May 23-27, 2016

Thanks to all of our wonderful parents who volunteered at a station, helped the kiddos or chaperoned our line during the Field Day.  We couldn't have done it without your help.  A big thank you to our P.E. coaches for organizing this event. The kids had a blast!

We will have a busy week ahead of us! Please mark your calendar for Thursday, May 26th at 9:30.  We will have an award ceremony for our Fabulous Firsties.  Each student will be honored for a special quality, character, or effort that they have shown this year. We
would love for you to join us.  The award ceremony is at 9:30-10:30 in the cafeteria. Hope to see you all there.

There will be no more Homework Bags this year.  Please continue to have your child read every day, work on writing and math as well. 

REMINDERS
Tuesday: Tuesday folders
Thursday: Award ceremony 9:30-10:30 in the cafeteria.
Friday: Career Day 8:15-10:30

READING and WRITING
We will continue working on our first grade memory books and write about all the great memories that we've had in first grade.  In doing so, we will review the writing conventions such as capitalization, punctuation, subject-verb agreement, and correct sentence structure.
In reading, we will continue reading fiction books and review some comprehension strategies that we've been working on this year such as making inference, prediction and connection.

  

MATH and SOCIAL STUDIES
This week, math and social studies will be integrated.  We will learn about financial Literacy and discuss different ways people earn money.  We will also discuss ways money earned (income) can be spent. We will talk about options for saving money or sharing money with others (charitable giving).

THANK YOU!
Thank you for supporting your child's learning at home.  Your child's success and education is a result of, us working together! So thank you for being a partner in your child's learning!

IMPORTANT REMINDERS:
*Tuesday folders come home.  Please sign and return the folders the next day.

*Agendas:  Please initial the behavior calendar and send it back every day.

*Snack:  Please send a healthy snack with your child every day.

*PE:  Group A will have PE on Monday, Wednesday, & Friday.

       Group B will have PE on Tuesday, Thursday, & Friday.

          *Please make sure your child wears Tennis shoes on those days*

        *You can see what group your child is in on the right side of this blog*

*No more school Library check out!

DATES TO REMEMBER:

May 26: 1^st Grade Award Ceremony @ 9:30 in the cafeteria.

May 27:  Career Fair

May 30:  No School- Memorial Day

June 2:  End of the Year Party, Last day of School

May 16-20, 2016

Tomorrow (Tuesday, May 17) is our day to go to the book fair in order to buy (if you are allowing your child to buy something).  Any other day, your child will have Owl Time or Recess to go to the book fair.

SPRING PBL PROJECT
We will be finishing up this project this week!  Our mini gardens look great and they will be ready to go home at the end of this week.  We planted Basil, Tomatoes, Hot peppers, Sweet peppers, Cucumbers, and Squash.  We have learned so much!  The kiddos have recorded their learning in a folder which will be ready for you to view when you come to visit us on Thursday for the Open House.

READING and WRITING
This week, in Writing, we will finish up our "family" writing and start working on our first grade memory books.  We will remember all the great things that we did in first grade and write about our first grade memories. As always, we will emphasize on neat writing along with correct capitalization, punctuation, and sentence structure.   
In reading, we will continue to read some of our favorite fiction books and review some important comprehension strategies.  We will use the picture clues as well as the text clues to make predictions and inferences, visualize a part of the story or make connections. 

MATH
We will review three-digit numbers as having a quantity of hundreds, a quantity of tens, and a quantity of ones, and represent three-digit numbers up to 130.  We will compare and order three-digit numbers on an open number line and count forward to 130 from any number, and count backward within 130.  We will also be working on a 1^st Grade Math Review. 

THANK YOU!
Thank you for supporting your child's learning at home.  Your child's success and education is a result of, us working together! So thank you for being a partner in your child's learning!

IMPORTANT REMINDERS:
*Tuesday folders come home.  Please sign and return the folders the next day.

*Agendas:  Please initial the behavior calendar and send it back every day.

*Snack:  Please send a healthy snack with your child every day.

*PE:  Group A will have PE on Monday, Wednesday, & Friday.

       Group B will have PE on Tuesday, Thursday, & Friday.

          *Please make sure your child wears Tennis shoes on those days*

        *You can see what group your child is in on the right side of this blog*

*No more school Library check out!

*Homework bags come back to school every day.  Please leave the books and response notebook in the bag.  We will use them during the day at school!

DATES TO REMEMBER:

May 16-20:  Book Fair

May 19:  Volunteer Breakfast @ 7:45

             Spring Open House @ 5:30-7:30

May 20:  Field Day

May 27:  Career Fair

May 30:  No School- Memorial Day

June 2:  End of the Year Party, Last day of School

May 9-13, 2016

Thank you all so much for everything that you did for us for Teacher Appreciation week.  Ms. Knight, Ms. Ready, and I truly feel loved and appreciated by all of you. Thank you!

Thanks to our creative and talented team of PTA hospitality for decorating the school for us and providing breakfast on Friday.  We truly have the best PTA in the world!

A special thank you to Ms. Melissa Ross for providing yet another lunch and homemade dinner for us! You all gave so generously for Festive Friday, and Ms. Ross was able to provide more meals for us this week.  Thank you for your generosity as always. It felt so good to come home on Friday and have dinner ready!

Homework bags will only be coming home for the next 2 weeks.  After this I will need to begin packing up anything I can due to the school getting a beautiful make-over this summer!  Please do not send them back every day as well.  They can come home on Monday and not come back to school until Friday!
REMINDERS
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday: STAAR tests for 3,4, and 5th graders.  These days, the campus will be closed to any visitors due to testing.  Please keep the older students at Caraway in your thoughts!

I will be doing the End of the Year Reading Assessment starting this week until May 20th.  This is a time that I will be reading with each child individually to assess their reading level and readiness for next year.  For this reason, I will not be sending any more reading folders home.  Please continue to visit the library (public or school library) and encourage your child to use RAZ-kids to read at home.  Your child knows that they need to complete the quiz for each book before moving on to the next book or next level.  The RAZ-kids username and passwords were sent home in November.  Please let me know if you are missing your child's username or password.

SPRING PBL PROJECT
This week we will wrap up our PBL project.  Our students have learned so much about the benefits of a homegrown garden.  They have learned that food could come for free if every person in the community takes a small part in growing a small manageable garden. They have learned about different parts of the plants and how we eat different parts such as roots, stems, leaves, or fruits.  This week, we will work on designing our gardens on the paper as well as in our small mini gardens.  We will planted our seeds in small egg cartons or strawberry and blueberry containers and will send them home on Friday.  The children should be able to find the best sunny spots for their mini garden and care for them from then on.  They should also be able to tell you what they need to do after little sprouts grow which is transferring them into bigger containers. They are all very excited about their mini gardens!

READING and WRITING
We will continue reading fiction and non-fiction stories and review different comprehension strategies that we have been working on this year.  In writing, we will work hard to finish our Family writing so everyone can see them displayed at our Spring Open House on May 19.  

MATH

This week we will work on solving word problems with objects and pictorial models that involve joining, separating, and comparing sets and represent those problems with number sentences. We will solve problems when the unknown as any term in the problem (the sum, the difference, or the unknown part in part-part-whole). We will also spiral back and remind ourselves about measurement in order to design our own sustainable gardens for our home!

SCIENCE
As part of our PBL project we will work on creating folders to present the information we have learned about plants and sustainable gardens.  These will be the final product and they will be presented in the hallway at the Spring Open House on May 19.

THANK YOU!
Thank you for supporting your child's learning at home.  Your child's success and education is a result of, us working together! So thank you for being a partner in your child's learning!

IMPORTANT REMINDERS:
*Tuesday folders come home.  Please sign and return the folders the next day.

*Agendas:  Please initial the behavior calendar and send it back every day.

*Snack:  Please send a healthy snack with your child every day.

*PE:  Group A will have PE on Monday, Wednesday, & Friday.

       Group B will have PE on Tuesday, Thursday, & Friday.

          *Please make sure your child wears Tennis shoes on those days*

        *You can see what group your child is in on the right side of this blog*

*No more school Library check out!

DATES TO REMEMBER:

May 9-11:  STAAR testing (no visitors on campus these days!)

May 16-20:  Book Fair

May 19:  Spring Open House

May 20:  Field Day

              Last day Homework bags come back. No more homework!

May 27:  Career Fair

May 30:  No School- Memorial Day

June 2:  End of the Year Party, Last day of School

May 2-6, 2016

Thank you for sending the signed registration forms for the next school year back to me.  If you still have not had a chance to sign and return it to me, please send them my way this week.  Thank you!

SECOND GRADE FUNDRAISING PROJECT
Our students in 2nd grade are holding a fundraiser to help the animals in Austin Zoo. To raise awareness about their fundraising project, they are asking all grade levels to wear special clothes each day (this activity is optional).

Monday: Hats Off to Helping- Wear a crazy hat to school
Tuesday: Socks for Snakes- Wear mixed up socks
Wednesday: Tattoos for Tigers- Wear stripes.
Thursday: Operation Ocean- Wear blue of all shades
Friday: PJs for Pandas- wear your PJs and enjoy a movie showing during lunch in the cafeteria (PJs optional)

END OF THE YEAR READING ASSESSMENTS
I will be doing the End of the Year Reading Assessment starting this week until May 20th.  This is a time that I will be reading with each child individually to assess their reading level and readiness for next year.  For this reason, I will not be sending any more reading folders home.  Please continue to visit the library (public or school library) and encourage your child to use RAZ-kids to read at home.  Your child knows that they need to complete the quiz for each book before moving on to the next book or next level.  The RAZ-kids username and passwords were sent home in November.  Please let me know if you are missing your child's username or password.

SPRING PBL PROJECT
Our first graders have been hard at work learning and discussing about growing manageable, non-traditional gardens. Last week we had a guest speaker who grows small vegetable gardens.  She showed us pictures of her garden and talked to us about the process which started with growing mini-gardens in egg cartons, and then transferring the growing sprouts into bigger containers or spaces.  Growing our own garden has so many benefits.  Not only we could have quick access to fresh and organic vegetables, we would also save money and time spending in grocery stores. Our students will be thinking about designing a mini garden and presenting their learning and ideas about non-traditional gardens in different ways such as making posters or brochures. 

READING and WRITING
We will continue reading fiction and non-fiction stories and review different comprehension strategies that we have been working on this year.  In writing, we will be working on some heartwarming mother's day projects and use all of our writing and art skills to say thank you to our wonderful moms.

MATH
We will continue on composing and decomposing numbers.  For example, there are so many ways to show 18, such as, 9+9, 10+8, 9+8+1, 8+8+2, 7+8+3, ....The options are so many and for our students to have a strong number sense, they need to be able to see what other smaller numbers can come together to make bigger numbers.  We will use coins such as dimes and nickles to count by 5's and 10's. Our students should be able to count by 1's, 2's, 5's and 10's from any given number from 1 to 120.  For example, starting from 35, counting by 5's to 120 or starting from 48 and counting by 2's to 120. Thank you for reinforcing these skills at home.

SCIENCE
Last week, we learned about plants, their parts and what each part does.  This week, we learn about seeds and how they grow.  We will grow a few seeds in the classroom and observe the growing sprout and its parts (roots, stem and leaves).

THANK YOU!
Thank you for supporting your child's learning at home.  Your child's success and education is a result of, us working together! So thank you for being a partner in your child's learning!

IMPORTANT REMINDERS:
*Tuesday folders come home.  Please sign and return the folders the next day.

*Agendas:  Please initial the behavior calendar and send it back every day.

*Snack:  Please send a healthy snack with your child every day.

*PE:  Group A will have PE on Monday, Wednesday, & Friday.

       Group B will have PE on Tuesday, Thursday, & Friday.

          *Please make sure your child wears Tennis shoes on those days*

        *You can see what group your child is in on the right side of this blog*

*No more school Library check out!

*Homework bags come back to school every day.  Please leave the books and response notebook in the bag.  We will use them during the day at school!

DATES TO REMEMBER:

May 2-6:  Teacher Appreciation Week

May 4:  Early Release @ 12:45

May 9-11:  STAAR testing (no visitors on campus these days!)

May 16-20:  Book Fair

May 19:  Spring Open House

May 20:  Field Day

May 27:  Career Fair

May 30:  No School- Memorial Day

June 2:  End of the Year Party, Last day of School

April 25-29, 2016

Thank you for the yummy food!

On behalf of all teachers and staff at Caraway, we thank our wonderful first grade parents and families for throwing such a fantastic Festive Friday for us! Thank you all for your thoughtfulness and generosity.  The food was wonderful and delicious, the picnic tables were so beautifully arranged, and the weather couldn't have cooperated better.  Thank you for all that you do for us!

End of the Year Reading Assessments

I will be starting the End of the Year Reading Assessment next week.  This is a time that I will be reading with each child individually to assess their reading level and readiness for next year.    Please continue to visit the library (public or school library) and encourage your child to use RAZ-kids to read at home.  Your child knows that they need to complete the quiz for each book before moving on to the next book or next level.  

The RAZ-kids log-in is asmith196.

Spring PBL Project
This spring, our first graders will research and investigate ways to grow non-traditional gardens. They will discuss and brainstorm ideas to educate and help our community and families to grow non-traditional, yet sustainable gardens. 
Whether we live in a house or an apartment, we can find small spaces that don't require as much space and resources and plant a vegetable garden to meet our needs or at least part of our needs. In the spirit of Earth Day, being "Green", reducing and re-using, we will come up with some small, efficient, and transportable gardens.  

READING
We have been learning about different genres and this week we will learn about some of the beloved children's stories and their authors.  Authors have different purposes in their writing.  Some try to inform and teach us and some try to entertain or humor us.  Authors have different styles in their writing and illustrations.  Leo Leonni uses paper collage for his illustration, and his stories have animal characters. Tomie Depaola's stories are mostly about his childhood.  Jack Ezra Keats' stories also take place in his childhood neighborhood.  The children will understand and appreciate that real authors are ordinary people that take ordinary events in their lives and turn them into extraordinary stories.

WRITING
We will continue our family writing. This will be similar to writing expository texts since we are all expert about our families and we know each and every member of our family very well.  We know what they like, what they don't like, what they like to do in their free time and so on.  Each day we will write about one member of our family including us.  We will make our writings into a book about us and our families.  We will emphasize on complete sentences, capitalization and punctuation, using the word wall list to spell the sight words correctly and revising and editing our work. 

MATH
This week we will use base ten blocks, pictures, and expanded and standard forms to represent numbers up to 120. We will use concrete and pictorial models to compose and decompose numbers to 120.  For example 117 is made of one 100 block, one ten block and 7 ones. We will generate a number that is greater than or less than any given number up to 120.

SCIENCE
As part of our PBL project, we will learn about plants, their parts and the function of each part.  We will learn that roots carry the water and nutrients from the soil, stems hold up the plant and transport the nutrients and water from the roots to other parts of plant and leaves make food.  We will also learn about the plant life cycle and discuss things that plants need to grow such as good soil, water and sun. 

THANK YOU!
Thank you for supporting your child's learning at home.  Your child's success and education is a result of, us working together! So thank you for being a partner in your child's learning!

IMPORTANT REMINDERS:
*Tuesday folders come home.  Please sign and return the folders the next day.

*Agendas:  Please initial the behavior calendar and send it back every day.

*Snack:  Please send a healthy snack with your child every day.

*PE:  Group A will have PE on Monday, Wednesday, & Friday.

       Group B will have PE on Tuesday, Thursday, & Friday.

          *Please make sure your child wears Tennis shoes on those days*

        *You can see what group your child is in on the right side of this blog*

*Next library day is Tuesday, April 26.

*Homework bags come back to school every day.  Please leave the books and response notebook in the bag.  We will use them during the day at school!

DATES TO REMEMBER:

May 2-6:  Teacher Appreciation Week

May 4:  Early Release @ 12:45

May 6:  Field Day

May 9-11:  STAAR testing (no visitors on campus these days!)

May 16-20:  Book Fair

May 19:  Spring Open House

May 20:  Field Day

May 27:  Career Fair

May 30:  No School- Memorial Day

June 2:  End of the Year Party, Last day of School

April 18-22, 2016

Thank you all so much for taking time off from work and busy life schedule in the middle of the day and joined us for Shamrock 'n Roll on Friday! Your children were so happy to see you and I am most appreciative as always.  Coach Cavazos said that we had the highest parent participation! Thank you!

HATCHING CHICKS!
Last week, our classroom was filled with the sound of excitement and chirping chicks on Thursday and Friday! This has been a great opportunity for the kids to observe part of the life cycle in the classroom.  We ended up with 8 chicks, and we were so happy with that (last year only 1 egg out of 12 hatched).  The kiddos got to sit in a circle and watch the chicks walk around.  They even got to hold a chick!  It was a very exciting time!

READING
We will continue our genre study and we will review and learn more about different genres of fiction such as traditional literature, fantasy, and realistic fiction. Traditional stories are stories that are passed down from one group to another in history. They include fairy tales, fables, and myths from different cultures. Fantasy are stories that have magical elements, and are make-believe and realistic fiction are stories that although they might have made up characters, they could happen in real life.

WRITING
We will begin writing Small Moments again.  This is a true story about something that happened to the author.  The trick is, it is not a bed to bed story (a story that retells an entire day from the time you wake up until the time you go to bed).  Small Moment stories focus in on one small part of the experience and retell that one part in great detail.  We will also be talking about the writing process and then applying that process in our writing. 

Writing Process:

1.     Think and Plan entire story (beginning, middle and end)

2.   Sketch pictures (beginning, middle and end)

3.   Write words

4.   Revise (Add/Delete words to make it better)

5.    Edit (Check capitalization/punctuation and word wall words to make it right)

6.     Publish (Add detail/color to pictures and copy words in neatest handwriting to make it fancy)

MATH
Earlier in the year, we learned about telling time to the hour and this week, we will focus on telling time to half-hour. As part of fraction and partitioning two dimensional figures into two or four equal parts, we will use a circular analog clock and understand time to half hour.  We will look at both analog and digital clocks and learn that time is shown differently on each of these clocks.  The short hand in the analog clock points to the "hour" and the long hand points to the "minute".  In digital clock time is shown by digits.  The digit before the two dots shows the hour and the digits after two dots show the minute.   

SCIENCE
For the past month, we have been learning about different animal groups.  Now we are going to be talking about interdependence, which is how organisms depend on each other in their habitat.  We will talk about how animals depend on each other and how animals depend on the plants in their habitat as well.

THANK YOU!
Thank you for supporting your child's learning at home.  Your child's success and education is a result of, us working together! So thank you for being a partner in your child's learning!

IMPORTANT REMINDERS:
*Tuesday folders come home.  Please sign and return the folders the next day.

*Agendas:  Please initial the behavior calendar and send it back every day.

*Snack:  Please send a healthy snack with your child every day.

*PE:  Group A will have PE on Monday, Wednesday, & Friday.

       Group B will have PE on Tuesday, Thursday, & Friday.

          *Please make sure your child wears Tennis shoes on those days*

        *You can see what group your child is in on the right side of this blog*

*Next library day is Tuesday, April 26.

*Homework bags come back to school every day.  Please leave the books and response notebook in the bag.  We will use them during the day at school!

DATES TO REMEMBER:

Apr 23:  Earth Day Clean Up

May 2-6:  Teacher Appreciation Week

May 4:  Early Release @ 12:45

May 6:  Field Day

May 19:  Spring Open House

May 27:  Career Fair

May 30:  No School- Memorial Day

June 2:  End of the Year Party, Last day of School

April 4-8, 2016

I Hope you all had a great time at Family Fun Night! Here are a few reminders for this week: 

READING and WRITING
We will continue our research on chicks. The children have been working on their research books and have found the answers to many questions such as the life cycle of chicks, how does the chick grow inside an egg, and the stages of chick development. This week we will wrap up our chick research and move on to writing small moments or personal narratives.  We will review the writing process (think, sketch, and write), and write small moments that have happened in our lives.  Please have your child practice the first grade sight words at home.  A copy of those words are in your child's daily folder. The children should be able to spell them correctly by the end of first grade.

MATH
We will continue working on inequality and comparing numbers.  We will review that equal sign represents a relationship where expressions on each side of the equal sign represent the same values and inequality represent different values.  We will use objects and pictorial models to solve word problems involving joining, separating and comparing sets within 20.

SOCIAL STUDIES
This week we will learn about families wants and basic needs, and how these needs are being met. We will identify examples of goods and services at home, school, and community and ways people exchange goods and services.

THANK YOU!
Thank you to Mandy Hubbard for coming in to read with the kiddos!

Thank you for supporting your child's learning at home.  Your child's success and education is a result of, us working together! So thank you for being a partner in your child's learning!

IMPORTANT REMINDERS:
*Tuesday folders come home.  Please sign and return the folders the next day.

*Agendas:  Please initial the behavior calendar and send it back every day.

*Snack:  Please send a healthy snack with your child every day.

*PE:  Group A will have PE on Monday, Wednesday, & Friday.

       Group B will have PE on Tuesday, Thursday, & Friday.

          *Please make sure your child wears Tennis shoes on those days*

        *You can see what group your child is in on the right side of this blog*

*Next library day is Tuesday, April 12.

*Homework bags come back to school every day.  Please leave the books and response notebook in the bag.  We will use them during the day at school!

DATES TO REMEMBER:

Apr 7:  Science Night @ 6 pm

Apr 8:  ShamRock ‘n Roll

Apr 14:  Chicks will hatch!

Apr 23:  Earth Day Clean Up

May 2-6:  Teacher Appreciation Week

May 4:  Early Release @ 12:45

May 6:  Field Day

May 19:  Spring Open House

May 27:  Career Fair

May 30:  No School- Memorial Day

June 2:  End of the Year Party, Last day of School