Happy Halloween

I hope you all have a fun and safe Halloween. 
Remember to:

• have your parents check your treats
• carry a flashlight
• trick or treat only at familiar houses

October Citizen of the Month

Congratulations to DS and CP.  They were recognized for being our class citizens for the month of October.  They follow the Ox Ridge Kids' Code and are great role models!

Highlights of Week #9

• CM was a really good captain.  (RP)
• We had our first Pep Rally.  (CP)
• CP and I got the Kids' Code Certificate.  (DS)
• We watched the Kindergarten Halloween parade.  (EB)
• We are having a Halloween movie party this afternoon.  Everyone is excited.  (CD)
• Five kids were picked to be the workers at the 'Pumpkin Patch Cinema'.  (OS)
• We are going to the Book Fair today.  (KG)
• We are going to go keep wearing our crazy hats for a fun day.  (DS)
• In Reading Workshop this week we sequenced the parts of the pumpkin life cycle.  (AD)
• We had a spelling test on short o words.  (TB)
• In Writing Workshop we wrote Halloween stories and poems.  We listened to scary music while we wrote.  (TM and PR and RP)
• We made our leaves into pictures in Art.  (CVI)
• In art we had time to draw in our sketch books.  (CP)
• We listened to a book on tape called "The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything". Then we sequenced the story.  (KG and class)
• We went on Google Earth.  (RP)
• JMN brought in an article about his aunt and uncle's scary Halloween house.  Some kids in the class are going to check it out.  I am too scared to go!  (Miss D)
• THANK YOU to CP's family for our movie popcorn, TB's family for the juice boxes and CN's family for our fruit snacks.  Our snack bar was a success!

Hootie Halloween

JMN sent Hootie over to TB's house. TB is so excited because he will have Hootie over the Halloween weekend.  Will Hootie trick-or-treat or stay home and pass out candy?  We'll have to wait and see.

Mystery Reader #5

CP's mom came in to read some fun Halloween books to our class.  The family donated a book to our class Halloween collection.

Hootie's New Home

After spending time with DS's family, Hootie made the change to JMN's family.  He had a great time!

Hat Day

This Friday is going to be First Grade Hat Day!  First graders don't dress up in costumes, but can get into the Halloween spirit by wearing any kind of hat you would like.  It can be a baseball, chef, witch, princess, pirate, birthday or clown hat.  We will watch the Kindergarten parade while wearing our hats. 

Field Trip #2

Information about our second (and final)  field trip to the Maritime Center will be coming home with your child today.  It is a blue sheet. 

Peek of the Week of October 26-30

Hopefully things will be back to normal this week.  Thank you for all of the 'Get Well' wishes.  I hope everyone is feeling much better this week. 

This week we will be celebrating Halloween through a variety of activities.  We will end the week with a Halloween movie party on Friday afternoon.  Our classroom will be transformed into a movie theater complete with a snack bar.  Thank you to the parents who have volunteered to provide snacks for our movie Snack Bar. 

On Thursday we will attend a program put on by the police department called "Stranger Danger". 

On Friday afternoon our class will visit the Bookfair at our regular library time (12:50). We will browse and make our Wish Lists.


Reading Workshop:  We will read some Halloween books and also read some non-fiction books on Halloween related topics such as pumpkins, bats and cats.


Writing Workshop:  We will do some fun and creative writing this week like:  poems, tongue twisters and some descriptive writing. 

Phonics:  Short o  on, not, stop, odd, fox

Math:  We will take our Topic 2 Assessment and begin our third math topic.

Social Studies:  We will discuss how to be safe trick or treaters.  There is a fun song to help us remember to be safe and use good manners.

Homework for the Week
Monday 10/26
1.  Read for at least 10 minutes
2.  Purple Spelling Sheet

Tuesday 10/27
1.  Read for at least 10 minutes
2.  Pumpkin Problem

Wednesday 10/28
1.  Read for at least 10 minutes
2.  Halloween Rhyming Riddles

Thursday 10/29
1.  Read for at least 10 minutes
2.  Study for the spelling test

Author Visit

Victoria Kann, author of Pinkalicious, Purplelicious and the new book, Goldilicious will be at Barnes and Noble in Westport this Saturday, October 24th at 4:00 pm.  You might want to check it out.  203-221-7955 or http://www.barnesandnoble.com/

Highlights of Week #8

• We are going to have our 5th Mystery Reader. (CP)
• Francesca was a really good captain. (TB)
• Almost everyone in the class got sick for a day.  (FH)
• We had a spelling test on short i words. It was the third test of the year. (OS and CP)
• We went to a show called Arithemetickles.  It was all about number games.  It was a lot of fun.  (OS and FH)
• The math man told us number stories. (CP)
• Today we learned how to stay safe on the bus.  (TB) 
• We practiced how to jump out of the back emergency door.  (The class)
• I hope everyone is feeling much better and comes back on Monday.  (Miss D.)

Mystery Reader #4

VVI's mom was our Mystery Reader today.  She read 2 great books!

Peek at the Week of Ocotober 19-23

We will be attending two assemblies this week.  On Tuesday we will attend a program called "Arithmetickles" and on Friday we will learn more about bus safety.

School picture order forms are due this Friday.

Please return the 'Lunch Bunch' permission slip if you are interested in having your child participate.

Reading Workshop:  Last week we spent time practicing "word attack" strategies.  These strategies will be reinforced during Guided Reading groups throughout the year.  In our workshop this week we will be working on builing comprehension ("thinking" strategies).  At this point in the year we are getting more comfortable sharing our ideas about our reading and sharing our connections is one way to do this.  Some phrases we will be saying/writing are:  "This reminds me of..."  and "I noticed..."

Writing Workshop: We will (hopefully) be  finishing up our Small Moment stories this week.  We used the writing process of brainstorming, planning and drafting.  This week each student will edit (for beginning and ending punctuation) and revise (add on to make the story even better) their chosen story.  The last part of the process will be adding illustrations and designing a cover.  The Monday and Tuesday helper moms will be an important part of this process.

Phonics/Spelling:  Short i-   it, pin, this, his, stick

Math: We will be finishing up Topic 2 and will complete an assessment on Friday.  Topic 2 started our exploration of number stories.  We will be writing our own number stories this week too.

Homework
Monday 10/19
1.  Read for at least 10 minutes
2.  Spelling Sheet (purple)

Tuesday 10/20
1.  Read for at least 10 minutes
2.  Math:  Columbus Addition "Land Ho"

Wednesday 10/21
1.  Read for at least 10 minutes
2.  Short a,e,i word sort

Thursday 10/22
1.  Read for at least 10 minutes
2.  Study for tomorrow's spelling test (it, pin, this, his, stick)

Have a great week!

Highlights of Week #7

• TG was a very good captain.  (PR)
• CVI's mom came to be the Mystery Reader.  (CN)
• We watched Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet Frankenstein.  (OS)
• We finished planning and drafting our Small Moment Stories.  (KG)
• We had our second spelling test of the year.  (EB)
• We went to the library and got new books.  (AD)
• At library we went on "PebbleGo".  (CP)
• We started new projects in art. (TB)
• In Reading Workshop we started centers.  (DS)
• We have a new author of the month, Robert Munsch.  (CD)
• In gym we played flag football.  (KR)
• We made bookmarks in the library center.  (CVI)
• In the library we read Abby Yo Yo.  (PR)
• We learned a math strategy game called Poison Pumpkin.  (KG)
• We got our new independent reading books during library centers.  (MA)
• We had centers.  (JMN)
• We used the white boards to do the math warm-ups.  (AD)
• We had indoor recess.  (EB)
• We made crazy faces with wild makeup after reading a book called Makeup Mess.  (TM and CM)
•  

Hooray for the Boys!

Today was a big day for the boys in the class.  FH picked DS to take Hootie home for a few days.  I don't think Hootie cares if he is at a boy's or girl's house.  He just likes spending time with all of his first grade friends!

Robert Munsch

We will be reading some funny books by Robert Munsch during October and November.  If you want to visit his website, click on this link http://www.robertmunsch.com/
                      Enjoy!

Following Hootie

Hootie had a fun time with CN's family.  He is now spending time with FH's family.  We hope he is behaving himself!

Mystery Reader #3

CD's mom came in to read a funny book about sharing.  
His family donated the book to our classroom library.  Thank you!

Peek at the Week of October 12-16

There is no school for students on Monday, October 12th in honor of Columbus Day.  We will study a bit of history and map skills using Columbus as our inspiration. 

In Writing Workshop we will continue to work on our Small Moment Personal Narrative stories.

In Reading Workshop we will be focusing on decoding strategies.  Sometimes we will call them "word attack" skills. 

In Math we continue to work on Topic 2.  We will start to write and solve story problems.  The goal is to be able to show your solution using pictures, words and numbers (equation).


Homework
Tuesday 10/13
1.  Read for at least 10 minutes
2.  Short e Spelling Sheet (it's blue this week)

Wednesday 10/14
1.  Read for at least 10 minutes
2.  Math:  Columbus Story Problem

Thursday 10/15
1.  Read for at least 10 minutes
2.  Study for tomorrow's spelling test (let, egg, well, went, yes)

Have a great week!

Happy Birthday

AD had a birthday this week.  She turned 6!  Hip Hip Hooray!

Highlights of Week #6

• KG was a really good captain.  (RP)
• KG was a very good captain.  (CM)
• We had our 3rd Mystery Reader.  (FH)
• We played soccer in gym.  (PR)
• We had some Free Choice time.  (RP)
• AD had a birthday.  We made cards.  (MA)
• We put our Sight Word lists in our binders.  (KG)
• We did our first spelling test!  (CVI)
• We had our 3rd indoor recess.  (OS)  We watched the Berenstein Bears Halloween DVD.  (CP and PR)
• We wrote our first Small Moment stories.  (CM)
• We started our 3rd Clementine chapter book for read aloud.  (EB).  It is called Clementine's Letter.  (JMN and PR)
• We had a 'Freeze Dance Party' after indoor recess.  No one got out.  (DS and RP)
• We had time to play mancala.  (JMN)  Everyone is getting better at using strategies.  (Miss D)
• In Reading Workshop we practiced cover previews and bookwalks.  These will make us stronger readers.  (KG and Miss D). 
• During Independent Reading we worked on building our reading stamina.  (JMN and RP)  This means we are trying to read on our own for longer and longer time.  (TM and MA)

Hootie's on the Move

Hootie had a great time at CP's house.  CP passed Hootie along to CN.

Mystery Reader #2

OS's parents were this week's Mystery Reader.  They read and donated a book called Bats in the Library by Brian Lies.  It was a great book!

Peek at the Week of October 5-9

Happy October to all!  At the end of last week we did our first 'seat change'.  Your child is sitting with some new friends this month.  It is a very big deal to move seats and was eagerly anticipated.

October brings the start of our weekly spelling words and Friday Test.  A letter will be coming home with your child on Monday, October 5th explaining the weekly words.  I will list the spelling words in the homework section below.

Math:  We continue to work on Topic 2 which is all about the many ways additon and subtraction can be represented. 

Reading Workshop:  Last week we book shopped for "Just Right" books.  We are working on building our independent reading stamina.  This week we will start our "Stong Readers..." strategy work.  The focus will be on what strong readers do before they read to get their brain ready to read and understand the story.  Reading=Thinking! 

Spelling/Phonics/Skill:  This week we will focus on the sound and spelling of short a words.  The 5 core words are: at, can, and, has, fast. 

Writing Workshop:  Parent Helpers start this week!  We are happy to have volunteers on Mondays and Tuesdays in October, November and December.  It will be great to have another 'expert' on hand to assist our writers with handwriting, grammar, idea development and some editing.  We are working on writing Small Moment/Personal Narrative stories. 

Homework
Monday 10/5
1.  Read for at least 10 minutes.
2.  Spelling Sheet (purple sheet)

Tuesday 10/6
1.  Read for at least 10 minutes.
2.  Math:  Telling Time to the Hour

Wednesday 10/7
1.  Read for at least 10 minutes.
2.  Writing:  Ordering Words in a Sentence

Thursday 10/8
1.  Read for at least 10 minutes.
2.  Study for our first spelling test!  (Words are listed above in blue)

Have a great week!

Highlights of Week #5

AD was the best captain in the class!  (EB)

AD was the best captain in the whole wide world.  (JMN)

I had my birthday on the same day as Highlights of the Week. (OS)

We had 2 birthdays on the same day.  (DS)

We went shopping for books in our classroom library.  We were looking for Just Right books. (MA and RP)

In Writing Workshop we are beginning to write Personal Narratives.  A Personal Narrative is a story written about ourselves.  (RP and EB)

We read a big book called I Am A Leaf.  We practiced doing the "Rule of Five".  This means that a book is probably not Just Right if it has 5 or more tricky words on a page. (KG and CM)

OS mom and dad came in to be Mystery Readers.  They were really good.  (CVI and PR)

We celebrated 3 birthdays.  (Miss D.)

In library today we got to sit in the comfy room and read books.  (CN)

In gym we played indoor soccer.  (TM)

In art we made fall pictures.  (CD)

In computer we got free choice time because it was the last lab of the month.  (FH)

We loved switching seats for the new month of October.  (the whole class)

Happy Birthday

OS celebrates his birthday today.

Happy birthday!

Happy Happy Birthday Birthday

It is a double birthday today.  FH and CN both have October 1st birthdays!