More from Room 6

We've been getting outside for quick "Shake Breaks" whenever we can! This photo was taken yesterday. Moving our bodies to get ready for learning is SO important!

Mrs. Flanagan (our lovely librarian!) visited the classroom this morning to share one of her favorite books. This is part of building our community of readers at UMS! Many students have brought in a favorite book to share and several have shared already. Everyone will get a chance to share their favorite book this week. 

This morning, Mrs. McCleary (our guidance counselor) lead us in a Guided Discovery of the bus. This is a chance for students to practice safe and calm bus riding behavior in the hopes that the bus will be a safe/calm place all school year long. 

Terrific Tuesday!

It was great to get back into the swing of things after a long weekend! Students practiced math station time, which included two games and an explore station. We also had a "guest reader" in our classroom and some guests--Mrs. Hughes and her class! 

These students were practicing how to be great partners for math games while playing a simple (but valuable!) game, Penny Dice. 

In the explore station during Math Workshop, students could use our pattern block templates or explore with pattern blocks. Both were popular choices!

Miss Heney lead groups in playing Monster Squeeze to get them prepared to play it in pairs during station time tomorrow.

Mrs. Hughes read the story The Best Place to Read to get us thinking about the class book we were about to make. Each student created a page for the class book telling about his/her favorite place to read at home or at school. I hope to post this book electronically soon!

All About Me

Our first theme unit in first grade is "All About Me." One of the projects in this unit is a self portrait collage. The finished self portraits will hang in our classroom all year long. Students started two parts of the project last week: they made personalized name tags and painted the background for their self portraits. Next week, I'll read the book The Colors of Us by Karen Katz. This book explores the variety of skin tones in our world and how unique we all are! Students will then mix paint to create their skin tone to use for their self portrait. Here are a few photos that show what we've done so far!

Students colored their names however they wanted to, and they could then add sequins, feathers, and foam shapes to personalize their name tags. These names will hang on the wall underneath their self portraits. 

An example of a colored name tag.

Students had the choice of using warm or cool colors for their background painting. 

A finished background.

Hard at work!

An example of the warm color background. 

Welcome Back!

We had a great first few days of school, even with record-breaking heat! I did bring in two A/C units from home, which were installed on Thursday afternoon, so Friday was a bit more bearable! This is a great group of children, and I KNOW it's going to be a wonderful school year.

On Day #1, students walked through this fun doorway!

Balloons make things a bit more festive!

I will show the picture of the WHOLE line of students on Day #1, once I receive everyone's blog permission slip. Here's a sneak peak!

A bit about math...

We started math time right from Day #1. The beginning of our Everyday Math curriculum is focused on learning the routines for math time and exploring games and materials we will use for learning during the first grade year. For example, children learned about our Math Meeting time, which includes songs (Days of the Week, Months of the Year, etc.), the calendar/weather routine, counting the days of school with base-10 blocks/coins/# grid, and more. We also have been doing "Guided Discoveries" of different math materials (such as pattern blocks), which encourage children to share ideas and explore with various materials before using them for specific learning purposes. In the slideshow below, children are pictured exploring pattern blocks during math time and free choice time. Enjoy!

Children also explored Unifix Cubes during our math time, and several children chose to use these blocks again during free choice time. Later in the school year, we will use Unifix Cubes to explore counting, patterning, and more.

                    

A great first day!

Hello, everyone!
I was so impressed with your children today! It was a HOT day outside and very warm in the classroom. We were all quite sweaty, but we still got off to a good start. :-) I noticed a lot of children had water bottles with them, and I was happy about that. Please feel free to send your child to school with water any time, but especially on these extremely hot days. It is fine to keep the water bottles in the classroom, or your child can bring it back and forth each day--whatever works best for your family.

The first days of school include lots of "teacher talk," as I have to introduce a lot of routines, but we are still able to mix many activities into the mix. Ask your child about their time with pattern blocks, decorating special name tags, singing songs, taking a "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" school tour, and enjoying a popsicle before art class. It was a busy day!

I took some great photos today, but I would like to get your permission before including your child's photo on the blog. This blog is only accessible if you have the URL and is not searchable via Google or other search engines except through the UMS website. I also never post children's pictures with their names. I love sharing our blog in the classroom, and I look forward to another great year of blogging. Watch for the permission letter in your child's folder tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the big day!

It was great to see many of you today at Open House! I hope that seeing the classroom, teachers, and old and new friends helped your child feel more comfortable about tomorrow.  I have just a few reminders/notes to help as you prepare for the big day!
- Please make sure that as you complete paperwork, you send it to school with your child. I know there are many forms/pieces of paper the first few weeks, but all of the information you provide helps ensure a smooth transition back to school.
- When the morning bell rings each day, our class lines up at the middle doors like in kindergarten.
- Lastly, please don't ever hesistate to contact me with questions or concerns! E-mail is a great way to contact me: sorensone@csdvt.org

I'm looking forward to a great first day of first grade!

Take a tour!

I took some photos today of our classroom as it is right now. It is ready for the first day of school! Now we need students around to make it feel more cheerful! You will notice that many of the bulletin boards are empty or do not have much on them. They will be filled soon with student work--self portraits, our Hopes and Dreams for first grade, charts we create together, and more. We will record our improvements on the blog as we go. I believe strongly that students should have a part in creating their classroom environment. I got us started, and now we'll work as a community to make it even better! I can't wait!

This is the view of our classroom from the front door--there are many more photos in the slideshow below!

Welcome, Miss Heney!

Miss Heney will be student teaching in our classroom!

I am pleased to announce that we have a student teacher from St. Michael's College for the fall semester--Emily Heney. Miss Heney is from Essex, VT and has had lots of experience working with children of all ages. She visited UMS for our Step-Up Day in June, so most students have already had the opportunity to meet her. Emily is working towards a degree in Elementary Education, and student teaching is an important culminating experience. Welcome to UMS, Miss Heney!

Welcome to First Grade!

I hope that everyone is enjoying the end of the summer and getting ready to head back to school! I am excited to see everyone again! I just returned to Vermont after a month-long trip home to visit my family in Michigan, and I am now busy getting the classroom ready. I also took a course earlier in the summer about the Reading Workshop, and I am eager to implement the new things I learned!

This is my second year of classroom blogging. It was very well received last year, and I hope that parents this year find it just as useful. Once school is in session you can visit the blog to see photos and videos of students, information about curriculum and the latest happenings at school, and updates/reminders about events and other important dates. Please feel free to peruse last year's info to get a general idea of how the blog works. The sidebars will help you navigate the blog.

I hope to see everyone next week for the Ice Cream Social!