It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

 Hi Families! 

I wanted to give you a few updates and share some pictures with you to wrap up November and dive into December. It's the most wonderful time of the year in the dragonfly class but I have to say, every day is pretty special with this group! It was so great connecting with you for parent/family conferences. I loved sharing what we've been working on and the individual goals and strengths of your child! It's so nice connecting with you, and we are hopeful to connect in some new and different ways in December. Here are some upcoming events in December to mark on your calendar! 

★ Pajama day will be every Friday in December! We will also have a pajama day the day before holiday break!

★ December 17th at 10:30 we would like to invite you to zoom in and watch our 1D's Got Talent show! This will be a student designed and lead talent show where we show our talents in an effort to give back to the community during the holiday season. The Dragonflies have chosen the SPCA that they would like to donate to! This means, instead of an admission fee to our talent show, we will be collecting any items for animals (dog food, cat food, dog toys, cat toys, or money donations if you are able) and make the donation after our performance! You can send any items in up until this date and we will store them in our classroom! We will use my zoom link to host the show and I will resend it closer to the show!

★ December 23rd our class will have a hot chocolate mug swap on. Please have your child buy a mug for hot chocolate and wrap it up to bring to school. Please remind your child that this mug will be a gift for another student and they will recieve a surprise mug also! We will choose our mugs in a "yankee swap" style game so please send in mugs that both girls and boys would enjoy! 

★ December 23rd On the 23rd we would also like to invite you to join us in a "Warm and Fuzzy Poems" event. We will head outside with our hot chocolate and read some poems about what makes us feel warm and fuzzy outloud to families who can join! Please let me know if you plan on attending, as we would love to have you! Please remember this event will be outside so students should bring a warm jacket, gloves and hats to go over their pajamas for this quick event! 

As we move out of November I wanted to share some photos from our amazing month together! We are hoping to FINALLY send home Friday folders tomorrow. They've been getting away from us! I will also send home new lists to those who have emailed me! :)

Learning Update!

 Hi Families! 

 I wanted to let you know about some of the learning that happened this week in the Dragonfly class! We had a jam packed week and the students worked so hard! Along with our lessons and activities, the students also had to work so hard, as it has been our first grade assessment window. This means that students were working one on one with myself, Mrs. Larkin, and our reading and math support teachers! I'm so excited to share this data with you as we are working on tailoring our instruction to your child's specific needs! It's been so great having one on one time with each dragonfly and getting to know them even better through this time! 

In reading this week we were working on retelling our stories after we read them. We talked about how good retells are in our own words and they give enough detail to show that we read the book but not too much! We've also talked about the importance of the order of a story when we are retelling it! This week we also partner-read and talked about what it means to be a good partner and support each other in our reading. We continue to read just right books for our own reading levels and collect tricky words that we need to solve! 

This week we introduced "Brave Spellers" during writing time. We've been talking a lot about stretching out words as we write and making our best guesses on the sounds we hear. Our current class goal is to be happy and brave writers! We want students to feel brave and that they are capable of writing stories and expressing their creative ideas. Of course we know that first graders are still working on physically writing and on top of that, spelling words correctly can be exhausting and sometimes frustrating as a new writer- so we introduced the idea of Brave Spellers. This is a time where writers can put a word up on our "parking lot chart" that they would like to know how to spell correctly. Myself or Mrs. Larkin will then write the correct spelling of the word and have a mini conferring session with that writer to talk about the connection between the invented spelling they used and the conventional spelling- often-times they are pretty close! We then keep the words up for other writers to be inspired by and try in their own writing! This is a great way for writers to take risks in their writing and be proud of the hard work they are doing during writing time! 

In math we are introducing weekly math menus. Students will independently work through a menu during our math block when they are not meeting with a teacher, working on a specific math goal, or learning a new concept in a small group. The menus allow students to have choice and be in control of their own math time. We are working on independence right now and this is a great way for the students to take charge of their math learning! They have their choice between many fun games, skill sheets, and math groups to attend! I will attach a picture of a math menu on our blog for reference!

We took a tour of the amazing Zen Den we have here at school! The students were able to see a space in our school that is so special. This is a space that is offered to all students if they need a quick break or recharge from the classroom. There are quiet, sensory, and social/emotional encouraged mini breaks offered there. The purpose of the zen den is to process feelings, whether it is feeling down that a parent is away on a quick business trip or a difficult task in the classroom, or to just get a quick and quiet break in a different setting! The students loved what the Zen Den had to offer and we will be utilizing this space if we see it would benefit a student. We did explain to the students that although this place looks super intriguing, it is a teacher directed visit, as students would want to be going all of the time! We want this time to be productive, quick, special, and better their time in the classroom when they return!

Fire safety was this week and we had the amazing staff of the Stratham Fire Department guiding us in our fire safety lessons! We learned so much about what to do if there is a fire at home, school, or even being around a campfire. The students loved this time with the firefighters and we learned so many helpful tips from them! We joined the kindergartens and second grades for this! We also got some pretty cool hats!

A Fall Family Conference sign up will be heading your way this weekend! Be on the lookout for that, as it will come in addition to this update! I can't wait to meet with all of you at the end of this month and the beginning of November! Time is truly flying by!

Classroom Update! 9/26/21

 Hi Families! 

  I hope you've had a wonderful weekend and that you were able to enjoy the gorgeous weather! I spent every second of it soaking up family time and getting excited for fall! I wanted to give you a few updates on what's been happening in our classroom and also send over a link to our blog! I will be posting pictures there to give you a glimpse into our learning space! I'm excited to do this moving forward so you can feel as connected to our classroom as possible! 

    In reading, we are working on establishing great reading habits! Students have begun choosing their own just right books, and being accountable for tricky words, instead of just skipping over them. We've started using our "Starbooks" Drive through! In their coffee cup students have a job from me for them to work on during their independent reading time. This job follows along with the focus lesson of that day and requires them to show that they have completed the job! As we work on our independence during reading time, myself and Mrs. Larkin will begin pulling small groups for small group reading instruction- as well as independent conferences with each reader! 

   In math, we are working on composing and decomposing numbers, up to ten! We will do so much deep thinking about how numbers work and the rules that they have. Students are learning how to use ten frames, number bonds, drawing strategies, and counting on strategies. We are also using manipulatives to help us see our math thinking. We are using iReady Math which has an amazing aspect of talking about math. We are becoming comfortable agreeing and disagreeing with our friends' math thinking while being respectful and just exploring the different ways numbers work, socially! 

  In writing, we have been creating Mo Willems inspired books! It's so important to foster happy writers at this time of the school year, so we are watching them be so creative and excited about their books! You will be seeing these books on Seesaw very soon! As we leave our Mo Willems inspiration unit, students will create books of their own! We continue to work on handwriting each day to become more confident and fluent in our writing for these writing times! We will begin the Lucy Calkins phonics program soon- right now, we have been reviewing the kindergarten sight words! 

   In inquiry, we will be exploring cycles, starting with pumpkin cycles and then cycling out into different cycle explorations to find connections! 

SEL- Our Social Emotional Learning is intertwined throughout our daily learning in the classroom but we are so fortunate to have amazing teachers pushing into our classroom! Here is a message from one of the school councelors who teaches in our classroom every other week!  

       Dear First Grade Families,

Hello! My name is Jessie Caldwell and I’m one of the School Counselors here at SMS. In case you haven’t heard, I will be working in your child’s classroom for social emotional learning  throughout this year. These lessons called Second Step align well with all the social emotional learning that is already happening in your child’s classroom. This year, we will be discussing a variety of topics from skills to learning (listening, focusing attention, following directions, self-talk for staying on task and being assertive) AND problem solving. We will practice fair ways to play, joining in group activities, inviting others to play and handling peer disagreements. Another important unit will be focusing on emotions, identifying feelings, managing worry, calming down anger and dealing with disappointment.

These discussions and guided practice opportunities will help foster your child’s emotional growth. I’m super excited to be part of this learning process. If you ever have any questions or concerns please feel free to reach me at jcaldwell@sau16.org.  Also please take a moment to check out the SMS Counseling Corner.

Take care,

Jessie Caldwell

I'm so excited to share our classroom with you this week! Students will be uploading "tours" to Seesaw so you can see the amazing space they are working so hard in each day. If you are having any trouble getting onto Seesaw, please reach out to me! I am working with Steve Gagnon (our Makerspace teacher and Tech wiz) to connect some families who were having trouble and I'm happy to help in any way I can! 

Have a great week! 

Best, 

 Miss Donlon