NEW- Opportunity to order Scholastic Books!
You can order from scholastic.com/bookclubs. Use our class activation code :
HKNWB. To remember it, try "Hot Kids Need Water Bottles"!
THE NEXT DUE DATE IS TBA.
Thanks! this is a good way to buy high interest, very good titles at
affordable prices for your first grade reader. Also, our class gets "points"
that I can use to choose books for our class library.
Every Friday is Janney Spirit Day! Children are invited to wear Janney shirts
and/or wear the school colors- BLUE AND WHITE.
The Pawprints for respect are going strong! If we catch a child demonstrating
respect to themself, others, or to their school or community, we write them
a "pawprint". They usually bring them home to share with you, color them,
then take them to the office to exchange for a sticker.
Some children are choosing to take their paw prints directly to the office and
not bring them home, so be forewarned you may not see all recognitions earned.
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Most recent class newsletters:
NEWS AND NOTES FROM OUR CLASS- 1ST Grade McCrackin
August 23, 2011
We are off to a great start to first grade!
We had a very good first day. It was so exciting to meet new friends, see old
friends, and get to know our new building. If your first grader was tired
yesterday, we walked all over, and up and down many stairs! We have a
wonderful class of first graders. Our class has 23 children, five of whom are
twins, and 7 are new to Janney. Let�s all make everyone feel welcome!
MANY THANKS for your help these first days! Thank you for letting us take the
class in without you- I know that was hard! But it worked well, and made the
morning very calm. But I also know that you are probably dying to see the
school and our classroom! I encourage you to sign up for a school tour, as
offered in Ms. Lycknell�s letters. And I will tell you soon about ways you
can be in our room with us in the future.
Thank you also for all the supplies; we will put them to good use throughout
this year.
Just a few important messages:
1. Please have your first grader bring a small snack every day. We have a
short snack time about 10:15. They will just go to their backpack to get
their own snack. It should be a healthy snack. Many first graders enjoy
fruit or veggies, crackers, cheese, a small yogurt, a hard-boiled egg, rice
cake, or granola bar. PLEASE REMEMBER WE ARE A NO-NUT SCHOOL, and check items
such as food bars for nuts. We do have children in our class with nut allergies.
2. Water bottles are welcome. Our newly renovated classroom does have a
lovely water fountain at our sink, but there are times of the day, especially
after lunch recess, that each child really welcomes a water bottle to have a
good, long drink. Re-fillable water bottles are great- just write your
child�s name on it.
3. Please take a moment tonight and fill out the enclosed student information
form for me. You can return it in this Take Home Tuesday envelope tomorrow (or
if you need more time, return it to me any day.) I know that you have filled
out a lot of paperwork for school and I apologize, but this will help me have
crucial information at my fingertips right away, such as who is authorized to
pick up your child. Thank you so much.
4. A word about dismissal. As you know, we have many children on the field at
3:15! My policy is for a child, when they get picked up, to shake my hand and
say �Goodbye, I am going with _________� (my mom, dad, babysitter, nanny,
etc.) It is a bad feeling for a teacher to notice a child is gone and not be
sure if they were actually collected by an adult! So this will help me be
sure your child is safe. If you could help with this habit, and explain it to
caregivers, I would appreciate it!
5. Here�s how to communicate with me: You can chat with me briefly on the
field in the morning, but it is best to follow up with a note or e-mail! (I
am paying attention to a lot of things then.) You or your child can hand me a
note, for example, about a play-date or an early dismissal. Feel free to
e-mail me at fran.mccrackin@verizon.net. I read my e-mails very early in the
morning and then in the evening- I do not check e-mail during the school day .
If you have a message I need to get that day, just call the school office at
202 282-0110 and ask them to get the message to me.
That�s all for now- my next newsletter will tell more about what we are doing
all day!
Enjoy,
(BRIEF) NEWS AND NOTES FROM OUR CLASS
1- McCcrackin
August 31, 2010
I am really enjoying our class! They are a charming group and the children
are really doing a good job of following school rules and routines, being
respectful in so many ways, and they are working well together already.
A few more points of information:
Sharing
We are beginning sharing with the brown bag activity. I look forward to
learning more about your first grader this way! Children will have their turn
one day this week, and bring their items home after they share.
Otherwise, Monday is a sharing day, where each child has a chance to share
about their weekend. This is a good time to bring in an object to share, if
your child wishes. Please, no toys, however, but photos, brochures,
souvenirs, a natural object they found, or something they made all make good
�sharing�. Our class collection is another way we share. Sometimes we will
have special sharing opportunities, like �bring your favorite stuffed animal
to school day� (later!). And finally, if your child has something important
come up, it may be shared anytime. Examples might be important family news, a
new pet, a big scrape, x-ray of a broken bone (we hope not!), etc. If your
child wants to bring in their real, live pet, I do enjoy that but I need to
talk with a parent first about how and when!
NO NUTS
As you probably know, last year Janney became a nut free school. This is
because of the large number of allergic children. We all still have to be
vigilant, however. No nuts in lunches, snacks or birthday treats, please!
Thank you so much for your care and cooperation.
Birthdays
When your child has a birthday, please let me know if you would like to bring
or send in a treat for the class to eat. You are also welcome to read a
favorite story of your child�s if you like. We usually celebrate birthdays at
the end of the day, about 2:45. We have a little ritual we do in my class,
acting out the earth revolving around the sun for each year of the child�s
life. If your child has a birthday during summer break, we will be happy to
celebrate their half birthday, or else celebrate summer birthdays at the end
of the school year, so no one is left out.
Homework
I hope everyone got their homework folders yesterday with the composition book
inside. Did you notice my introductory letter? Please let me know of any
problems or questions with homework, anytime. Again, my e-mail is
fran.mccrackin@verizon.net.
Our Helpers
We are fortunate to have wonderful paraprofessionals helping on the first
grade team this year. Ms. Morning assists Ms. Kane�s and Ms. Rutledge�s
classes, and Ms. Meyers assists Ms. Klein�s and our class. We also have Ms.
Craig, who is an aide dedicated to one of our classmates. You will get to
know all these wonderful people over the year. Your child probably already
does know them! They all worked at Janney before, and Ms. Meyers was a
long-term substitute in the PK, library, and art classes last year. Both Ms.
Craig and Ms. Meyers are currently in graduate studies in education. We are
fortunate to have them all.
Enjoy the week!
September 13, 2011
This is the first edition of a newsletter from the whole First Grade Team!
Once a month you can expect it in your Take Home Tuesday.
First Field Trip - On Friday September 23rd all the first graders will travel
to Imagination Stage in Bethesda to see a play, Aladdin�s Luck. Please sign
your child�s permission form today and return it tomorrow or as soon as
possible. We will travel by private bus, leaving Janney at 9:30 and returning
by 12:30. Since we will be back during lunch time, we will eat at school and
children can still buy lunch if they want. Chaparones are welcome- please tell
your child�s teacher if you want to join us. Chaparoning is always first
come-first served, but we have quite a few extra tickets and room on the bus
for this trip. Chaparones, please join your child�s class in their room at 9:15.
What is your First Grader working on? The beginning of the school year, all
teachers are establishing routines, procedures, and expectations. We all seek
to create a classroom community, so we talk about our hopes and dreams for the
school year, and what rules we will need so we can achieve them. We gently
introduce academic content while we teach routines such as where to get
supplies and how to put them back, how to use items properly, when to sharpen
pencils, signals for attention, how to pass papers, what are the class jobs
and how to do them- the list goes on and on. If this sounds trivial and a
waste of time, consider the analysis of the teacher who taught his class how
to pass out papers and timed them to shorten it to 8 seconds. Ultimately,
(compared to an average class) over the course of a year he saved his class
the equivalent of almost eight additional days of instruction! (From Doug
Lemov�s Teach Like a Champion , p.7.) So we work hard to build these
effective and satisfying routines in our classroom communities.
Following is a brief overview of our current units:
Our first math unit introduced materials and routines, and now we begin
�Everyday Uses of Numbers�. We will use significant numbers- phone numbers
and birthdays. We will use number grids from -10 to 110. We will make
complements of 10 (10+0, 9+1, 8+2, etc.), tell time to the hour, count pennies
and nickels, solve math stories and create math sentences, called number
models, using addition and subtraction.
In reading, we are busy conducting our first round of reading assessments of
all the students. We guide them to �just right� books that match their
reading level so they can practice independently with books they chose, of
interest to them. We teach the whole class reading strategies and how to work
with reading partners, and we teach small groups of children using texts just
a bit more difficult than their independent level.
In writing we are �writing for many purposes�. First graders will be writing
signs and posters, notes and letters, pretend invitations and menus, lists and
riddles. With these fun and meaningful tasks, our first graders are
stretching out words to hear and put down the sounds they hear. They are also
building their collection of common words they know how to spell automatically
and correctly. They are brave writers!
In word work we are learning handwriting, especially lower case letters- the
first grader�s job! We use classmates� names to notice letters and sounds,
then progress to many phonics activities such as word sorts, rhyming word
families, playing phonics games and memorizing the spelling of common �sight�
words. Here, also, we assess the children and soon will differentiate this
instruction to give children what they specifically need in smaller groups.
We alternate between science and social studies units, and this year we begin
with science. The class meets with Ms. Young in the science lab twice a week,
and we teach science twice a week in our classrooms. In addition, we often
learn poems or songs and occasionally do art projects about concepts in our
science unit. Our first unit introduces many big concepts in earth science.
We explore the idea that the earth is covered by land and water and create
different earth forms in clay. We learn how the earth�s relation to the sun
creates our day and night. We learn that air takes up space and we can feel
its movement as wind. Finally, we learn that the sun supplies heat and light
and is necessary for most life. We will be making wind gauges and conducting
air experiments, tracking shadows over the course of a day, creating models of
the water cycle to observe over time, determining if white or black �solar
mittens� make your hands feel hotter, planting seeds and observing how
seedlings seek the sun, and learning about recycling and composting as ways to
help care for our Earth.
BACK TO SCHOOL NIGHT is this Thursday! As many of you know, this is the
evening Janney parents and guardians come and sit in their child�s chair, soak
in the atmosphere and find out more about the class! Sorry, no children
attend this evening. We will have lots of good information for you to keep-
everything from class lists and schedules to the 100 most frequently used
words and our philosophy of teaching. This is a chance to meet other parents,
get to know the teacher better, connect with the classroom, leave your child a
�love note�, and ASK QUESTIONS. Please just do remember, this is not a time
to discuss your child as an individual- save those questions for our first
Parent Teacher Conference Day (Monday, October 17), or- contact your teacher
to talk.
We look forward to seeing you soon!
The First Grade Team
