The week of November 13th

Upcoming Events

Happy Thanksgiving
Our turkeys came out beautifully! We've had fun singing some fun Thanksgiving songs. This week we sang Over the River and Though the Woods.

Waterville and Belvidere Long Ago and Today Workshop Days

November 20 9:00-1:00 Final Finish up Day and Village set up

November 21 Old Fashioned Village Tours 9:00-11:00

Please come and tour our old fashioned village museum! We have worked to research, plan, create and share our knowledge. We will also have some amazing artifacts on display from the Waterville Historical Society.  We will have knives made at the Mann Knife shop, a replica of the As You Like it Inn, and oars from the Locke Brothers Oar Shop.

Thanksgiving Break/No School

November 22-24

Early Release Day 11:30 Teacher In-Service
December 5, 2017

First Trimester Report Cards 
December 8, 2017

Classroom News

The weather has definitely been cold, but the kiddos are really loving the snow on the playground. It was hard for everyone to get their gear on and put away after recess. We are working on our new routine as we get into the snowy weather. I encourage students to keep their mittens and hats in their sleeves when they arrive, and to dry them on our heater after recess. This is always a hard transition for students! Hang in there! Thank you to all the families who packed warm weather gear. It is really fun to play in the snow. We can't wait to unveil our Old Fashioned Museum on Tuesday! Please come and see the amazing village we have created. I hope all of you have a great Thanksgiving Break. I am so grateful to get to be your child's teacher!  

Homework

There will be no spelling homework this week because of the two day school week! Please continue to read at home and fill up those reading logs! I love to see the pride students have as they complete them! 

Habits of Mind

In the first trimester of school we have reviewed and practiced many Habits of Mind. We have focused on thinking flexibly, managing our impulsivity and being persistent. Mrs. Miller did such a great job introducing the Habits to her students.  We needed a short review on what each habit looked like, but we have mainly worked on identifying the habits in our day to day activities. In November, we focused on working interdependently, thinking flexibly, and creating, innovating and imagining. We have worked hard during our Old Fashioned Village project to learn how to work in small groups and the process of imagining and creating models. This week, we also pulled these habits out of A House for Hermit Crab. Students identified the Habits of Mind as they shared the way Hermit Crab solved his problems. 

Big Buddies

This week we met with our Big Buddies on Friday. We did a scavenger hunt activity that helped us to come up with things we are grateful for.  We used our scavenger hunt to help us create a beautiful leave which was added to our  Gratefulness Tree which is displayed in the hallway between our classrooms.  

 

Math Workshop 

Math has been a busy but fun time of our day! We are finishing up our second unit of study on addition and subtraction strategies. The first graders love our new stations and are very engaged as they play the fun math games we have. We are working hard to develop strategies that can help us when adding and subtracting. This week we worked more with fact families. Students used their flip books to quickly think of the parts and whole. We acted out and told our own math stories to go with our favorite fact from our fact family. We identified important vocabulary that goes with addition stories- how many in all, all together, the total. We also worked with subtraction stories and identified vocabulary that goes along with those stories- how many are left, what is the difference. Students are also working hard at using their flip books to  help them solve missing number equations.  Our number corner has been fun this month! Students have done a great job working with digital and analog clocks. We have also loved creating stories to go along with our calendar pattern which contains whole, half and fourths this month. 

 

Readers' and Writers' Workshop

This week in readers' workshop we worked more on fiction story elements. We read the book A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle. We identified the characters, setting, problem and solution in the book .  It was amazing to see and hear the students engage in character analysis as we discussed the text. They identified multiple problems and solutions in this complex text. Students created beautiful character/setting art projects in Eric Carle's style. We cut different scraps of paper to create hermit crab, his friends and the ocean. Later in the week, we created a story map. Students again, identified important fiction story elements and wrote about them. We continue to love our new read aloud The Adventures of Jack and Laura by Laura Ingalls Wilder. We are really working on visualizing the setting of the story. We hear lots of describing words that help us to imagine what life in the big woods was like... what it looked and felt like! Students continue to work in small groups throughout the week and are learning some reading strategies that can help them as they come across words in their books that they  don't know. Students have a bookmark which they will keep in their reading bag. It has some fun pictures and gives helpful hints for students. Please feel free to use this at home while you are reading with your child.

Here are the final setting and character paper projects completed by your creative students!

 In Writers' Workshop we are almost done with our publishing project! It has been really hard work and we have had to use lots of our Habits of Mind. Students have had to be really persistent. We have also worked on striving for accuracy in our handwriting, spelling and illustrations! The kids are really enjoying creating some beautiful illustrations to add detail to their books. Over vacation, I will work on laminating and binding their books. Next week, we will work on our dedication and About the Author page.