Mrs. Richards Reports

The First Graders really enjoyed their field trip to the Survive Alive House to learn about fire safety. Next year, the kindergarteners will get to go. This week, everyone will have some activities included in their homework folder about fire safety. It's definitely a good review for everyone. Please be extra careful with candles during the holiday season. A lot of fires are started by misuse of candles. With the holiday season starting, the children will be making Christmas stockings for St. Nick's this week and writing Santa with some of their question: "Dear Santa, What do you feed those reindeer any way?" In Math,we are working on place value by counting ones and tens and by naming a number in different ways by using number sentences, tallies, and tens and ones. Touch Math will be introduced as another to count on when adding. In Writer's Workshop, the children will make a list of some of their favorite things. They can choose from this list when writing. Please return your permission slip for the concert practice at Nathan Hale!

Mrs. Richards' Reports

Our class election was a lot of fun as the children filled out voter registration cards and then turned them in for ballots so they could vote for their favorite cookie The choices were oreo or chocolate chip. The oreo cookie was the winner!  Everyone got to eat an oreo cookie.  We talked about the fact that sometimes your choice is not the winner in an election, and that's the special part about voting because every vote is important and can change the outcome of an election.  We ended with making a bar graph and answering some questions about the graph.

We began learning about our American symbols: the flag, statue of liberty, liberty bell, bald eagle, and the White House.  Our focus was on the White House as the children painted their own picture of their vision of the White House, and we went to computer lab to look up new learning about it on various websites.

In math, we are working on determining which number is greater when using higher numbers. The students will also be counting and drawing tens and ones for numbers. In our math journal, we are solving word problems using adding/subtraction and explaining our work.

The end of November, the First Graders will be going to the Survive Alive House to learn safety methods to prevent a fire, how to stay calm, and how to evacuate a burning building. They will need to know their address and phone number. Homework will come home this week for them to use so they can practice.

Mrs. Richards' Reports

We have been learning about laws and government and what it means to be a good citizen.
Tomorrow will be election day across the country. Everyone will be voting like every good citizen should.
The children in Room 137 will be voting for their favorite cookie choice: oreo or chocolate chip.
We will have a ballot box and ballots. The children will have  to register to vote too.
We must be good citizens.
The children will also learn about our American symbols with our class focus on the White House. It will be a fun week!

In math, we will graph the cookie choice that won after we have made tally marks.
We are also doing a lot of counting in different ways in math and comparing numbers to see which is greater or less than.

I would like to encourage all parents to take a blog survey which will give us your input about our blogs.
Here is the survey information. Go to:  http://.surveymonkey.com/s/W5WTXMX.

Thank You!

Mrs. Richards' Reports

What a wonderful Halloween parade and party!  The treats and festivities were great! The children seemed to enjoy the games. Thank you parent helpers!  You helped to make everything run so smoothly!

In Reading, we continue to work on building stamina while reading and using our reading strategies during the Daily 5 rotations.  Please read nightly at home with your child.  In Math, we are counting, adding, and writing numbers. We are looking at the place value of numbers.

Our new Inquiry Unit is on government, its laws, and American symbols. We will choose one of the symbols to focus our study on. We may even have an election and voting!

Please send in some empty paper towel rolls for an activity. Thank You!

Mrs. Richards' Reports

The students did a great job with their new learning in the computer lab last week on their farm animals. Using pebble.go for their inquiry was great fun! Thank you Miss Nuss for your guidance! They will culminate that activity with labeling their farm animal.

It's kind of scary that Halloween is already upon us! We will be measuring and weighing  our classroom pumpkin, scooping out the pulp to feel the slimy stuff, and then estimate and count the seeds. We will end our pumpkin inquiry with carving a face. Students will be filling out a booklet as we go along.

On Wednesday, the children may come dressed in costumes for an outdoor parade. Parents may watch outdoors as well as we parade around the school. It's suppose to be 70 on Wed. Our Halloween celebration will be in the afternoon. Parents that volunteered were contacted about what to send.

No school on Thursday and Friday so enjoy some time with your child.  Spend some time relaxing with some good books and do some journal writing about what you did on your days off!

Mrs. Richards' Reports on Oct. 15, 2012

Last week, we were able to celebrate Fire Prevention Week with a special program with the West Allis Fire Department and Firefighter Will. The children were very engaged in both presentations!
 Monday is our long awaited trip to  Glacier Rock Farm. We will follow up this week with an inquiry unit on farm animals.  The children have already come up with questions about some of the farm animals.  They went on the website pebblego.com in the computer lab last Thursday with the assistance of Miss Nuss our Technology Media teacher. The children were introduced to researching some of the farm animals that they were interested in.  We will go back to the computer lab this Thursday to log "new learning" about an animal.
We are also going to drink white milk and then turn it into chocolate and strawberry milk as we learn about cows and milk. We will graph which is our favorite milk.
In Math, the students are working on writing addition number sentences and counting by twos, fives, and tens.
The kindergarteners will begin a kindergarten screening called PALS-K this week. It will be a good tool to evaluate student progress.
I want to thank all of the parents who came to conferences this past week.  I will be looking forward to seeing a few more of you this week!

Mrs. Richards' Reports October 8, 2012

It's a busy week ahead in Room 137 as we learn about Fire Prevention and safety. We have a special program on Monday morning. Last week, for our Inquiry Unit, we learned about living and nonliving things as we cut pictures from magazines for our class poster. We also sponge painted autumn trees which are living things.
The children enjoyed labeling their trees and writing a caption for them. We talked about labels and captions as being important nonfiction features in nonfiction books. We continue our study of living and nonliving things and nonfiction features as we learn about farm animals as we prepare to go to the farm.

* Please return your farm permission slips and money promptly. They were due on Friday!

We continue to work on building stamina while reading to self and with a buddy with a goal of up to 12 minutes.

In Math, we are working on writing numbers, counting up from a given number, comparing numbers, and writing number sentences. Please practice these concepts at home too!

*  There will be NO SPARC on Thursday due to conferences.
*  Conferences are this Thursday October 11.... 3:30 to 8:00pm.  Please be on time. 
*  Each conference will be 15 minutes to accommodate each parent. Please have any questions ready!
    I look forward to seeing all of you.     Your child is welcome to attend conferences!