Coin Practice

This is a little rhyme that we say during our daily calendar activities in first grade to help remember the names of the coins and their values.    Ask you child to say it for you and do the hand motions:

Penny penny easily spent,
Copper, brown, and worth one cent.
Nickel nickel thick and fat,
You're worth five cents,
I know that!
Dime dime, little and thin,
I remember you're worth ten!
Quarter quarter BIG and BOLD,
You're worth twenty-five cents
I am told!

Try having your child count coin amounts at home.  Start with combinations of like coins and then mixed coin combinations.  For a challenge give them an amount and have them try to show it to you using the fewest amount of coins possible or try having them making change.
Mrs. McAuliffe

Counting Practice

Dear parents,
We are working on counting by 1's, 10's, 5's and 2's in math.  Counting by 5's will be especially important as we begin working with nickels and telling time with analog clocks.  Practice counting by 1's,  5's and 10's to 100 and by 2's to 40.  A great place to practice is in the car while driving or while waiting in line at stores. Keep up the great counting at home!   Thank you!
Mrs. McAuliffe

Math Game: Penny Dice Roll

The students enjoyed playing Penny Dice Roll today.  In partners or groups of three, they rolled a die and then took the amount of pennies.  They arranged their winnings in pairs or groups of five to practice skip counting.  Later on we will add nickels and dimes as we introduce those coins.

Thank you!

Thank you all for coming to open house! It was so nice to meet all of you. Our classroom looks well stocked thanks to all the supplies.  Lysol and Clorox wipes are a first grade teacher's best friend!
I forgot to mention 2 of the handouts on the desk.... oops!  They were for Lexia and Symphony Math.  Those are computer programs that we use in school that can be downloaded and carried over at home.  They are individual to your child and differentiated based on the way your child responds to the questions.  If you have any trouble downloading them let me know.  Symphony math should be ready to download but I would wait a few weeks on Lexia because I am still waiting to get all the student accounts transferred to first grade in the system. 
Thanks again and I look forward to sitting down with you at conference time.  If you have any questions or concerns before that please feel free to pop in room 4 or shoot me an email.  patricia_mcauliffe@nksd.net
Thanks,
Mrs. McAuliffe

Open House

I am looking forward to meeting everyone tomorrow night at open house.  Be sure to sign up for a November conference.  If you are unable to make it and want to stop in another time, feel free! 
Thanks,
Mrs. McAuliffe

Welcome to First Grade! 2011-2012

Welcome Forest Park Families!  I am so excited to be working with your child this year.  Please check out this site from time to time to see what we are up to in first grade.  Enjoy your last few days of summer vacation!
Mrs. McAuliffe

Look What's Growing in Room 4!

We are just finishing up our Science Kit, New Plants.  In this kit we grew new plants from seeds, bulbs, whole potatoes, whole radishes, with and without soil, conducted a control experiment with wheat. mini lawns, and much more.  Here are a few pictures of some of the experiments. 

Potato Plants

Garlic bulbs grown in cotton.

Wheat Experiment

Students recording observations in their notebooks.

Rye & Alfalfa Lawns

Field Trip Update

Good afternoon!  We have rescheduled our field trip to the VMA which was previously canceled.  We will now be attending a show on Friday, May 27th.  We will hold onto the money and send a new permission slip home as the date gets closer.  We will be seeing Charlotte's Web instead of the other stories.

We had a fun filled week so far in first grade with Valentine's Day yesterday and the 100th day today!  Back to the regular schedule tomorrow.  Ask your child what they made for their 100 popcorn kernal glue drawing and about our 100 block scavenger hunt.  Have a great night!

Mrs. McAuliffe

Field Trip

Hello there!  I hope everyone is enjoying their day off today!  I just wanted to let you know that we are in the process of rescheduling our field trip to the VMA.  We will hold on to the field trip money and send out a new permission slip when we have a new date planned.  Stay tuned...
Mrs. McAuliffe

January Benchmark Testing

Hello families! 
In first grade this January is an important month for benchmark testing.  This testing allows us to see where all the students fall in the areas of reading, writing, and math.  With this information we can target specific skills and form differentiated instruction groups.  By the end of next week, we should have completed all of the testing.  We just finished up our Aimsweb testing (the one with the green and yellow graphs I  handed out at conference time) and Fountas & Pinnell running records to get a current reading level for your child. 

Next week we will be taking the Math Benchmark Assessment and the Writing Benchmark Assessment.  If you have any questions about how your child did on these assessments please feel free to contact me.  We can set up a time to talk in person, on the phone, or I can send you the info in an email.  Have a great long weekend! 

P.S.  Ask your child what they learned about Martin Luther King Jr.  We talked a lot about him in class and also watched some of the video clip of the "I Have A Dream" speech on the Smartboard.  They were very mesmerized by it and had a ton of questions.  Here is the link:

http://www.mlkonline.net/video-i-have-a-dream-speech.html

Thank you!
Mrs. McAuliffe

Happy New Year!

Classroom Supply Wish List for 2011

Crayons 

Hand Wipes or Baby Wipes

Clorox Wipes

Mechanical Pencils

Glue Sticks

Hand Sanitizer - Pump