Upcoming Dates
* Monday, February 18th – Friday, February 22nd: Winter Recess
There will be no school this week. Have a great vacation!
* Monday, March 3rd: February Book-It Reading Logs Due!
Please turn in your February reading logs. I will be sending home March reading logs too.
* Friday, March 7th: No School – Staff Learning Day
Teachers will be coming to school to work on writing strategies.
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Dear Families,
Happy Valentine’s Day! We had a nice party on Thursday and the children enjoyed giving and receiving Valentine cards! Thank you for working with your child and preparing those for the class. Also, tank you so much for the sweet cards and gifts on Valentine’s Day! I am always thankful for the kindness your children and family show to me. It was a very fun day! If your child happened to bring home a brown puppy stuffed animal after our Valentine’s Day party, please return it to school. It is lost!
Here are some highlights from the week:
Star of the Week: Aiko
Poem of the Week: Dear Valentine
Song of the Week: Water Cycle
Kindness is … showing others you care.
Story of the Week: The Emperor’s Egg
Vocabulary of the Week: House 5
Word Wall: by, climb, found, morning, out, shout, show
Next Week’s Sharing: Riddle – something healthy
(at least 4 clues memorized and hide something to show)
• Language Arts: Theme 6: Animal Adventures – Week 1
• Stories: The Sleeping Pig
• Strategy and Skill Focus: Summarize / Story Structure
• Word Families: -oke
• Sounds: long o, long u, and final clusters –ft, -nt, -lk
• Grammar: Naming Words for People and Animals
• Math: This week we reviewed our vocabulary words for plane and solid shapes.
We also worked on identifying patterns and talked about symmetry or equal parts. This idea is used to understand fractions and we are learning 1/2 , 1/3 , and 1/4. We also learned about probability and this was a challenging activity. We have to remember how to make tally marks correctly and be able to compare different circle graphs to see the probability of spinning a certain color.
• Writing: We are still working on our rough drafts of the Mitten story. I am reminding students to proofread their work for capitals, periods, and too many “and’s.” Also, I am teaching them to re-read their own work and add more details to their sentences. We will be finishing our Mitten stories after the break.
• Science: We went to Mrs. Barelli’s class on Tuesday and learned about clouds. We read the story, It Looked Like Spilt Milk, and made clouds in different shapes. We have finished our weather book, although there are still a few more activities we will be doing. This week we did an experiment to find out that on a sunny day, it is hotter wearing dark clothes vs. light clothes. Also, we tallied our weather observations for the month of January. Finally, this week we learned how to read the weather page in the newspaper. This involved some social studies skills such as reading a map and finding imformation.
• Social Studies: We read many stories about Valentine’s Day. We made our own Concrete poems describing Valentine’s Day and decorated a craft. Our kindness journals had to do with showing others we care by making Valentine’s for our classmates.
• Music: First graders are busily preparing for our end of the year musical on May 2nd. Our theme this year is Sesame Street so we have been learning many songs from the show. I am watching to see if students are participating and trying their best!
• Computer: This week we used Kidpix to make a heart tree that matched our poem of the week. Students learned how to type using the text tool and how to change the fonts and sizes of text. They also used stamps and drawing tools to make their trees.
Have a wonderful week vacation! I will be going to San Diego and Mexico over the break so I hope the weather stays warm! See you in one week!
Friday, February 15, 2008
Friday, February 08, 2008
Chinese New Year!
Upcoming Dates
* Thursday, February 14th: Valentine’s Day
We will be celebrating Valentine’s Day in the afternoon by doing some crafts, having a snack, and exchanging cards. Every child must prepare Valentine cards for every student and bring them to school on Valentine’s Day. They can be homemade or store-bought cards. Here is a list of all the students' names in our class. Please have your child write: To: (student name) and From: (your child’s name) on each envelope.
Aiko Amit Anna Brian Chris David
Hyunseok Jason Jeffery Justin Kelly Kevin
Kevin L. Kota Michael Nadiya Nasrin Ruth Saketh Yuna Yusuke (21 total students)
* Monday, February 18th – Friday, February 22nd: Winter Recess
There will be no school this week. Have a great vacation!
-----
Dear Families,
Happy 100th day! On Monday, we celebrated the 100th day of school and had an all day first grade circuit. The students counted to 100 making bead necklaces, hats, and art projects. It was a fun day!
Here are some highlights from the week:
Star of the Week: Anna
Poem of the Week: One Hundred Days
Song of the Week: Water Cycle
Kindness is … celebrating special days
Story of the Week: The 100th Day of School
Vocabulary of the Week: House 4
Word Wall: fly, give, good, her, little, our, was
Next Week’s Sharing: Riddle – something you love
(at least 4 clues memorized and hide something to show)
• Language Arts: Theme 5: Home Sweet Home – Week 3
• Stories: The Kite
• Strategy and Skill Focus: Monitor/Clarify
• Word Families: -ite, -ide
• Sounds: long I, contractions
• Grammar: Using I or Me in Sentences
• Math: This week we started our new chapter on Geometry. We have been reviewing plane shapes as well as solid 3-D shapes. Make sure your child can identify all of these. We also talked about how many corners and sides are in each shape.
• Science: We went to Mrs. Burgess’ class on Tuesday and learned about wind. We made pinwheels on pencils to show how wind is measured. We are almost finished with our weather kits!
• Social Studies: We learned about Chinese New Year on Thursday. We read some stories about some of the traditions that take place and made a dragon puppet to celebrate.
• Music: Mrs. Stauter taught us about the difference between rhythm and beat this week. We sang songs and took turns making our own beats using a drum.
• Art: Mrs. Blakeslee had us finish our watercolor landscape paintings. The landscape had to have a picture of something from nature (mountains, water, land). Afterwards we started an abstract watercolor painting, which means that it is random colors everywhere.
• Buddies: We made special Chinese New Year lanterns with our big buddies using envelopes. They helped us to staple the pieces together and assemble the lanterns.
• Assembly: Today we had an assembly called “Water Shed Watch” by Zun Zun. They used real instruments to tell a story and it was very entertaining.
On Wednesday this week, we had a Code Red drill. We talked about how we practice for emergencies including fires, earthquakes, and now if there were dangerous strangers at Eaton. Code Red means that we lock our rooms, turn off the lights, and hide inside as quietly as possible. The teachers also have to build barricades against the doors and to hide the children. Mrs. Rowe and a police officer came around to check each classroom and we did a great job.
Take care over the weekend! I was a little sick this past week and lost my voice for a few days, but the kids have been good listeners still. Enjoy the sunshine!
* Thursday, February 14th: Valentine’s Day
We will be celebrating Valentine’s Day in the afternoon by doing some crafts, having a snack, and exchanging cards. Every child must prepare Valentine cards for every student and bring them to school on Valentine’s Day. They can be homemade or store-bought cards. Here is a list of all the students' names in our class. Please have your child write: To: (student name) and From: (your child’s name) on each envelope.
Aiko Amit Anna Brian Chris David
Hyunseok Jason Jeffery Justin Kelly Kevin
Kevin L. Kota Michael Nadiya Nasrin Ruth Saketh Yuna Yusuke (21 total students)
* Monday, February 18th – Friday, February 22nd: Winter Recess
There will be no school this week. Have a great vacation!
-----
Dear Families,
Happy 100th day! On Monday, we celebrated the 100th day of school and had an all day first grade circuit. The students counted to 100 making bead necklaces, hats, and art projects. It was a fun day!
Here are some highlights from the week:
Star of the Week: Anna
Poem of the Week: One Hundred Days
Song of the Week: Water Cycle
Kindness is … celebrating special days
Story of the Week: The 100th Day of School
Vocabulary of the Week: House 4
Word Wall: fly, give, good, her, little, our, was
Next Week’s Sharing: Riddle – something you love
(at least 4 clues memorized and hide something to show)
• Language Arts: Theme 5: Home Sweet Home – Week 3
• Stories: The Kite
• Strategy and Skill Focus: Monitor/Clarify
• Word Families: -ite, -ide
• Sounds: long I, contractions
• Grammar: Using I or Me in Sentences
• Math: This week we started our new chapter on Geometry. We have been reviewing plane shapes as well as solid 3-D shapes. Make sure your child can identify all of these. We also talked about how many corners and sides are in each shape.
• Science: We went to Mrs. Burgess’ class on Tuesday and learned about wind. We made pinwheels on pencils to show how wind is measured. We are almost finished with our weather kits!
• Social Studies: We learned about Chinese New Year on Thursday. We read some stories about some of the traditions that take place and made a dragon puppet to celebrate.
• Music: Mrs. Stauter taught us about the difference between rhythm and beat this week. We sang songs and took turns making our own beats using a drum.
• Art: Mrs. Blakeslee had us finish our watercolor landscape paintings. The landscape had to have a picture of something from nature (mountains, water, land). Afterwards we started an abstract watercolor painting, which means that it is random colors everywhere.
• Buddies: We made special Chinese New Year lanterns with our big buddies using envelopes. They helped us to staple the pieces together and assemble the lanterns.
• Assembly: Today we had an assembly called “Water Shed Watch” by Zun Zun. They used real instruments to tell a story and it was very entertaining.
On Wednesday this week, we had a Code Red drill. We talked about how we practice for emergencies including fires, earthquakes, and now if there were dangerous strangers at Eaton. Code Red means that we lock our rooms, turn off the lights, and hide inside as quietly as possible. The teachers also have to build barricades against the doors and to hide the children. Mrs. Rowe and a police officer came around to check each classroom and we did a great job.
Take care over the weekend! I was a little sick this past week and lost my voice for a few days, but the kids have been good listeners still. Enjoy the sunshine!
Friday, February 01, 2008
Groundhog Day (almost)
Upcoming Dates
* Monday, February 4th: 100th Day of School
We will be doing an all-day first grade circuit on fun activities to celebrate the 100th day of school! Therefore, we will not be going to our computer lab in the afternoon (volunteers do not need to come that afternoon! Thanks!!)
* Thursday, February 7th: Cupertino Public Library Field Trip
We will be walking to the Public library in the afternoon. The librarians will read us some stories and we will check out 2 books. Please remember to bring your blue library cards and memorize your 4-digit PIN number! You can return these books on your own when you finish reading them. Please do not bring them back to Eaton.
* Thursday, February 14th: Valentine’s Day
We will be celebrating Valentine’s Day in the afternoon by doing some crafts, having a snack, and exchanging cards. Every child must prepare Valentine cards for every student and bring them to school on Valentine’s Day. They can be homemade or store-bought cards. Here is a list of all the students' names in our class. Please have your child write: To: (student name) and From: (your child’s name) on each envelope.
Aiko Amit Anna Brian Chris David
Hyunseok Jason Jeffery Justin Kelly Kevin
Kevin L. Kota Michael Nadiya Nasrin Ruth Saketh Yuna Yusuke (21 total students)
* Monday, February 18th – Friday, February 22nd: Winter Recess
There will be no school this week. Have a great vacation!
-----
Dear Families,
Although it has been cloudy each day, we were happy that it didn’t rain too much during the week. Most of the days we went out to play at recess and lunch. However, last weekend was rainy rainy rainy! We left our rain gauges outside over the weekend and we measured about 3-4 inches of rain! We recorded these results in our weather book.
Here are some highlights from the week:
Star of the Week: Kevin
Poem of the Week: January Thaw
Song of the Week: Money
Kindness is … taking care of the classroom
Story of the Week: I Like the Rain
Vocabulary of the Week: House 3
Word Wall: could, house, how, over, own, world
Next Week’s Sharing: Regular: something you made using 100 items
(at least 4 sentences memorized and bring object/picture)
• Language Arts: Theme 5: Home Sweet Home – Week 2
• Stories: Me On The Map
• Strategy and Skill Focus: Summarize
• Word Families: -ate, -ake
• Sounds: long a, final –nd, -ng, -nk
• Grammar: Which Kind of Sentence?
• Math: We finished our chapter on money this week. The Money song we have learned will hopefully be helpful to remember the coins and their values. We spent time solving money word problems together as a class and reviewed counting coins. Next week we are starting a new chapter on geometry, fractions, and probability.
• Science: On Tuesday, we went to Mrs. Tambe’s class for circuits and learned about the water cycle again. On Thursday we used real thermometers and did an experiment on hot, cold, and mixed water. We have been recording the weather and temperature everyday and will be finishing up our science unit in the next 2 weeks.
• Social Studies: We started reading some stories on penguins. We learned a little about the Emperor penguins and their lives in Antarctica. We made a mini-book about them and found out where penguins live in the world map.
• Writing: We are beginning our first narrative writing project. A narrative writing piece means a story (can be fiction), whereas an expository writing piece mean a report (non-fiction usually). We started planning out our own adaptation of The Mitten and began our rough draft. Next week we will continue editing and working on our stories.
• Computer: We illustrated our kindness pictures for the month of January during computer lab. We used KidPix to draw the pictures, and you can see our updated Kindness journals on kindness.pbwiki.com .
• Assembly: Today we had an assembly called “The Living Earth” from the Wildlife Associates. We had a chance to learn about real life animals and see them in person!
If you didn’t turn in your January Book It reading log today, please return it on Monday! A new February reading log is in today’s Friday folder. Please remind your children to follow school rules and be kind friends to one another each day. I have been giving reminders frequently throughout the day for children to treat each other respectfully and to focus on their work.
Thank you.
* Monday, February 4th: 100th Day of School
We will be doing an all-day first grade circuit on fun activities to celebrate the 100th day of school! Therefore, we will not be going to our computer lab in the afternoon (volunteers do not need to come that afternoon! Thanks!!)
* Thursday, February 7th: Cupertino Public Library Field Trip
We will be walking to the Public library in the afternoon. The librarians will read us some stories and we will check out 2 books. Please remember to bring your blue library cards and memorize your 4-digit PIN number! You can return these books on your own when you finish reading them. Please do not bring them back to Eaton.
* Thursday, February 14th: Valentine’s Day
We will be celebrating Valentine’s Day in the afternoon by doing some crafts, having a snack, and exchanging cards. Every child must prepare Valentine cards for every student and bring them to school on Valentine’s Day. They can be homemade or store-bought cards. Here is a list of all the students' names in our class. Please have your child write: To: (student name) and From: (your child’s name) on each envelope.
Aiko Amit Anna Brian Chris David
Hyunseok Jason Jeffery Justin Kelly Kevin
Kevin L. Kota Michael Nadiya Nasrin Ruth Saketh Yuna Yusuke (21 total students)
* Monday, February 18th – Friday, February 22nd: Winter Recess
There will be no school this week. Have a great vacation!
-----
Dear Families,
Although it has been cloudy each day, we were happy that it didn’t rain too much during the week. Most of the days we went out to play at recess and lunch. However, last weekend was rainy rainy rainy! We left our rain gauges outside over the weekend and we measured about 3-4 inches of rain! We recorded these results in our weather book.
Here are some highlights from the week:
Star of the Week: Kevin
Poem of the Week: January Thaw
Song of the Week: Money
Kindness is … taking care of the classroom
Story of the Week: I Like the Rain
Vocabulary of the Week: House 3
Word Wall: could, house, how, over, own, world
Next Week’s Sharing: Regular: something you made using 100 items
(at least 4 sentences memorized and bring object/picture)
• Language Arts: Theme 5: Home Sweet Home – Week 2
• Stories: Me On The Map
• Strategy and Skill Focus: Summarize
• Word Families: -ate, -ake
• Sounds: long a, final –nd, -ng, -nk
• Grammar: Which Kind of Sentence?
• Math: We finished our chapter on money this week. The Money song we have learned will hopefully be helpful to remember the coins and their values. We spent time solving money word problems together as a class and reviewed counting coins. Next week we are starting a new chapter on geometry, fractions, and probability.
• Science: On Tuesday, we went to Mrs. Tambe’s class for circuits and learned about the water cycle again. On Thursday we used real thermometers and did an experiment on hot, cold, and mixed water. We have been recording the weather and temperature everyday and will be finishing up our science unit in the next 2 weeks.
• Social Studies: We started reading some stories on penguins. We learned a little about the Emperor penguins and their lives in Antarctica. We made a mini-book about them and found out where penguins live in the world map.
• Writing: We are beginning our first narrative writing project. A narrative writing piece means a story (can be fiction), whereas an expository writing piece mean a report (non-fiction usually). We started planning out our own adaptation of The Mitten and began our rough draft. Next week we will continue editing and working on our stories.
• Computer: We illustrated our kindness pictures for the month of January during computer lab. We used KidPix to draw the pictures, and you can see our updated Kindness journals on kindness.pbwiki.com .
• Assembly: Today we had an assembly called “The Living Earth” from the Wildlife Associates. We had a chance to learn about real life animals and see them in person!
If you didn’t turn in your January Book It reading log today, please return it on Monday! A new February reading log is in today’s Friday folder. Please remind your children to follow school rules and be kind friends to one another each day. I have been giving reminders frequently throughout the day for children to treat each other respectfully and to focus on their work.
Thank you.
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