Room 103 Post Office

POST OFFICE IS NOW OPEN!!!

The students are continuing to write for a variety of purposes. After reading, "Dear Juno" and "How the Mail Works" the students showed interest in writing letters to each other, so I created a post office in the dramatic play center. I also sent letters to the students over spring break, they were so excited to get their own mail!

Students write and send letters to each other, teachers and staff. They even created signs for the post office. 

Ask your child what is included in a letter (date, greeting, body, and closing).

While writing in the post office, students learned how to address an envelope and create post cards. 

Next week we will start writing to first grade pen pals in Nebraska. Ask your child what they should include in their letter...

PREFIXES!!!

The students have been learning how to identify prefixes and root words. To help students practice the meaning and how to identify a prefix, they collaborated with a partner to make a game.

 Ask your student to recall a word with a prefix and root word.
Want a challenge???
Ask your child to recall a word with prefix, root word and suffix.

Then ask them to tell you the meaning of the word, for example, "unkindly" (not in a kind way).

100th Day of School

Today we celebrated the 100th Day of School. We made stories using "100" of anything. We made hats using our understanding of place-value and necklaces out of 100 Fruit Loops!

First grade had a special visit from a local Chicago author, Natasha Tarpley. Ms. Tarpley was kind enough to come share her books and teach us more about the writing process.

Her children books include, I Love My Hair, Bippity Bop Barbershop, Destinys Gift, Joe Joe's First Flight and her newest book, Princess Tiana and the Royal Ball.

We've read, I love My Hair and Bippity Bop Barbershop. Ask your child to tell you about the stories and how Ms. Tarpley develops writing ideas. 

Where do you get your writing ideas from???

How-To Books

We recently started making How-To books. Use this chart at home to create more How-To books. Help your child brainstorm ideas and give clear directions. Bring to school any How-To books you make and we will share them with the class.

Here are some of the How-To books being created in room 103

After we write our How-To book, we  recheck our directions with a partner to make sure they are clear, detailed and make sense.

 Once we've practiced our How-To directions we make any revisions using sticky notes.

Genre Study

This quarter we will be exploring a variety of genres. Students identified the characters, setting and sequenced the events in the fairy tale, "The Princess and the Pea." Ask your child to retell the story using sequence words such as first, next, then and lastly.

The students have also been identifying character traits using text evidence to help build comprehension. Ask your child a character trait that describes the following characters and make sure they tell you "why" using an example from the text.

Red Ribbon Week

Our school celebrated Red Ribbon Week this week. Red Ribbon Week is a drug-prevention program. As a school community, we celebrated being drug free through spirit week and a poster contest. Cross your fingers that we win!!!