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News From Miss Maffei’s First Grade Class Room 102
October 9, 2011- November 4, 2011
Another few weeks have flown by in Room 102! Everyone has been working hard each day to learn,
cooperate, give their best effort and be a supportive and active member of our classroom
community.
In Writer’s Workshop we have been learning about writing Small Moment stories (focusing in on one
part of a day rather than an entire day), the conventions of writing (start each sentence with a capital,
end with a period, leave spaces between words, etc.) and even beginning to learn about the parts of
speech, starting with nouns. We also did some descriptive writing this month when each child drew
a scarecrow and then wrote about it, describing what the scarecrow looks like, where it is (the
setting), and what it likes to do.
During Work Station/Reading time we have been focusing on the words with the short o and short e
sounds (like “hot” and “bet”), particularly those words in the “ot”, “op”, “ock”, “ed”, “et” and “ell”
word families. This is helping children to gain the understanding of the principle that some words
have parts (patterns) that are the same and that you can find patterns (parts) that are the same in
many words. In turn, this skill becomes a strategy to use when you come across unfamiliar words
when reading. The children continue to practice this skill using word sorts and making words. We
have also been focusing on the sounds in words, the ending and beginning sounds, and the onset
(the sound before the vowel) and rime (the sounds after the vowel) in one-syllable words. We have
been focusing on retelling stories with details, making predictions based on what we already know,
the setting, main idea and characters in a story and making personal connections (text to self
connections) when reading.
Math has been very busy for us as well. We continue to work with our Math Buddies during Math
Stations and are paying close attention to our working levels during this time. The main focus of
math over the last few weeks has been nickels and pennies, counting by 5s, combinations of
numbers that make 10, and the concept of more than and less than. We have been learning how to
exchange nickels for pennies, how to show the same amount of money using fewer coins, and how
to write cents when recording a specific amount of money. Go For Nickels is a fun game to help your
child become comfortable with exchanging coins, don’t forget to practice at home! We have been
playing various games during Math time to help learn and practice the concept of more and less
than; such as Build a City, Clear the Deck, Build a Staircase, Elevator Eddy, and Give and Take.
Like real scientists, we have been asking questions, hypothesizing, experimenting, discovering and
drawing conclusions as we continue to explore light and shadows. Some of the questions we have
been working to answer are:
Where does light come from (different types of light sources)?
What 3 things do you need to make a shadow?
What type of materials does light travel through (transparent, translucent, opaque)?
Does light travel in a straight line or does it curve around objects?
Last week, to acknowledge Fire Safety month, we had a visit from Firefighter Peter, a Lexington Fire
fighter. He spoke to us about how to be safe around fire (don’t play with matches, crawl under the
smoke, test a door before the handle if there is a fire) and what to do in an emergency (call 911 and
Stop, Drop, and Roll). Peter showed us his equipment and Miss Maffei tried it all on!
Finally, we had our first Big Backyard Walk. Thank you to the many parents who led groups of us
around Fiske School to explore the changes taking place around us this Fall.
I would also like to extend a great big THANK YOU to Marie-Tristan Rago, Carrie Walsh and Lain
Ehmann for coordinating and organizing our class Halloween party and to those parents who joined
us and helped with the crafts and games.
As you can see, we really have been busy in Room 102!
Please do not hesitate to contact me at any point should you have questions or concerns about
anything.
Miss Maffei ☺
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News From Miss Maffei’s First Grade Class Room 102
September 19, 2011 – October 6, 2011
It’s hard to believe that three weeks have passed since I last sat down to write a newsletter, my how
time flies! We continue to learn about each other and solidify our classroom routines. We started
working in Work Stations during Reading time and continue to learn how to be independent learners
and workers. A big focus this month has been on how to self-monitor our working levels and what
best effort and best work looks like for each of us. After just twenty-five days of school it is pretty
impressive to see these first graders not only working independently, but also monitoring each other.
We continue to write, a lot, in first grade! The Daily Journals give the children a chance to record
their thoughts, feelings and ideas each day. Sometimes this work carries over into The Reading Work
Station time, and even to the next day or two. I encourage the children to continue an entry from
one day to the next and to write about how they are feeling about an upcoming event or the details
of a past one. In Writer’s Workshop we have been looking at how published author’s reveal the
setting in their stories (through pictures and words) and have been practicing those techniques
during our writing time as well. We are also examining published books to see how each story has a
beginning, middle, and end and how sometimes those parts take place over several pages. We have
been writing many words and sentences and stretching our stories out over many pages. The nice
thing about Writer’s Workshop and the Daily Journal writing time is that they both allow for the
children to practice the skills we are learning in their own way. The individual conferences that I
have with each child help me to guide them through this process.
During Work Station/Reading time we have been focusing on the words with the short i sound (like
“bit), particularly those words in the “it”, “in”, “ig”, “ick” and “ix” word families. This is helping
children to gain the understanding of the principle that some words have parts (patterns) that are
the same and that you can find patterns (parts) that are the same in many words. In turn, this skill
becomes a strategy to use when you come across unfamiliar words when reading. The children
continue to practice this skill using word sorts and making words.
Math has been very busy for us as well. We continue to work with our Math Buddies during Math
Stations and are paying close attention to our working levels during this time. We have spent a lot of
time counting different collections of objects and sharing our methods for doing so. We are
discovering that grouping objects by 2’s, 5’s and 10’s help to organize our collections and to count
more efficiently. Navigating back and forth (start at 65, count back 10, where do you end?) and
noticing patterns on a number grid (moving down or up in any one column is a change of 10) have
been a focus too. We are beginning to learn how to tell time to the hour and about the difference
between am and pm by thinking about what we do during different times of the day and illustrating
those things.
Creating and solving number stories has been a big focus as well, and will continue to be in many
different ways this year. We are just beginning to learn about and solve “missing part” number stories
such as: When I fell asleep there were 3 cars on the road and when I woke up there were 10. How
many cars drove onto the road while I was sleeping (3+?=10)? These are challenging for many of us
and we are learning how to solve them using both pictures and counters.
Like real scientists, we have been asking questions, hypothesizing, experimenting, discovering and
drawing conclusions as we explore light and shadows. Some of the questions we have been working
to answer are:
Where does light come from (different types of light sources)?
What 3 things do you need to make a shadow?
What type of materials does light travel through (transparent, translucent, opaque)?
Does light travel in a straight line or does it curve around objects?
As you can see, we really have been busy in Room 102!
Please do not hesitate to contact me at any point should you have questions or concerns about
anything. I look forward to meeting with each of you during conferences next month.
Miss Maffei ☺
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News From Miss Maffei’s First Grade Class Room 102
August 30, 2011 – September 16, 2011
Wow, what a busy, fun, exciting, thrilling and learning-filled few weeks we have had! I have
thoroughly enjoyed getting to know your children as people and learners over the last twelve days of
school. A large part of our time has been spent learning routines and expectations, getting to know
each other, and beginning to create a safe and supportive classroom community together. We
continue to discuss what Best Effort, Respect, and Responsibility look like at different times and in
different locations throughout our day. Amidst all the hustle and bustle of laying the foundation for
a solid year together, we have been reviewing some things learned in Kindergarten and practicing
new skills as well.
In the morning each child is responsible for completing morning work. This week the children
received their very own Daily Journal in which they will complete an entry when they arrive in the
morning. These morning writings can be about something that has already happened, an event that
has not occurred yet, how we are feeling that day, and many other topics that I’m sure I haven’t even
thought of yet! It would be helpful to speak to your child each morning about what s/he might write
about in her/his journal that day.
One way that we have been learning about each other is through the “Star Student” interviews. Each
day we collectively interview one child, the “Star Student”. Together we write down the Star Student’s
answers to our questions, using spelling and phonics strategies together. The completed interviews
will be displayed throughout the room to be used during Literacy times this year. I will also create a
book of all the interviews. Once this book is complete each child will have a chance to take the book
home for a night so that s/he may share it with family members. We have also been learning how to
spell each other’s names when we play “Mystery Name” and add names and high frequency words to
the Word Wall each day.
We started Writer’s Workshop this week as well. We read “The Best Story” by Eileen Spinelli to begin
our Writer’s Workshop routine and also learned how to use our brainstorming page if we are having a
hard time coming up with something to write about. The writing we do in Writer’s Workshop is
different from the Daily Journal Writing in that the Writer’s Workshop stories have to be about
something that has already happened. The writing done in both the Daily Journal and Writer’s
Workshop will be “stories from the heart”, in other words, true stories that your children have
experienced or will experience.
During Reading time we have been focusing on the words with the short a sound (like “cat),
particularly those words in the “at” and “an” word families. The children have been “short a
detectives”, wearing their “short a hats” to find words with the short a sounds in mini books, poems,
the morning message and other times throughout the day. Everyone has been listening for and
reading to find and creating words with the short a sound.
Choosing a “Just Right Book” is a skill that we have been focusing on as well. Miss Maffei has been
modeling how to determine if a book is “Too Hard’, “Too Easy” or “Just Right”. When a book is “Just
Right” you can read most of the words and you understand what you are reading. This week we each
decorated our nametag and chose our book box, We even began to choose “Just Right Books’ to add
to our independent book boxes. We will continually work with Miss Maffei to ensure that our book
boxes do, in fact, contain books that are “Just Right” for each of us.
Reading and working with poems is an exciting way to practice many of the literacy skills that we will
focus on this year. We started learning our poem routine by focusing on the September poem from
Maurice Sendak’s Chicken Soup with Rice: A Book of Months collection. In addition to reciting this
poem many times, we discussed the different rhymes that it contains and even found a “short a”
word! Finally, we learned how to use our Poetry Journals to write about our observations and
feelings about this poem. Ask your child to recite this poem when you get the chance.
Math time has been exciting too! We have learned about our Math Tool Kits (each child gets a
container to keep frequently used Math materials in for the year). The change that I asked for in the
summer letter is kept in this kit and will be used throughout the year for various lessons, games and
learning practice. Everyone has received and begun working in their Everyday Mathematics math
journal and we have been learning how to play some new games (Bunny Hop and Penny Dice) and
reviewing some games that we played in Kindergarten as well (Top It). We also started learning how
to self and partner-monitor our working levels. This will be especially useful when we work in
stations with our Math Buddies this year. We have just started to learn about this routine and will
continue to do so in the coming weeks.
Finally, we began our first Science Unit this week as well. For the next few weeks we will learn all
about Light and Shadows. We will ask questions (What is a shadow? What makes a shadow? Where
does light come from?), conduct experiments (take a shadow walk, use flashlights, the overhead and
other light sources to discover where light comes from and to manipulate that light), discover
answers, and record our findings, just like scientists do! Be sure to ask your child what s/he has
learned about light and shadows so far.
As you can see, we really have been busy in Room 102!
Rather than sending a hard copy of the newsletter home, I will post it on the class website and send
an email when it is ready for viewing. The current newsletter, and all prior ones, can be located at
the following address:
http://teacherweb.com/MA/LexingtonPublicSchools/FiskeMaffei/apt1.aspx
I am in a unique situation as a teacher this year; I am fortunate to continue as a teacher to some
children and equally as fortunate to get to know many others who I did not work closely with last
year. Likewise, I will continue to foster a partnership with some parents and am just beginning to
develop one with others. Ultimately, we all have the same goal, which is to ensure that your child
reaches success this year. I am as excited for these new relationships as I am to continue with
others. Both present an opportunity for continued growth and learning this year.
Please do not hesitate to contact me at any point should you have questions or concerns about
anything. I hope to see you all on Back to School Night, September 22 at 6pm.
Miss Maffei ☺