Week 3 Highlights

We had a very busy third week of school. The class is really starting to get into a routine and we are working really well together.  I am so proud of them! What a great group! I hope you are enjoying this beautiful weekend.

Week 3 Highlights:

• ·      Short a sound activities
• ·      Monday – Journal writing – one thing I did this weekend was…
• ·      Monday – Friday: Small moment writing – started editing – will work more on this during week 4 as well as revising
• ·      Building stamina for “Read to Self” using leveled texts from our book boxes – Goal: 12 – 15 minutes
• ·      Started “Read to Someone” using our poetry notebooks
• ·      Capital and lower case letters – work on this at home as well – especially our names
• ·      Kevin Henkes author study – using his books as mentor texts
• ·      Making predictions as we read – story retell – characters, setting and story events
• ·      Math – finished unit 1 on addition – started unit 2 subtraction – focus on missing addends- 
•     Math - watched Youtube video - Harry Kindergarten's Song: When You Subtract Like a Pirate :) Great song for key vocabulary.
• ·      Started Handwriting Without Tears program
• ·      Social Studies – Community Workers

Rainbow chart

Dear Parents, 

         This year we will be using a colored “clip chart” to monitor our behavior and classroom choices.  Your child will have a clip in the classroom that they will physically move up or down the chart, depending on their choices.  Please keep in mind that your child may not move every single day!  In order to move up, students must go above and beyond in their behavior choices.  The chart below explains how the clip chart works. 

Pink Outstanding!	Students who reach the pink level will be rewarded for their positive choices.
Purple Great Choice!	Students who continue to make positive choices move up to the purple level.  They are one step closer to having outstanding classroom behavior!
Blue Good Choice!	Students who make positive choices will receive recognition as they move up the chart.
Green Ready to Learn!	Everyone starts the day “Ready to Learn”! Students can “clip up” or “clip down” throughout the day depending on their behavior choices.
Yellow Slow Down!	Students who receive a warning will move to yellow.  This serves as a reminder to students to think about the choices they make.
Orange Think About It!	Students who continue to make poor choices will move to orange and will be given a consequence.
Red Parent Contact…	Students who move to red will miss recess in its entirety.  Parents will be contacted that day if their child is on red.

         I believe that this system will be a positive way for students to monitor their choices and will give them behavior goals to strive for!  If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me!

                             Sincerely,

                                    Mrs. Kristin Crawley

Week 2

Thank you for attending our Open House.  It was a pleasure meeting the parents of my new students and I appreciate your taking the time to come to school on Thursday evening.   If you have questions after reading the information I provided, please do not hesitate to contact me. We had a busy week in first grade.  We started reading "just right" books in our reading boxes. We are also working on building our stamina and being able to stay "in the zone" and read for longer periods of time. We worked on writing about our weekend and wrote some small moment stories as well. We will be moving on to lessons on how to edit and revise our writing this week.We talked about school rules and read the book No David by David Shannon.  We had a lesson on friendship with our counselor, Ms. Suhrhoff. We met our firth grade buddies on Friday, listened to the story The Dot and made our own dots that celebrate our being unique individuals.  In math, we are working on number bonds and building number sense. I know many of you had questions about our behavior chart and the colors, so I will attach that to our blog as well for easy reference.  The kids are really responding well to this and it is helping us get off to a great start in first grade. I hope you and your families are having a wonderful weekend.  My family is celebrating my son's 15th birthday.  It seems like yesterday that he was in first grade. - Kristin      

First Week of School

Dear Parents and Families, Our first week of first grade has gone really well.  What a great group.  We are adjusting to first grade and getting to know each other. Thank you for returning their green homework folders each day and for checking their calendar to see how their day went. The behavior plan seems to be helping to remind of us of the rules and expectations for school. I am proud of them for working so hard. Starting with a full 5 day week of school was a challenge, especially with the hot weather. I hope your child has been telling you about things we are doing at school. Please ask them about our apple prints, skittles math, Chrysanthemum, number Bingo, snapping an clapping for our word wall words and our offices! Its wonderful to be back and I can't wait to see you at Open House on Thursday night from 6:15 - 7pm. Open House is for parents only. Thank you, in advance,  for arranging for child care.  I hope you are having a great weekend. - Kristin Crawley