October 17th-21st

Ella and Gunnar lost a tooth this week 5 minutes apart. Crazy!

Michael's morning journal entry says "I like Mrs. Schultz. She is a great teacher." He even drew my pumpkin sweatshirt and my hair in a bun on top of my head. Precious!

The 6th grade drama class came to preform today. They made skits based off of children's books. They were amazing. 

Sunshine chats with these two love bugs. 

What an exciting time to be a first grader! Halloween, pumpkins, candy, costumes, fairy tale ball and parade of fiction. Enjoy this special time with your little ones. It is such a fun season! As I have heard from my mom 100 times....it goes by in the blink of an eye, so take it all in. :)

Fairy Tale Ball:

**9-11 in the elementary gym** We would love you to stay the whole time but no worries if you cannot. The dance will be at the beginning so you definitely want to try to catch that. Please send your child to school DRESSED in their costume. Please send tennis shoes and a change of clothes for after the ball. Please be sure your child can undress themselves out of their costume. You may want to practice that before Friday morning. Remember, your child's costume can be simple. Anything related to a fairy tale is acceptable. Thank you to those of you who have volunteered to help in some way. We cannot do it without you! We hope that you will enjoy this special one on one time with just your first grader. We prefer no siblings as gym space will be tight with the whole first grade and all 8 stations.

Thematic Centers:


We are still working through the Cinderella centers. We are reading many versions of this classic tale.

1. Make and decorate an invitation to the fairy tale ball. Be sure you get the time, location and date correct!
2. Turn a real mini pumpkin into Cinderella's carriage using jewels, sequins, paint, pom poms etc. 3. Record the beginning, middle and end of the story by illustrating and writing a sentence using your tri-fold story board. You may use water colors, colored pencils, markers or crayons.4. Using attribute blocks, trace different shapes to make a castle. After tracing your shape castle, you may paint it or color it in. Count how many shapes you have and record how many of each you used. Discuss 2-D and 3-D shapes among your table as well as the different attributes that each shape possess.

Math Workshop:

This week we had two new math tubs.

1. Say it quick: In small groups look at the flash card held up. Say how many more you need to get to 10. There are ten frames with a certain amount of dots on them. You must say how many more you need to get to 10 before the card goes away.

2. Spill the Beans: Shake a group of ten beans spray painted half black and half white. Drop them and color in how many out of 10 and how many are white. Write a number sentence that matches.

Example: I shake and drop my 10 beans. When they land, 4 are white and 6 are black. I color in the beans accordingly. Then the equation would be 4+6=10.

Both of these games work on addition and subtraction and math facts within 10.

Reader's Workshop:

Our reading strategy this week is chunky monkey. Look for chunks in words that you know as well as endings that you know. Example: In the word reading you know that read spells "read" and -ing says "ing." When you blend it together it spells reading!

We worked on leveled books, sight words and new word study words this week as well. I cannot get over how well your kiddos know their sight words. I cannot thank you enough for practicing at home!

Writer's Workshop:

We are working on poems to send to Mr. Ted who came to our class! We are also perfecting hand motions to the poem we created as a class with Mr. Ted so that we can video it and send it to him. Who knew poetry could be so fun?

Science: Last week we made slime with Ms. Rachel and we cannot wait to see what Josephine's does with us!

**A quick note about carpool. Please be sure you are in the carpool line by 3:00.**

-I will be sending out a sign up genius for optional parent/teacher conferences. You may sign up for a conference if you want.

See you all Friday at the ball!

Hugs, 
Mr. Schultz