The Gower Gazette
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In the Classroom... 9/8/17
Our Book of the Week helped tie in nicely to our Social Studies objectives. This week we took our understanding of kindness further and discussed teasing and bullying. Our Skype was awesome as author, Jo Mach, read us a story about two cousins that wanted to play ball. One of the cousins had a disability. She helped us understand the difference between good teasing and actual bullying someone. We had great conversations and the kids developed an understanding of disabilities and the inclusion of everyone. I was very proud of them. I hope you heard all about our kindness rocks this week too. They LOVED painting them on Tuesday and were super excited to take them home. If you are on Facebook or Twitter, be sure to tag my class pages with a picture of where you hid the rocks. I can't wait to see who finds them as we spread a little kindness around our community. You can also hashtag Wake County Rocks.
In Math this week we switched from basic addition to developing an understanding of missing addends. This is a hard concept for first graders and helps them develop a connection between addition and subtraction. We spent a lot of time working through these word problems and how to set up our equations. The kids definitely need more focus on this concept. One way you can help your child is to have them "retell" the story problem to set their equation up. Having their equation to look at helps them with solving these types of word problems. For example, if the problem is: Mia has 7 rocks. Her friend gives her some more rocks. Now she has 13 rocks. How many rocks did her friends give her? Retelling the problem would look like this: What happened first: Mia had 7 rocks (Ss writes 7 to start the equation). In the middle, her friend gives her some more (Ss thinks about whether this is addition or subtraction; since Mia got more we know it is adding so the student puts a plus beside the 7). How many more did Mia get? (since we weren't given a number, we don't know so Ss draw a box/square to represent the unknown number). What happened last? Now she has 13 rocks (Ss should see that that is the total and record it as =13 beside the box). This helps set the problem up for them so they can solve it. This week we used Math Mountains and Counting on. The problem with unknown addends is that students want to add the total to the known addend. We will spend next week focusing on this some more. Look for an instructional video later in the week to help you guide your child through this.
As you can see lots of things happening in our room this week. I also wanted to apologize for sending home homework on Monday. I typically don't do that when we are out of school. When I planned homework over the weekend it slipped my mind that we were off, but the kids worked through it like a champ and forgave me, lol.
I hope you all have a terrific weekend and enjoy hiding those kindness rocks with your kids. Make sure to scroll down to the Notes section for updates on Report Cards, Apps needed for BYOD, etc.
Take Care,
Ms. Gower
Dot Day:
- Dot Day is Friday! We will be focusing on this book all next week and to celebrate Dot Day with our school and schools across our nation, I am asking the kids to come to school wearing "dots". The student wearing the most dots on Friday will receive a surprise! So begin planning what your child can wear =)
We Could Use...
- White Cardstock
- Gift Card to Michael's to go Toward the Purchase of Tie-Dye for our Class Shirts
- Laminating Pouches
- HP Printer Ink 950/951
- Kid Bops CDs (we like to listen to music in the morning and sometimes when working. YouTube removed many of these songs so we can't access them anymore)
Mark Your Calendars-
- Sept. 19-29- Parent Teacher Conferences
- Fri. Sept. 29- Early Release
- Oct. 6- Awards Day @1:20 & Report Cards go Home
- Oct. 16-20- Spirit Week & Boosterthon (More Info to Come)
- Oct. 20- Track Out & Early Release
Notes~
- Report Cards- The date for when these go home was incorrect; 1st Quarter Report Cards will go home on October 6th not Sept. 29th. Please note this change.
- BYOD- I am really excited to see many kids participating with BYOD. We've connected their devices to the network; however, many of the kids do not have the apps added to their device to use them during the day. Please be sure to add the following apps in order for your child to continue to bring their device to school: Kids A-Z, Spelling City, Seesaw, Flipgrid, QR Scanner (not Reader), Front Row Ed and Bookmark Menti.com.
- Tie-Dye/Class T-Shirts- We will be making our class shirts next week on Tuesday afternoon. Please make sure your child wears clothes that are ok to get stained. We will take all the measures we can to prevent dye from getting on your child, but it could happen so I encourage the kids to not wear their best clothes!
- Volunteers- I will be sending home volunteer information soon; however, in order to help in our classroom or on our field trip, you MUST complete the Wake County Volunteer form at school. This has to be done each year; therefore, even if you completed this in kindergarten, it doesn't carry forward and you must do it again. It takes few weeks to process so please plan to come to school and complete this in the Media Center so that when volunteers begin 2nd quarter you'll be ready to jump right in. Also, I am looking for a few parents to team up and be our "party planners". Our first party will be in October as we celebrate Fall with our Fall Festival. If you are interested in helping with this and other events this year, send me an email or message me on Dojo.
- Conferences- These will begin Sept 19-29. Sign up sheets will go home on Monday. Please look for these and choose some dates and times that will work best for you. I will send home a confirmation of our conference date and time on Friday. I am looking forward to talking with you all about your awesome children.
WSES- Embracing the Needs of Every Child!
"In order to succeed, we must first BELIEVE that we can"
~Nikos Kazantzakis
Email: egower@wcpss.net
Website: msgower.weebly.com
Location: 6800 Dwight Rowland Road, NC, United States
Phone: (919) 557-2770
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/msgower/
Twitter: @MsGowersClass