SOME TOP DOGS

Trying to get caught up!

Kenidy had lots to share with us!

Kenidy's mom came to enjoy lunch  with her!

Show and Tell! What fun!

Logan is such a hard worker...enjoying his HIPPEST IN THE HOUSE award!

Sharing his camouflage all about me poster!  His favorite thing...ARMY!

Logan is hiding behind his book while everyone listens intently!

Logan and Mom enjoy a yummy Sonic lunch!

LOOK at this science set!  

 THIS WEEK's TOP DOG

DEMI!

Jan. 30-Feb. 3 Due Friday, February 3, 2012

1. Investigations Activity Book: Unit 5: pg. 7, 9, 11, 12, 13
2. Spelling: -ell chunks and -est chunks
3. Writing: Puppy Blog: 1 new post.  You must retell a book you have read THIS week! :)
4. Problem Solving:      

I hope everyone had a great weekend.  They seem to go by so fast!

We continue to write and publish our own poetry!  

Nice job Akin! 

More to come...I am working as fast as I can to get them published so we can illustrate!

The Ocean

One of our favorite science topics...the ocean! Today we were lucky

enough to attend a district introduction...VIA video conference. We will be learning lots and lots about the ocean and what animals live there!

Comprehension through sensory images

We had a lot of fun with the book

Night in the Country

today!  It was FULL of great word choice that allowed us to create mental and sensory images.  We also discovered that sometimes what we picture is NOT what the author was trying to tell us...so we had to monitor and adjust our images to help us understand the meaning of the book!  We talked about the words that helped us create those images and are trying to use them more in our writing!

Math Problem Solving

Be sure to download the QR decoder apps to your phones or ipod touches.  After you scan this code it will read the problem you are to solve!  Have FUN!  Be sure to bring in your solved problem on Monday!

READ to SUCCEED!

Your child will need to complete six hours or 360 minutes of recreational reading.  Your child may read books, magazines, newspapers or comic books. Guided reading books or homework do not count Kids may read silently, aloud or with an adult- you can can read to your child, or your child can read to you.
Reading Log (coming home in blue folder today) must be returned NO LATER THAN FEBRUARY 24th.

Search Engines...

We all use them...It's a part of our everyday computer usage! However, is the content that pops up always what we want our little ones to see??? IF NOT...Let's try the...

Kid Friendly Versions

Ask Kids

KidsClick

Yahoo! Kids

World Book

Sweet Search

KidRex

As we get ready to start our research project here at school. You and your children may want to start exploring  and become familiar with the search engines above. We will be researching TEXAS! 

Poetry Writing

Creating Mental Images

Our first individual published piece of poetry!

Way to go Emily!

Pizza Pizza

by Ms. Guy's and Ms. Woodard's First Grade Class

Pizza, Pizza

I LOVE pizza

pepperoni, sausage

cheese and pickle

I LOVE pizza

hot pizza, cold pizza

LET'S

GO

GET

SOME!

We have been reading poetry written by first graders JUST LIKE US!

We notice that not all poems have to rhyme.  We notice that the poet puts the words on the paper in special ways.  We have also noticed that it should sound good (have rhythm) when it is read! We notice that our word choice must be extra special so that the reader can create a mental image! Did you know that text plus our schema equals our mental image.  We are finding out that sometimes our schema doesn't match what the author had in mind.  Next week we will talk more about going back and adjusting so that we BETTER understand what we are reading! So...it is extra important to chose JUST THE RIGHT WORDS!

We are off to a GREAT start.  

We are using non standard tools to measure the length of things!  Today was so much fun...we estimated how long we thought our arm, leg, hand, paper and other things were in unifix cubes, beans, chain links and such!!!  Boy do we have some AMAZING estimators...

PHONE BOOK RECYCLE PROJECT
Help us collect a RECORD number of phone books!

Start sending them in...You know you want to get rid of them!!!

IT IS TIME TO START THINKING....

VISIT US AT...
Robertson Elem. Boosterthon
Last year this was an AMAZING fund raiser for Robertson and TONS OF FUN! 
LET'S MAKE THIS YEAR EVEN BETTER!!
We need to start brainstorming our CLASS NAME! 

Good evening! I sent math books home today! Here is the homework to go along with it! Math HW for this week:   Unit 3:  5, 7, 9, 13, 18 Today we checked out books from the library! It's been awhile! If your child has overdue books send them in tomorrow so I can let them go to the library and get some new ones! We started our poetry unit today as well! We have a lot of great background knowledge...we listened to a poem written by a first grader. After listening to it we discussed what mental images we had when I read... Skating! Some had an image of skateboarding while others had an image of ice skating! Tomorrow we will try to create mental images for our classmates...we need to think of STRONG words that will describe the activity of our choice! We are starting our measurement unit in math! We will measure using NON STANDARD units! Have a wonderful evening!  

Good Morning!
I am so sorry I did not get pictures and videos uploaded!  The monitor on my "teacher" computer, where I keep all the pictures and videos, stays black!  Makes it kind of hard to see what I'm doing! Once that glitch has been corrected...I will work on blogging!  Have a wonderful week.

REMINDERS

Don't forget next week is CogAT testing...Please make EVERY effort for you child to be in school and here  ON TIME!  We will be testing in the morning and afternoon each day!  

Make sure they rest well and eat good meals! Thanks for your  help!

ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND!

WOO HOO VIDEOS

GOOO BEARKATS!  ESPN was here taping as well...I hear there may be clips of the BearKat visit to Robertson played on their station!

TOP DOG
ADDISON

Okay...so I need to remember  NOT to hold my camera vertical!!! I thought I knew how to fix it but obviously I'm challenged right now!

Working together to read a FAVORITE...Addison also brought a interactive story and puppy dog that we ALL ENJOYED listening to!

Lunch with TWO special people!

Show and Tell!  WE had barbie brides, Justin Bieber singing dolls, press on nails, CDs and "Kady Perry" make up!

Addison was an enthusiastic TOP DOG this week! She is such a happy first grader! Thank you, Addison for letting us get to know you better!

GUEST READERS
We were so lucky this week! We had several 3rd Graders "BUY" read to another class....and OUR class was the one they chose!

Parker was in my 1st grade class a couple of years ago...MY how FAST they grow up!

And then Miss Laila (please forgive me if I spelled that wrong) came in and got right to business.  I didn't have a chance to get the flip out before she started or finished the book!  Justice LOVED having her big sister come in and read! And she read a GIRL favorite!...Pinkalicious!

The Sullivan Girls all dressed in PINK of course!

Thank you Parker and Laila!!!WE LOVED having you in our classrroom!

CogAT 2012

The week of Monday, January 9th-Friday, January 13th your child will be taking
the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) in class. The test will be read aloud to all students,
and paced in such a way that there will be plenty of time for completion for each child.
The CogAT measures developed cognitive abilities, those abilities start at birth and
continue through early adulthood. This test reflects the overall efficiency of cognitive
processes and strategies that enable students to learn new tasks or solve problems,
especially in the absence of direct instruction. This test measures general thinking and
problem solving skills that students have learned through in-school and out of school
experiences. You can find more detailed information about the test at www.cogat.com.
The best preparation you could provide for your child would be plenty of sleep on the
nights before the test and a nourishing breakfast on the mornings of the test. Make up
tests will be given the following week with results being sent home in approximately 6-8
weeks.
If you have any questions regarding the test please feel free to contact your child’s
teacher or myself.
Thank you,
Karen Kidd
Campus Instructional Support Facilitator
kiddk@friscoisd.org
469-633-3675
CogAT Testing Notification
1st Grade Parents

You will be getting a hard copy of this notice tomorrow in your child's folder!

What a WEEK we've had!

Just getting back into the routine of things...it's assessment time and of COURSE football championships!

Today we had the privileged of hosting Sam Houston State University at Robertson!  Of course when I want to post a video of something extra special...you tube says it is taking an extra long time to process videos but we've been added to the list and they'll get to us when we can! SO...needless to say I will try again with videos tomorrow! 

Language Arts

This week in Language Arts we have been listening to a lot of Arthur books by Marc Brown!  So much fun...we have done an amazing job of questioning ourselves as we read!  We have noticed that some questions do not get answered in the TEXT and we have to use our INFERRING skills!  We like playing detective and looking for clues that help us answer the questions! We have also had the opportunity to story map several of the books. We've noticed that Arthur always has a problem, and a solution.  Marc Brown uses the same characters in most of his books and that there are only a few settings!  

Next week we will go to the library to learn more about MARC BROWN the author!

Be sure to ask your little one about these stories!

To enter PBS KIDS Arthur website Click Here!  Lots of fun Arthur activities...

Math

In math we are still working on place value and comparing and ordering numbers!  We used cups to help us understand place value and expanded notation!  (Wait til you see them!)

Science

Science time has been all about natural water sources!  See if you can name some!

                                                 

Like I said, hopefully tomorrow you tube will be more cooperative and you can enjoy what's going on in our classroom and school with us!  Thanks for all you do!!!

2012...Wow!  I hope everyone had a wonderful winter break! I enjoyed EVERY minute of mine but was looking forward to being back in the classroom today!  I missed my sweet puppies!

Recess Change

From now on we will be going outside if the temperature is 32 degrees or warmer!  That is 32 windchill as well...So if it is 42 degrees with a wind child of 30 we will NOT be going out! SOOO...please make sure your child comes to school with a warm outside coat, hat and mittens if need be!

Our author study has begun!!! We are entering the world of Marc Brown and ...

Today we read

D.W.'s Lost Blankie!

We found out that 

Marc Brown writes about his experiences as a young child.  The characters in his books are based on friends and family members.

During this study we will focus on QUESTIONING.  Good readers often ask themselves questions when reading.  They question themselves before, during and after the piece has been read.  So...we took this opportunity to think about what we would like to know about this story before we read it!  "Where did she lose the blanket?, What did it look like?, Did anyone help her find it?, Where did she find it?"  All great questions and most of them were answered in the story!  We paused throughout the story to ask ourselves questions as well. And after we finished we still had some questions we wish had been answered... After reading we then worked on retelling D.W.'s Lost Blankie.  Unfortunately we did not have enough time to make our "STORY MAP" game board...but will look forward to that as time permits throughout the week!