Friday, May 29, 2009

News About Next Year...

Hello and happy Friday! All of the students seem very excited to put me in the dunk tank...a little too excited if you ask me :) I hope you all can make it this evening! Let's hope Mother Nature cooperates!



Many of you have been inquiring about next year, and I just wanted to let you know that I will be joining Ms. Weeks, and the rest of the second grade team next year! Though I will miss working with the fabulous First Grade team, I am looking forward to working with the sensational Second Grade team. Ms. Weeks and I will be teaching the Magnet classes next year. I am not sure what the break down of classes will be at this point in time, but either way I'll be close by!



We have completed the Personal Body Safety lessons this week. I am very proud of our students! It's been great to see how knowledgeable they are when it comes to keeping themselves safe.



Please let me know if you are interested in a Summer Packet! I think I forgot to mention this before, but if the packet comes back complete in the fall, the students will receive a certificate and a treat! You can inform me by either sending me an email, or posting a comment on the BLOG. Thank you!



Our students' Photo Stories are gradually being added to the UES School Tube channel. Our AMAZING technology coordinator, Mrs. Cicerone, has been putting them up for us as I've been receiving the permission forms. The students did such a great job!!!



The link to the website is http://www.schooltube.com/user/ues



I hope you all have a fantastic weekend! Can you believe that JUNE is next week?!!?



Thursday, May 28, 2009

CORRECTION!!

OOOOPS!

End of the year celebration - Friday, June 12th, not 10th - my mistake! Thank you, Kimberley! :)

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Thank You!

Thank you so much for such a wonderful birthday, and Teacher Appreciation Day! I was touched and honored by what you did for me - I get teary-eyed just thinking about it!
You have been a great joy to work with this year. The support, love, encouragement, and care that you give to your children is amazing. The students have worked so hard, I am so proud of what they have accomplished!

The Strawberry Festival is this Friday from 3:30-6:30. Thank you to all the parents who were able to donate some time to work at our "Sensational Strawberry Sun visors" stand :) In case your child hasn't informed you yet, I'll be in the Dunk Tank, towards the end of the festival - come on by and try to knock me in! Some dismissal forms were sent home today, if you're planning on coming to the festival right at 3:30, this will allow your child to stay at school until you get there. I look forward to seeing you there!


In addition to the Strawberry Festival Dismissal form, a School Tube permission slip also went home yesterday. This will allow me to post your child's PhotoStory work online so that you can view it, and send it to family and friends! UES has a specific channel on School Tube, and your child's last name is NOT on the video. School Tube is very similar to You Tube, only appropriate for more elementary school-aged students. Here is the link for our UES channel if you'd like to check it out:

http://www.schooltube.com/user/ues

FYI... for upcoming events...

Our end of the year celebration will be Friday, June 10th at 10:00 AM...details to follow soon :)

LAST spelling quiz is TOMORROW, May 29th

Field Day is June 3rd

Finally, Mrs. Pangborn and I will be putting together a summer activities packet for the students. It includes math activities, FCPS recommended book list, and a calendar of possible activities to do over the summer. In an effort to avoid wasting paper, we ask that you email us to let us know if you are interested in having this for you child. Please let us know by Friday, June 5th if you are interested, thank you!

Monday, May 11, 2009

Happy Mothers' Day!

Hello! I hope all you mothers out there had a WONDERFUL Mothers' Day! What great weather we had too!
Last week was so fantastic, on so many levels! Thank you all so much for the lovely gifts and cards, it brought tears to my eyes! Thank you very much :)
We're on our way to completing the Photo Stories! The students put in extraordinary efforts last week and they look SO impressive. I hope, with the help of our technology resource teacher, that I will be able to either put these up on the BLOG or to send them to you so you can see their masterpieces!
Last Wednesday morning we went to Mr. Esko's (fifth grade Magnet instructor) to learn about compound microscopes! We learned the different parts of the microscope, and were able to view some samples of algae and water from the Wetlands! Thank you Mr. Esko for donating your time to us!
Friday we were fortunate to experience a Percussion Assembly!! Almost everybody - teachers included - had a chance to participate! They had drums and other percussion instruments from all over the world, including Africa, China, Japan, the Caribbean, Cuba, Brazil, Switzerland, The United States and Mexico! Thank you to the PTA for organizing this for us :)
Finally, we are starting to wrap up the end of the year! I am going to stop sending homework packets home for the remainder of the year. There will still be an occasional Reading Response question, or math practice page sent home - but no more packets!
I am going to skip a spelling list this week as Friday is both a two hour delayed start, and the Teddy Bear Picnic. Informational sheets will be going home today about the Teddy Bear Picnic - I hope you can make it!
The last spelling list will be created by the students, made of words that they want to learn before the school year is out. We will create these lists next week, and have our last spelling quiz on Friday, May 29th.
Thank you so much for your continued support! Have a great day!

Friday, May 1, 2009

One more thing...

The "wh" list on spelling city did not let me add these three words to the list: whippoorwill, whelk, and whooping crane. These will be on the list that is sent home in the homework packet!
Thank you! Have a great weekend!

MAY DAY! MAY DAY!

Hello and Happy Friday, May Day, and Mother Goose Day! We've had another busy week in first grade. Today we released our guppies and snails into the Great Heron Wetlands. This turned out to be quite the event as a mini-down pour started just as we got there!

We are going to be switching to Social Studies content now, which is focusing on "Peoples of the Nations and World" - comparing and contrasting our own cultures to those of others around the world. I'm very excited about this unit! Should be lots of fun!

The students did a GREAT job with their spelling lists this week! Very impressive! The next list, "wh", will be available soon on Spelling City.

This coming week in math we are going to be reviewing and extending some of the skills we've focused on in Geometry. We'll be working more on some writing activities that require the students to use math vocabulary to describe how they solved certain math problems. The students should do very well - these are GREAT brain-stretching activities :)

The students have finished typing their "How To..." paragraphs this week. Next week, we'll be moving on to taking pictures of each step, and putting them together in PhotoStory! Some of the students have chosen to do their "How to" paragraphs on something that requires some materials from home. If this is the case for your child, please send in these materials with your child so he/she may use them in his/her presentation. Thank you so much!

Have a great weekend!