See You in September...

The Super Month of September continues with lots of hard work by the students - mixed with fun as we learn!  We are practicing number concepts from 0 to 50 which includes so many aspects.  Not only are we counting forward from 0-50, but learning how to count backwards too! We are skip counting every day by 2's , 5's and 10's.  Parents can help at home by practicing these skip counting patterns with your child and being sure your child knows how to "read" numbers when they see them in isolation.  Students are also building models of numbers and beginning to talk about which numbers are greater than or less than other numbers.  Here is a picture of one of the "staircases" students built this week. 

 

 

Students also are loving using the Spelling City app to practice Spelling Words.  You can always find our current list on Spelling City by using the school zip code (76039) in the "search" box.  Lots of great games to practice our words and you can even print off lined sheets for your child to practice at home.  You can also access Spelling City from my web page on the Bear Creek website.

 

 

 

Another great learning experience from this past week was a visit by our school counselor, Ms. Martinez.  She led the students with a fun (and funny) lesson about using kind words with each other!

 

 

 



All week students practiced learning how to "Read to Someone".  This is a part of our "Daily 5" independent literacy routines.  Students learn how to sit (EEKK!) and how to ask for help (Coach or Time) and most important -- how to "listen" to the other person reading.  Students have the responsibility to retell in their own words  what they hear their partner read aloud.    We always practice the right way to "Read to Someone"... but one of their favorite things is to practice the "WRONG Way to "Read to Someone!"   Enter "Stage Right" please!  The actors and actresses come out and put on a hilarious performance!  Here is a video example of the "WRONG Way to "Read to Someone"... followed by  the "RIGHT Way to "Read to Someone"!!!

 

WRONG Way to "Read to Someone"

 

 

 

RIGHT Way  to "Read to Someone"

 

 

Hilarious and Wonderful!  Are we having fun or what?  And here are the sweet kiddos all Reading to Someone the "RIGHT WAY!!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't know about your child... but Ms. Simmons is EXHAUSTED!!  We are working hard.  Please share our classroom blog with family and friends from other cities, states & countries-- and encourage folks to "comment".  Every couple of weeks we visit the blog during class and the sudents LOVE reading your comments! It would be wonderful to have out-of-town comments so we can incorporate some geography and find those locations on our maps!!   A Special Thank You & SHOUT OUT  to Ms. Wooley and Mr. Johnson who are in a crazy race to see who comments first!  Can anyone beat them...?

 

 

 

Rachael's Challenge, Windsocks, Tallys & Nouns and much more...

We had a very  busy week discovering nouns, tally marks, the weather around us and how to spread kindness and compassion to others!  Here are a few photos of fabulous First Graders hard at work (and fun!)



 

Rachael's Challenge is a district wide kindness campaign!  We had our first whole school assembly on Friday for the kickoff of this incredible program at Bear Creek!

 

And last, but not least we had loads of fun playing a Noun Bingo Game! Here is a live action video!

 

 

"We Love First Grade!"

Ok, so this was (I thought) a pretty simple beginning of the year iPad activity using the app "Paint Sparkle".  Each student created one letter (or heart and exclamation point) for the statement "WE LOVE FIRST GRADE!"  (with 2 hearts in front of and behind the word LOVE).  The students were excellent with their creativity!  But little did I know how hard it would be to take one picture of the final product!   To have them all sit still, holding their iPad creations (without one of them blacking out & going to rest...) and no glare from overhead lights, or someone sneezing, or a bug crawling across the floor, etc. etc. !!  This is the best I could do after the students did so well!  The bloopers are saved for another time!  We really do LOVE FIRST GRADE!



This week was full of practicing learning rotations of our "Daily 5" time. Daily 5 is a system when students will be working on literacy skills independently when I begin to work with small reading groups (after DRA2 Reading Assessments).  It takes quite a bit of modeling, training and practicing  to become a successful independent worker - but these kids can do it!  Here are a few pictures of the hard workers:

Learning how to help each other as we play a punctuation game. (The white spot on bottom left is a corner of a student desk.)

"Reading to Self" is a way we build "stamina" and become better readers!

Listening to stories on our new MacBook Airs! 
 

Back-to-the-Future:  Teaching kids how to use an old-timey (gasp!) cassette player!!  Books on tape never get old!

Playing a rhyming game with classmates.

 



It was a very good week!

We Survived Week #1!

Our very first week of school for 2013/14 was great fun!  Thank you parents for helping your child begin the school year so successfully!  Your children are getting an idea of what First Grade is like by learning many new expectations, responsibilities and rules all around the school!   Here is a peek into a few things we did this week!

We made a headband saying "First Grade is Totally Cool" and took our very first class picture!

We looked at all our books in our desks and read stories from our "Red Reader".

We all wrote about the First Day of school and some of us got to share our fabulous writing!

We got very excited by the end of the week when our iPads FINALLY arrived!  We found out who has an iPad at home and who does not -- that way we know who our iPad "Experts" can be!!!  We learned MANY rules about becoming a responsible "Digital Citizen" and even signed a "Trust Card" promising that we will be very careful and respectful while we use our iPad.  We got to explore a little on them... but it will take a little while to load some of the apps and work out some technology "kinks".  But we are patient and looking forward to helping each other and learning together as we begin our journey to becoming "Digital Citizens"!

Welcome to a New School Year!

Dear Parents and Students - Tomorrow is Meet the Teacher Night at Bear Creek from 6:00 - 7:00  p.m.  I am very excited to see all your smiling faces and looking forward to meeting every one of you!  Please bring your school supplies to Meet the Teacher so I can help you organize them and put them away so you are ready to go Monday morning!  Can't wait to meet you all!

Summer Workshop Fun!

Teachers spend quite a bit of time  in the summer attending workshops and learning new and exciting things to use in the classroom!  So I went to an excellent  MacBook workshop with a couple of teacher friends and one of my assignments was to create an iMovie!  So here is my very first iMovie!  It could also teach you something very important...   Enjoy!

Aloha (Goodbye!) First Grade!

First Grade Students celebrated the end of our school year with a goodbye Luau today!  It was a beautiful and fun day to end our school year!  Here is a short video of the First Grade students learning the hula and some quick pictures from the day!  Have a wonderful summer!