Ms. Graf

Ms. Graf will be coming to visit and read to us every Friday afternoon!

Watch and listen to us choral read our Is poem!  Come back next Friday to hear us read a different poem!

Is Poem

Pajama Day!

Spelling City and Word Study

On Friday, we will be using the website Spelling City together as a whole class.  If your child would like to practice their spelling at home, they can click on the Spelling City link on the right side of our blog.  I have spelling lists already saved on the website.  You can click on the search button and then click teachers.  Enter my whole name (Lily Henault) and my name will pop up with Jericho Elementary School written next to it. We are working on Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC) words right now.  Enjoy!

Star Student

Star Student of the Week

Each week there will be a new Star Student.  They will get to share about themselves, get a special seat at circle, and the class will write a special message for them.  There is some work that has to be done at home when you are the Star Student.  One of the jobs is to fill out the All About Me sheet that is attached.  It should be filled out by the student but with adult support.  This will be shared on Monday with a picture of the Star Student.  On Wednesday, they will share another picture of their choice.  This could be them with family members, friends, or doing something that is important to them.  The picture should share more about the student.  On Thursday, they may bring in an object to share.  This object should teach us more about the Star Student.  You may send in all of these things on Monday or bring them in on the assigned days.  Everything will be returned home on Friday.

Monday: Picture of Star Student and completed All About Me sheet

Wednesday: Picture that shares more about the Star Student

Thursday: Object that teaches more about the Star Student

*Please feel free to call or email with questions.*

This notice will be in your child's folder on Thursday with the All About Me sheet and the Star Student Schedule!

Let's Get Reading!

Let’s Get Reading

On Monday October 3rd, we will start having homework!  The only homework in first grade is to be reading at home.  This could look like students reading to themselves, reading with someone, or being read to.  All that matters is that reading is happening!  Students should color in the amount of time they read every night (Monday-Thursday).  I would like to see students reading at least 10 minutes a day.  However, I know life is busy so if reading doesn’t happen one day maybe a little extra reading could happen on a different day.  The reading log should be returned to school on Friday with the student’s name on it!  I have also included some cues that families can use if a student gets stuck on a tricky word.

I also included a list of sight words and possible ways to practice reading and writing them.  This is not something that is required but the more familiar students are with their sights words the stronger their reading and writing skills become.  I will send home different lists as the school year progresses.

Thank you for everything that you do at home to support these wonderful students!

Lily Henault

This notice along with everything else will be coming home on Thursday in your child's folder!

Pajama Day!

Pajama Day

We have earned enough “paws” points to have a class celebration.  We earn “paws” points by following our school rules.  Our celebration will be having Pajama Day on Friday (9-30-16).  Students are invited to wear pajamas but they do not have to.  If you choose to wear slippers, please bring alternative shoes for recess. There will also be a notice coming home in folders this week!

Building Our Skills

We learned a new game today called Five In a Row.  This helps us with our addition skills.

We are working on our writing stamina!  We are up to 14 minutes.  This week we also worked on adding moving and talking to our stories.

Yesterday we started our first social studies unit.  It is about community.  We came up with our own definition of community and today we watched a short video about different types of communities and community workers.  If you have a special job in community and would like to come in and share we would love to have you!  We are having firefighters from the Underhill/Jericho Fire Department coming to visit us next month!

A Peek Into Our Week

We played Double Compare this week.  We are starting to work on our addition skills.  We talked about using a strategy that we call counting on.  That is when you put the bigger number in your head and count on from there.

We did an autumn art project this afternoon.  We got to paint without using paint brushes!  Make sure you check them out in the hallway at Open House.


We tried out using the computers and ipads during Math Menu this week.  On the computer we played the game Counting Fish on ABcya.com and on the Ipad we played the app Quick Images.  Mr. Bouchard came in to teach us about the ipads and we signed a contract promising to follow the ipad rules.


In Word Study,  we have gone over all the lowercase letters and all the letter sounds.  We will be using our Word Study books next week and starting to use strategies to spell words.

Learning How to be First Graders!

We played the game Compare during math this week.  It helped us to learn how to be a good partner and thinking about the math concepts of greater and less.

We built and recorded the staircases we made.

We also counted objects in mystery boxes and tried to represent what we counted in a clear way.

We started trying out Math Menu.  Math Menu is the last 30 minutes of our math block.  Students get to make choices by signing up with a magnet on the side of our filing cabinet.  There are four choices.  They are Math by Myself, Partner Math, Ipad, and Computer.  These choices change every week.  We tried out Math by Myself and Partner Math this week.

We learned how to shop for books for our book boxes.  Students are allowed to choose 6 books for their books boxes.  These books stay in their book boxes all week.  4 of these books come from a specific letter bucket that has just right books in it.  The other 2 books are the student's choice.  We made it to 15 minutes of independent reading!  We are growing our stamina!

In writing, we continue to work on writing small moments.  We learned different ways to spell independently, how to turn and talk with a buddy about our stories, and how to add more to our pictures.

We are working as a class on being respectful listeners by keeping our voices off!

Pictures From the First Week

We have been working hard on learning our classroom routines and expectations.  We have been building up our reading stamina.  We were able to read from our book boxes for 9 minutes!

We explored different math manipulatives in our classroom.  We also did our first page in our first grade math books!

We practiced buddy reading today!  We learned about what it should look like and sound like when we are reading with our buddies.

In writing, we have started writing Small Moments.  Small moments are true stories about one moment in our lives.  It can often be helpful for parents to remind their children about different life events that could be fun to write about.  

Have a great long weekend!