I haven't posted a blog since October! :-( Sorry about that! We have been so busy, going going going... I just haven't even thought about it!
In November we went on a field trip to the Arizona Science Center. It was a blast!
In December we had another field trip - this time to the Build-A-Bear Winter Celebration that St. Mary's hosts every year for the past few years. I am not sure how long it's been going on, but I know my class went last year. :-) The kids were partnered up with a high-school buddy for the day and got a free Dinosaur build-a-bear from the real Build-A-Bear Workshop to take home with them!
We had Winter break from December 22nd to January 2nd, 2009.. so we have begun a new year again, and are already about half-way through the school year! I can't believe time has gone by so fast...
In class we are learning about the following in each subject area:
Reading- We have been reading a lot! My class has started to pick up and run with words! They are doing so fantastic. We have been learning the ending -le, and the middle sounds ur, er, and ir. This week we are learning the long o sound, (/oa/ and /ow/), as in bow or boat.
Writing- We have been doing a lot better in writing as well! We write in our journals most every day, and we have been writing longer sentences and more sentences (3-5 is a paragraph)! The topics we write about ususally have to do with the story we are reading or our morning message for that day. We write a lot about animals!
Math- We have been learning lots of new and exciting things in math! We have been learning about shapes and fractions (1/2, 1/3, and 1/4) and probability. We have flipped coins and made tally charts of how many times the coin landed on heads and how many times it landed on tails. We have been reviewing addition and subtraction and patterns. We got some new math centers as well! (Lakeshore has EVERYTHING a teacher's heart could desire!)
Science- We haven't been doing as much with science, but we have recently been learning about recycling and keeping our Earth healthy and clean (and green!). We will start our next Science unit on Pebbles, Sand, and Silt at the end of this week, or the beginning of next.
Social Studies- We haven't been doing much with this either. I had wanted to get Weekly Reader to do with the class, but there hasn't been enough money in the school's budget for extra things like that. :-( So for now we are using our Social Studies big books (handed down from Mr. Soto) once in awhile. Otherwise, we are usually pretty occupied with all the other subjects and don't really have much time left to do S.S. anyway.
Okay well, that is it for now. Here are this week's spelling words and high-frequency words:
Spelling:
low, bow, row, road, soap, boat, wiggle, middle, talk, school
High-Frequency:
door, kind, made, who, would
~Ms. Stewart
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
It's Finally Fall!
Fall officially started on September 23rd, but it wasn't til this week started (the week after our fall break) that we actually got some cooler weather! :) It is so nice to get to wear a sweater in the morning, and shoes and socks again! I love it when its cooler out; the heat is no fun at all! But I still love Phoenix and would never leave it!
I just wanted to update on what has been happening in our classroom over the past month since I last wrote. Here are some highlights from our 1st grade class:
Reading: We've read "All that Corn", "Todd's Box", "Boots for Beth", and this week's story is "Space Pup". We've been learning the short vowel sounds for o, and u, and the digraph th. This week we are learning the short u sound.
Writing: We write in our journals almost every day. We usually write about what we discussed in our morning message, in our whole group time. Then we draw a picture to go with our journal entry.
Math: We have been reviewing addition, how to use different ways of adding to remember the answers fast. This week we will be reviewing subtraction, and using strategies to solve subtraction problems quickly, as well. We will be learning about fact families soon, too!
Science: We have math and science centers almost daily, but sometimes we get to do experiments or work with the FOSS science kit in our room. They have a lot of cool stuff to help us learn! Over the past couple weeks we have learned about solids. Next is liquids!
Social Studies: We haven't had much time for social studies this year, but when we do, we have talked about communities, and people who work in our communities to help make it safe and to provide us with things that we need: like a police officer, or a grocer. We need police to make sure we are safe, and we need grocers to provide our families with food to eat.
LRE (Law-Related Education): Mrs. Hanson comes into our room every other Wednesday and teaches us about the law and how we can keep ourselves safe every day. We have learned about what to do if we find a gun, and we have also learned about bullies and what we can do to stop someone from bullying us. We will be learning about Good-Touch, Bad-Touch this week.
I don't have permission to post any pictures yet, so I need to get on that and ask about some permission slips to send home with my students, so I can post pictures of the ones whose parents are okay with it. I took some of us making towers with our solid objects during science the other day, and I want to post them! I will be working on that in the next few weeks...
Thanks for reading our update! Check back with us again soon!
~Ms. Stewart
1st grade teacher
Edison School
Phoenix, AZ
I just wanted to update on what has been happening in our classroom over the past month since I last wrote. Here are some highlights from our 1st grade class:
Reading: We've read "All that Corn", "Todd's Box", "Boots for Beth", and this week's story is "Space Pup". We've been learning the short vowel sounds for o, and u, and the digraph th. This week we are learning the short u sound.
Writing: We write in our journals almost every day. We usually write about what we discussed in our morning message, in our whole group time. Then we draw a picture to go with our journal entry.
Math: We have been reviewing addition, how to use different ways of adding to remember the answers fast. This week we will be reviewing subtraction, and using strategies to solve subtraction problems quickly, as well. We will be learning about fact families soon, too!
Science: We have math and science centers almost daily, but sometimes we get to do experiments or work with the FOSS science kit in our room. They have a lot of cool stuff to help us learn! Over the past couple weeks we have learned about solids. Next is liquids!
Social Studies: We haven't had much time for social studies this year, but when we do, we have talked about communities, and people who work in our communities to help make it safe and to provide us with things that we need: like a police officer, or a grocer. We need police to make sure we are safe, and we need grocers to provide our families with food to eat.
LRE (Law-Related Education): Mrs. Hanson comes into our room every other Wednesday and teaches us about the law and how we can keep ourselves safe every day. We have learned about what to do if we find a gun, and we have also learned about bullies and what we can do to stop someone from bullying us. We will be learning about Good-Touch, Bad-Touch this week.
I don't have permission to post any pictures yet, so I need to get on that and ask about some permission slips to send home with my students, so I can post pictures of the ones whose parents are okay with it. I took some of us making towers with our solid objects during science the other day, and I want to post them! I will be working on that in the next few weeks...
Thanks for reading our update! Check back with us again soon!
~Ms. Stewart
1st grade teacher
Edison School
Phoenix, AZ
Friday, September 12, 2008
What we have been working on...
I have no pictures to post yet, and I am sure I must get parental permission before I take and publish pictures of my students - but those I hope will be coming soon.
It's been a month since my last post. We have been working on our short vowel sounds - so far we have done short vowels a, i, and o. We have been practicing writing words with these vowel sounds and making sentences with the words. We have been working on telling sentences and asking sentences and sentence structure (i.e. Uppercase letter at the beginning; period (.), question mark (?), or exclamation point (!) at the end). We have also started to read our decodable books together during our small group time and reading aloud as a whole class the stories in our reading text books.
In math, we have been learning about addition and subtraction. We are currently learning how to make pictographs and bar graphs.
In science, we are studying solids and liquids. We learned about properties of solids and we made observations of these properties and took notes on each of the solid objects we looked at. We will learn about liquids next week.
We had a substitute on Tuesday, September 9th, because Ms. Stewart took the day off to be with her daughter and family as it was her 25th birthday that day! :) The class missed their teacher, but had a good day with their sub! And Ms. Stewart had a wonderful birthday!
That's all for this post. Keep checking back - I hope to have pictures of my students up soon!
~Ms. Stewart
It's been a month since my last post. We have been working on our short vowel sounds - so far we have done short vowels a, i, and o. We have been practicing writing words with these vowel sounds and making sentences with the words. We have been working on telling sentences and asking sentences and sentence structure (i.e. Uppercase letter at the beginning; period (.), question mark (?), or exclamation point (!) at the end). We have also started to read our decodable books together during our small group time and reading aloud as a whole class the stories in our reading text books.
In math, we have been learning about addition and subtraction. We are currently learning how to make pictographs and bar graphs.
In science, we are studying solids and liquids. We learned about properties of solids and we made observations of these properties and took notes on each of the solid objects we looked at. We will learn about liquids next week.
We had a substitute on Tuesday, September 9th, because Ms. Stewart took the day off to be with her daughter and family as it was her 25th birthday that day! :) The class missed their teacher, but had a good day with their sub! And Ms. Stewart had a wonderful birthday!
That's all for this post. Keep checking back - I hope to have pictures of my students up soon!
~Ms. Stewart
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
2nd Week of School!
We have been in school a full week now; this week marks the start of the second week back!
Most of the students on my list showed up to class on the first day, and I also got some new ones. My class is full! I have 23 students! What a bunch! :-)
All my students are Intermediate ELLs. Our district is doing the ELD Model this year, and my class is 1st grade ELD Intermediate - meaning that all my students scored in the Intermediate category on their AZELLA tests last year.
Our first week back we worked mainly on classroom rules, procedures, consequences, and rewards. We learned about each of our centers and how to work in them. I will post below a list of our classroom rules, positive feedback for following rules, and corrective actions that will be taken for not following rules in my classroom.
So far, we've had a really great start to the year! I hope it continues, and that as a class we learn together and from each other, that we work together well & play together well so we can have a fun, safe, and happy school year together. :-)
As our Principal, Mr. Fred says, "We did great in 2008; Let's shine in 2009!"
Class Rules:
Ø1. Follow directions and listen carefully.
Ø2. Keep hands, feet, and objects to yourself. (Keep toys at home where they belong.)
Ø3. No name-calling, using bad words, hitting, or kicking.
Ø4. No running in the classroom.
Ø5. No yelling, screaming, or talking loudly. Work quietly and do NOT disturb others.
Positive Feedback:
ØVerbal praise
ØStickers
ØGroup points
ØSmiley-face raffle
ØHomework chart prize box
Corrective Actions:
Ø1. Verbal warning
Ø2. Name on board (Lose 5 minutes of recess)
Ø3. Check mark (Lose 10 minutes of recess)
Ø4. Two check marks (Lose all of recess and write rules 3 times each)
Ø5. Three check marks (Lose recess, write rules, and no free centers for the week)
Ø6. Four check marks (Lose recess for 1 week, write rules, no free centers, and may call home or send to Principal)
~Ms. Stewart
Most of the students on my list showed up to class on the first day, and I also got some new ones. My class is full! I have 23 students! What a bunch! :-)
All my students are Intermediate ELLs. Our district is doing the ELD Model this year, and my class is 1st grade ELD Intermediate - meaning that all my students scored in the Intermediate category on their AZELLA tests last year.
Our first week back we worked mainly on classroom rules, procedures, consequences, and rewards. We learned about each of our centers and how to work in them. I will post below a list of our classroom rules, positive feedback for following rules, and corrective actions that will be taken for not following rules in my classroom.
So far, we've had a really great start to the year! I hope it continues, and that as a class we learn together and from each other, that we work together well & play together well so we can have a fun, safe, and happy school year together. :-)
As our Principal, Mr. Fred says, "We did great in 2008; Let's shine in 2009!"
Class Rules:
Ø1. Follow directions and listen carefully.
Ø2. Keep hands, feet, and objects to yourself. (Keep toys at home where they belong.)
Ø3. No name-calling, using bad words, hitting, or kicking.
Ø4. No running in the classroom.
Ø5. No yelling, screaming, or talking loudly. Work quietly and do NOT disturb others.
Positive Feedback:
ØVerbal praise
ØStickers
ØGroup points
ØSmiley-face raffle
ØHomework chart prize box
Corrective Actions:
Ø1. Verbal warning
Ø2. Name on board (Lose 5 minutes of recess)
Ø3. Check mark (Lose 10 minutes of recess)
Ø4. Two check marks (Lose all of recess and write rules 3 times each)
Ø5. Three check marks (Lose recess, write rules, and no free centers for the week)
Ø6. Four check marks (Lose recess for 1 week, write rules, no free centers, and may call home or send to Principal)
~Ms. Stewart
Friday, August 1, 2008
Welcome back!
School starts tomorrow, Monday, August 4th, 2008. I am excited and a little nervous to meet my new class of students. We are having a "Meet the Teacher" morning here at the school, and so far, I have had 2 students show up that I have met. They seem like they will be very good students, and their parents show initiative by bringing them to this event. :) I thank them for that!
This will be my 2nd year teaching. I taught my first year last here at Edison as well, same grade (1st) and same room even! :) So I am happy to be where I am!
I will try to post on here as much as possible: activities that the students are doing and maybe even some videos and pictures! I love blogging. I do it on my own personal time for myself; I have several blogs, because I love to write and share with my family and friends about my life, and now, my baby daugther's life as well. I had a baby last year, for those who do not know, and she is doing very well. She was born very premature - 4 months early! - and she is almost 8 months old now! Her name is Emmanuella, but we call her Emma for short.
I hope all my students had a great summer and are ready & excited to start school again tomorrow! I will see you all then! :)
This will be my 2nd year teaching. I taught my first year last here at Edison as well, same grade (1st) and same room even! :) So I am happy to be where I am!
I will try to post on here as much as possible: activities that the students are doing and maybe even some videos and pictures! I love blogging. I do it on my own personal time for myself; I have several blogs, because I love to write and share with my family and friends about my life, and now, my baby daugther's life as well. I had a baby last year, for those who do not know, and she is doing very well. She was born very premature - 4 months early! - and she is almost 8 months old now! Her name is Emmanuella, but we call her Emma for short.
I hope all my students had a great summer and are ready & excited to start school again tomorrow! I will see you all then! :)
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