Week of 2/24

100th Day of School!
We celebrated this milestone day of school on Tuesday. Throughout the day, we enjoyed many activities and projects that had to do with the number 100. Students enjoyed imagining what they might look and act like at 100 years old for a creative writing project.  They enjoyed designing movement breaks by thinking of ten different exercises and repeating each one ten times. We also read two stories about the number 100 - William's 100th Day of School and One Hundred Hungry Ants. Then, we counted in many different ways to 100 (ones, twos, fives and tens). Students created a counting by 5s cupcake project and a name pattern on a 100 grid!


Writing
We planned and wrote the beginnings of our third narratives - all about snow day adventures. After listening to The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, students brainstormed a class list of snowy day adventures. Ideas included going snowboarding for the first time, having a snowball fight with siblings, going tubing and building a snowman. Our writers thought about the beginning, middle and endings of their own stories and drew pictures for each part, in the proper order. We began to write sentences to go with our illustrations and we will continue to work on these next week. Our goal is to share these with you during conferences in a couple weeks!

Upcoming Dates

• Parent teacher conferences are currently being scheduled for March 12th and March 18th. Sign up forms were sent home in red totes this week. If you haven't done so already, please fill yours in and return it to school as soon as possible.
• Wednesday, March 25th is an early release. Students will be dismissed at 12:35pm.

Thank you,

Mrs. Bradstreet

Week of 2/10

Read to ME Challenge
Mrs. Connolly visited our classroom on Wednesday during her Read to ME challenge. Throughout the month of February, she will visit each classroom at Skillin and share a favorite story. The students enjoyed listening to her read Thank you, Omu by Oge Mora. They loved hearing this wonderful story about the importance of sharing! Ask your child to tell you about it.


Writing
We read a story titled Jake's Valentine Treats. In this story, Jake shows his love for shelter pets by baking homemade treats for them. Students brainstormed people or animals who make their hearts feel "full." We completed a Valentine project for these special people in our lives.

Math
We played a couple of new addition games this week. In the game Ten Plus, students had to add two cards together and find the equivalent "ten plus" equation. For example, the cards 7+8 had the same total as 10+5. In the game 5 in a Row with 3 cards, students had to turn over three number cards, choose two of those cards to add together, then cover the total on a game board. Students are becoming quite skilled in their addition! Many students know their combinations of 10 and can count on quickly to add.

21st Century Skills & Tales2Go
We revisited our critical thinking skills this week with Mrs. Stanbro. She read us a nonfiction book titled Inky's Amazing Escape. This story is a contender for the Chickadee Award. After listening to this story, they thought about whether it had an important message or interesting facts, and detailed illustrations that helped support the text. Mrs. Stanbro even showed us an actual video of this famous octopus!
We were also introduced to a new listening station in the library. Students will be able to listen to an audiobook on Tales2Go while they are in library. A few students tried this new station out and loved it! All Skillin families have access to this amazing resource (information was sent home in red totes earlier this month). We strongly encourage all families to use it!

Upcoming Dates

• There is no school Monday, February 17th - Friday, February 21st for February vacation.
• Family Literacy Night is Thursday, February 27th from 5:30-6:30. Please join us for an hour of first grade reading and writing fun!

Thank you,

Mrs. Bradstreet