Happy Monday! Well, here we are with another short week before Spring Break. Here are some pictures from the hot dog lunch. Thank you for participating in this important fundraiser. We have begun another fundraiser in the classroom. The students may bring in loose change to buy purple links. Every link will be added to our Relay for Life paper chain. The chain will be displayed at the event.
In celebration of Dr. Seuss' birthday, we will focus on his characters this week. Your child will pick a story to bring home to write about the character from their book. Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss! I will be sending home books on Monday. Please return them by Thursday.
Reading Week will be celebrated the week of March 18th. We will start it off with Character Dress Up day on Monday March 18th. Please refer to the green sheet sent home.
In Writing Workshop we have learned how to plan out our revisions. We marked our writing with sticky notes and then will go back reread and revise areas that need attention.
We have Field Day on Thursday. I have posted your child's team color and they have been told. Please have your child wear that color shirt on Thursday. They will be given breaks and drinks as well so they will not need a snack sent to school on Thursday. Please make sure they have sunscreen on since we will be outside from 9:30-11:30 as well.
We are still working on the Patriotic symbols and have talked about The Statue of Liberty, Liberty Bell and Mount Rushmore. I am also sending home Unit 6 Math Checking Progress along with Unit 7 Family Letter.
Please continue cleaning out old books and send them in for Oldie Goldie. Have a good week and Happy Spring Break!

Field Day Colors:

Gold/Yellow Team:

Rayce Welborne

Green Team:

Morgen Palmer

Blue Team:

Elise Hamblen

Red Team:

Jet Evans

Shae Martin

Black Team:

Emmitt Davis

Nicolas Hasbun

Kiera Healy

Davis Kennedy

Johnathon Levitz

Sofia Torres-Monclova

White Team:

Tiffany Beasley

Kate Rutledge

Happy Monday! Well, here we are at almost the end of February. We are concentrating on the United states of America, presidents and symbols. We have discussed George washington and Abraham Lincoln along with the White House so far. We are wrapping up our Solar System unit of study with presentations. Enjoy the pictures of the students presenting.
In Reading Workshop our focus work is on Characters. Please complete the reading journal work each week and return it to school on Monday since we use it in class as well. Which character is important to you and how do you think they are feeling are the questions asked in the Character Frame.
Now, I am encouraging the students to make book to book connections about which characters are similar. This week we are focusing on describing the character chosen.
We have begun the Craft of Revision unit in Writing Workshop. We have learned how to insert carrots as they did last year and add to the middle of our stories, with purple strips of paper. We use all purple pens to change spelling as well. We use Try Cards for them to practice how they think words are spelled and what is the actual standardized spelling. I just simply say those are the sounds you hear but when you see it in a book it looks like this. They are more conscientious about following the spelling patterns we have learned and copying words correctly from the Word Wall. I pulled out old stories they wrote in August and September to revise. They were shocked by their own work and how much they have improved with their writing skills since the beginning of the year.
In Math, we are working on computation and solving math facts. The quarter was also introduced and counting coins using quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies. Please continue working on counting all coins at home. Please pay close attention to the Home Links to know which skills are practiced each day.
The Relay for Life hot dog luncheon is Thursday at 11:30 . Please come and support this event. Please turn in your reservation forms by Tuesday and WEAR PURPLE OR RELAY FOR LIFE T-SHIRTS.
Oldie Goldie book sale will be after Spring Break. We are collecting books now. Please send them in.
Have a great week. We will!

Have a great week. We will!

Happy Monday! What a crazy week. We had our Science Center Field Trip, Conference Day and the 100th Day of School. My post this week is mostly pictures since I spoke with all of you about our academic challenges and what we have been working on in class on Conference Day.
The man on my blog is Dave and he works at NASA in Ohio and we got to skype with him until all of   our questions were answered. We now know why Mercury is not the hottest planet even though it is closest to the sun. Ask your child, they know. We did an experiment outside to see how far the Earth is away from the sun.
The 100th Day was great. Thanks for all of the goodies that we made into trail mix. We wrote about what we have learned in 100 days and made 100 number collection boxes outside with chalk.
Please send your Valentines to school and we will be celebrating Valentines Day on Thursday at 12:00. Your child may wear Valentine colors to school on Thursday.
My next posting will be Feb. 25th.

Happy Monday! I sent home the Conference Day schedule and assume, all is well, since I did not hear that anyone could not make their time. I look forward to talking with everyone on Thursday.
It is Time to Re-enroll. Please do so immediately! You can do it on-line.
Our Love Jar has come to an end. I will be moving their seats into islands of three students each. Their rewards will now be pennies. They are learning on how to work together, compromise, share as a team, rather than only worrying about themselves. This will be our focus throughout the remainder of First Grade. The 100th day of school is Friday. Thank-you to all of you who have sent their 100 items to school.
Our Science Center field trip is Tuesday. Please join us at 12:00 at the Science Center if you can. The address is 7701 22nd Ave. N St. Petersburg. Please return your order forms with the money by Tuesday, so we can pick up the items when we are there.
The 7th graders came down on Friday and shared their fables they wrote with us. It was so fun for us to hear the stories that the older students wrote. Thank-you Mr. Collins.
Our main focus this week has been our projects. We are working with partners, designed a presentation board to display facts about our planets, compromised about what each of us could do and enjoyed the process immensely. We will finish them this week for you to see and enjoy on Conference Day.

I have been crazy assessing, and will share the information with you on Thursday. Have a great week. We will!

Happy Monday! We had a great Special Friends and Grandparents Day! Enjoy all of the pictures from our class.
We learned all about Saturn and Mars this week. We also began our All About stories and used hedgehogs as our topic. We really know a lot about them.
We are also learning about equivalent numbers in Math. What other names can you make for the number collection box. We will be celebrating the 100th Day of school on Friday, Feb. 2nd. Please look at your form to see what item you need to bring to school.
We are continuing our work reading nonfiction books. We learned about what is a glossary and index.
Spirit Day is also Tuesday this week. We are going to the Upper Division for a pep rally on Tues. to celebrate the girls and boys soccer teams. Please wear a spirit shirt to school tomorrow.
Have a great week. We will!

Happy Friday. I hope everyone has a great long weekend and finds time to reflect about all of the great things Dr. King accomplished. We will talk more about him on Tuesday. Grandparents/Special Friends Day is Friday. If you have not sent in a photo yet, please do so asap. We are trying to make something special to give out on Friday. Any child who does not have anyone coming, will be paired up  with someone who does, and their Grandparent project will be sent home to be mailed. Don't forget it is a noon dismissal on Friday.
A great big Thank-you to Mrs. Ewert for coming to teach us about hedgehogs, read stories with hedgehogs in them and make a great corn muffin hedgehog snacks. What a great compliment party we had.

February 5th is our Field Trip to the Planetarium/Science Center in Saint Petersburg on 22nd Ave N. Please join us if you can. Due to limited space on the schoolbus, you will have to meet us there. Check your child's Homework Calendar for a reminder. We will be eating lunch at school that day before we go. Our tour at the Science Center is from 11:30-2:00p.m.
Our focus planet this week was Jupiter. Please ask me facts. We blended colors with cray-pas to make the gas giant. We used red glitter to make the great red spot. They are hung in the hall for preview. We also used our fingers to blend the colors. The books were confusing, because they all made Jupiter look red, orange, yellowish but it is a very cold planet. So we made the bands of Jupiter the colors we thought were appropriate. Each one of our Jupiter's is different.
Our How To books are published and in the hall. That is the first part of our non-fiction writing unit.
The Checking Progress for Unit 5 in Math was sent home today. The parent letter for Unit 6 will be sent home with the Homework Calendar on Tuesday. There will be 5 new word card words next week but no new word family phonics sounds. It is a review week of the long vowel sounds previously covered. Mainly all of the silent e rules except e, ee, and ea.
Please check the Conference Day schedule for Feb. 7th. Have a great weekend. We will!

Conference Day February 7th   Sign-up

 7:30a.m.   Beasley

 8:00a.m.   Rutledge

 8:30a.m.   Torres-Monclava

 9:00a.m.  Martin

 9:30a.m.   Hamblen

 10:00a.m.   Davis

 10:30a.m.   Evans

 11:00a.m.   Hasbun

 LUNCH

 1:00p.m.   Welborne

 1:30p.m.    Palmer

 2:30p.m.  Levitz

 3:00p.m.  Kennedy

 Other Days:

Tues. 1/21 7:15 a.m. Healey

Tues. 2/12 1:30 p.m. Imensek

Thanks

Gaye Whitecage

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a great weekend.
 We are counting each day until we reach 100. We have 17 days left. I sent home their animal cards. Please refer to the note to review the skills, especially more than and less than. Please pay close attention to the Function Machine homework this week. If the out number is larger, the rule has to be addition.
We are working on non fiction in reading and writing. We are writing How To stories and teaching others about, what we or they can learn.

We worked on projects this week, with our planet Earth study. I first asked the students what they already knew about Earth. I was surprised at how little they knew. We worked on the computer, wrote on a graphic organizer, colored and created information that was important to us. Each child's work is different. We will be doing another project shortly, and they will be choosing the planet or topic. They will be working with partners. They will begin their research with Mrs. Baralt in the computer lab on Tuesday. The tricky part, is that they are not always able to read the information independently. The pictures on the web sites help greatly. They will be creating this project in school. After learning how to put a project together they will have the opportunity to work on a project at home in May.
I am in the process of assessing their reading levels over the next couple of weeks. I will be sharing this information with you, in our February conference. Thank-you for sending non-fiction books to school. It is fun to talk about the variety of interests. Have a great week. We will!