Scholastic Reading Club

Reading Club Order Due Date: Friday, February 13

Shop Online: scholastic.com/readingclub

One-Time Class Activation Code: J73DP

The January and February flyers will be sent home with your child on Thursday! 

Place your order online at scholastic.com/readingclub or return the order form and payment to me. There are more books to choose from online as well as a class wish list. 

Remember, for every book you order, our class earns FREE books...and we have our eye on some new additions. 

Thank you for your support! 

If This Is Your First Time Ordering Online:

- VISIT scholastic.com/readingclub

- ENTER the one-time Class Activation Code (top of this letter)

- SHOP from a carefully curated selection of the best books, value packs, and Storia eBooks

- SUBMIT your order and earn FREE Books for our classroom

- All book orders will be shipped to our classroom so we can celebrate the joy of reading together!

Friday 1/23 & Monday 1/25

Hope everyone is enjoying these snow days... Yesterday was a day of relaxing (and cooking!) as Peter was home too.  My goal is to get lots of cleaning done around my house today!

We can't wait to have author Melanie Gilbert visit us soon!  Postponed visit TBD..

If you need another form to order a signed copy of one of her books, let me know.

We had a sad start to our Monday morning. We had two social workers come in and share the very sad news about the second grade student.  The children asked some great questions and really dealt with this information in the best way possible.  We learned that when we find out someone we know died, we may feel mad, sad or angry and we found that drawing pictures can help.  Please check out this parent handout from the Children's Room for suggestions on ways to help your child cope.  There will be a parent forum sometime later this week at Thompson.  Karen will let us know when there is more information about services or family assistance.  If anything comes up at home during conversation, please feel to share or ask for suggestions...

Introduction to place value:

Using a QR Code to get to a Google Site that I created with pictures, videos, and articles about Africa. The kids got to choose which way they would like to learn some facts about Africa.  Many kids tried using Text-To-Speech.  Finally, they are documenting these newly learned facts into Book Creator.

It was exciting that Ms. Bisson came to video tape us for Dr. Chesson... We sure did show what good teaching and learning looks like! :-) 

Friday's choice time was extra fun!!  Thanks to your donations towards my winter gift, I had lots of extra money to spend on our classroom! 

Check out the Vine to see what fun the kids had with all of these new games!! 

Thursday 1/22

Math:
The kids worked on some more crayon puzzles. I'm super impressed with how they were sticking with it, even though some of them were super tricky!  They are working hard to make sure they found all of the possible combinations, if the problem asks for more red or blue crayons.

Social Studies:
Our focus was Africa's geography.  We noticed where the oceans/seas are, deserts, Equator, Nile Rive, and more and color coded them on a map.

We've had fun celebrating some half birthdays this month!  Every child gets to write a compliment and draw a picture for the birthday boy/girl's book.  We also invite a parent to come in and read us a special story, if possible.  Thanks to the many grown-ups that have come in already!
We also always welcome mystery readers... Let me know a time that works for you!  Typically first or last thing works best for our schedule.

Please check our classroom lost and found if you child is missing a glove or hat!

Tuesday & Wednesday

Hope everyone had a nice long weekend!

Working on glued sounds during phonics time:

 Word games:

playing teacher/student for reading/writing sentences with blends and glued sounds

Math: crayon puzzles 

The students have been working really hard on a new type of story problem- crayon puzzles! 

Example 1: I have 8 crayons.  Some are red and some are blue.  I have same number of each color. How many do I have? 

Example 2: I have 7 crayons.  Some are red and some are blue.  I have more red crayons than blue crayons.  How many of each could I have?  (They need to show ALL of the ways!)

Social Studies- Africa: 

We have been watching some video clips and reading books to learn some basic facts about Africa.  Here's what the kids have learned so far:

The kids are loving our new chapter book read aloud! 

Friday 1/16

Snack time picnic with stuffed animals from home! 

 Here's a Vine of some of the fun that happened during our 30 point party!  Wish I captured some dance moves from our dance party too!

Do any of these belong to your child??

PTO Winter Party!

Dear parents, teachers, alumni and friends:

Mark your calendars…book the sitters…Thompson's fourth annual Winter Party is onJanuary 31!

Please join us at the Arlington Center for the Arts on Saturday, January 31 from 8PM–Midnight. There will be music and dancing, an open bar (beer & wine) plus hors d'oeuvres and desserts. This is a major fundraiser for us and all proceeds benefit the Thompson PTO. Cost is $25 per person, feel free to bring friends.

RSVP by January 26 by going to:www.SignUpGenius.com/go/904084CADA69-winter2 or email Andrea at asloeb@verizon.net.

See you on the dance floor!

–Winter Party Committee

Tuesday 1/13

Proud of their teamwork at indoor recess! 

We had fun with the rhyming in this story: 

I spent my afternoon with all of the other first grade teachers in town learning about our new writing unit- informational writing.  I'm really excited to delve into teaching books! 

Monday 1/12

So many new things today!! 

Fundations- working on glued sounds. 

Two or three letters that are glued together and make a special sound. Ask your child how you mark these sounds.  

Daily 5- look at these kiddos so focused on their work on writing stations! 

Social Studies- New unit! Africa! 

What do you think you know about Africa?  What are you wondering about Africa?  Sharing ideas on a Padlet. 

Math- trying out a new type of story problem with a missing addend.  Try one of these at home! 

Writing- new unit of study!  Today the kids thought about some topics for their first teaching book.  They told five things they knew about a topic across their fingers to their writing buddy.  Ask your child what they are an expert on!

Week of 1/5

We made it on the big screen! 

I did some of my posts this week on Twitter.. Check them out here: twitter.com/MrsMelnik1 or keep reading below! Long post since I didn't blog at all this week.. yikes!

What an exciting day.. We HAD to stop and look at the snow! 

Our character on GoNoodle.. Almost to a new level! 

Even though it's been SO cold out, we're still having fun, and finding ways to get out our energy.  GoNoodle is the best way for us to get frequent movement breaks.  Ask your child what their favorite break is!























Social Studies:
We spent the week working on some mapping skills.
What's near? What's far?
We also focused on things in our community.









Math
The first graders have been practicing their new working numbers.  Here's a Vine of them working hard!


 Survey: What's your favorite winter activity?  Practicing graphing, tallying and comparing numbers.

A new app some kids were testing out...and loving! :-)  

Some fun stations, including some winter activities on another Vine.


Fundations:
This week we focused on grammar.. nouns, proper nouns, and adding -es to mean more than one.

Read Alouds:

We finished Geronimo Stilton... Took a few days off from a chapter book to read a book about nouns, a non-fiction book, and this (almost!) wordless book.  We are now starting a new chapter book- Tal.  A favorite from my student teaching.

Stay warm!! :-) 

January dates

Tuesday, January 13th- Early Release 1pm dismissal, lunch will be served Monday, January 19th- No School: MLK, Jr. Day Tuesday, January 20th- PTO Meeting 7pm Tuesday, January 27th- Early Release

1pm dismissal, lunch will be served Wednesday, January 28th- Send in a filling morning snack We will eat lunch from 11:35-12:15 (instead of 10:55-11:35) due to an upper grade author visit

Saturday, January 31st- get a babysitter! PTO Winter Party

Join fellow parents and teachers, it's a blast!