Home Reading Program

This year, your child will bring good fit books home to read almost every day.  Your child can be reading these or books from your own house, town library, or books from UES library.  The main purpose is to READ, READ, READ!  As a class, we will keep track of the minutes our class reads collectively.  Each week we will add the minutes to a classroom reading goal chart.  Please do your best to help your child document the amount of minutes he/she reads each night and to help your child remember to return his/her book to school. (If your child does not return a book, he/she will not be able to bring home home another.)

Sometimes, your child will bring a book home that may seem too easy.  That's okay; it's a perfect opportunity to work on fluency.  This includes practicing reading with ease, expression, and correct pacing.  Often books at a child's independent level help them develop confidence in themselves as a reader.

Books that can be brought home will be those that your child can read in one night. Some students may be working on reading chapter books at school, however, these will stay in the classroom.

REMEMBER, THE PRIMARY GOAL IS FOR YOUR CHILD TO ENJOY READING!!

Understanding What We Read

CAFE

To help our students have a visual place to house the reading strategies they are learning, we use the C.A.F.E. menu (Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, and Expand Vocabulary).  The strategies we are learning to help us become a better reader are listed on posters behind our meeting area under one of these headings. We point to the card where the strategy is listed and practice these strategies as a group, before we begin to use them on our own.  The "C' stands for Comprehension.  The students are learning that good readers understand what they read and to help support this, we are learning how to, "check for understanding."  INQUIRE with your child about how they, "check for understanding."

 How can you help your child with this strategy at home? 
1. When reading to your child, stop periodically and say, “Let’s see if we
remember what I just read.  Think about who the story was about and
what happened.”  Do this 3 or 4 times throughout the story.

2. When reading to your child, stop and have them practice checking for
understanding by saying, “I heard you say…”

3. Ask your child the following questions:
• Who did you just read about?
• What just happened? (problem/solution)
• Was your brain talking to you while you read? (personal/text to text/world connections)
• Do you understand what was read? Tell me more about that...
• What do you do if you don’t remember? How can you use the book to help you remember?

Daily 5 Literacy Update

Work on Writing notebooks are brimming with stories, sketches and so many wonderful first grade tales. Our Daily 5 writing notebooks are a place for children to write about any idea on any topic of their choice. Each page contains a sketch and words, and the short date so we can reflect on how we develop as readers and writers over time. 

Today your children learned the third activity in our Daily 5 literacy menu - Read to Someone. After brainstorming what students need to do and how to do it, and what the teacher does to help students during Read to Someone, each child had the opportunity to practice. Ask your first grader how they sit EEKK, and why they do this when they Read to Someone. We also included the comprehension strategy - Check for Understanding - in how we Read to Someone. While one partner reads, the listening partner then repeats back a couple of key ideas from the reading and then asks the reader 1-2 questions about what they have read to Check for Understanding. 


Listening partners used a fun foamy check mark to help us remember their roles and how we can help one another engage in reading as thinkers, listeners and make literate connections. 

Closing Circle Student Read Alouds

Closing Circle (just before dismissal) is a wonderful time for students to take a few minutes to share a book they brought from home as a read aloud to one another.


We were reminded of some interesting facts about butterflies thanks to Maeve's read aloud this afternoon! 

Bugs "can be" Yummy to Eat

Creativity in the "snack kitchen" of classroom 6 had us eating bugs... happily!! 


Enjoy photos from this activity. 

Insect Adventures in 4Winds

Thanks Kathleen, Paul and Jennifer for teaching us some new things about insects in 4Winds today. 


Did  you know dragon flies can live as larva underwater for up to three years? Ask your child what s/he learned about insect life cycles today - clue, complex metamorphosis and simple metamorphosis.            

A vacant butterfly chrysalis is called a husk. 

We found one hanging from the cement window sill above the UES butterfly garden. 

Children wrote an entry in their science journals recording their thinking about what they observed from the lesson in nature and what they still wonder about... "I wonder if the spider I saw will catch an insect in its web?"

Explaining Groups of 5

Welcome to UES and Grade One Class 6, Mrs. Cathy Clemens! 


Mrs. Clemens is our Math Coach. She took some time with our students today to learn how we use the tens frame to count groups of objects. 


Hmmm.... once you have half the frame full you know you have how many? How many do you have when the whole frame is full? Count by 5s and count by 10s is quick math thinking for quick counting! 

Insect Costumes and Bug Parade

Rolling Up Our Sleeves to Make Bug Costumes

Almost Ready for the Insect Parade... Adding A Few Final Touches

Stag Beetles, Praying Mantis, Butterflies and Spotted Beetles on Parade. We visited Mrs. Mello's Kindergarten, the Main Office, Mrs. Pine's and Mrs. Beaupre's Third Grades

Even Our UES Librarian Mrs. Frey was A-Buzz for First Grade Insect Day

Field Day for First Grade - Teamwork

With the weather cooperating, our class headed out for some team-building fun at Harrison Field. After a few games of Fishy Fish Cross My Sea we let the field day begin! We prepared by learning a few chants and cheers - "Go, Go, Go First Graders!" & "First Grade is Great!" and cheered each other on as each student in the class did a variety of animal actions... Crawl Like a Centipede, Hop Like A Grasshopper and more. Ask your child which animal action was his/her favorite, and how they chose to encourage one another to do their very best.

Eric Carle-Inspired Community Paper

This week we are preparing community paper for a unique insect project next week. Inspired by the many Eric Carle stories about insects (ask your child about which ones we've read together...) we decided that we too would like to use artful paper to make our own insects. 


Through all next week, we will continue studying the parts of insects, learning their names and how to carefully label them on the insects we create from the artful community paper we made ourselves. Fun learning! 

Storytelling

Telling stories - using our imagination and what we know about a topic in collaboration with a classmate or two - is a powerful exercise in creative, interactive literacy learning. Today at closing meeting, we listened to a story Max & Avery created together. They were inspired by two of our nature cards, a soaring bird and a single feather. Ask your child what their story was about, and how s/he might add on a new idea... 

Reminder!

-Library book return and check out is tomorrow, Thursday.


-School Picture Day is this Friday (9-23-11)


-First Grade Bug Fest and Parade is this Friday (9-23-11), check your child's red folder today for more information!

Voracious Grade 1 Readers!

Daily 5 Literacy Time Reading to Self - we are becoming Voracious readers... Work on Writing is the second component of Daily 5. We introduced it today with our I (stands for students building independence) chart. Ask your child what s/he does during Work on Writing to help themselves become a better reader and a better writer...

We Love Our UES Snack Fairy Families!

Maddison, Henry & Tracy 

NAP - Insect Adventures

Monday morning NAP at Harrison Field and Forest was filled with some new adventures and discoveries of past experiences. Ask your child what his/her sit spot looked like, and why? Also, talk with your first grader about the animals, birds and plants we discovered and investigated in the field/forest. 


After our sharing circle, we went "pishing" for birds. Amy Butler, our NBNC Naturalist, helped us learn the black-capped chick-a-dee bird is the first responder in the forest. How many chick-a-dees did we count 
responding to Amy's "pishing" sounds, kids?


Insect collection, study and release was the focus of our time spent in Harrison field. We learned how to use the Peterson Field reference guides to help us identify the insects. We also learned some interesting facts... did you know there are more than half a dozen type of Praying Mantis insects?

Insect Know-How

This week your child learned so many interesting facts about insects, particularly beetles - the ladybug - praying mantis and butterflies. Students created and wrote ladybug number stories/solutions, which we will be sharing and solving on Monday! 


We also watched a 20-minute documentary film about ladybugs. Ask your child if s/he can tell you if a ladybug has elytra, what a ladybug loves, loves, loves to eat, if a ladybug can have a different number of spots or if it uses camouflage? 

Thank You!

A great big thanks for joining me at Parents Information Night last night! I hope I was able to answer most of your questions about curriculum and you found our discussion informative. Please feel free to contact me with any additional questions/thoughts you may have.

I'm excited about our monthly Birthday Breakfast! If you haven't signed up to bring a snack for your child's birthday month please e-mail me and I'll add you to the list. We are celebrating birthdays as a class community so all families are welcome to join (open house style for our classroom 8:15 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.) no matter if its your child's birthday or not. Look for the schedule on our blog soon...

Parent Info Night

UES Parent/Caregiver Info Night is Wednesday, Sept.14, from 6:30pm - 7:30 pm. This is different from Open House, which is October 19th. Wednesday's meeting will focus on curriculum; Responsive Classroom and our behavioral expections; homework and other issues and policies.

Wednesday's meeting will start in the UES auditorium from 6:30 to about 6:45. Parents, caregivers and staff will then go to classrooms until 7:30. Just a reminder, this evening is for parents and caregivers only. Students will be invited to the UES Open House on Oct. 19th.

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Insect Science Field Study

Well, we rolled up our sleeves & kicked up our heels as we went on our first walking trip this morning... Harrison Field here we First Grade Entomologists come!

Our Kindergarten Sunflower Garden was a Great Source for Finding Bugs

  Prepared with some yarn to help us determine our study areas, and magnifiers to look closely at each insect, we found bugs galore... big bugs (grasshoppers, crickets and beetles), little bugs (ants, aphids and mosquitos), bugs, bugs, bugs! Creeping, crawling, flying and hanging upside down bugs. 


We even some saw some bugs caught in a spider's web! Your children are excited to tell you all about our adventure... ask about our group game and what we saw along our walk today, too. 

Library Book Check Out

Our class will head to the library every Thursday morning following Morning Meeting. At this time, your children will have an opportunity to check out books with UES Librarian, Mrs. Frey. We will continue to keep this schedule until our regularly scheduled Library Special begins later this year, and return to it once our Technology Special begins in the Spring. 
This schedule is due to our Guidance, Library and Technology specials being offered to students in a rotation this year. Please let me know if you have any questions at all. 

Fitness & Learning

This year our class will participate in the award winning Courageous Pacers Program. 
Please check your child's home/school folder tomorrow for an overview of the program and to sign a permission slip for your child to participate. Please send the slips back to school on  Monday! If you have any questions about the program please feel free to contact me, Diane Solomon, OTR/L (dianes@mpsvt.org) or Liliane Savard PT, DPT, PCS (lilianes@mpsvt.org) both members if our UES OT/PT teaching team. 

Cooperation & Personal Space

Our guidance lesson with Ms. Baker focused on the things we each need to be able to cooperate and work together to learn. We read a book called Personal Space Camp about a main character who learned  that personal space as a member of his class is less about outer space and more about "bubble space!" 


When we respect each other's personal space we are safe, we are respectful of each other's needs and we can learn. Your child practiced determining how much space they need for different situations, such as meeting on the carpet vs. outside at recess. The class also played a game to practice personal space & cooperative learning guessing game called, "I have the thing!" 

NAP Training Reminer

Nature Adventure Program Training Days for Parents and Caregivers
Are you interested in learning more about the Nature Adventure Program (NAP)
at Union Elementary? Do you enjoy being with children outside in all kinds if weather,
exploring the forested landscapes of Montpelier? Would you like to learn more about the
natural world with your child? How does it feel to watch a child's appreciation of natural
world unfold?
The North Branch Nature Center will be hosting an activity filled training for
parents and caregivers who are interested in volunteering during NAP. Please join Amy
Butler, teacher/naturalist, on September 9th or September 12th from 9am to 12pm for
hands on activities, inquiry based learning methods, songs, games, and exploring. Come
prepared to be outside and to get dirty!
If you are interested in signing up for one or two of the training days please
contact: Amy Butler at the North Branch Nature Center at 229-6206 or by email
amy@northbranchnaturecenter.org

Math, Math, Math & Bugs, Bugs, Bugs!

Our new Bridges math program is a source of wonder and discovery every day in our classroom. Our science study of insects is integrated with the math program - so we are just going buggy about science & math in grade one! 


Our Bridges calendar, Bridges number corner and Bridges math lesson, accompanied by workplaces math discovery, are the cornerstones of daily math work for your child in grade one. 


Tonight your child will bring a bug song with his/her drawings of insects home inside their red folder. Explore what they are learning together, some questions you could ask to drum up conversation may include: 


What's the same/different about butterflies and beetles? 
How do you  a spider or a cockroach is not an insect? 

Enjoy a few photos from our math time as a peek into our daily math learning at workplaces so far... geometry, patterns, sorting/sequencing, 5'ness & 10'ness, counting and creativity, of course! 

  

Details about Upcoming UES Events

Here are a few important dates to mark on your calendars, and a bit about what you can expect from each opportunity. 

September 14^th                      Parents Night        Overview of classroom expectations for parents & caregivers

October 19^th                           Open House          Students share their classroom and learning experiences

October 21^st                           Conferences          Parents/Caregivers and students meet with teachers

September 14^th           6:30 – 7:30      Parents Night – parents and caregivers only

Overview of the Academic curriculum and expectations

Overview of Responsive Classroom and expectations

Nitty Gritty information about "A Day In the Life of Your Child" from your child's teacher

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We will all meet in the auditorium at 6:30 for 10-15 minutes

Parents, caregivers and staff will then go to classrooms at 6:45

Morning Meeting partners join with classroom teachers 

Parents and caregivers will meet with classroom teachers until 7:30

October 19^th               6:30 – 7:30      Open House – Students and families           

Students show–off their classroom and also visit their specials classrooms teachers   

Interactive Arts Teachers will be in their respective teaching areas

  

Fair Share

We used brand new colored pencils to maker our own Fair Sticks "people" this morning. Not only was this a fun creative opportunity, but it engaged your children in thinking about how their individual contributions positively contribute to the learning of our whole class.  


I use Fair Sticks as one tool to engage all children in active thinking, sharing and learning. 


We all have so much to contribute that it is important everyone has an opportunity to share his/her learning. Being fair, and having fun!!