Mrs. Jansen's First Grade Class
Weekly Newsletter: December 7, 2015
KEYSOR PRIDE
We are Respectful, Responsible and Safe.
Exciting December festivities underway!
Our last month of 2015 is off to an awesome beginning! Thank you to all of our families who joined together for our First Friday Reading! It was fun to be able to share our new texts with you in non-fiction and get a preview of our Hour of Code that is occurring this week in class.
The children will resume their Leader of the Week celebration this Friday as well. Congratulations to our two students of the week, Elie and Oliver, who are continuing to shine in demonstrating their Keysor Pride.
The children will resume their Leader of the Week celebration this Friday as well. Congratulations to our two students of the week, Elie and Oliver, who are continuing to shine in demonstrating their Keysor Pride.
Special Classes/Activities Schedule:
*Hour of Code Week*
Monday, Dec. 7th: E Day - Art with Mrs. Lang
Tuesday, Dec. 8th: A Day - P.E. with Coach Widamen & SKATING BEGINS! Please be sure to send your child to school with their helmet, to be kept at school all week. The helmet will be sent back home this Friday and will need to be returned on Monday.
Wednesday, Dec. 9th: B Day - Music with Dr. St. Clair; Wellness Wednesday for walking, running or riding your bikes to school!
Thursday, Dec. 10th: C Day - Wellness with Mrs. Ehrlich: SKATING
Friday, Dec. 11th: D Day - Library with Mrs. Ems
Monday, Dec. 7th: E Day - Art with Mrs. Lang
Tuesday, Dec. 8th: A Day - P.E. with Coach Widamen & SKATING BEGINS! Please be sure to send your child to school with their helmet, to be kept at school all week. The helmet will be sent back home this Friday and will need to be returned on Monday.
Wednesday, Dec. 9th: B Day - Music with Dr. St. Clair; Wellness Wednesday for walking, running or riding your bikes to school!
Thursday, Dec. 10th: C Day - Wellness with Mrs. Ehrlich: SKATING
Friday, Dec. 11th: D Day - Library with Mrs. Ems
Sustainable Nutrition
Last Friday also provided for the children's first experiences with our tower gardens at Keysor. They had some gooey fun dismantling our tower within the stairwell outside of our classroom, by taking apart the completed plants from their planting pot, composting the plant waste, and preparing our tower for the new plantings. They were able to work as a class team to prep the tower and plant the new vegetable seeds within the rock wool habitats for the seeds to prosper. Friends planted beefsteak and cherry tomato seed, cucumber and pepper seeds, lettuce and eggplants seeds as well. The coolest part of this experience in growing and harvesting produce in a sustainable way, is that they will also get to act as pollinators, by pollinating the flowering vegetables (eggplant, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers) too! It's going to be an exciting winter at Keysor for our tower gardens!
Night Tree
Last week, our class had a wonderful (and messy fun) time together creating orange 'ornaments' in class for our friend Parker's birthday. This experience is tied to the story Night Tree by Eve Bunting, in which a family decorates an evergreen in the forest with natural food items for the forest's critters to enjoy during the holiday season. As the story in our inspiration, this week we will build upon our orange bird feeder ornaments that were created, to add strings of popcorn and additional bird seed ornaments (to be created with the support of our 5th Grade Buddies) for our Keysor animals to enjoy upon our evergreen trees in the back of Project IDEA. Thank you again to the McFall family for the creation of such an interactive experience.
Where in the World is Room 135 First Graders?
That question is being answered in many ways this week! Building upon our explorations of an array of maps, i.e. the globe, United States map, Missouri street map, Magic House interior map, the children will be learning about where they are in this enormous, yet also small world of ours. This identification of place and realizing their sense of place will coordinate with map making and understandings of perspective. To pair with this learning, I will also be sending home a fun map making activity for completion during the break, of your child creating a map of their bedroom, home, or neighborhood, for sharing upon our return from winter break. Can't wait to see how they apply their mapping skills from our studies this week!
Continuing with Blends
Our learning in blends is continuing to our new sounds of "l blends" through words like: play, climb and blimp. Also, they will be learning five new sight words, that will be added to our word wall: may, part, about, word, find. Then, as we move into next week, we will spend some time in review of the words that have been introduced during this quarter.
Writing Workshop: Finishing up our All About Books
Our final drafts are complete and the children are now into their final editing stage within their Writer's Workshop. It continues to be wonderful and such a gift to watch and support the writing underway. As we approach this final stage before publication, the children will revisit their spelling and look to their peers for any editing suggestions. Final copies to be completed this week.
Continuing with Assessments and Moving into Fraction Geometry
As we near the end of the quarter, we are continuing with our quarter's assessments in number writing through 130, adding and subtracting numbers within the 20's and sharing understandings of shapes, their sides and vertices. This week, we will also move into fraction experiences in dividing a shape into equal segments of halves, thirds, and quarters. We'll also see how further challenges in sixths and eighths would looks. Sooooo, if you're up for some pizza and Hershey bar fraction practice, grab some and make it a mathematical dinner & dessert this week!
Me and the Map
Last week's explorations with maps enabled for discovery of our seven continents, our country and our state. This week, we will extend upon these times in play and exploration with the children sharing their perspectives of where they live in this great big world, by telling about their home, their neighborhood, city, state, nation, continent and world, within a circle flip book of their creation.
Hour of Code: Home extensions
This week, in support of the global initiative "Hour of Code," our class will be participating in an array of coding experiences. The following links provided below, will take you to some of the same coding sites that we will be exploring in class. Also, I have include the names of several coding apps that you are welcome to add to your digital devices to extend the coding experiences enjoyed this week, to your child's explorations at home as well. Enjoy and please let me know if you have any questions!
Coding Introduction (via Star Wars):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7jSy_yE9U0&feature=youtu.be
Infinity Playlab:
https://videos.code.org/2015/infinityplaylab/infinity-playlab-intro.mp4
Flappy Bird:
https://studio.code.org/flappy/1
Angry Birds & Plant vs. Zombie:
https://studio.code.org/hoc/1
Elsa & Anna:
https://studio.code.org/s/frozen/stage/1/puzzle/1
Coding Apps for home digital devices:
The Foos, Kodable, Daisy the Dinosaur, Scratch Jr., Tynker, Cargo Bot, Light Bot One Hour Coding
Coding Introduction (via Star Wars):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7jSy_yE9U0&feature=youtu.be
Infinity Playlab:
https://videos.code.org/2015/infinityplaylab/infinity-playlab-intro.mp4
Flappy Bird:
https://studio.code.org/flappy/1
Angry Birds & Plant vs. Zombie:
https://studio.code.org/hoc/1
Elsa & Anna:
https://studio.code.org/s/frozen/stage/1/puzzle/1
Coding Apps for home digital devices:
The Foos, Kodable, Daisy the Dinosaur, Scratch Jr., Tynker, Cargo Bot, Light Bot One Hour Coding
Mrs. Traci Jansen
Email: traci.jansen@kirkwoodschools.org
Website: http://keysor.kirkwoodschools.org/pages/Keysor_Elementary/Classes/Jansen
Location: 725 N Geyer Rd, Kirkwood, MO, United States
Phone: 314-213-6120 (2164)
Twitter: @TraciJansen