FALLing for First Grade!

I am certainly FALLing in love with these first graders more and more each day! First and foremost this week, THANK YOU to everyone who came to conferences! I hope that you enjoyed your student led conference as much as I did. I loved watching your child show you something that they loved in the classroom, proudly show you their work and art in the hallway, and hearing them talk about their academic and social life at school! I was very impressed with the way each student was able to tell about our work in all content areas, as well as Music, Art, PE, and hold honest conversations about their behaviors and citizenship skills. I know it can feel unusual to not have the teacher do all of the talking at conferences, but hope that you find the value in your child being a LEADER in their own learning ----taking ownership and accountability for their time at school, while I facilitate and add in extra details as needed. From my perspective, it felt like each conference was very productive and time was spent equally between student, parent, and teacher input. I would very much appreciate it if you could take a moment to complete a survey on the student led conference experience. Your feedback is taken into consideration when planning for future conferences! You can find 4 question survey HERE.

Speaking of students as leaders, our students are leaders in the classroom every day! Here, Izzy is performing her "Teacher Assistant" duties. The teacher assistant helps Mrs. Powell around the classroom as needed, and is in charge of the morning routine before we start our day. The teacher assistant adds numbers to the calendar, asks the class questions about the numbers on the calendar (ie: what comes before 12, what comes after 12?), reads the schedule for the day, tells the date and digital date, and conducts sight word chants/cheers.

We also have a pet caretaker, a messenger, supply managers, a recycler, a trash helper, door holder, line leader, caboose, paper passers, energy conservationist, and more! Ask your child if they have had any classroom jobs yet! We rotate every Monday morning.

Here's Angela, being a leader in math! Angela was so proud to come up and explain how to use a picture representation (circle drawing) to solve a story problem. She also wrote the matching equation! Way to be a rockstar, Angela!!

This week we learned all about fire safety from the Cherry Grove Fire Dept. Please ensure that your family has a plan for fire safety. Where is your meeting place? Meeting places should be in the backyard, or the neighbors driveway, etc. Meeting places should never be in the road or your own driveway, as the firetrucks and response vehicles will need that space! Have you shown your child the exits and escape routes from every room in the house? Have you checked your smoke alarms and fire extinguishers? Please review with your child how to get out of the house, and remind them not to stop for toys, pets, etc. in the event of a fire or emergency.

We finished our Halloween art and costume writings. We hope you enjoyed reading them at conferences! Our students are doing a great job writing with capitals where they belong, ending marks, finger spaces, and handwriting on the lines nice and neat! Keep encouraging nice penmanship when your child is writing at home, too! Practice makes better!

These friends are practicing reading real and nonsense words at the Daily 5 Word Work area. The words on the pumpkins reflect the sounds that we have been practicing during our spelling/phonics time!

I just love these smiles!! We were having a great time together!

We have been working SO HARD in class! After math today, we just could not resist an opportunity to take a fall walk on our nature trail! I heard a lot of excitement about the upcoming Halloween Hike! The colors were gorgeous, and these pictures do not do it justice. Get out there and walk the trail sometime with your student. It really is a lot of fun! The playground and trail are available to you after school and on the weekends!!!

This photo is take from the middle of the nature trail! Hard to believe this is our backyard. We are so lucky!! If you could have only heard the conversations----especially where we pretended that the trails of red leaves were hot lava! Well, of course! What else could it possibly be?!

Have a fantastic weekend!!! See you Monday!