Mrs. Nagy's 1st Grade Class
First Grade is One in a Minion!
READ ACROSS AMERICA IS MARCH 2ND!
Hello Parents! It is hard to believe we are fast approaching March! WOW!!!! February was a very busy month! We have been talking about Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, Ash Wednesday and Lent, the true meaning of Valentine's Day along with strategies of subtraction and using technology to write facts about our favorite ocean animal! Phew! Here are a few things to get us ready for the upcoming month!
Read Across America - Friday, March 2nd is Read Across America Day and is also the birthday of Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss). All week long we will be diving into the many books and interesting things Theodore Geisel did for children and children's literature. I am sure you have a favorite as I do. I would like your child to bring in a Dr. Seuss book (or two), if feasible, that they have read at least once or twice. If you do not have any, I have plenty available at school! We will be reading them, sharing them, and writing about them during our school week. I could also use prepackage colored gold fish (16 small bags) for a graphing activity that goes along with the book One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. Please email if you would like to help! It should be a lot of fun!!!!
100th day of school - In addition to the excitement of Read Across America this week, Monday, March 5th will be our 100th day of school!!!!!!!! I love this day and love to plan so many fun activities based around the number 100. This is where I need some help!!!
Items needed include:
* (4) boxes of small 100 count dixie cups
*1 large bag of M&M's
*1 large bag of Bugles corn snacks
*1 box of Honeycomb cereal
*1 bag of mini Marshmallows
*1 large bag of Skittles
*1 box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal
*1 bag of popped popcorn
*1 box of fruit loops
*1 box of Rice Chex cereal
Please email if you are interested in sending in any item on the list. That way we can avoid duplicates...although extra food is never wasted on a group of hungry first graders :) Thank you in advance for your support to make our 100th day a success!!!! These items can be sent in any time this week!!!!
- Book order -A book order will be coming home in your child's folder! Please feel free to use the link below to place an order or return the order to school March 2nd.
Book it – February Book last day is Wednesday. Extra copies went home in those students folders that have not completed. Again, this is optional, but a great way to encourage your child to read which they should be doing every night for 25 minutes! March Book it will come home on Friday and seeing as it is a month celebrating fabulous Dr, Seuss, it is a large Seuss hat with room for lots of books to be recorded!
AR - Keep those books coming! We have lots of time to keep on plugging away at taking tests. Remember the AR goal for this year is 40 points! That is 80 books by May. ARP is a great way to help your child read for comprehension as well as learn to site text to help them find answers if they are unsure. These are skills all readers need to master to becoming literate. I will guide your child should they be weary and help them as necessary. My goal is to help them find confidence in reading and feel successful with their abilities!
MONEY, MONEY, MONEY-Although we have not "officially" started our math unit on measurement and money, we have been talking and learning about coins, their value and how to count them since the first day. Most weeks on the spelling test you will notice a "MYSTERY MONEY" question that involves the students looking at a collection of coins on the Smartboard and deciding how much money is represented. It is alarming that many students still are having incredible difficulty even recognizing the coins, yet alone being able to calculate a total. I would like to really hit this hard for the rest of the year. This is a skill that all students will need to have in the real world!!! I would like for you to send a ziploc labeled with your child's name that includes 25 pennies, 5 nickels, 5 dimes, 4 quarters. I think it is of utmost importance that they use real coins instead of imitation to truly grasp the concept of this skill. This is something you may reinforce at home once in a while to help extend the learning!! We are beginning a unit on Place value in math, so this will translate well for those students struggling with counting by tens (dimes). Please send the coins as soon as possible. Thank you!
Romeo and Lou - As you have all had the experience, our classroom has been participating in a class project of Romeo and Lou. They have made their rounds through each and every child's home...but as requested by the students, they would each like another turn with our furry friends!! If the children are willing and excited, then I am too! Please enjoy them when they visit! If you take pictures but do not have a way to print them, please email them to me and I can print them at school. The children love to see the pics!!!! Thank you for your help in this matter.
- READ TO CLASS - A great way to boost children's independence and confidence in reading is to have them read to a friend. We spend time each day reading to each other, however, I have found many of the students enjoy being the Story time reader to the class. Starting in March, I will have a sign up sheet for the students that WANT to read to the class. On their day, they should bring a book from home that they have practiced and read many times to read. It is not about the difficulty of the book or the length of the book, but how fluently and expression filled the reader can be. We want to foster confidence and we want the audience to be engaged!!! The book you and your child decide on should only take about 10 minutes MAX to read. I love listening to the students read and I love, love, love, to see how excited and proud they are when they do it!!!! Once the list is created I will send home a copy so you can help prepare your child for their "BIG DAY!"
I hope this brings us up-to-date with our classroom events. I know this is a lot of things all at once! Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions!
Mrs. Nagy
CANDY HEART STEM CHALLENGE BRIDGE
Sebastian and Dante...teamwork!
Chase and Trystan problem solving!
Grayson and Lucas, a force to be reckoned with!
HOW TALL ARE YOU, ABE? We learned that Abe was our tallest President standing 6'4" tall and was 7 feet tall when he wore his famous stovepipe hat! We also got to try on size 14 shoes, the size shoe that Honest Abe wore!
ROMEO AND LOU visiting with Lillian!
First Grade Love!
Special schedules - Our special schedule is a ongoing rotation of A, B, C, with Friday being FLEX Friday (where our specials vary depending on availability).
B Music and Technology
C Gym and Spanish
MATH
As mentioned above, we will begin a unit on place value learning about what a number means and building it using tens and ones. In addition we will start working with coins, too! We will continue our strategy building using addition and subtraction. Children must have a solid foundation of their math facts in order to find success in future grades. We will continue to learn about the many ways we can find an answer, including using manipulatives, using a hundreds chart, drawing a picture, mental math, using a number line, making a tens frame, even using our fingers. Not every strategy will work best for your child, but we learn the many different ways so your child can experience and discover the best way for them to be a STEM problem solver.
We will also continue to work on graphing, number sequence, skip counting and shapes (3-D and 2-D) throughout other areas of instruction, TOO:)