We have been doing some fun Math activities this week with manipulatives. On Monday, we used colored foam shapes and a sorting mat to sort and count them. First, they sorted by colors and used their desk plates to help them spell the color names in the heading box. Then, they sorted by shapes and traced one of each shape in the heading box. Some also got to sort by curvy outlines or straight lines. On Tuesday, we had 5 math stations and 5 teams of 3 students. There were 2 number puzzles, 1 shape puzzle, # cards from 1-50 to put in order, and large 2 piece puzzles that only connected if the right quantity picture matched the right number. This was a great math activity that also tied in team work skills (many students had difficulties taking turns and sharing in the work). The students loved it and found it both challenging and fun!

On Wednesday, they each had a cup of dominoes and had to put the dots on each half of the domino onto a blank worksheet. Then, they counted up all of the dots to solve the equation. Thursday we were on our field-trip, which I hope to add a few pictures of soon. On Friday, we went back to the sorting mats and used a cup of magnetic letters. They sorted them by color first. Then, they sorted by curvy, straight lines, or both. Some students also got to sort by letters in their first name or not in their first name.

Mrs. Sturgis

I hope everyone received our class newsletter today in the home/school folders. We have a very busy week ahead of us.

Our school’s PTF (Parents/Teachers/Friends) group will be meeting on Tuesday, 9/23 from 6-7 p.m. Please join us if you can.

Our class library time has moved to Wednesday morning from 9-9:15 a.m. This week students will be allowed to take their library book home. In order to make it easy for everyone to remember, I would like to suggest that all library books be returned on Monday morning. This will allow everyone to enjoy them over the weekend and get them back to school in plenty of time.

Our field trip to the Conservation Fair at the Union fairgrounds is on Thursday 9/24. A notice will be going home on Tuesday with some highlights. IMPORTANT: If your child normally eats breakfast at school, they will have to eat at home that day due to the timing of the bus departure. Students will not have time to eat breakfast at school because the bus will be leaving at 8:45 a.m.

School pictures will be on Friday, 9/26. Don’t forget to send your form and money in the sealed envelope at your earliest convenience.

Thank You,

Mrs. Sturgis

It has been a very busy week! I hope everyone enjoyed visiting our room during open house. The kids seemed to like showing everyone some of our daily routines. We have been working through our reading rotations this week while trying to get used to the new chart. During our read aloud time we have heard Calvin Can’t Fly, Giraffe’s Can’t Dance, Down by the Bay, Count the Monkeys, and Mouse Count. During community meeting we have sung “Down by the Bay,” “The Counting by Ones Song,” and “5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.” You can pull them up here if you’re interested: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39AOFgIfbQo    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1Ej3Y22YKw    http://www.schooltube.com/video/7502b16ceeca2a1fc4d2/Counting%20By%20Ones%20Song

Our morning work so far has covered the letters J, K, and L with dot to dots by number and letter. In Math we tried using dice to add two numbers together by counting the dots and also worked on filling in missing numbers on a number grid. Today we have a fun math activity planned with unifix cubes.

We visited the school library yesterday. Starting next week, after our visit to the library on Wednesday, I will try letting the kids take their library books home with them. Please help them to remember to return the books to school by Tuesday or Wednesday morning. If they are not returned by Wednesday, they will not be able to check out any new books. For this week, their one book will remain in their browsing boxes.

If you have any questions feel free to email or call me before or after school. lisa_sturgis@msad40.org

Mrs. Sturgis

Good morning!

I would just like to remind everyone that our open house is tonight from 6-7 p.m. for grades K-2. I am looking forward to meeting all of you and watching your children give you a tour of our classroom.

The Scholastic book fair will also be open in the school library from 5:30-7:30 p.m.

Have a great day!

Mrs. Sturgis

We have been doing a great deal of reading in our class this week. This includes reading quietly to ourselves, reading with a buddy, reading in small groups or one on one, and listening to reading on cd’s. We finished up our chapter book today titled Princess Posey and the First Grade Parade. We listened to two versions of The Three Little Pigs. Today we read I’m a Manatee and listened to a cd version that sang the story. Tomorrow we will be reading Slow Down for Manatees.

We have also been listening to some fun sing-a-longs. Today’s was a very catchy tune called “counting by ones song.” You can hear it here: http://www.schooltube.com/search/?term=counting+by+ones We also sang “Ten in a bed” from YouTube. Try clicking here to listen at home. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdDypyS_5zE  We sang the “Hokey Pokey” too. This is an old favorite. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfPg_GzC-HA You can also hear “The Days of the Week” to the tune of the Addams Family. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIvQOab00OQ I hope you have fun trying some of them at home.

Mrs. Sturgis

Today we worked with a new weather tally chart in math. Students will be keeping track of the types of weather every day throughout the months: sunny, cloudy, partly sunny, rainy, windy, or snowy. We will use tally marks and decide which type had the most and least at the end of the month. We also had our first penmanship lesson today with some wonderful help from Ms. Hoch. Students learned how to write a “magic c” and used that strategy to also write an “o.”

They listened to two chapters from “Princess Posey and the First Grade Parade.” We hope to finish this book up tomorrow. We listened to a version of “The Three Little Pigs” on a cd. See if they can tell you what happened at the end of the story.

Tomorrow we will be visiting the school library after lunch.

Mrs. Sturgis

The class did a wonderful job today getting back into our newly learned routines from last week. Almost everyone earned a star on our “rising stars” sticker chart for good behavior. They listened to chapters 4 and 5 in Princess Posey and the First Grade Parade. We added the word “boys” to our word wall underneath our “nouns” column. We talked about the strategy of using pictures to see if the words match when we are stuck on a word. We also listened to Chicken Little on cd during “listen to reading” time. After lunch during community meeting we sang and danced to “The Hokey Pokey.” We started Math with a read aloud from Count on Clifford. We have been talking about numbers that come before and after. Some students are still having trouble with the difference. We looked on the number line to see that numbers before are to the left and numbers after are to the right. They did a practice worksheet to help with this concept.

Then, students went to music class. During “writers’ workshop” they finished up their “all about me” papers. These will be on display in the classroom to see at our open house next Tuesday. They could use their desk plates to help with the spelling of some words like colors and other words they had to listen for all the letter sounds they could hear when they said it out loud. If you have any trouble reading something on their sheet, make sure to have them read it to you. They should all know what they were trying to say. Tomorrow, we will have Art.

Mrs. Sturgis

Well, we all survived week one! It was tricky getting into the long school day routine, but all of the students did quite well. Hopefully the weather will be a little cooler for us this week. We have music tomorrow afternoon for the first time this year. I also wanted to let everyone know that our class eats lunch every day at 11:00 a.m. and goes to recess directly afterwards from 11:30 to noon. We have been trying to fit our snack time in at the end of the day before we pack up for dismissal.

Mrs. Sturgis

Well, we made it through the first day of first grade. I have a wonderful group of kiddos. We talked about some of our daily routines today including lunch choices, taking care of backpacks, putting papers in our mailboxes, word walls, read a-louds, and so much more. We read Is Your Mama a Llama?, Counting Our Way to Maine, and Apple Farmer Annie today in class. We also visited and talked about how to use our classroom library. 

In Math class, we reviewed our number line on the ceiling and added our first straw to our cups for counting up to our 100th day of school. We also talked about thermometers and how to read and record the temperature. Right before Art we did a group counting project. On our class clothesline students clipped their number cards up in order from 1-30. They were all excited to use the clothesline. 

I’m very excited to see how much fun day two will be!

Mrs. Sturgis