Pumpkin, Pumpkin...How do you grow?

We read the book Pumpkin, Pumpkin and learned about how they grow. We were able to visit the preschool's garden to see live pumpkin plants. It was a lot of fun!

PlEaSe HeLp?

Do you have any Beanie Babies laying around your house collecting dust? Do you know someone who wants to get rid of their Beanie Babies? If so, will you please donate them to our classroom? We need the following Beanie Babies for Reading Fix-It and Comprehension Strategies:

Decoding of Fix-It Strategies Beanies:

Stretchy Snake
Chunky Monkey
Helpful Kangaroo
Lips the Fish
Tryin’ Lion
Skippy the Frog
Eagle Eye

Comprehension Beanies:

Spinner the Spider
Questioning Owl
Rocky Raccoon
Digger the Dog
Iggy the Inferring Iguana
Jabber the Reteller (Parrot)
Fix Up Bear

What do they stand for?

Decoding of Fix-It Strategies Beanies:

Eagle Eye: Readers look at the pictures for clues.

Lips the Fish: Readers get their lips ready and say the first sound in the words. Then they read the word again.

Stretchy Snake: Readers stretch the word and put sounds together.

Chunky Monkey: Readers look for word chunks or parts of the word they know.

Tryin’ Lion: Readers try to reread or even try a new word

Skippy Frog: Readers skip unknown words and read to the end of the sentence. They hop back
and reread it again.

Helpful Kangaroo: Readers ask for help after they try all of the strategies.

Comprehension Strategy Beanie Babies:

Spinner the Spider: Make Connections. Text to Text, Text to Self, Text to World. Activate your background knowledge.

Questioning Owl: Ask questions about the story before, during, and after reading. Who, what, where, when, why.... Ask questions look for answers.

Rocky Raccoon: Visualize as you read!Put pictures in your head as you read. See and think about the story like amovie going on in your head (What dothe characters look like? The actions?)

Digger the Dog: Determine important ideas! Dig for important details. Dig for important information that tells you about the author’s message. Dig and determine the facts.

Iggy the Inferring Iguana: Infer as you read! Make predictions while you read. Draw conclusions as you put information together. Reflect while you read

Jabber the Reteller: Synthesize and Retell! Put the information together and
“think” about what you read. Retell the story or what you learned in your own words.

Fix-Up Bear: Monitor and Fix-Up! ”Think” while you read to figure out when you don’t understand. Use fix-up strategies to understandwhen you are reading (use the meaningclues, word clues, and pictures clues)

Introducing....Mrs. Carlson's First Grade

Letter sent today

Dear Parents and Guardians,

Hello! I have enjoyed getting to know your child the last three days. We have a really awesome class!We have been busy learning already! We have been reading LOTS of books and getting familiar with classroom routines and rules.

Please sign and return your child's planner daily. This is where I write notes and you may write notes to me. I check them every morning. Your child will also bring home and return a “Take Home” folder.

SHOW AND TELL is every Friday. We will have Show and Tell this Friday.

Reading-
We started our new reading program (Daily 5 &CAFE) the first day of school (this is the new reading curriculum K-6 at MNW). We will have three teachers in our classroom from 8:45-10:00 in the morning: Mrs. Waller, Mrs. Toetder, and myself. Students will no longer bring “Guided Reading” books home each night. I do strongly encourage you to read books with your child EVERY night. Try to find books that your child can read with ease and do not become frustrated reading. This makes reading an enjoyable experience.

Math- Your child brought their first “Everyday Mathematics” family letter home tonight. Your child will start to have math home-links almost every night. Please help your child complete these and send them to school with them the following day. The “Everyday Mathematics” program is a very strong program, you will be amazed at what your first grader is learning and understanding. Please keep in mind that the way your child will learn math is MUCH different than the way you learned math. Believe me, the program works! Please keep the “Everyday Mathematics” family letters and the packet that was sent home with you at Open House. These have the answers to the home-links and explain what your child is working on.

Spelling- We will start Word Journeys and Sight Word Spelling next week.

Sight Word Reading- We will start reading and practicing Sight Words next week.

I look forward to the school year! Please contact me anytime with any questions you may have.

Talk to you soon,
Mrs. Carlson

Welcome Back!

Welcome to First Grade! I can't wait to meet you!

Our Summer Goals

Goals for Summer 2011

Teage- To discover more about outdoors
Adam- To help outside and try the water slide at the pool
Carson- To be a better hand writer
Austyn- Read better and play sports
Odyssey- To get better at swimming
Isaac- Win some games at soccer and get better at soccer
Cael- To get better at Math
Lydia- I want to be a better swimmer
Kierra- do the monkey bars and better handwriting
Jaynie- Read better and not write words backwards
Amber- to be a better swimmer
Brayden- To be a better bike rider
Abbi- To practice sports everyday to get better
Tristan- My goal is to get better at math for second grade
Sydnee- My goal is to run three miles
Meghan- To be a better swimmer, be nice, play with people, get more greens this year, and help out.
Drayden- To find out more about science things
Paige C.- to go to the Manson pool every Friday and movies too
Chris- to be a better artist and a better reader
Paige W.- Be more gentle with my dog outside
Sean P.- To hit a home run in T-Ball and qualify in Pitch, Hit, and Run
Shawn Kenyon- To be a better helper at home
Levi- to be a better fisher

I Scream, You Scream, We all Scream for ICE CREAM!!!!!!

We had our ice cream party today!!! We were rewarded for reading so many books!!!

First Grade Memories Slideshow

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Help!!! We need materials for our listening center!!!

Have you replaced your old "walkman" (cassette or cd player) , cd player, or tape payer with an iPod or MP3 player? If so, I am looking for donations for my first grade listening center. I have several books on CD and cassette and need the players for student use. This is their favorite center. I appreciate anything you can donate to us.

Bike Rodeo

Yesterday a field trip came to us! Calhoun County Health came and taught us about bicycle safety. They gave each student a fitted helmet and let each child ride a bike on an obstacle course. We had a lot of fun and learned how to keep safe on bikes!

The Raptor Resource Project .

The Raptor Resource Project brings you the Decorah Eagles from atop their tree at the fish hatchery in Decorah, Iowa.




Live TV : Ustream

Cards for Mighty Max

We worked today to help make Mighty Max's dream come true!

Max is a 12 year old living with Leukemia and his wish is to receive ONE MILLION GET WELL CARDS.

ADDRESS: MIGHTY MAX LOW
PO BOX 111
Neola, IA 51559 USA

Article in the Des Moines Register:

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011103160351

Adding 9's

Number Line

Addition Rock

Math Facts

Will you please try to spend 10 minutes each night with your child memorizing addition facts? This can be done by using fact triangles, flashcards, problems out loud, addition games, etc. If you have a deck of cards, simply take out the face cards and have your child teach you how to play "Addition Top-It". I will list some websites for resources to use. There are websites that allow you to print flashcards out for free, free math games, etc. Another idea is to quiz your child while you are driving in the car. You be the judge of how hard these need to be because you know your child best. We have been working all year on using strategies to add. Students know how to use a hundred chart, a number line, use counters, count with fingers, etc. They are aware of the tools to get the answer to problems. I am happy with their progress but feel like we need extra practice recognizing these addition problems automatically. We are still following our Everyday Mathematics program but we are also spending an additional 15 minutes every morning practicing Everyday Math fact triangles and playing Addition Top-It. Every morning, we have been trying to get better at automatically answering math problems. We work in partners to quiz each other. We are trying to recognize patterns in adding. Some Patterns to note: Doubles: The doubles numbers need to be recognized automatically. 1+1=2 2+2=4 3+3=6 4+4=8 5+5=10 6+6=12 7+7=14 8+8=16 9+9=18 10+10=20 The 1's pattern. 1+2=3. I tell the kids to just think of the number that comes after the biggest number in the pattern. In 1+4=5, 5 is one more than 4. The 10's pattern. 10+2= 12. I tell them to think of the zero being gone. If you take the zero away and put the 2 in the ones place you get 12. I try to make them automatically think of the zero as being gone. In 10+5 I have them visualize 15. We try to do this very speedy with only a second to think of the answer. They are getting better at this. The 9's pattern. 9+3=12. I try to have them think of the 10's pattern minus 1. If they know that 10+3=13 they can recognize that one less that 13 is 12.

Addition Resources

Links for Addition Practice:

http://www.fun4thebrain.com/addition/flightKnightAdd.html

http://www.funbrain.com/math/

http://www.gamequarium.com/addition.html

http://www.playkidsgames.com/mathGames.htm

http://www.aplusmath.com/flashcards/addition.html

http://www.printable-flash-cards.com/flash-cards/addition-flash-cards/

http://donnayoung.org/math/tricards.htm

Constellations on History Channel

Parents, you may find this video interesting. I know I did!

STARLAB

We were lucky to have Webster County Conservation bring STARLAB, which is a portable planetarium. We felt like we were under the night sky. We learned about different stars and some of the most noted constellations. We all had fun and liked crawling through the tunnel to get into the STARLAB.

Hey kids...Want to learn more? Check out these websites:

http://www.masterpclass.com/FunLessonPackages/North%20star/Northstar.php

http://www.mhhe.com/physsci/astronomy/arny_3e_update/constellation_quiz/index.htm

http://www.johnpratt.com/items/astronomy/exercises/const.html

http://www.squidoo.com/five-constellations

Valentine's Day

We enjoyed exchanging valentines!

We played 2 games. Cupid, Cupid, Where's my Arrow and Heart toss.


We sorted, counted, and graphed candy hearts.

Look at our pretty Valentine boxes.

Thank you Devin, for supplying the candy hearts!

Conference Schedule

Dear Parents/Guardians,

This morning we scheduled conferences. Below is the schedule for my first grade. We worked together to schedule siblings together. We will send a note home with that information next week. Please note that the time slots are very close together so you will need to be on time in order to have your conference. Also we will have to stick to a 15 minute time limit to keep things running smoothly. If something is not going to work for you, please let me know as soon as you can so we can try to get things changed. I look forward to talking with you all! Thanks!

Tuesday February, 22nd (Wednesday February, 23rd if the HS boys basketball team plays Tuesday)

3:45-4:00 Tristan
4:00-4:15 Abbi
4:15-4:30 Kierra
4:30-4:45 Austyn
4:45-5:00 -
5:00-5:15 Meghan
5:15-5:30 Paige W.
5:30-5:45 Devin
5:45-6:00 Paige C.
6:00-6:15 Adam mom
6:15-6:30 Jayne
6:30-6:45 -
6:45-7:00 Shawn
7:00-7:15 Carson
7:15-7:30 Isaac

Thursday February, 24th

3:45-4:00 Odyssey
4:00-4:15 Sean P.
4:15-4:30 Adam dad
4:30-4:45 Levi
4:45-5:00 Sydnee
5:00-5:15 -
5:15-5:30-
5:30-5:45 Drayden
5:45-6:00 Lydia
6:00-6:15 Cael
6:15-6:30Amber
6:30-6:45 Chris
6:45-7:00 Brayden

Fun with Attribute Blocks!

Introducing...Geometry

Triangle*Hexagon*Square*Rectangle*Circle

We sorted the blocks by shape and color. We played "Guess the Shape" by describing the characteristics of the blocks (color, size, and shape). We also played "Make my Shape".

Learning about Geometry is fun!

Silent E

Valentine's Day

Dear Parents and Guardians,

Can you believe Valentine's day is only ten days away? This year sure is going fast! Our Valentine's Day party will be Monday, February 14th at 2:00.

We will exchange valentines. There are 24 students in our class (our class list was sent home with your child). Each student will need to bring a box or bag to collect valentines in. These could be made out of shoe boxes, cereal boxes, paper bag, etc. You can help your child decorate them however you want. Also, feel free to send them to school whenever they are finished.

The following students signed up to furnish treats for our party:

Cael Oswald – 1 gallon water
Sydnee Babcock & Isaac Larson – rice krispie bars or cookies
Brayden Bates- cheese and crackers or other nutritious snack
Kierra Birkey- take home treat
Paige Wilson- napkins
Meghan Doan- cups

Thanks so much!

Will Phil See His Shadow?

Will Phil see his shadow on Wednesday, February 2nd? Comment on what you think.

Here is how our class voted:

Voted YES: 6 more weeks of winter
Shawn
Isaac
Adam
Lydia
Devin
Sean
Teage
Odyssey
Sydnee

9 voted yes

Voted NO: Spring is on its way!

Carson
Chris
Drayden
Austyn
Abbi
Levi
Paige C.
Paige W.
Tristan
Brayden
Meghan
Cael
Jayne
Amber

14 voted no

Our 100th Day

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