutely choose mathematical thinking. Thankfully we don't have to make this choice. I will, however, always focus more on mathematical thinking in class and spend smaller amounts of time learning the basic facts. In our every day lives, we have so many tools at our disposal that can help with basic facts but we don't have tools that can do the deeper thinking and understanding for us so that is where my focus be.
Addition Top-It
Information for Parents
Last year I ran across this article about learning basic facts that I thought you might find interesting, too:
Learn math without fear, Stanford expert says
You can find more math resources for parents on the Parent Resources page of our crew blog.
Fun apps,websites and board games to help practice basic math facts:
Apps:
Addimals
Subtractimals
Door 24 Plus - use i-Ready login information
Hungry Fish
Mathtopia
Websites:
Resources page on our crew blog has links to several good websites for addition and subtraction practice
Board Games:
Shut the Box
Prime Climb - click here to see a short video about the game Prime Climb and how to modify it for younger children
Important Dates
1/13 No school for students - Professional Development Day
1/16 No school - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
2/2 Chinese Folktale Play Performance with Ms. Chelsea at 3:30 pm
2/17 No school for students - Professional Development Day
2/20 No school - President's Day
2/23 Winter Voyage for 1st grade - one day only, not an overnight trip, no day of rest needed
3/20 - 4/3 Spring Break
Library
Because we don't have school on Friday, we will visit the library in small groups throughout the week. Please have your child return their books as soon as they are finished with them and then they can visit the library to check out new books.
Thank You, Thank You, Thank You
Thank you to Calvin for donating another Snap Circuits set to our crew. It is helpful to have another set so it is easier to share with 24 students. Thank you to Nicholas for donating a big package of AA batteries to use in the Snap Circuits. We couldn't use the sets without batteries. We are learning so much from the Snap Circuits already!
If you would like to make a donation to our crew, we can always use sets of headphones for our ipads and computers. Thanks to Connor for donating a set already.
Having said all of that, I do want to emphasize that what I feel is most important for students to learn in math is how and why things (like addition) work the way that they do. I want to develop their mathematical thinking and problem solving skills. If I had to choose between learning basic facts and developing mathematical thinking, I would absolutely choose mathematical thinking. Thankfully we don't have to make this choice. I will, however, always focus more on mathematical thinking in class and spend smaller amounts of time learning the basic facts. In our every day lives, we have so many tools at our disposal that can help with basic facts but we don't have tools that can do the deeper thinking and understanding for us so that is where my focus be.
Addition Top-It
The game is played with a deck of number cards, 4 cards for each number 0-9. (This can be a regular deck of cards with the face cards removed.) As many as four children can play, but at first, children should play the two-player game.
1. Shuffle the deck and place it on the desk with the cards face down.
2. At each turn, players turn over two cards and call out the sum. Players should check each other's sums.
3. The player with the higher sum takes all the cards. In case of a tie, players turn over two more cards and call out the sum. The player with the higher sum takes all the cards from both plays.
4. Play continues until there are fewer than 4 cards left in the deck. The player who took more cards wins.
Information for Parents
Last year I ran across this article about learning basic facts that I thought you might find interesting, too:
Learn math without fear, Stanford expert says
You can find more math resources for parents on the Parent Resources page of our crew blog.
Fun apps,websites and board games to help practice basic math facts:
Apps:
Addimals
Subtractimals
Door 24 Plus - use i-Ready login information
Hungry Fish
Mathtopia
Websites:
Resources page on our crew blog has links to several good websites for addition and subtraction practice
Board Games:
Shut the Box
Prime Climb - click here to see a short video about the game Prime Climb and how to modify it for younger children
Important Dates
1/13 No school for students - Professional Development Day
1/16 No school - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
2/2 Chinese Folktale Play Performance with Ms. Chelsea at 3:30 pm
2/17 No school for students - Professional Development Day
2/20 No school - President's Day
2/23 Winter Voyage for 1st grade - one day only, not an overnight trip, no day of rest needed
3/20 - 4/3 Spring Break
Library
Because we don't have school on Friday, we will visit the library in small groups throughout the week. Please have your child return their books as soon as they are finished with them and then they can visit the library to check out new books.
Thank You, Thank You, Thank You
Thank you to Calvin for donating another Snap Circuits set to our crew. It is helpful to have another set so it is easier to share with 24 students. Thank you to Nicholas for donating a big package of AA batteries to use in the Snap Circuits. We couldn't use the sets without batteries. We are learning so much from the Snap Circuits already!
If you would like to make a donation to our crew, we can always use sets of headphones for our ipads and computers. Thanks to Connor for donating a set already.
Friday, January 6, 2017
Around the World
We have been lucky enough this year to learn about several very interesting places around the world from our families. We have learned about China, Korea, Venezuela, Norway, Puerto Rico, Iraq and Australia plus a tiny bit about life in Louisiana. We hope to learn all about South Africa from Ella and her family soon. Do you have any interesting places you have lived to share with us? We would love to hear from you if you do.
We had an unexpected visit this morning from Skylar's aunt and cousins who live in Belgium. They taught us a few words in Dutch and talked about life in Belgium. They also gave us each a delicious piece of Belgian chocolate - the best in the world. Thanks Skylar for bringing in your family this morning.
Arts and PE Class
Our Arts and PE class next week is Performing Arts.
We had an unexpected visit this morning from Skylar's aunt and cousins who live in Belgium. They taught us a few words in Dutch and talked about life in Belgium. They also gave us each a delicious piece of Belgian chocolate - the best in the world. Thanks Skylar for bringing in your family this morning.
Arts and PE Class
Our Arts and PE class next week is Performing Arts.
Wednesday, January 4, 2017
Coding
The Hour of Code is an
organization that promotes computer coding in schools. They have a week
in December where they want everyone to join in and try some coding
activities but you can do it anytime. We started at the beginning of the
year with coding apps on our iPads and we have also tried some of the
coding activities on the code.org website. The crew loves it. They may also
work on it at home. They just need to go to the Resources page of our
crew blog, click on the Code button and log in. I think all of the crew
knows how to log in now. I sent home their password cards home earlier in the year. If
anyone has forgotten or lost their password just send me an email and I
will send you their password. There are many activities there but the
most popular were the Minecraft, Star Wars and Frozen activities.
Articles for Parents about Coding for Kids
Engage Kids with Coding by Letting Them Design, Create and Tell Stories
Coding Class, Then Naptime: Computer Science for the Kindergarten Set
Hour of Code
Examples of Coding Projects by our Crew
The Great Race by Alex
Disappearing Frog by Maddie
Hello by Evelyn
Visit our Kidblog site for more examples.
Coding Apps We Use
Articles for Parents about Coding for Kids
Engage Kids with Coding by Letting Them Design, Create and Tell Stories
Coding Class, Then Naptime: Computer Science for the Kindergarten Set
Hour of Code
Examples of Coding Projects by our Crew
The Great Race by Alex
Disappearing Frog by Maddie
Hello by Evelyn
Visit our Kidblog site for more examples.
Coding Apps We Use
 |
| We recently added PBS Scratch, Jr., too |
Monday, January 2, 2017
Welcome Back to School!
Dear Crew,
I hope that you have had an exciting winter break, have read lots of great books and are ready to come back to school on Wednesday. I know I am ready. I can't wait to see you. I have really missed you.
Here are a few things that we have to look forward to after break:
Wonder and Explore Station
We will experiment with a Snap Circuits, Jr. set - see the photos below. (It would be great to have some donations of AA batteries for this station.) I also have some very beautiful new geodes to add to our rock collection. We have lots to explore!
Our Winter Voyage - will be on February 23rd. Here is a sneak peek with pictures from a couple of years ago.
Before moving on to our final Expedition (which will be based on Science topics) we will take a little while to learn about some patriotic symbols of our country like our flag, the bald eagle, the Statue of Liberty and more.
In math we will learn about fact families, functions, geometry and more.
In February in writing we will write our own non-fiction books about an animal of our choice.
For some fun reading, I have gathered a collection of graphic novels (comic books) for us to explore. I know you are going to love them!
That is a lot to look forward to and I know that I can't wait. See you on Wednesday morning!
Remember to bring your library books and your take home bag of 10 books back.
Love,
Ms. Jill
Important Dates
1/4 First day back after Winter Break
1/13 No school for students - Professional Development Day
1/16 No school - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
2/17 No school for students - Professional Development Day
2/20 No school - President's Day
2/23 Winter Voyage for 1st grade - one day only, not an overnight trip, no day of rest needed
3/20 - 4/3 Spring Break
I hope that you have had an exciting winter break, have read lots of great books and are ready to come back to school on Wednesday. I know I am ready. I can't wait to see you. I have really missed you.
Here are a few things that we have to look forward to after break:
Wonder and Explore Station
We will experiment with a Snap Circuits, Jr. set - see the photos below. (It would be great to have some donations of AA batteries for this station.) I also have some very beautiful new geodes to add to our rock collection. We have lots to explore!
Our Winter Voyage - will be on February 23rd. Here is a sneak peek with pictures from a couple of years ago.
Before moving on to our final Expedition (which will be based on Science topics) we will take a little while to learn about some patriotic symbols of our country like our flag, the bald eagle, the Statue of Liberty and more.
 |
| Picture from Pics4Learning.com |
In February in writing we will write our own non-fiction books about an animal of our choice.
For some fun reading, I have gathered a collection of graphic novels (comic books) for us to explore. I know you are going to love them!
Remember to bring your library books and your take home bag of 10 books back.
Love,
Ms. Jill
Important Dates
1/4 First day back after Winter Break
1/13 No school for students - Professional Development Day
1/16 No school - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
2/17 No school for students - Professional Development Day
2/20 No school - President's Day
2/23 Winter Voyage for 1st grade - one day only, not an overnight trip, no day of rest needed
3/20 - 4/3 Spring Break
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