Buenos Dias!

So many exciting things have been happening in Room 105!  Here is a sampling of what we have been up to:

• The class had a field trip to the Fire Barn where they learned about fire safety.  We suggest discussing your fire evacuation route and family meeting spot at home.  They had a wonderful learning experience inside the smoke trailer and they were thrilled to get to take a "ride" on the ladder truck!
• Eric Street visited Rowe to teach the first graders about recycling.  It would be wonderful if students had the opportunity to recycle at home and to visit the transfer station!
• Wilma worm wrote the class a letter to teach them about composting and how to take care of her worm friends and family and then our compost bin and red wigglers arrived!  Students have had the chance to explore the worms and have started a worm journal to record their observations and scientific thinking.  
• We added "buenos dias" to our list of greetings and learned how to do a safe high five. 
• During read-alouds, we have been working on making connections.  When reading to your child at night, you may choose to ask them questions such as, "How does this book remind you of yourself or someone you know?" or, "How is this book like another book you have read?"
• We have been learning about beginning sounds, rhymes, and the days of the week.  Also, we have been learning about capitalization and punctuation.  Students are working towards using uppercase and lowercase letters correctly and using punctuation to end each sentence.  
• We have added many sight words to our class word wall and students are now expected to spell these words correctly: is, and, I, to, was, my, you.
• In handwriting, students have learned how to write capital F, E, D, P, B, R, N, M, H, K, L, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, C, O, Q, and G.
• Our class is now independently navigating and completing our literacy workboard (various literacy stations such as word study center, writing center, reading journal, poetry center, listening center, etc.), which means we are now able to begin reading groups!  The students have been very excited to come to reading group because a majority of students have shared their desire to become better readers in first grade.  It is really important that your student is reading and/or being read to every day.
• In math we have been doing lots of work with counting nickels and pennies.  Many of the students would benefit from extra practice counting by 5s and by 2s at home. 

I am looking forward to the start of conferences next week!  Have a wonderful week!