Ms. Sirois

Welcome to first grade!  We are going to have so much fun this year!  I enjoyed talking to each of you on the phone!  The summer has flown by and now it is time for school!

Remember to bring your baby picture to school on the first day.

Parents, remember to come to Parent Orientation on Wednesday, August27th at 5:00 in my classroom. 

See you soon!

Mrs. Sirois

Wow!  What a great first week of school!  We had a fabulous week making new friends and learning many new things about first grade!  We are developing our class rules and have made pictures of our hopes and dreams for first grade. You will find a hopes and dreams paper in your child’s backpack on Monday.  Please fill it out and return as soon as possible.

We have already started our new math program.  We are learning daily routines, investigating the number line, tools for doing mathematics, number writing practice, one more and one less, comparing numbers and recording tally counts.  We have also learned a dice game.

In Fundations we are learning the correct way to form our letters. We are such good writers already!  This also shows in our first journal entries we have started.  We have completed our first classroom book titled, “What I love about first grade”. The students LOVE the alphabet letter each night.  Keep up the great work on the letters.

In reading we are reading many class books and are enjoying playing the Comprehension Ball Game.

We will be staring science soon.  Stay tuned for upcoming science events.

This week is Teddy Bear Week!  We will be having a Teddy Bear Parade on Friday September 12^th.  Don’t forget to send teddy bears in on Monday.

Don’t forget to sign up for my blog! 

Don’t forget to send in an art shirt if you haven’t already! 

Thank you so much for all your support!  I would like to thank Mrs.Goodwin for volunteering to be our classroom mother this year.  She will be calling parents throughout the year asking for materials to use in making projects and donations for class parties.

I have been receiving the classroom helper sheets and I will be calling parents to set up times to come in to help.

I also would like to thank all of you for making sure we are a “nut-free” room this year.

Talk to you soon!

Mrs. Sirois

What a great fieldtrip!  We had a fabulous time at Harris Farm today.  We loved riding on the hay wagon and harvesting the vegetables! My class followed all the rules and were great listeners throughout the whole trip. A special thanks to all the chaperones: Mrs. Beau, Mr. Coyne, Mrs. Connors and Mrs. Brooks.

    We are going to be studying insects next week.  On Monday, September 22nd, we will be singing a song in the gym about insects.  Please arrive at 8:30 A.M. to see us sing to the whole school.  Mrs. Goodwin will be calling parents for ingredients for one of our projects next weeek.  If your child has an insect or insect materials, he or she may bring them in any time next week.

    We do not have snack in the morning this year, therefore, I am asking parents to donate a carton of goldfish to use as a quick "bite" for the whole class so we won't be hungry in the morning. Also, a special thank you to everyone for not packing any snacks or lunches with nuts. It is greatly appreciated.

    This was the first week of volunteers!  We are off to a great start!  If you haven't picked your day or time yet, please feel free to call and arrange a time if you would like to volunteer.

    We will have an author of the month this year.  October will be Norman Bridwell.  He is the author of Clifford books.  If your child has any Clifford books feel free to send them in on the first of October.

    Monday is the first day of fall, please encourage your child to bring in "signs of fall"  for Monday.

    We are finishing unit one in math next week.  I am very pleased every child has brought back the homework. We talk about the homework each day so it is very important the homework is returned to school each day.

    We are also finishing unit one in Fundations.  We are learning to form all our letters correctly.

    We are dooing a great job learning new spanish words!

    We will begin sending book and bags home next week.  

    Have a great weekend!!

    Mrs. Sirois 

I can't believe September is almost over!  We have learned so much in just twenty days! Eighty more days until the 100th day of school!

We are math wizards this year! We have started unit two in math.  In this unit we will be learning the following concepts: number grids, telephone numbers, complements of 10, unit labels for numbers, analog clocks, telling time to the hour, exploring lengths, straightedges, and dominoes, introducing and counting pennies and nickels, using number models, and solving number stories.

We have started unit two in Fundations and also word study.  Your child will be bringing home five new trick words each week to learn plus two bonus words. In addition to working on trick words we will be practicing phonemic awareness skills, blending and reading short vowel words, segmenting and spelling short vowel words and learning sentence dictation procedures.

In reading we are zooming along!  The studnets are doing a great job reading a book each night and returning it the next day!

We are already starting to edit our writing in our journals and we continue to practice forming our letters correctly. 

We contiue to learn about the weather in science.We are very excited we had sun today to do lesson five in our science books!  We are having so much fun learning about all the different types of weather. We also are enjoying lessons about our creepy, crawly friends.We loved making insects out of food last week.  A special thank you to  all the parents for donated items for this special treat and for supplying the class with goldfish for a quick morning snack. 

Speaking of food,  what a wonderful  Ice Cream Social!  There were so many people we ran out of hotdogs! Wow!  The icecream was yummy!!  I can't wait until the next special event at school!

We enjoyed celebrating Johnny Appleseed's Birthday!  Please ask your child what we did and don't forget to plant the apple seeds!

Just a few reminders:

October's author of the month-Norman Bridwell

Every Wednesday in October is early release. 

October 1st-Money for The Nutcracker is due. 

October 3rd is Picture Day.  If you need a form, please let me know.

October 13th Columbus Day- no school 

October 17th and 20th Mrs. Macedo will be substituting for the class.

October 31st my class is invited to my house to trick-or treat. Notice and directions will be coming home soon. 

Here's to a great first month of school! 

    October is here!  The cold weather is coming soon and we need to remember to bring coats, hats and yes, in a few weeks, mittens!!  Our class goes outside every day at 9:30 and we need to be prepared for the colder weather.

    Sad news!  Kaleigh Fenderson will be moving to Blue Hill on this Thursday. We certainly will miss our new friend, but we are looking forward to writing to her at her new school.  We will be having a celebration for her on Thursday afternoon. We wish Kaleigh and her family the very best in their new home!

    We had a great time making Christopher Columbus out of spices and herbs!  A special thank you for all the donations. Our room smelled great all afternoon!

    We are learning about what is alive and what isn't alive in science.  Be sure to ask your child tomorrow what was growing in our jars!

    This Friday is Spirit Day!  Remind your child to dress up in sports attire to show support for his or her favorite sports team.  I am disappointed I will be absent Friday, therefore, I can not wear my Tom Brady Shirt! 

    Our words for word study this week are: is, he, for, she, can and two bonus words: school and apple.

    Remember on October 30th we will be having pumpkin math.  On October 31st the pumpkins will be displayed on my front steps for everyone to see on Halloween. If you did not receive the notice giving directions to my house, call me and I will send another set.

    Mary Macedo will be our guest teacher on Friday, October 17th and Monday October 20th. She is a very lucky person because our class is fabulous and not only are we smart but we are very well behaved! 

    We had a great time completing our Pumpkin Math Project!  We had so much fun measuring and weighing our pumpkins.  A special thanks to Mrs. Kirn, Mrs. Furber and Mrs. Macleod for helping us with this project. We counted 1,555 pumpkin seeds!!  Mrs. Teguis cooked them and we had a chance to eat them the next day.  We also had a chance to see the Jack-o-lanterns lit up on my steps during Halloween.  It was great seeing all the students in their costumes. I have been telling everyone Tom Brady came to my house!!

    Now that Halloween is over, it is time for The Oxcart Man.  Our fieldtrip is Monday.  The following chaperones need to be at the school at 8:45a.m.:  Mrs. Connor, Mrs. Connors, Mrs. Teguis and Mrs. Stevens.  We will be spending the morning in Portsmouth, N.H. learning all about life long ago.

   We are already on unit three in math!  Wow! We are such math wizards in first grade.  We will be learning the following concepts: visual patterns, even and odd number patterns, number grid patterns, counting on a number line, adding and subtracting on a number line, telling time to the half hour, frames and arrows, counting with a calculator, counting coins, and domino addition.

    We are doing a fantastic job on word study skills.  We have been making up tricks to remember the trick and bonus words.

    We have started the alphabet club!  Everyone has been working hard to form letters correctly when writing. 

    We are going to have Mrs. Macedo on November 6th as our guest teacher.  Last time she was here she commented on how wonderful we are and what great listeners we are in first grade. 

    We are becoming excellent readers. We are almost finished with our first reading logs!  Yahoo! for reading!

   A special thank you to Mr.Sirois for making us a water collection tube. We are collecting and measuring water for science.  During the winter months we will be measuring the snow.

   Conferences are coming soon.  I will be calling you for an appointment so we can share all the wonderful things your child has learned so far this year.

See you soon!
 

Calling all characters for National Book Week!  Please come and see all the characters from our favorite books on Monday, November 17th. at 8:30 AM in the KES gym.  We are so excited to be able to make our books come alive and to share our favorites with the whole school!

A reminder that Picture Retake Day is Friday, November 21st.  Please send the first set of pictures back if you plan to have your child's picture retaken.