November art

Our Karo syrup leaves.

I loved to see all the creative turkey's we had returned for our November family project. Thank you!

It's going to be a girl!

Well, our class took a vote about my baby. I found out I am having a girl, April 1st. I decided to bring a "pink" treat to share with our class.

Skippyjon Jones

Our class loves to read the Skippyjon Jones books by Judy Schachner. Perhaps you have even read a story your child has written with Skippyjon as the main character? Well, anyway, the other day my husband came home with a kitten. The kitty looks a bit like the famous favorite character Skippyjon Jones. I told our class about the kitten and wanted them to be able to see it. Here are a few pictures.

Soup, Soup, Soup

Thank you everyone who brought a vegetable to share!

Classroom News November 21st

Classroom News
November 21, 2008
Dear Parents and Students,
I hope you are all doing well. We have had a busy week with our block 2 assessments. Thank you for helping your child be at school and on time.
We also took a math test this week. We will be starting a new chapter; counting to 100. We will be counting to 100 by 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s. We will also learn about estimation. Please continue to review the math papers your child brings home.
Thank you for sending a vegetable with your child today. I hope that they enjoyed our soup. We learned that we all had to help to make it taste good. We also learned a poem about soup; Soup, Soup, Soup Soup, soup, soup soup in the pot. Soup, soup, soup the soup is hot. Soup, soup, soup do you want a lot? Time to eat soup!
This week our student of the week has been Madelyn Draper. Because of a short week next week, we will not have a student of the week. For December 1-5 our Student of the Week will be Hunter Geddes. He will bring a poster about himself and we will e getting to know more about him.
I have sent December book orders home, please return them by December 2nd. I have also sent home our December family project. Please return that as soon as possible. Thank you for helping your child decorate their gingerbread person. I love to see the creativity!
Our school will be having Book fair December 1-5. It is buy one get one free this time. Family night will be Monday evening. If you are at school to the book fair, please walk by our hallway and check out our December family projects on the wall.
Next week is a short week. We will have school Monday, Tuesday, and early out Wednesday. I hope you all enjoy your Thanksgiving break! I am thankful for such wonderful students in my class, and their supportive parents!
Thank you,
Mrs. Shaffer

"Stone Soup"

Today our class read the book, "Stone Soup". Then we made our own soup. I asked each of the students to bring a vegetable to share. This is the recipe for our class soup we made.

Mrs. Shaffer’s Class Vegetable Soup 2008
· 2 cans of chicken broth
· 1 bag of chopped onions
· 2 ½ bags of carrots
· 1 bag and 1 can of corn
· 2 bags of cut celery
· 3 bags of cut potatoes
· 1 can of green beans
· 1 small container of chopped tomatoes
· 1 ½ cans of water
· 8 shakes of salt
· 8 shakes of pepper
Cook in a Crockpot on high for 3 ½ hours.
ENJOY!

Red Ribbon Week

Crazy hair and PJ day

Career day

We read Weekly Readers about Bats and Spiders

Nerd Day

Napoleon Dynamite came on nerd day!

This week was red ribbon week at our school. It was fun to see our class participate in all the different dress up days. We ended the week with our fun tradition of the costume parade. Thank you for helping your child dress up and participate in the fun!

Pumpkin Math and Science

As part of our October Social Studies we have been reading about pumpkins. I like to try and integrate subjects as much as possible. So, on Wednesday this week we did "Pumpkin Math and Science". Each student received their own little book with the title "Pumpkin Math and Science". We did some math and science activities with pumpkins. Each child was able to keep their little pumpkin to take home and finish so of the activities with their families. It was a fun activity for our class! I hope your child has shared what they learned about their pumpkin. We counted how many lines on the pumpkin and used a string to estimate the measurement around the center of the pumpkin. Thanks to Bubba's Produce in East Garland for the cute little pumpkins again this year! :)

Classroom News October 10th

Dear Parents and Students,
How are you? I am glad I have been able to meet with almost everyone this week for parent teacher conferences. Thank you for taking time to meet with me. If I missed you, please contact me to reschedule an appointment.
Last Friday we had our welcome back assembly that the PTA was in charge of. It was a very fun assembly. We were introduced to the theme “TEAM Garland”. We learned that TEAM stands for Together Everyone Achieves More. We also learned that each Friday this year will be school spirit day. The class that has the most students wearing Garland Bear t-shirts each Friday gets to have Grizz in their class for the next week. Grizz is our school mascot. So, I encourage everyone to wear their school shirts on Fridays this year.
On Tuesday we finished up chapter 2 in Math. We will begin to learn more strategies for addition and subtraction. Please help your child by practicing their basic add and subtract facts at home.
Thursday we were able to have the NED show come to our school for an assembly. I hope your child told you about this. Book Orders were also due on Thursday. Thank you for participation with book orders for October. I have placed this order and hope to receive the books back in a week and a half or so.
As we start into the cold and flu season I am going to start having the students wipe down their tables each Friday. I have a couple of containers of Clorox wipes. If anyone would be willing to donate more Clorox wipes to our class, I would be thankful. I’m sure this is an item we will go through quickly in an effort to keep our room clean and germ free. We are stocked up on tissues at this point, so thank you for your donations at the first of the year.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns. I appreciate all you do and love teaching your child. We have such an awesome class this year! Thanks for all you do,

Mrs. Shaffer

Classroom News September 29- October 3

October 3, 2008
Dear Parents and Students,
How are you? I am ready for the weather to cool off next week. It has still been quite warm in our classroom this week. I am proud to say that our class did a great job singing at the welcome back assembly today. We joined with the other first grade classes to sing a song we've learned about being friends.
This week we started something new with spelling sorts in our class. I hope you received your note and sort that your child should be working on. Each Monday I will send home a new sort. I am hoping this will better reach some of the individual needs in our classroom.
Next week will be a busy week for us. We will be taking the Unit 1 reading block assessments in our class. This is something new we are doing this year. We will be doing different sections of testing each day. Please help your child to get plenty of rest each night. Also, please make sure they have breakfast. I am excited to see how well everyone will do.
We are also starting reading groups and centers. We will do this on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Our reading group time is 8:15-9:15. Please make sure that your child is here and on time to begin groups each day. I am also thankful for our volunteers that will be helping us each day during centers .
Next week we have parent teacher conferences. I am excited to get to meet with each of you and discuss your child’s progress. This year we are starting a new grading program. I hope you can be patient with me, as we are still working out the bugs with the new system. The new grading is based off of a rubric with scores of 0-4. Please make your best effort to be on time to your appointment.
On Monday Officer Bourne will be visiting our class to do DARE. We will learn about how to keep our bodies healthy and safe. We will have 4 30 minute sessions where Officer Bourne will come and talk with our class.
Book orders are also due on Thursday October 9th. Next Thursday is our day for Bookmobile. The Bookmobile only comes to our school every other week. Please help your child remember their book to exchange for a new one.
Thanks for all you do! I appreciate supportive parents and such wonderful students. Please contact me at school with any questions or concerns.
Thanks,
Mrs. Shaffer

Apples in Autumn

Apples in Autumn

It's hard to eat apples

without my front teeth,

But apples in autumn

are really a treat.

The apples are squooshy

down under my feet,

But those from the tree

are still crunchy and sweet!

This is a poem we have been practicing with our apple unit.

APPLES, APPLES, APPLES

This week we did a fun unit on apples. I always like to do this unit as a way to integrate reading, writing, math and art. I also think that it is one I really enjoy and the kids do too. At the first of the week we talk about what we know about apples and what we want to know about apples. I then read some information books about apples to our class. We wrote down what we had learned about apples. It was fun to learn new facts about apples. Then the students wrote their own "apple stories" to make a class book. We also made apple art to hang on our tree in the hallway. On Friday it was Johnny Appleseed's birthday. We read a big book about him. Each child brought their own apple today. We graphed them by color. We counted how many and found out which color had the least and which color had the most. I then wrote a graph on the whiteboard to show what it looked like. The students then wrote the graph in their journals. They did a great job with graphing our results. Then, we went outside to enjoy eating our apples. It was fun to see some of our class eat all the way to the core of the apple and find the seeds. We even had some kids in our class break the core in half and find the star in the middle of the apple. It was really neat, (I didn't get a picture of this because we were so involved with talking about this). I love this group of kids! We have had a great year so far! I am so proud of the way they are listening and following directions so we get to do fun activities like this!

Class News September 22-26

Dear Parents and Students,
How are you? We have had another fun week in first grade. Today we celebrated the birthday of Johnny Appleseed. Thank you for sending an apple to school. We were able to graph the apples and write in our Math journals about apples. I will hopefully have the pictures posted on our blog after this weekend.
We are getting closer to Parent Teacher Conferences. Please look for a note to come home with your student next week. Conferences will be Oct 8- 10. I am excited to meet with you and show you how well your child is doing!
I am also sending home a new book order for October. This is due back by October 9th. Remember to send your child’s order and money in an envelope with their name on it.
I also wanted to remind everyone about joining PTA. I know that several of you have already joined. The PTA does so many great things for our school. We have a welcome back assembly on Tuesday that the PTA will be helping with. It is only $5 to join PTA. The PTA is also having a contest to see which class has the most students join PTA. If our class has the most students join PTA we will get to have a pizza party!
Thank you for all you do! I look forward to another great week in first grade. Have a great weekend!

Classroom News September 15-19

Dear Students and Parents,
How are you? We have had another busy week in first grade. On Monday, our class took the DIBELS reading test. I was quite pleased with how our class did. I am excited to see the growth and improvement throughout this year.
We also finished chapter one in Math and took the test. We started chapter two and your child should have brought home the story for chapter two. Please read over this story with your child so you are aware of the new concepts we will learn. I am also sending home an enrichment activity attached to this message. This is practicing patterns. Please help your child complete this and return Monday for a special reward. Next week we will be doing a special reading and math activity. Please help your child by having them bring an apple to school on Friday the 26th. We will be using their apples to graph and write apple stories. I will try to take pictures to post on our class blog.

Reading Centers, Weekly Reader, and Math Journals

This week we have worked really hard at learning new reading centers that we will begin using when we start reading groups in a few weeks. I think our class is doing great with these! We have also started reading our "Weekly Readers". This week we read about apples and how they grow. We also worked on writing in our Math Journals. Our class learned how to use dominoes to do addition. It was a really fun way to practice addition. This is something that you can practice at home with your child to help them with addition.