Hi again

We're working on telling time in math. All first graders are responsible for being able to tell time to the hour and 1/2 hour on both digital and analog clocks. Second graders are responsible for telling time to the 1/4 hour. Please work on this skill at home.

With the beautiful spring weather of course comes allergies. If you are going to give your child an allergy medication of any kind, please make sure it doesn't make them drowsy. I have some friends who are falling asleep in class!

We are going to have our last field trip of the year in May. We'll be heading once again to the Freedom Center Swimming pool. Make sure those swim shorts are ready!

This week starts our spring testing season. I can't stress enough how important it is to have your child in bed early and eating a great breakfast. These scores follow them and are used to show their growth over the year.

We have been given a little patch of earth to work in for the spring and so the boys, Mrs. Rice, Mrs. Robertson, and I have been busy weeding at school once a week for a little while and planting a variety of seeds. We're excited to see what might start happening. In addition, we are getting ready to see our caterpillars turn into butterflies in our own butterfly garden in the classroom once again. Each boy has their own and have named them: Sunny, Carey, Gary, Blake, and George. Can you guess the name that your child came up with?

Remember, no school for students May 4th for it's a teacher work day :-)


Enjoy your week! And for those that need it, my home phone is back to being functional....for today at least.

I am not ignoring you....

however, I won't be available for calling between Friday and sometime late next week probably. If you do need me, please email me and I can call you back.

We have a field trip on our first Thursday back from break. We're heading bowling and to Tony's again. It's going to be $8 per student. That will cover everything that they need.

Also, starting the Friday back from break, we will be missing Mrs. Robertson for three weeks. She is studying to become an ESOL teacher and is going to be helping our staff with their testing of our ESOL students. As a result, Mrs. Rice will be joining us. We are sad that Mrs. Robertson will be out but excited to welcome Mrs. Rice.

Hope everything is going well with break! We'll finally be moving into our house on Friday/Saturday/Sunday and couldn't be more excited!

My class of SUPER HERO BOYS <3

Today is World Autism Day. This morning, before the boys got here, I went around and put labels on the faculty and staff. They have the ribbon on them and say Autism Awareness. The point was is for a day, instead of labeling our children, we should label ourselves in honor of them. We can often overlook what happens beyond "a label" no matter what it is.

In the belief that it is never too early to become a self-advocate, we talked about Autism as a class. I told the boys that Autism gives those special friends SUPER HERO abilities. Some of us have super sensitive hearing and can hear anything from far away as if it is through a mega-phone. That's an ability that not many others have.

Other friends have the SUPER HERO abilities to put things together and take them apart. They can figure things out and how to make things fit together perfectly and swiftly. That's an ability that not many others have.

Other friends have the SUPER HERO abilities to read, work with letters, sound things out and read well beyond their years and peers. They can find the beauty in the written language and devour books at a time and over and over again. That's an ability that not many others have.

I've watched these Super Hero boys grow exponentially over the past almost two years. They are more social, engage others more often, have become more tolerant of changes, more adventurous, and each day, can push anyone to their limits.

Sure, it's not all rainbows and miracles, but they are SUPER HERO boys. They can make anything better with a smile and some popcorn. They can make anything out of putty and blocks. Books can take on lives on their own and we can all be characters. Each one of them makes everyday full of endless possibilities and I thank you for sharing them with me, everyday.

I've become awful at updating

Things are going well in our classroom.

We really enjoyed Mrs. Robertson's birthday this past week along with our field trip to House of Bounce. 1.5 hours of bouncing on inflatables was enjoyed by everyone!

We've been working hard on learning about measuring, using scales and balancing. We're next going into capacity so it should be interesting. In addition, we're going to start working on the addition of doubles, then the addition of doubles plus 1, plus 2, etc.

March 30th is McDonalds Night for the school if you're interested in planning for dinner on Monday. More info will go home on Monday about the location of the McDonalds and such.

I just wanted to give you a quick heads up that if you need to reach me over the next couple of weeks outside of school, email is best. We're in the process of moving (we should be closing toward the end of Spring Break) and so phone calls will be harder to answer as there are too many boxes to trip over to find a phone!



Our next field trip is the week we come back from spring break on Thursday. Bowling and Pizza. :-)

Two in one day, alert the media!

Well, huge news from our classroom!!!

Curious George wrote us a letter.

Some back story. We (as a class) have been a bit obsessed with Curious George since the book fair when the big guy himself (a teacher dressed as him) came to visit us. He gave Sunny a high-five and a hug (along with everyone else). Well, Sunny still talks about it to this day. We have a stuffed George doll from Kohls that is probably the most loved thing in our room. I finally decided that we needed to do something productive. During our writing time, we wrote to George. We asked him where he was, what he is doing, if he remembered giving us the high fives and hugs, etc. Well, he wrote back. It was HUGE news for our room.

Next up, we're writing to the Cat in the Hat.


If you are up and watching, tomorrow (2/25) on Good Morning America is talking about Adults with Autism. I just saw it on the commercial and have it set to DVR.

Sorry that you didn't come to reading night. Parents and kids alike LOVED it. Hope you will come next time.

Some things....

Hi Friends,


Real quick. Tonight is reading night at the school. Feel free to bring your family in their pjs to have milk and cookies, do some crafts, hear some stories, and read some stories together. In addition, there are parent stations to learn about some strategies to help your child. It'll be a grand ol' time!

As I emailed yesterday, March 9th is class picture day. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE have your child to school on time. We are scheduled for 9am. There will also be individual pictures again in case you would like to order any. (Not that I'm whispering any great ideas, but if you wanted to take your own class photo, this would be the day since we'll probably all look our best! I might even shock everyone and wear a skirt....but probably not. ;-) )

PLEASE send in your box tops by Friday (the earlier the better). We have raised over 1500 dollars for the school year. Yes, Ms. Stern seriously stares people down to get them since she's in charge.

We are working on geometric shapes and finishing up on fractions in math. So, instead of saying that they want some soup, your child might start talking about that cylinder. Okay, maybe not, but that's what we are talking about in school.

Interims are supposed to come home on Friday. Teachers have yet to receive them to get them out, so I'll let you know when I do.

Come to reading night tonight!!! :-) (best part, IT'S FREE!!!!!)

Compliments

We keep winning the compliment parties for first grade for our great behavior. This would be great if our students knew what it meant to be given a compliment.

As a result of this knowledge that they don't understand what they are, we had a lesson in complimenting today. We had to tell our friends what we like about them. We FINALLY got the hang of it and told people that we like their shirts, black shoes, hair, eyes, and ears. Yes, that's right, if you are having a bad ear day, just talk to Patrick and he'll tell you that they are great!

To continue on with our learning, we took it to the "streets" aka hallway. We sat in the hallway and watched as people walked and handed out compliments. "Nice walking", "Great Jacket", "Nice hairstyle", etc. It's great.

After we did all of this, we had our compliment party. Hot cocoa and marshmallows. So, if your child suffered from a sudden loss of energy, they were crashing from the entire bag of mini marshmallows that they devoured!

Tomorrow continues our Valentine's studying. Don't forget to find those 100 day of school shirts for next week!!!

:-)