A Wonderful Autumn Week...

Dear Mom & Dad,

Already, our October has been so busy! Last week we had the cook out and got to eat outside, like a picnic. Thank you to all of the moms and dads who came to eat with us. We understand how hard it is to get off from work. We really enjoyed eating our hamburgers and ice cream!

Thank you to the two Watch D.O.G.S. that we've already had in our classroom. Mr. Licht and Mr. Howell were both very helpful and we enjoyed having someone in our room to play math games with us, help us with our Reading Round-up, and help us with anything we needed when Mrs. Maggart was busy teaching a group. We are also so lucky to have other helpers in our room during the week. It is so great to have another adult in the room when we need help spelling a word during Writer's Workshop or to sit and read one-on-one with me with a book I just got from my reading group. Thank you!

This week we talked all about punctuation. We read two very funny books, Punctuation Takes a Vacation and Punctuation Celebration. Madi donated Punctuation Celebration to our classroom library.

Thank you Madi! We are really working hard on remembering to end every sentence with a period, an exclamation mark, or a question mark, depending on how we want the reader to read our story. We had to help Mrs. Maggart put punctuation in her writing too. Can you help me check and make sure my punctuation is not on vacation when I am working on homework. Sometimes I forget!

We also talked about nouns and that they are a person, place, or thing. We read a very funny story called Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich and found all sorts of nouns in it!

In Social Studies, we are still learning about maps. We even wrote poems about maps! We learned about acrostic poems and made our very own about maps and all of the different words and descriptions that come to my mind when I think of maps and all that we have learned.

In math, we are working on addition. I know that I may make it look easy because I am such a great mathematician, but Mrs. Maggart is working with me on understanding my math words and how lots of words mean to add and to be able to quickly remember ways to make certain numbers. Mrs. Maggart likes to use a lot of different ways for me to learn. Sometimes we play games, sometimes we use math tools, and she tries to let us practice writing sentences and seeing addition on paper too. After all, we are all different learners. Mrs. Maggart also helps me with careless errors. Sometimes I get in such a hurry that I miss an answer!

When I'm not working with Mrs. Maggart in my math group, I am playing a fun math game. Here is a fun game we played where we had to find tricks and use strategies to remember how many dots were on the cards!

In science we have been talking a lot about natural resources and products that come from them. We made a chart of all the things that come from rock, soil, and water. We even turned our classroom into a museum of natural resources. Ask me what I found in the classroom that comes from rocks, soil, and water! We like to make our own vocabulary cards for science words.

We also had a special lab where we explored all of the different products made from rock.

Baby Power

Magnets

Glass

We also started writing our Daily Letter which Mrs. Maggart emails to you about different topics of the day. Mrs. Maggart also says she is going to start posting our letters on our class blog so WE can add to our blog as well!

Monday we don't have any school but you will be meeting with Mrs. Maggart to talk more about what I'm doing in first grade!


Love,

What was one thing I learned about today?

Conner learned that what is made from soil, water, and rocks.

Jayda learned that there is water in the sink.

Max learned that glass comes from rocks.

Melanie learned that natural resources are found in nature.

Nyla learned that the tip of the pencil is made from rock.

Danny learned that rock, oil, water, and soil are all natural resources and they all help us.

Alicyn learned that if you don't have bones, then you couldn't dance.

Riley learned that pottery is made out of soil.

Miyah learned that there is a lot of stuff that made is from rock, soil, cement, and water.

Matthias learned that rocks can be different colors.

Tierra learned that soil is under the ground.

Luke learned that people pollute more and more of our natural resources.

Brian learned that the tip of a pencil is made from rock.

Alyssa learned that our frogs' and crickets' home is made of soil.

Jeremiah learned people need to have water to survive.

Kendall learned about a compass rose.

Madi learned that glass is made out of rocks.

Tomorrow is Friday! We have our spelling test tomorrow. The Jungle is tomorrow too. We can wear our college t-shirts tomorrow.


Love,

Its beginning to look a lot like autumn!

Dear Mom & Dad,

What a fun week we had this week! We had so many special visitors in our classroom and they had nothing but great things to say about how hard we are working in our room. Mrs. Connelly, our Assistant Principal, came to.visit us one morning during our Reading Roundup time. She said she couldn't believe we were first graders. She complimented us on how engaged we were in our reading activities. Afterall, the only way to become a better reader is to read every day! Brian's grandmother came in to visit as well. She was so helpful and I really liked how she helped me if I had a question. She even sat and read with a few of our Tiger Team members. We hope she can visit again!

Mrs. Maggart has been reading with us in our groups. Its fun to be in a group of readers who like the same books as I do. We are learning about reading strategies to help me on those hard parts. Mrs. Maggart even let's us take home the book we read together. Its okay if you can't sit and read it with me because I have already read that book 3 or 4 times so I should be able to read it all by myself.

Every morning Mrs. Maggart read us a story about a different character. We got to create our own characters and we made character trading cards. We are using our cards to write a story about our character. Ask me what character I created!

In social studies, we are learning about maps. We explored with magnifying glasses different types of maps and even looked at globes. We helped our friend Bob find his way around by using a compass rose and a map key. We even made our own compass roses. Mrs. Maggart says we are going to need them for something next week. Hmm. What could we be doing? :-)



Designing our compass rose in our Social Studies notebook



Almost done...just need to label North, East, South, and West.

Exploring maps and globes

You should be so proud of me! I am becoming such a great mathematician. We are building numbers with tens and ones, making 10 in different ways, and practicing my skip counting everyday. We just love math!

Playing math games on our laptops.

Practicing our skip counting with games.

Working hard on our daily problem solving.

Anyone want to play a math card game?

Which dice is more?

Wow Mrs. Maggart! She won again!

In science we learned all about where we can find water. I learned about streams, rivers, lakes, and the ocean. There is fresh water and salt water. We did a science experiment to see if an egg would float in salt water and if it would float in fresh water. Ask me what happened! Mrs. Maggart said our jobs as scientists is to ask an adult what a natural resource is. We are starting a whole new lesson on Monday.

Next week we will be talking about college and different things I can be when I grow up. We will get to visit with a guest who will tell us all about his job working with NASA. We took our picture for our college bond pendant and its hanging in the hallway. See if you can find it! Tiger Team is college bound!

Let's have a great weekend!

Love,