Slide Show/ Reminders

Reminders:
Now that the weather is getting colder please be sure to dress your child appropriately for school. Your child goes outside for recess 20 minutes two times each day. Please make sure they have a winter coat, hat and gloves when needed. When in doubt, send them with winter coats. Being outside on the playground is much colder than just waiting for the bus or walking into the building from the bus or car.

Sight word tests will start up again next week. Please make sure your child can read and write these words. Sight words are the foundation to reading and writing. These words just need to be known quickly. Your child will also start learning about some spelling principles. These principles are strategies your child can use to help them spell words when writing. You will see some reference to these principles in the homework packets starting next week.

Semencils are for sale in the lobby Monday morning for $1.50 each. (pencils that have a scent to them)

Adopt -A-Family starts November 8th and will contiune through December 3rd.
Your help can be appreciated in many ways: canned & boxed food, paper products, personal hygiene products and cleaning products.

Slide Show from today- Class Pet/ Kids Vote

Busy Week

Thank you to all the parents for coming to conferences last night. I appreciate your support and I enjoyed telling you about your child's progress. I look forward to meeting with more parents on Wednesday night. We have a busy week this week. Tomorrow is our field trip to Powell Hall. Please make sure your child is here on time since we load the buses at 8:50am. Your child needs to dress is nice clothes tomorrow. No jeans please! If your child needs to change their clothes they can when they get back to school. Friday is our Fall Festival. We will have a very fun filled day with an assembly, buddy activities with our 4th grade buddy class, buddy lunch and the pumpkin run. Please make sure you send your child's costume with them in their backpack. They do not come to school in their costume.They will all be given the opportunity to change into their costumes before the parade. The Halloween parade will be at 1:40pm followed by the Halloween party in the classroom. Please feel free to come up to watch the parade and pop in for the party. I will be taking pictures to post on the blog for those of you who can't make it on Friday.

Check out the pictures of pajama day and our sequencing activities that we have been doing as a class. They take turns writing sentences to go with the pictures in the book. I cover up the sentences so they can remember what would make sense and they are working on their writing skills at same time.

• We will resume sight word tests and student spotlight on the week of November 8th.
  
• If you want to be a Mystery Reader send me an email and we can get it scheduled.
  

November dates for your calendar:

11/1 No school

11/2 No school

11/11 Veterans Day Assembly

11/17 Early Release

11/24-11/26 Thanksgiving Break

Update

Well, it's difficult to believe that the first quarter is over tomorrow. Time sure has gone fast so far! The students are doing a good job in all academic areas up to this point. The students watched a short video on the orphanage our school is helping in Haiti for our service learning project. We talked about many ways we can help the children in Haiti. The first way we are helping them is by bringing a dollar donation and wearing p.j.'s tomorrow. Here is a reminder about the p.j. day. Thank you in advance for your help!

October Reminders

Here are a few pictures of some student work. During the writing block time they have been creating books about colors. They have also completed some projects to go with the unit on the Earth during our science time.

Character Word of the Month - Responsibility

Reminders:
Wednesday: School store, wear red (student spotlight)
Thursday: Wear Lindbergh colors to support the football team
Friday: "Truman Spirit Day"- show your Truman Spirit, sight word test, bring library books

Dates to Remember:
October 15th - 1/2 day, records day for teachers
October 25th - Red Ribbon Week Starts, conferences
October 27th - Powell Hall, conferences
October 29th- Fall Festival/ Pumpkin Run, Halloween Parties

Spirit Day Friday

Friday's spirit day is "team shirt day". Please have your child wear a shirt that goes with the team that they are on or have been are part of over the past year. They can wear a soccer shirt, t ball shirt, gymnastics shirt... or Truman Spirit. An entire uniform is not necessary for tomorrow's spirit day.

• Please remember the have your child bring their library books tomorrow so they can check out new ones.
• Please send in picture money before the 29th. Pictures are on Wednesday the 29th.
• Be on the look out tomorrow for a letter about weekly sight word assessments.

Hello Families,

We had a good week. They worked very hard during centers to remember to keep their voice off while working. They know that they can certainly whisper when they need help. They all did a good job. We finished our project topic (science and social studies) for Diversity. The activities for that unit will be going home next week. You may keep their work at home. We started our Citizenship Unit earlier this week. They have a good understanding on how to be a good citizen in the classroom. Here is a picture of the class wearing their hats that they made. "We are applauding Super Citizens".

Today the worked very well together to come up with our own class Constitution for center time. They all signed our class constitution and is will be displayed in the classroom.

A few reminders:

• Football Game tonight at the high school- 6pm Chariot Races, 6:30 & 7pm Future Flyerettes Dance
• Paint shirts are being sent home today please wash them over the weekend due to a concern with lice at the school.
• I will be gone Monday morning for a meeting. There will be a substitute teacher here so please remind your child to make respectful choices on Monday.

Thanks! Have a great weekend.

What an exciting week!

Hello Families,
We have had a very exciting week with technology. On Tuesday the students got the chance to work with their own laptop for the first time. They practiced logging in and getting on the internet. They also learned how to type in www.starfall.com. The students did a great job. I am very proud of them. Feel free to check out starfall.com at home on the weekends. Your child can work on their reading skills on this great website. Today my Elmo Cart was ready. This is a wonderful teaching tool that I use throughout the school day. The students will get to use it as well as we all get used to the new technology. You might want to ask your child about the Elmo Cart and find out what they thought of it. The students started literacy centers this week too. They are all getting the hang of rotating to a new center each day. When they are in these centers they are working independently while enhancing their literacy skills. The activities are review activities that we have already done in class, so they should not have any difficulty understanding the expectations. While they are working in centers I am pulling groups for guided reading. Mrs. Leigh is in here as well to pull reading groups every morning..
Many parents expressed an interest in having a list of book titles that correlate to the leveled reading that is used for guided reading with the teacher. The website www.booksource.com is a great resource for finding out book titles that may be good for your child. Please let me know if you have questions.

Dates to remember:
9/10 Favorite NFL Jersey Day (or Truman Spirit), Movie Night 7pm
9/15 Early release 1:40pm dismissal, Entertainment Book orders due
9/29 School Pictures


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Thank you

Thank you so much for attending the curriculum night. I really appreciate you taking the time out of your schedules to come find out about the things your child will be working on in first grade. Please remember if you have any questions please feel free to email me, write a note in your child's planner or call me.



Here are a few dates to mark in your calendar for September:

9/ 6 No School

9/10 Movie Night 7pm

9/15 The last day for Entertainment Book orders and to return books

9/ 15 Early Release Day 1:40 Dismissal

9/29 School Pictures, Be There Day

Curriculum Night

Families-
Please remember that our Curriculum Night is tomorrow at 6pm. You may come to the classroom at 6pm (room 131). I will discuss several things tomorrow night. Some things on the agenda include: classroom expectations, office information, curriculum information- spelling program, homework, and student spotlight. This will be very informative so I hope you can make it. Please remember that this is an adult only event. Thank you for your support and I hope to see you tomorrow evening.

* New families to Truman may attend a "Town Hall Meeting" in the cafeteria at 6:45pm.

Fill up your Bucket.

We have had 2 wonderful days of first grade so far. The students are so cute and they are going to have a great time getting to know each other this year. They are doing a great job trying to learn new routines and getting adjusted to such a long day of school. First grade is such a big change for them and so much learning take place this school year. The reading and writing alone are amazing to see how it will develop over the next few months.

I introduced the behavior plan to the students yesterday. Maybe you heard about it from your child last night. The main way I encourage positive behavior in the classroom and here at school is with the "fill your bucket" idea. I read a story to the class How Full is your Bucket? by Tom Rath and Mary Reckmeyer. It is describes how everyone has an invisible bucket and when we make good choices our buckets get filled up and when we make poor choices our buckets drip out. When we make good choices and do good for others we fill up our own bucket even more. So, each day I pass out little papers that say "thanks for putting a drop in my bucket" when I see great choices. This is an individual reward. They put their name on the back of the paper and put it in the bucket. At the end of each day I choose 4 pieces of paper and call those names to pick from the treasure chest. The next day we start all over. You may want to ask your child each night, "did you help fill a bucket today?"

The whole class reward is based on pod points. Pod points are points that each pod can earn throughout the day. I keep these points for a month. The pod with the most points "wins" ice cream. Then they all get new seats, new pod names and I start over for the month. This encourages team work and helps the students realize that their choices not only affect them , but the choices affect others as well.

Three strikes and 5 minutes off recess is how the students have a consequence to their poor choices. This will be altered throughout school year to meet the needs of the students who continue to make poor choices.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions. I will address this during curriculum night again if need be. Thanks so much for your support and involvement!

* If you would like to send in a folder all that is needed is: one per child, paper folder with 2 pockets, any color and any design. Thanks so much!

Reminders:
8/20 Spirit Day- wear Truman gear
8/26 Curriculum Night 6-6:30pm in the classroom (no kids please)

Welcome to First Grade

I just wanted to tell all of my students that I am so excited for the first day of school tomorrow! We are going to have so much fun getting to know each other and learning about the classroom. Tomorrow is a day to learn names, make new friends, organize supplies, enjoy lunch and recess and learn what first grade is all about!

Good luck and I can't wait to see you in the morning!
Love,
Mrs. Boyd

School Supplies for 2010-2011

Hello First Grade Families!

You are welcome to visit our classroom and drop-off your child's school supplies at our Meet the Teacher from 5:00 - 5:45 p.m. on Thursday, August 12, 2010. If you are unable to make the Meet the Teacher time, but are planning to attend the Truman Ice Cream Social from 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. on August 12th, your child may put his/her supplies in the bin marked "Mrs. Boyd's Classroom." Please be sure to put your child's name on the supplies. The bin will be located outside of our classroom. If you haven't had a chance to get all the items yet, don't worry. Just bring what you have so far. You can send the rest of the items on the first day of school.

1 bookbag or packpack (not rolling)

3 bottles of Elmer's washable school glue - 4 oz. size

12 Elmer's glue sticks

1 plastic pencil box - size 5.25" x 8.25" x 2"

3 dozen, #2 sharpened pencils

2 pink pearl erasers

1 box of Crayola crayons (24 count)

1 pair of scissors

1 pkg. of low-odor Expo dry erase markers - not BOLD (4 count)

2 box of tissues

1 roll of paper towels

1 box of plastic, zip lock storage bags (Boys: gallon size, 20 ct.; Girls: sandwich size, 50 ct.)

1 three-ring fabric pencil case with grommets, 10" x 6"

1 PURPLE & 1 RED wide-ruled spiral notebook

1 container of Clorox disinfectant wipes

1 pkg. of Crayola Classic markers (10 count)

1 pair of headphones with earbuds and wind-up spool case

1 pad of Post-It Notes, 3"x 3"

1 paintshirt (a man's shirt with collar cut off,sleeves cut above the elbows, and the student's name on the back of the shirt; Velcro works well to close the front opening of the shirt)

The Last Day of School!

Our second graders are so BRIGHT they have to wear shades!


Thank you to all the students and parents for making this such a wonderful school year. Thank you parents for your support and thank you students for your unique personalities. It has been a joy to teach every single one of you! I will miss you so much. Please do not be a stranger next year. Please "pop" down from time to time to say hello. I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful summer.


Please try to do a few of these things over the summer:
read
write (keep a journal)
write about what you read
participate in the Borders reading program
participate in the local library reading program

practice math facts (know them by memory)
practice regrouping!!!
telling time
counting money

Click on the links to the left for some fun websites.

Email Mrs. Boyd anytime I would love to know how you are doing over the summer!

Pictures and Reminders

Hello Families!

Check out some pictures of the "Book Pyramids" the students worked on during reader's workshop last week. They chose an author to "study" and read four books by that author. The students created a "book pyramid" to display art work from each of the books that they read.

Reminders:

We have many activities going on these last few days of school. Please take a look at the upcoming events.

5/19- Buddy BBQ (the students ordered a cheeseburger or hamburger last week) If your child is a bringer don't forget to send them with their lunch on Wednesday.

5/19- Second Grade BBQ money due- 2 dollars per student

5/21 Fun Day (please send your child prepared with sunscreen already on,a hat to wear,tennis shoes and a bottle of water).

5/24 Rain date for Fun Day

5/27 Fly up

5/28 Second Grade BBQ (11-1pm)

Parent volunteers arrive between 10:30 and 11:00am

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope all the moms had a great Mother's Day. The students worked really hard on the poems and Mother's Day cards from their moms. We offically have 3 weeks left of school. You will start the see some folders, art projects and graded work being sent home gradually over the next few weeks. Many of these items can be used as a resource for your child over the summer. You may decide to do what you want with those items. There are several events going on near the end of the year so please take notice of the reminders listed below.

Reminders:
Spirit Festival presale orders due tomorrow (if you plan on buying tickets early this is your last chance)

Volunteer Breakfast (for all the volunteers who helped out this school year) RSVP's due by Thursday the 14th.

No School Friday the 14th

Fun Day is May 21st

Thank you!

Thank you to everyone who donated items for "Nurses for Newborns". We had such a wonderful turn out. All of the items are collected as the second grade class and the items will delivered this week. The students had a fun afternoon participating in the baby shower activities. I think they really enjoyed playing the dirty diaper game in our room and eating cake in Mrs. Joiner's room. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

reminders

Please remember that we have a service project going on right now. Our character education word this month is service. Second grade is collecting donations for Nurses for Newborns this week through April 9th. We will be dedicating the afternoon on Friday to a "Baby Shower".They will rotate through all 6 second grade classrooms. They will spend 20 minutes in each room participating in Baby Shower activities. Donations (new items, wrapped or unwrapped)for the Nurses for Newborns Organization are needed by Friday.

Don't Forget the Spring Picture order form is due tomorrow. It needs to be returned if you place an order or not.

Please start sending in items for the testing snack by the end of next week. Testing begins April 19th.

Hi everyone! I hope you have enjoyed the slide show from Muffins with Mom and the pictures from math centers. We we have a had a great week back to school. The kids seemed to really enjoy their spring break and were ready to be back. The students are learning about poetry and how to write poetry during the writing block. We read a poem about the wind yesterday and discussed the poem. They each made a windsock to go with the poem. They will write their own poems on Monday.




In math we are finishing the chapter on money. During project time we are talking about matter. Today the students experiemented with air. I hope you enjoy the pictures from their experiments.

Student responses:

Thomas:
"The elephant did not spin every time.
The bunny spins every time."

Scott:
"To me the elephant spun faster than the rabbit,but the rabbit went down faster than the elephant!"

Brooke:
"The bunny spins more.The bunny is faster to me.
The elephant is smaller."

Spring Break

Hello Families!

Please make sure your child reads at least one book each day if possible. I did tell the students that they can get on some fun websites over the break to keep working on some skills. Here are some fun websites we use here at school:

spellingcity.com
starfall.com
wordle.net
ikeepbookmarks.com

Here are a few dates to remember:
3/22 school resumes
3/26 conferences (1-4pm)
3/29 MAP testing begins (we will have a schedule change for 3 weeks)
4/9 Second Grade Service Project (Nurses for Newborns)- note comes home on the 22nd
4/12 Second Grade wears "Cardinal Gear" for opening day
4/19 Second grade begins Terra Nova testing


Have a wonderful Spring Break!

Few reminders

• Parents please make sure your child is dressed appropriately for recess. When they go outside for second recess they are outside for 20 minutes. Please make sure they have a coat, hat and gloves.
  Hopefully we will not have too much more of this frigid weather!
• "Muffins with Mom"- March 5th 7:30am-8:15am. The students would love for mom or grandma to come and read some books with them and have a muffin or two. Please return the RSVP if you have not already done so.
• Spring Pictures are March 2nd.
• 11:40am dismissal on March 12th- records day

5 students complete a PRISM project!!

Way to go! The projects look wonderful. Thanks for all of your hard work!

"Treasure Chest"

We have a "treasure chest" for rewarding great choices. When students make good choices I give them a piece of paper that says- "thanks for putting a drop in my bucket." This is in reference to the book we read about good choices fill up your own and other peoples' buckets. I pick 4 names from the bucket each day. If their name is called they choose something from the treasure chest. Our treasure chest is starting to get a little empty. It would be nice if you or your child is interested in donating an item or items to the treasure chest. The type of items are usually pencils, erasers, bookmarks, suckers, Tootsie rolls, small notepads, highlighters,... as so on. Most of the items are school trinkets and candy. No peanuts please! Thanks in advance for your help. I really appreciate it!

Pictures part 2

Sorting Candy Hearts!

Pictures

Here are some fun pictures from 100th day and from the Valentine's Party.

Nonfiction Writing

"Taking notes"

This is the prewriting step of the writing process. After this they will write their draft, then revise, edit, peer edit, final edit and the publish ( typing in power point).

Fun Week

We had a very fun week. The Magic House was a very successful field trip. The students really enjoyed exploring in the "Village". They also enjoyed writing their own nonfiction book during the writing block time. They each chose an animal they already know quite a bit about. I told them that it is easier to write about a topic you already know about. That's how we started fiction writing at the beginning of the year. After they create this book they can choose one of the animals they researched at the zoo with their 5th grade buddy. I hope you enjoy the pictures from this week.

Please remember that it is not too late to sign up to do the Prism Project. This is a wonderful opportunity for the students. We will be working on nonfiction writing in class to support the PRISM project.


We started working on our timelines today. The students enjoyed putting their pictures on their timeline. They are having a little trouble knowing how old they are in their pictures. They might be asking you some questions about their pictures this weekend as far as significant dates in their life. They need to represent the 7 or 8 years of their life while using real photos, copies or drawings. Many of them want to stop after they used up all of their photos and for some that is their first few years of their life. So as you can see, our timelines are still a "work in progress"!

Don't forget:

• Magic house field trip is Wednesday.
• Diversity t- shirt orders due by the 26th.
• Variety Show 1-30-10 7pm

Have a great weekend.

Thank You!

Thank you to all the dads, grandfathers and uncles who attended "Donuts with Dad" last Friday morning. I know it meant so much to the students to read together and eat some yummy donuts. The students are very proud of the books the have written and it meant a lot to them to share those books as well.

We have been talking about the character word Integrity this month. The students filled out some "marbles" for the things they have done that shows Integrity here at school. We have discussed Integrity during our morning meetings each day as well. Here are a few quotes from our meetings.

Teacher:

"When you are at school, how and where do you need to have Integrity on your mind?"

Student quotes:

"In the bathroom by being quite."

"Doing the right thing out at recess."

"Not talking in the hallway when the teacher is not looking."

"Being good on the bus."

"At block."

"In the library and not talking in there."

"If the teacher is talking to another teacher, do not talk to friends."

One More Reminder

Please sign the purple Magic House field trip form as soon as you can. Students can earn 4 "Drops in my Bucket" if they bring the permission form and money tomorrow to school. They will earn 2 "Drops in my Bucket" if they bring just the permission form tomorrow. Thanks for your help!

Families,
We will start a new unit in Social Studies this week. The unit is titled Ways of Living. The students will learn about customs, culture, immigrant, ancestor, creating a timeline, and America's symbols. They will create a timeline of their own life. In order to do this each student will need to bring in a baby picture by Thursday. It can be a copy of the picture or I can make a copy of the original. They will create a timeline starting with their birthdate and continue on through the present date. The baby picture can be an infant picture or a picture within the first year of their life to start off their timeline. I will give the students the choice to use pictures for the rest of their timeline or create illustrations. If your child would like to bring in photos to represent significant events that happend in their life they may do so. Please keep in mind that these photos will be glued or taped to their timeline. If there are any questions or concerns feel free to email me or write me a note in your child's planner.

Don't Forget:

• Early release tomorrow - 1:40 dismissal
• Spelling test tomorrow
• Donuts with Dad Friday morning 7:30-8:15am

What's New?

Hello Families,

Well, I think we are offically in the swing of things after the long break. The students have really enjoyed writing fantasy stories during writing block the past 2 days. They are writing a fantasy story with a buddy. They are all really excited and have done a great job so far. Hopefully we will have some of them ready for Donuts with Dad next Friday.

I think their favorite activity today was decorating their "Pet Rock". The rocks turned out so cute!

FYI: I told the students that they can bring a small toy or small toys that are appropriate for school with them to play with during second recess. We will most likely have indoor recess for several more days and I think they would enjoy playing with some home toys. I reminded them to make sure they are willing to share the toy that they bring to school.

Character Word for January

Integrity: Doing the right thing even when no one is looking.

Stay Warm!

Welcome Back!

I am so happy to welcome the students back to school. It sounds like everyone really enjoyed their winter break. We took some time this morning to share what we wrote about in our journal.
I also want to take a moment to welcome Daria and her family to Truman. Her first day was today and the students did a good job making her feel welcome.

The students enjoyed reading during readers workshop and computer time after lunch. They logged on to www.ikeepbookmarks.com and many chose a spelling website to try. Please remember your child can get to this website at home as well. They know what to put in the account or email box and there is no password.

The spelling words this rotation are homophones- words that sound the same, but have different meanings and are spelled differently. Please remember that the pretest will be on Thursday.

One more reminder: Donuts with Dad is next Friday. Don't forget to return the form if you plan to attend.