Silly Sentences

I am looking through the papers this afternoon and I can't help but laugh at some of our adjective work we did today.  Today the students all got a silly sentence.  They then drew out a pair of adjectives to put into their sentences.  Some of the sentences we came up with today were quite comical.

Here are a few examples;

"His old sister jumped on a yellow octopus."

"I ate a bowl of crunchy grumpy bugs for dinner."

"I like to eat boring cereal out of my tiny shoe."

"The happy house is full of happy monkeys."

The students did a marvelous job at finding the nouns in the sentences and pairing the adjectives with the nouns.  The drawings were priceless as well.  Everyone did a great job with this activity and I am very much impressed!

Dear Tooth Fairy

I have to brag on some of our work today.  Today we read Silverlicious.  In the story Pinkilicious lost her sweet tooth and can't taste anything sweet.  Today, I had the kiddos write about if they lost their sweet tooth what kind of candy would they ask the tooth fairy for, just like Pinkilicious did in the story.  As I was reading through the letters I could see that we have made some pretty big improvements from the beginning of the year.  The letters were very well done.  I saw that some liked chocolate kisses, others liked Skittles and some even mentioned Rolos.  I even saw that one student said they did not like nuts.  That made me laugh because I am the same way.  If you read some stories at home with your students and are looking for something extra to do have them relate to the story and write about it or draw a picture.  I thought we did a nice job of that today.

Spelling List for February 25- March 1st

Spelling Unit  21

Test Thursday, Feb. 28^th

low

row

boat

coat

no

go

show

goat

float

Review Words

Puppy

funny

High Frequency Words

mother

father

Memos for February 25-March 1

I hope everyone enjoyed a little bit of a shorter week this past week.  I know the kids thought it was nice to have a day off.  After this last week I feel that we have strengthened our skills at comprehension, complete sentences, long E sounds and long U sounds.  I am impressed with how well we are catching onto the ideas about telling time and how to write it.  This next week will be filled with many more things to challenge their young minds as well as strengthen their skills in other areas. 

Reading/Phonics/Spelling- In reading this next week we will be reading “We Love Joan” p 10, “Olivia” p 12, and “Cats in Art” p 38.  We will also be talking about how all of these stories show ways to be creative.  We will also be emphasizing fantasy and reality as well as how good readers use questions while they read.  We will be particularly looking at questions before, during and after and how good readers discuss some of their thoughts.  Our phonics this week will be about the long O sound.  We already know long O silent E.  This week we will be talking about how an O at the end of a word, the –OA blend, and the –OW blend all say the long O sound as well.  Our spelling words also all have those same sounds.  They are posted on our classroom blog as well.  On Friday we will be doing a lot of Dr. Seuss activities.  His birthday is on Saturday but we will celebrate it on Friday.  We will be reading a lot of his books on Friday.  I also have some extra things for the kiddos to take home on Friday.

Math- This week in math we are going to finish up talking about time and begin our unit on 3-D shapes.  We will be reviewing some of our basic shapes as well in order to introduce the new ones.  On Friday we will be doing some Dr. Seuss addition.

Grammar/Writing- This week in grammar we are going to be studying adjectives.  We have already hit adjectives pretty hard but we are going to tie them into which nouns they describe and ultimately into what is the subject of a sentence.  In writing this week we are going along with the theme of being creative and making an invitation for Olivia, the main character in one of our stories.  We will also be working on proofreading our papers to make sure we have capital letters and punctuation marks.

Social Studies- We are going to wrap up our month on Famous African Americans.  We will be finishing talking about Jackie Robinson and introduce President Obama.  We have talked about famous Americans such as Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King, and Harriet Tubman.  We will also continue reading and studying about cultures in our social studies book.

Related Arts Rotations for 2/25-3/1

Group A- Music, Art, Computer, Gym, Music

Group B- Computer, Gym, Music, Art, Computer

Group C- Art Computer, Gym, Music, Art

Group D- Gym, Music, Art, Computer, Gym

Just a reminder that Monday is a library day.    Please return your books on Monday.  Remember to bring those library books back if they are at home.  We will be going to the library to check out new books.

Be sure to send in those box tops.  Every Thursday I send down our bag of box tops to the office.  If you have any box tops or food labels that can be redeemed for money please send them in and I will get them turned in.

If you would like to mark your calendars for the 3^rd annual North Attendance District family 5k run and walk, the date has been set for April 6^th.  There will be more details to come on this event later in the school year.

On Friday we will begin our Professor Popcorn unit.  One of the assistants at the Vanderburgh County Purdue Extension office will be here for the next five weeks to teach us about the food groups and to eat healthy.  This is a great program and the kids get a nice healthy treat at the end of each session.

Enjoy your weekend!

 Thanks,

Robert Moreland

Robert.Moreland@evsc.k2.in.us

A chance to see Junie B.!!!!

Our first grade has an exciting opportunity to attend the production of the children’s book Junie B. Jones, at the Centre, on April 4, 2013. A prepayment of $6 per student is required. Therefore, we will need to collect the money for your child by Wednesday, February 20, 2013. Thanks in advance for your promptness of turning in the money for this event.

Due to limited space and ticket availability, we will not be able to have parent chaperones.

We have been reading all kinds of Junie B. Jones stories this year in first grade.  This is a great opportunity for everyone to see the stories come to life and make connections.  It will also help the students become more excited about reading.  I know I am looking forward to see what stories they will be performing and seeing what trouble Junie B. gets into!

Mr. Moreland's Memos for February 19-22

Another week is in the books, and another small step towards second grade for the students has been taken.  This week took on some mighty topics that will help us for the rest of our lives.  We talked about how we need to use context clues and ask questions when we read in order to become better readers.  We talked about subtraction and how to regroup.  We also talked about adjectives and how to make contractions with not.  This next week will be a shorter week due to President’s Day.  President’s Day will be on Monday, so there is no school on Monday February 18^th.  Since it is a shorter week and we have read everything in our current reading book we will be having a review week.  We will be working on some reading comprehension skills, talking more in depth about asking questions, working on fluency, and review some of the most recent phonics sounds. 

Reading/Phonics/Spelling- This week will be a review week in reading.  Your students will be taking home their reading books this week and can read any story.  They should be familiar with all the words in the book and know what all of the stories are about.  We will be doing a reader’s theater style of reading this week in order to improve fluency and comprehension.  We will also be doing a lot of reading where we answer questions in order to comprehend what we read.  We will be discussing more on questioning words we don’t know and having to reread in order remember facts.  We will be reviewing our phonics sounds as well.  The spelling words are posted on our blog and are also a review from the past few weeks.

Math- This week in math we will be introducing the topic of time.  For some of us this will be easy and others this may be a challenge.  If you are looking for something to do at home to help reinforce time have your kiddos read the clock to you or draw the time on a clock.  Practice using digital clocks as well as analog clocks.  We will be talking about hours and half hours this week.

Grammar/Writing- In grammar this week we will be talking about complete sentences again and what makes a complete sentence.  I know we can all do this but I still see papers with no capital letters and punctuation marks.  We will also be reviewing questions and statements.

Social Studies- We will be talking more about some of our famous African Americans.  We will be taking a look at Jackie Robinson.  We will also continue our unit on cultures.

   

Related Arts Rotations for 2/19-2/22

Group A- Art, Computer, Gym, Music

Group B- Gym, Music, Art, Computer

Group C- Computer, Gym, Music, Art

Group D- Music, Art, Computer, Gym

Please return your books on Tuesday.  Remember to bring those library books back if they are at home.  We will be attempting go to the library during the week since Monday is our normal library day.

Be sure to send in those box tops.  Every Thursday I send down our bag of box tops to the office.  If you have any box tops or food labels that can be redeemed for money please send them in and I will get them turned in.

On Friday we will begin our Professor Popcorn unit.  One of the assistants at the Vanderburgh County Purdue Extension office will be here for the next five weeks to teach us about the food groups and to eat healthy.  This is a great program and the kids get a nice healthy treat at the end of each session.

If you would like to mark your calendars for the 3^rd annual North Attendance District family 5k run and walk, the date has been set for April 6^th.  There will be more details to come on this event later in the school year.

Enjoy your three day weekend!

 Thanks,

Robert Moreland

Robert.Moreland@evsc.k2.in.us

Spelling List for February 19-22

Spelling Review Week # 4

Test Thursday, Feb. 21

funny

penny

peep

beat

me

play

rain

use

tune

woke

hose

Challenge Words

February

Monday

Valentine's Day Plans

Before I begin about Valentine's Day, I wanted to apologize for the homework mix up yesterday.  I was out sick with the 24 hour thing that is going around.  It is amazing what a little Advil and sleep will do for you.  Before I left on Wednesday I had the homework passed out in their mailboxes.  I did not want them to tear out their workbook page.  I am sorry the substitute sent home both papers.  I am only looking at the side with the hundreds chart on it.  I will count either the white paper or the workbook paper.

With that said, I wanted to fill you in a little on Valentine's Day.  In the classroom we have been reading a few stories about Valentine's Day.  Today we even started a new Junie B. Jones book.

  We will have an exchange at the end of the day on Thursday.  You are more than welcome to have some cards ready for your student to pass out.  It goes the quickest when you just sign your name on the from section.  I sent home, on Friday, a list of everyone's first names if you want to take the time and do that.  It is okay to have a sucker or something attached to the cards.  We will have bags that we will decorate during the week to put everything into.  Be on the lookout on Thursday as we will send those bags down.  I hope everyone enjoys their weekend!

Mr. Moreland's Memos, February 11th-15th

It’s hard to believe another week has already gone by.  Looking back at this past week it is hard to believe all the learning we did.  We began to talk about how good readers ask questions to better understand a story, subtracting 10’s, different ways to make the long E sound, and when to use the past tense and present tense form of see.  I am sure we talked about many other things throughout the week as well.  This next week we will be looking more at asking questions, finishing up subtraction and moving on to how to tell time, and we will be talking more about contractions with not in them.

Reading/Phonics/Spelling- In reading this week we will be reading a lot of stories that are fairly tales.  We will be doing our regular reading out of our reader but we will also be reading many other selections to help reinforce our main reading topics for the week.  This week we will be reading “Have You Heard This Silly Tale?” p. 112, “Little Rabbit” p. 114, and “Henny Penny” p. 134.  As we read these stories we will be looking at how good readers ask questions.  We will focus particularly on how good readers ask questions to better understand an unfamiliar word and when to make a prediction.  We will also be going back and talking about what happens at the beginning, middle and end of a story.  The stories this week will have some new sight words to study.  Those words are; before, happen, began, told, heard, falls, glared, haste.  Our phonics for this week will be about how the Y at the end of a word makes a long E sound.  Our spelling words will also be words that end in Y and make the long E sound.

Math- In math this week we are going to finish up our subtraction unit with subtracting two digit numbers and regrouping with subtraction.  After that we will be talking about time.  We are going to be looking at time on an analog clock, not a digital clock.  We will have a short assessment over subtraction in the middle of the week.  I have noticed that it takes a few extra seconds to do some basic problems and a lot of us like to count on our fingers.  The best way to get better is to practice your basic addition and subtraction facts at home.  Making flash cards is a great way to practice.

Grammar/Writing- This week in grammar we are going to study more about using contractions.  We will be taking an extra hard look at how to use contractions with not in them.  We will also be reviewing sentences and adjectives with a writing assignment.  We will continue to write in our writing journals this week and focus in on the Valentine’s Day theme.  On Thursday we will be making a heart and writing about it using adjectives. 

Social Studies- We will be working on our first lesson from our social studies book this week about families.  We will be talking about what families look like all over the world and be making comparisons.  This is a great topic to tie in some of our reading strategies of making connections and compare and contrast.

Related Arts Rotations for 2/11-2/15

Group A- Gym, Music, Art, Computer, Gym

Group B- Art, Computer, Gym, Music, Art

Group C- Music, Art Computer, Gym, Music

Group D- Computer, Gym, Music, Art, Computer

Just a reminder that Monday is a library day.    Please return your books on Monday.  Remember to bring those library books back if they are at home.  We will be going to the library to check out new books.

Be sure to send in those box tops.  Every Thursday I send down our bag of box tops to the office.  If you have any box tops or food labels that can be redeemed for money please send them in and I will get them turned in.

World Bazaar- This Saturday, February 9^th, from 10am-3pm will be happening here at Oak Hill.  The schedule is as follows:

Every Hour & Half Hour- Student Keyboard Performances (10:30, 11, 11:30, 1, 1:30, 2)              (music room)

11 a.m.—Bend in the River Brass Band (gym)                     Alex Schnautz, Coordinator

12 p.m. & 12:30 p.m.- Oak Hill Music Theater (gym)           Michelle Johnson, Director

1:30 p.m.– David Holder, Guitar (gym)

 Crafts/activities (free)

Worry Dolls (Guatemala)

Dragon Masks (China)

God’s Eyes (Mexico))

le bilboquet-Used for games (France)

Face Painting

Kid Computer Research Zone

Manna packets

International games (free)

le bilboquet (France)
Fukuwarai (Japan)
Kye Kye Kule (Ghana)
Limbo dance (Trinidad and Tobago, Caribbean Islands)

International food

Food tasting (11:00 a.m.-2:30 p.m.)

Purchase $5 ticket for 5 tastings

Spaghetti (10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.)

Purchase $3.50 ticket for 1 bowl of spaghetti & breadstick

Come and Join the fun and festivities!

On Thursday it will be Valentine’s Day.  We will be making bags this week to put our Valentine’s treat into.  The best and easiest way to do Valentine’s treats is to sign your name on the from line.  If you would like to put first names you may do so.  I have also sent home a list with everyone’s first names.  We will exchange cards at the end of the day on Thursday 

Thanks,

Robert Moreland

Robert.Moreland@evsc.k2.in.us

You can find me online with our classroom blog at www.mrmoreland.blogspot.com.  Our spelling words and a copy of the Memo’s is also on the blog.

Spelling List for February 11th-15th

Spelling Unit  20

Test Thursday, Feb. 14

bumpy

puppy

funny

penny

sandy

bunny

lumpy

scary

picky

Review Words

keep

seat

High-Frequency Words

before

heard

Mr. Moreland's Memos for February 4th-8th

This past week went by very quickly.  It is hard to believe that we are already in February.  It seems like yesterday we were just returning from Christmas break.  This past week we learned a lot about the weather and the long A sounds and about adding two digit numbers.  This next week will be just as busy with many new things.  Over the weekend I am hoping that the groundhog will not see his shadow so we can get this cold weather out of here and bring back some warmer weather.

Reading/Phonics/Spelling- In reading this week our stories will all be centered all around being a scientist.  We will be reading the following stories “Be Curious” p. 82, “Meet Ben Franklin” p. 84 and “A Close Look” p. 104.  We will also be talking about some new high frequency words and vocabulary words.  Please practice reading and talking about the following words; friends, kind, by, far, house, knew, curious, idea.  These words will appear in all of the reading selections this week.  We will also be looking at how good readers use questioning to help them comprehend.  We will just be starting this topic and will go through February.  We will also be looking at how when we have questions they can lead to answers and guesses.  To go along with the stories our phonics for the week will center around the long E sounds by having an e at the end of a word and -ea, or –ee in a word.  The spelling list that has been also posted on our classroom blog, reflects the long E sound with a variety of long E words.

Math- This week in math we are going to switch gears from addition to subtraction.  This time we will be subtracting two digit numbers from two digit numbers.  We are building up to next week where we will learn about borrowing.  We will start off easy where the students can use a hundreds chart to begin and then gradually get a little tougher.  There will be a variety of strategies we will use.  The best way is to just know you addition and subtraction basic facts.  Please be practicing the basic adding and subtracting facts at home.  It never hurts to do a little more!

Grammar/Writing- This week in grammar we will be studying when to use the present tense and past tense of see.  We will also be talking about using see and saw when the subject of a sentence is singular or plural.  We will continue as usual with our writing journal and relate to a few Valentine’s Day stories this week.

Social Studies- This week we are going to begin our social studies unit on culture.  We will be looking at our culture and talking about families, rules, and school life.  Also, with February being Black History Month we will be reading about and studying a few famous people that have helped shape America into what it is today.

   

Related Arts Rotations for 2/4-2/8

Group A- Computer, Gym, Music, Art, Computer

Group B- Music, Art, Computer, Gym, Music

Group C- Gym, Music, Art Computer, Gym

Group D- Art, Computer, Gym, Music, Art

Just a reminder that Monday is a library day.    Please return your books on Monday.  Remember to bring those library books back if they are at home.  We will be going to the library to check out new books.

Friday February 1^st, 6 to 8 PM: Game On Family Engagement Event at Oak Hill School. Roller skating in the small gym and a vendor fair of our Wildcat home business owners in the large gym. Admission is free to students and PTA members. Adults who are not yet PTA members may join for $7 which will gain not only event entrance, but also other PTA membership perks. Entrance fee for adults without a PTA membership who do not wish to purchase a PTA membership is $5. Pizza and drinks are available for purchase. Popcorn is served free.

(From Mrs. Work) A used book fair will collect books Jan. 30 – February 9. Students will be able to buy books February 4 –February 9. Students will collect and count the books, count the money, advertise and manage the book fair. At the end, the older students will write opinion essays to recommend an animal package, through Heifer’s International, to purchase from the proceeds of the event and benefit a family in poverty. The entire student body will vote to decide on the package to send. Please send in gently used books. A box will be available in each classroom to place the books.  Donations will be collected each morning from January 28 through February 8^th.  The children will have an opportunity to purchase books each day from February 4th-February 9^th at the World Bazaar.  Paperback books will cost $0.25 and Hard Cover books $0.50.

Be sure to send in those box tops.  Every Thursday I send down our bag of box tops to the office.  If you have any box tops or food labels that can be redeemed for money please send them in and I will get them turned in.

Spelling List for February 4th-8th

Spelling Unit  19

Test Thursday, Feb. 7

me

we

feed

keep

seat

beak

tree

peep

beat

Review Words

day

main

High Frequency Words

friends

knew