Week of November 3rd

Welcome to November!  This Friday will be another 2 hour late start. School will start at 9:40, students may arrive as early as 9:15.  

Picture retakes are on the 5th.  Please return the picture packet that you received if your child is retaking their school pictures. They will need it when they go to the camera.

We will have a Veteran's Day program on Friday morning, starting at 9:45.  If you are or know of a Veteran that you would like recognized please return the gold form that was sent home with your child last week or email Ellen Fuller at ellen.fuller@isd47.org. The following information is needed: name of person serving, branch of service, student name, and how many people will attend the program.

We will continue to learn more about China and the Chinese language this week.  It was SO fun last week.  Check out the photo and video in the "Learning All About China!" blog post from October 29th!

From the principal's office: 

Cold Weather: We would like to take a moment and remind you that as fall continues and winter approaches please make sure that your child/children are dressed appropriately for the weather and going outside.  If you are in need of cold weather items such as coats, snow pants, boots, hats, mittens, etc.  please contact the office at 253-0506 or email us at ellen.fuller@isd47.org.  We will be happy to assist you in obtaining these items. 

Lost and Found:Our lost and found is overflowing.  If your child has misplaced an item, please stop in and check it out.  We will be boxing up what we currently have on November 7th.  Thank you for your help!

HERE IS WHAT WE WILL WORK ON NEXT WEEK:

Language arts Lesson 7 will include:

• How do animals communicate?-We will read "How Animals Communicate".
• Main idea and details
• Short i, clusters with r (i.e. br) and the word family -ip
• Sentence parts (naming/subject and action/predicate)
• Using a glossary

Math will include:

• Unit 2 review
• Unit 2 test
• Math mountains (The Family Letter will explain this.)
• Unknown partners (2+?=7)
• Solving story problems

The Hugger Tree Me!

What a fun way to start our day!  We learned all about reducing, reusing, and recycling!  The Hugger Tree was so happy that the girl in the play was starting to be kind to the earth! We also learned little tips like, shut off the water while brushing our teeth and turn off the lights when we leave a room.

Learning All About China!

The 1st grade will be learning about China and learning some of the language in the next couple weeks.  Our first day was today!  Here is a photo and video of us learning some of the Chinese voice tones.

Photo of Ms. Zhang teaching us Chinese tones.

Video of our class leaning Chinese tones with movement.

I apologize for the quality of the video when it is full screen.  I am new to putting videos on this blog site.  Hopefully I will find a way to make it better!!

Week of October 27th

Targeted services (for those attending) will start on October 27th.  Days and hours are as follows: Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 2:20-3:20.  If your child is attending KidStop after, please inform KidStop about their late arrival.  Students may bring a snack to have right after the program while they are waiting to be picked up.  The school will communicate with KidStop about getting students a snack when they arrive at 3:20 (if they attend KidStop).

Happy Halloween!  We will not be having a formal party in our room, however, we will do some Halloween themed activities and have a Halloween treat.

Climb Theater will be coming on Wednesday to teach us about the environment through theater.  This is always a fun program for students!

HERE IS WHAT WE WILL WORK ON NEXT WEEK:

Language arts Lesson 6 will include:

• What lessons can you learn from story characters?-We will read "Jack and the Wolf".
• Understanding characters
• Short a, double final consonants (ck) and the word family -ack
• Complete sentences
• Sorting words into categories according to meaning

Pink word lists for the next 5 lessons went home today.

Math will include:

• Subtraction practice
• Writing subtraction equations
• Quiz on Lessons 11-14
• Equations written vertically
• Mixed equation story problems
• Quiz on Lessons 15-16
• Next week we will review and test on Unit 2

Week of October 20th

It was great to see all of you at conferences last week!  If you have any concerns or questions that you have thought of since we met please call or email!

Targeted services (for those attending) will start on October 27th.  Days and hours are as follows: Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 2:20-3:20.  If your child is attending KidStop after, please inform KidStop about their late arrival.  Students may bring a snack to have right after the program while they are waiting to be picked up.  The school will communicate with KidStop about getting students a snack when they arrive at 3:20 (if they attend KidStop).

HERE IS WHAT WE WILL WORK ON NEXT WEEK:

Language arts will include:

• How does the setting make a story interesting?-We will read "Gus Takes a Train".
• Story structure (setting, characters, plot)
• Short u and the letters qu,and z
• Adjectives (describes people, places, or things)
• Antonyms (opposites)

Math will include:

• Addition
• Counting on review
• Quiz on lessons 5-10 (addition and money)
• Introduction to subtraction
• Subtraction with drawings
• Subtraction practice

Science Fun!!!

Checking out sand in the vial with a magnifying glass.  We saw lots of sizes, shapes, and colors!

What happens when we add water and shake?  Muddy water!  We drew a picture of the sand and water in the vial with the murky water.  We thought it looked like chocolate milk.  We weren't going to taste it though!

We let the vials of sand and water settle overnight.  Look what we found!  Silt!  We drew another picture of our vial, this time showing the silt.

Now it's time to explore rocks.  We observed a sample of river bed rocks with magnifying glasses.  There were pebbles, gravel and sand.

How do we separate those rocks?  Do we pick them out one at a time?  That will take too long!  We learned how to use different size screens to put the rocks into 4 different sizes.

We had a great time with rocks!

Silly Class Photo :)

Week of October 13th

This coming week is a short week for students.  We will take these two days to work on some review work for language arts.  (The word list on the right is for the week of the 20th.) We will continue to work on "counting on" in math.  This means that when looking at 5+2 we will say, "5, 6, 7" while using our fingers or drawing circles to find the total.  We will also use this time to explore more pebbles, sand, and silt for science!  Should be fun! Check back soon for pictures of our exploration...

Conferences will be held Monday and Tuesday evenings from 3:30-7:30 as well as Wednesday morning from 7-11.  During conferences there will be a book fair open in the media center.  Be sure to check out all the good deals on books!

The Fire Fighter Visit!!

We had a visit from the firefighters on Monday!  We learned all about fire safety and got to see a firefighter put his equipment on.  It was exciting and informative!  There is an open house at the fire hall this Saturday, the 11th from 10-2.  See below.

Fire Department Annual Open House

The Sauk Rapids Fire Department hosts their ANNUAL OPEN HOUSE during Fire Prevention Week. Children can get free pumpkins for Halloween, goodies, educational materials, and spray water hoses! The Fire Department demonstrates an extraction and all of the Fire Trucks are on display!

You Are Invited!

Sauk Rapids Fire Department's Open House

Fun, Treats, and Learning!

Saturday, October 11th, 2014

10:00am-2:00pm at the Sauk Rapids Fire Hall

Week of October 6th

Don't forget about the PV 5K-October 11!  Let me know if you need a new registration form.

Read to Self is going really well.  I am so proud of how well we can focus on reading good fit books while I have the chance to work with small groups of students on reading skills!  We are able to read for 25 minutes without breaking stamina! AMAZING!

HERE IS WHAT WE WILL WORK ON NEXT WEEK:

Language arts will include:

• What information do words and pictures give?-We will read "Lucia's Neighborhood".
• Text and graphic features
• The word family _et
• Short e and the letters y, w, k, v, and j
• Adjectives
• Alphabetical Order

Math will include:

• Addition with circle drawings
• Intro to addition equations
• Building Addition Equations
• Quiz on Lessons 1-4
• Exploring methods of solving addition equations
• Addition strategy counting on

Late Start PATH Activity

What a FUN assembly!! Students were drawn from the PATH ticket bucket to participate in different races.  Kindergarten and 1st grade made teams to do the "Under/Over" race with a football.  There was lots of cheering and tons of laughter! What great teamwork!!  Here are some photos of the event:

The "Under/Over" Race

The "Under/Over" Race

Watching the Games!

Watching the Games!

Watching the Games!