Author Celebration and November News

Gosh-it's hard to believe that we are approaching the holiday season! We keep track of the days of school and I think we were all surprised the we had hit our 50 day mark! This month we had our first Author Celebration! Children worked so hard throughout our small moments unit and grew as independent writers. We celebrated with a museum style sharing exhibit. The work that they have done throughout the unit will be coming home in a stay home folder before Thanksgiving. I hope you enjoy reading their small moment narratives as much as I did! We also had a few special happenings this month. We had a great assembly about Veteran's Day lead by former Navy officer Chief Wilson and her son Cadet Wilson.
Here are a few Highlights!

Author Celebration
In order to get ready for our celebration we had to go through a few steps. We had to go through all of our pieces and pick just one that we wanted to fix and fancy up. This was hard!! Then it was time to fancy up our story with craft moves and interesting details. We made a connection to getting ready for a fancy party by putting fancy clothes on. Once our story's were "fancyed" it was time to turn to our writing partners for a little editing help. Once our stories were ready to be shared we celebrated by reading each others pieces and sharing compliments with the author!

Picking our Story:

Fixing and Fancying:

Author Celebration:

Veteran's Day:
Chief Wilson and her son Cadet Wilson came in to teach us all about the importance of Veteran's Day. We learned about the branches of military service. We learned about all the different jobs officers can have and the many ways that soldiers help people in need. We learned some important words like sacrifice and freedom. We even had a try at boot camp!

October Spotlights

What a busy month! We have had so much learning and fun going on! Mrs. Bockhorst came to visit and talked to us about the "zones of regulation". We had a bonus experience with Star Lab where we learned about planets and constellations. Then there was all the excitement of Halloween with the parade and the party!

Here are a few highlights!

Mrs. Bockhorst came in and reviewed the zones of regulation. We learned that there are many zones but that the best learning happens when you are in the "green zone." We learned strategies that can help our brain and body get into the green like deep breaths, chair push ups, and the hand pull and push. We also made bookmarks to help us remember strategies!

Weekend Update
We started "sharing circles" during Weekend update writing times. Before writing, children get into small groups of 3 and plan out what they are going to write about. It is a great opportunity to practice listening and speaking skills. Once children have shared in their small group they get right to work writing! During weekend update writing children are practicing narrative writing (which we call small moments). They are "zooming" into one part of their weekend and then telling us about it with good details.
Children are also practicing using phonics skills that we have learned as well spelling trick words from the word wall accurately. We also just learned about the "sentence frame" which is a visual reminder to start your sentence with a capital letter and end with a period. At this point First Graders are still learning where and when a sentence starts and ends so the expectation is not that they have all of their capitals and periods in the right spot but that they are thinking about it and trying to use some punctuation appropriately.

Halloween Party
Thank you to our room parents and all of the volunteers for a fun party! Here is just a glimpse at some of the excitement from our party.

Check back soon!