Twas the Week Before Christmas Break

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas, and is enjoying school break!  The week before break was a whirlwind of activities and excitement.  Here are a few clips from the fun activities we did in Learning Lane.

To kick of our weeks activity we had a wonderful Holiday concert.  It was so wonderful to see everyone dressed up and performing their songs they had worked so hard to learn.

Polar Puppies

The last week before break in Learning Lane we had Christmas around the world.  Each classroom was a different country.  Students were put into multi-aged groups and traveled through the rooms learning about the different cultures and doing different cultural activities.  The different countries included Australia, Congo, Israel, Italy, and Christmas long ago.

Students working in Israel

Working on their kangaroos in Australia

Helping one another

Filling out passports

Lake Region Dancers

Last Friday we had a wonderful opportunity, the Lake Region high school dance group visited.  They did a number of Christmas and cultural dances.  Everyone in the audience was completely engaged.  This was an awesome treat for everyone!  Here are a few pictures from the show.

The group doing the opening to the show

Frozen - 'Let it Go' - everyone was singing

Foreign exchange student doing her cultural dance

Gingerbread week

This week is going to be filled with excitement and fun activities.  To kick off the week we will be starting our learning lane Christmas around the world.  Each child in learning lane will be places in a multi-age k-2 group, then they will travel around the world to 6 different countries.  The travels will start Monday and go through Wednesday. Please remember to ask your child where they traveled that day, and what they learned about that country's holiday traditions.   

Also, on Tuesday it will be our Christmas concert, everyone has been working hard to learn and prepare for this exciting event.

Finally, as we count down to Chistmas break, we will be reading different versions of the Gingerbread man, and comparing these stories.  Along with this, we will be doing a number of reading, writing, and math activities around gingerbread men.  To celebrate Christmas together as a class on Friday, we will be having a gingerbread man decorating party.  Each student will get their own gingerbread man or girl to decorate and enjoy.  If you are able to help with the frosting or toppings please send in the form below.  Thank you for all your help in making this week a special one.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Saunders

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Name:__________________________

__________frosting                                                 __________ juice boxes

__________sprinkles                                              ___________plates

__________gel food pens                                       ___________plastic knives

Concert

1^st Grade

Christmas Concert

December 16^th

At

9:30 a.m.

Christmas Is Coming

I hope everyone had a very wonderful Thanksgiving with their families.  It is unbelievable that we are in the count down till Christmas break, and we are having our 1st snow day!

We have a lot planned for these next 2 1/2 weeks till break.  Right before break Learning Lane teachers got our hallway prepped for the holidays.  Over the next couple weeks students will be learning about holiday traditions not only in America, but also about traditions around the world.  One of our Learning Lane activities to come in the next weeks is Christmas around the world.  Students will be given a ticket, passport, and suitcase to travel the world with.  Each classroom will be a different country.  In that room they will learn about cultural traditions and participate in activities that reflect that countries Christmas traditions.

Also, in our classroom we are counting down to Christmas break with our GoNoodle advent calendar.  This wonderful website is full of great movement brain breaks that we will participate in each day till Christmas break.   To learn more about GoNoodle go to https://www.gonoodle.com/.

Another fun holiday thing that we will be doing in our classroom will be around reindeer.  This week we read Olive the Other Reindeer.  After we all went to work writing our own reindeer applications.  Next, we will create our own pet reindeer and add them to our 'Oh Deer' bulletin board.

Also, don't forget our Christmas concert, December 16th at 9:30!!

Planning out our Learning Lane board

Finish product, except details that will come from students

Our board for our pet reindeer

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thank you all for doing the fun turkey project with your child!  I hope you enjoyed doing it as much as we have enjoyed seeing and reading about them.  We at Learning Lane hope that you all have a very wonderful and happy Thanksgiving!  This is always a busy time of year with family and events, always remember to try to slow down and enjoy family and count your blessings.  

It will be very busy 3 weeks in between Thanksgiving and Christmas break.   Please make sure to save the concert date, December 16th at 9:30 on your calendar.  They are already practicing and so very excited.

Also, please look for report cards either on line or in paper form December 12th.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving from some of the Learning Lane Team

A sample of some creative Learning Lane student, has anyone seen any turkeys?

Homework

This past week I started math homework.  I sent home two math homework papers last week; 4.1 and 4.2.  I will be planning to send home 2-3 math homework pages this week.  Please remember to look for them in the math fliers.  They will be in there along with our quick check (quiz) and common core review paper.  When your child has completed the assignment please remember to send it back to school in their folder.  One of the requirements in 1st grade is to complete and return homework.  Students will be graded on the completion of their homework on their report card.  I will remind them to pass it in, but it is their responsibility to get it from their folder to me.

Also, please remember to practice spelling with your child throughout the week.  We will have a test on Fridays to see if they have mastered their spelling words.  Also, I have started having them write application sentences on the back of their spelling test.  This is to not only see if they can apply their spelling words into sentences, but it is also to see if they are remembering punctuation, capitals, spaces, and neat handwriting.  All of these areas are 1st grade requirements for writing.  My hope is that the rubrics will help you to see what skills your child needs to work on to meet 1st grade standards.

Next week because it is a 2 day week we will not be having spelling!

Also remember it is very important at this point in your child's learning to continue to practice reading at home.

November Learning

November!!!

I cannot even believe that it is already 2 weeks into November!! It has been a very busy start to the school year, and with the holidays ahead it will continue to be very busy and full of learning.  This week we started our social studies unit on now and long ago.  Throughout this study students will learn about how people's lives were different and the same long ago to our lives.  As we study we will be learning about the Pilgrims and Wampanoag Native Americans.  Also, this month we will be learning about Veteran's Day and how we can honor and thank our veterans.  

In math we have been continuing to learn different strategies to add and subtract numbers.  The strategies we are learning in Topic 4 are to help us to become more fluent in our addition facts.  Also, keep an eye out for math homework from now on.  I will be sending home 2-3 homework papers a week.  If you have any questions about the homework please do not hesitate to ask.  Also, if you could please send it back to school in your child's folder it will help me to give them credit for their work at home.

In writing we have been learning about how to write about information we learn about the pilgrims and life in the past.  Also, we will be working on a persuasive turkey piece as we get closer to Thanksgiving!

Upcoming Important Dates:

November 25th - 1st Trimester Ends

November 26-30 - Thanksgiving Break

December 12th - 1st Trimester Report Cards Come Home

December 16th @ 9:30 - 1st grade holiday concert

December 20th - Christmas Break begins

Harvest Celebration on Learning Lane

For Halloween we did a special Learning Lane rotation.  The multi-aged students went to three different stations to to an activity.  They went to one kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade classroom.  In that room they did an activity.  In the Kindergarten room they created slimy goo and spider hats.  In the 1st grade room they worked as a team to create a artistic raft that will go together to create a mural for Learning Lane.  Finally, in the 2nd grade classroom they made scarecrows. Everyone had a great time!

During math games we played an addition game called roll a pumpkin.  In this game you roll two dice and add the numbers together; then, you find the directions that match your number.  The goal of the game is to have your pumpkin put together first.

To end our days celebration we watched Charlie Brown and the great pumpkin.  I hope that everyone had a very fun and safe Halloween!

Ms. Johnson and Mrs. Flanagin's room working on scarecrows

Playing build a pumpkin

Almost a complete pumpkin

Working on the building pumpkin game

Mrs. Flangin helping students put their scarecrow together

Learning this wet week

This week was a very wet one, but we made it through!  Everyone was very excited to learn about all the options available during inside recess.  I think some of their favorite options were blocks, painting, legos, and the hopscotch puzzle.  Here are few things we worked on this week in our different subjects.

Reading:  This weeks spelling rule was short vowel -e.  This vowel sound is one of the trickiest ones, since it is closely related to short vowel -a.  I think we all did a great job, and we are well on our way to mastering this tricky sound.  For a comprehension focus we worked on comparing and contrasting stories.  We read two stories by the same author, Paul Brett Johnson, and we had a blast comparing and contrasting the two stories.  Below are pictures of the stories, the author is a very fun writer, and I recommend looking into him with your child the next time you are at the library.

                             

Math:  In math we finished up Topic 2 this week.  You will be receiving a paper to tell you how your child did on their test Friday.  Topic 2 was  all about subtraction.  We had to find the missing number in problems and discover the answer to take away or difference word problems.

Writing:  In writing we have been learning about what informational writing is.  We read books about bats and owls.  We then learned how to collect information about these topics, and then we wrote three facts on each animal.  For the owl paper we created owl books, we are looking forward to sharing them with you on parent-teacher conferences this week!

Splat the Cat

This week will will be finishing up our study about moon phases.  Everyone has really enjoyed learning more about why the moon appears to be changing in the night sky.  This past week we read Splat the Cat:  Good Night, Sleep Tight.  After we read this story, we created our own Splat the Cat's. We also wrote an opinion piece on which moon phase is our favorite.  Everyone is very excited for you to see their cat and writing at parent-teacher conferences, the week of the 27th!

Tracing, gluing, and creating our cats

A new favorite, and great 1st grade character

Getting there, see our finished product at conferences!

Upcoming Events In October

October

17th - Mid Trimester Reports come home

27th-30th - Book Fair

28th-30th - Parent Teacher Conferences

31st - Learning Lane Harvest Celebration (more to come later)

Happy Columbus Day

One of our social studies goals this year is to learn about the different holiday's throughout the school year.  We started this week by talking about long ago and what is the meaning of history.  We then learned about Columbus Day.  I hope you all have enjoyed your long weekend!

Making our Columbus Day books shaped like a ship

Butterfly Release Experience

It has been very exciting to watch the life cycle of a butterfly along side the 2nd graders in Learning Lane.  This past week a bunch of them emerged from their chrysalis', and we were able to watch them be released! Here are a few highlight photos of the event.

Ms. Johnson opening the butterfly cage up to let them out

Mr. Coyne helping release them

Sharing the butterflies

Technology in the classroom!

There are a number of different things that are used to help us learn different concepts and skills.  One of the methods we use, and that can be used at home are some different websites.  It is important for students to use paper and pencil, but these websites can be a fun and motivational method of learning.  Please feel free to use these sites to help with spelling, reading, and math!

Spelling can be a difficult thing to be motivated to study so, I have set up an account on spellcity.com.  When you go to the site scroll down the spelling lists till you find the week that matching our current spelling list.  There are tests, games, and lessons to help your child work through their spelling list.  On a short school week, I will try to send the list home over the weekend.
Please check out spellcity: https://www.spellingcity.com/krissaunders1/

For reading, Mrs. Roberts and I have purchased an account with Raz-Kids.  This site is a wonderful site that contains leveled readers at your child's level.  Your child can go in and read, listen to reading, and take quizzes on what they have read.  Also, they are able to earn stars as they spend more time on their reading.  With these stars they can buy things for their robot and their robot's home.  Students use this site several times a week as one of their centers during guided reading.
Here is the link to Raz-Kids: http://www.raz-kids.com/main/Login

Another great reading and math site that is free and the kids really enjoy is Starfall at, http://www.starfall.com/.  This site has everything from calendar skills to practicing addition and subtraction facts.

One of the standards in 1st grade in math is to know their math facts to 10 fluently.  This means that they will need to be able to do them quickly and without manipulatives.  In order to help meet this goal we will be practicing speed tests eventually.  A site that I will be having them use weekly is XtraMath.  Here they will practice addition facts to try to improve their speed.  I will be sending home their user name and code this week.  Check out https://xtramath.org/ for more information about this site.

I hope you find these sites to be helpful, and if you have any questions about them or need me to resend passwords, please feel free to contact me.

Working hard on Raz-Kids

Thank you for sending headphones!

We love computer time!