Purple Day

Purple day was a great success! We continued using our ten frames to represent numbers. The students are doing a great job of using the ten frames and writing the numeral it represents. Baggie books went home today, please have your student read each book (preferably twice - it helps build fluency and comprehension). I am still working on determining guided reading levels, so if the books seem to easy, please be patient and just know that they may change soon. Thanks!

The students looked pretty darn cute today and I thought I would share these short videos and pictures! Enjoy!

Ps. Send your students in pink tomorrow!

Here is our wonderful class saying "Hello"

We were trying to say "Welcome to First Grade", but I think it got a little jumbled :)

Giving our very best silly faces

Orange Day & Green Day

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! We are back and in full swing with our first full week. The students did a wonderful job of getting back into the hang of things and we are starting to pick up steam! The students featured their wonderful green clothes, which definitely made the room feel like St. Patrick's Day! We began our day learning our new word wall words. For this week, we will be focusing on:

play

we

am

at

my

We will also be working on making words using our "_am" chunk/word family. In math, we are continuing to review our numbers and shapes. Today, the students partnered up with a buddy and verbalized a list of the differences between a circle and a square. They did an excellent job and I loved hearing all of the math talk! This activity helped provide the platform for students to describe the varying attributes of these two shapes. We are off to a great start!

Remember to send your student in purple tomorrow!

Love,

Mrs. Walker

Blue Day

Ah blue, it was so wonderful seeing all of the students wearing blue today (it is one of my favorite colors!). Our classroom looked like a sea of 21 smiling students. Today, we worked on learning our language arts procedures. This featured reviewing our word wall words for the week. Word Wall words are sight words that all of our wonderful students should be able to master with automaticity (with an automatic response, or fluently) by the end of the year. Here are our first words:

a

see

like

I

the

We also began learning our first word chunk or word family. When learning word families/chunks, I tell students that we can make many different kinds of words by switching out the beginning sounds. Our word chunk for this week is "_at". The students did a great job of coming up with different "at" words such as - cat, sat, rat, mat, etc.

Tomorrow is our first Friday, and short day! I can't believe the first week is almost over. Holy moly! Remember to send your students in orange!

Love,

Mrs. Walker

Yellow Day

Our second day has come and gone and I don't think I stopped smiling all day! All of the kiddos are super sweet and so wonderful to work with. Today we focused on practicing our rules. We went to our first assembly and the students did an amazing job of demonstrating assembly behavior! :) In the afternoon, we began work on our time capsules. I think this is going to be such a great way to document the first week of the students' first grade year! I am looking forward to tomorrow and seeing all of my wonderful students in blue!

Love,
Mrs. Walker

Red Day

The real first day of first grade has come and gone. I can't believe it! All of the students looked great in their red clothing today! Much of the day was spent on learning our new rules and practicing new procedures, but we also made sure to have fun in between. After reading "First Day Jitters," we drank jitter juice to help wash away our own jitters about starting a new year. The kids loved it and I think it totally did the trick! :)

I am looking forward to another great day tomorrow and make sure to send your sweet student in wearing yellow! Tomorrow, I will also be sending home homework folders home for the first time. Please look in the folder and take out the pink information card. This needs to be filled out and sent back to school. Thanks!

Love,
Mrs. Walker

Ps I'll have pictures up of red day once I know that all of our students can have their pictures on our wonderful blog.

Finally!

The first day of first grade. Well, kind of. We had orientation today and I was finally able to meet all of my wonderful students and their fabulous parents! I have been counting down the days since I saw my class list. It is so great to finally put all of the smiling faces to the names I have been memorizing! The students did a great job on their self-portraits and I appreciate all of the parents that took the time to come to orientation. I am excited to kick off our color days tomorrow with red. So, kiddos, make sure to wear red on Tuesday and remember to bring all of your fabulous smiles!

love,
Mrs. Walker

Welcome First Graders and Parents

Back to school is here and I can't wait to meet my new class! This is my third year here at Willow Springs and teaching first grade! First grade is so much fun and I thrilled to meet all of my new first grade friends. I have been setting up our room and planning some fabulous activities for our first week. This is a new blog for me and I am hoping that this will be a great place for us to keep track of all of the fun and amazing things that we do in our class. I will also make sure to post upcoming events and any other important information about what we are learning. If there is anything else you would like to on our class site, please let me know and I will be sure to get it on here for you!

Love,

Mrs. Walker