Gingerbread house construction sites coming soon!

Don't forget that on Friday we will be making our Gingerbread Houses and I am super excited about it...and the kids are too! :) 
If you signed up for something to donate to our house decorations, please make sure you have sent them in so we know how much we will still need.  Thank you sooo much to those of you that have already send in your items.  It has definitely helped! 

Also, one more reminder---The OMSI fieldtrip is on JANUARY 26th...not January 12th.  Just making sure that gets out there more than once.  Thanks again for understanding and sorry about the confusion. 

Happy Building!
Mrs. Berry

 

Run, run, as fast as you can....

During Literacy this week we will be learning about story elements using The Gingerbread Man and other variations of this familiar story.  We will identify the characters, setting, and the beginning, middle, and end of all our gingerbread man stories.  We will also compare and contrast these stories to find similarities and differences between them. 

In writing, last week, we started working on making our writing more interesting to read.  We used different books to help us find great ways to start a story.  We are calling these great story starters-- Beautiful Beginnings.  Some beautiful beginnings we started using were:

One day
Last night
The other day
Once upon a time
When
In the beginning
On Monday, Tuesday, etc...
A long time ago

We also learned about Terrific Transitions.  These would be:
Next
Also
Then
After
Soon
While
First, second, third

When we work on our writing this week, we will be describing our very own gingerbread men and then use a "Beautiful Beginning" and some "Terrific Transitions" to write some of our own gingerbread stories.  If you are doing some sort of writing at home, encourage your first grader to start using these great words to enhance his or her writing!

In Math we have been learning about addition and subtraction and how to tell the difference.  We have been talking about how you now have to watch for sign of which to do and if our answers will "get bigger" by adding or "get smaller" when we subtract.  We have also been working on counting by 5s and 10s and we have been working hard on making groups of 10s and counting on from 10.  This week in math we will do something different with some gingerbread babies...aaawhhh!  We will use some gingerbread babies to measure things in our room including ourselves!! Can you predict how many gingerbread babies tall your 1st grader will be??  You just may find out this week!!

We have started our Simple Machines unit for Science and are currently learning about pulleys.  We learned that a pulley lifts objects either up or down and makes work easier for us.  We found out pulleys are found on flagpoles, sailboats, and window blinds.  See if you can find more pulleys around your house that makes your work easier. 

I was very excited to send home the permission slip for our OMSI fieldtrip in January!!  Apparently I was soo excited that I did not do a FINAL read through on it and there is a mistake with the date that we are going....ooops!  January 26th is the correct date of our fieldtrip.  We were not able to book all 4 classes of 1st graders so two classes will be going on January 12th and two classes will follow behind on January 26th.  We are the followers going on January 26th along with Mrs. Brenner's class.  I am soo sorry if it caused any confusion.  I was just too excited to get those out there that I did not make one last revision! 

I hope everyone is enjoying the little bit of warmer weather courtesy of the Pineapple Express weather front that has blown into the Valley!  Is this what Christmas in Hawaii feels like?? It's kind of nice...

Aloha??
Mrs. Berry

A little gobble gobble and we are onto December!

Wow! I am amazed that Thanksgiving Break has come and gone!  I hope that everyone had a restful and relaxing few days with family and friends!

I wanted to say Thank You to everyone for making their conference time.  It was a quick 20-30 min, but I had the chance to meet with almost every family either on Monday or Tuesday. I also wanted to say thank you to those families who braved the "First Oregon Snowfall of the Year" to make it to your conference that morning!
I had the chance to chat quit a bit about reading and goals for the rest of the year either academically or socially for each student in my classroom and it definitely helps to know that we are all on the same page and it takes a team to see 1st graders succeed. 

Please let me know if there are any other questions you have or things you want to know because having a good relationship between parents and teachers is another factor of success that I think is very important to have!

Again, thank you, and watch out....we only have 13 days of school for the month of December!! :)

Mrs. Berry

Toy Story 3 Now Showing at Myers Elementary

Mark your Calendars for MOVIE NIGHT Friday, November 19th at 6:30pm

What: Family Movie Night 
Where: Myers Elementary in the Gym

When: Friday, November 19th at 6:30 pm

Movie:  Toy Story 3     

What to do: PTO is asking for a $1 donation for admission - which includes a raffle ticket for various prizes.  Additional raffle tickets may be purchased, as well as tickets for popcorn/drinks (all tickets $1).  All proceeds benefit Myers PTO.

A little party with your Harvest....

We definitely had a good Harvest Party on Friday!  There were lots of things to do and we had LOTS of volunteers to help us enjoy all the fun activities.  Here are some of the highlights!

Pumpkin Bowling and an Apple/Pumpkin Walk...

Making colored pasta pattern necklaces...

Very Pretty!


And we also made our very own pumpkin pie complete with graham cracker crust, pumpkin filling and even whipped cream!!! Yummy!

 

We even won some great prizes too!  

Thank you to ALL of the volunteers who came and helped us out for the afternoon!! :)  We definitely had a great time!!! 

I hope everyone had a great weekend and you have embraced the month of November because it will be gone before you know it and another BIG THANK YOU AGAIN to all our volunteers!  It was a fun afternoon!!

Mrs. Berry

Settling into November

I can not believe this is the last week of October and we are going to be welcoming in November!  Wow...the time has definitely gotten the better of me lately and with so many different things happening in the weeks to come I wanted to fill you in with some of the details! 

On Friday, November 5th, we will be having our Harvest Party Extravaganza!  This will be a time for all the 1st graders to have a little fun on a Friday afternoon!!  Our party will start promptly at 1:50pm and end at 2:50pm.  I will be looking for some volunteers to help us out so our party runs smoothly.  Let me know if you would be interested but remember you MUST have a criminal background check on file with the district in order to volunteer in our classroom and as easy as it may be to bring younger brothers/sisters to our party, it would be greatly appreciated if they do not participate at this time.  It's a pretty crazy and fun afternoon and we would want not any little brothers/sisters to get lost in the fun while moms and dads are busy running games. 

There will also be a sign-up sheet for anyone interested in donating some supplies to our cause.  If you want to sign-up for something and can't make it in to sign-up, just send me an email or write me a note and tell me what you would like to donate.  We are looking for:

• Libby's Pumpkin mix
• vanilla pudding
• milk
• spoons
• graham crackers
• plastic cups
• whipped cream (Lots!! yummy!!)
• prizes (these can be small trinkets for games...think small carnival games)
• candy (more prizes for the games)
• Volunteers to run the games...see me if you would like to do that :)

This week we will start working on all of our assessments and that means that November also brings us to grading day and conferences.  There is no school on grading day, which is November 12th and there will be no school the week of Thanksgiving.  We will still have conferences on Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving Break, but we will be cutting back our times for conferences this year.  Usually teachers have conferences from 8am-8pm on both Monday and Tuesday, but this year we are only meeting for conferences from 8am-8pm on Monday and 8am-12pm on Tuesday.  With limited time this year, please make sure your time works for you and if it doesn't, please let me know as soon as possible because spaces will be going fast.  There will be more information about this coming home soon in Friday Folders.

Lastly, remember that November 10th is picture re-take day and if you think you may want retakes have your student dress accordingly on that day.  There may be more information about that too...keep an eye out!! Also, this Friday, October 29th, is our dress-up as your favorite character from a book Day!!  This is to welcome our author, Larry Dane Brimner, to our school. 

Please remember:

• no masks or weapons
• face painting needs to be done at home before school starts
• you NEED to have the book at school with you so we know who you are

I hope everyone had a great weekend and no one is floating out to sea with all our rain!!  Stay dry and see you on Monday for our last week in October :) 

Mrs. Berry

Farm to Market Highlights

I just wanted to say Thank You to our Salem-Keizer School District Meal Program--Sodexo for bringing us the Farm to Market!  Last week we had AMAZING morning filled with lots of information about eating healthier foods and what we could add to our meals to get more fruits and vegetables into the mix of things.

We got to meet a real Dairy Princess all the way from Tillamook, OR who gave us lots of great information about all the different kinds of cows and what great things they give us.  Thank you Dairy Princesses! You were great!!

The Department of Agriculture was also there and we learned that our very own counties of Polk and Marion produce the most amount of fruits and vegetables within the entire state of Oregon!  We even got to make our very own "bean" necklaces that we were able to take home and watch grow into something!  

Is your bean growing starting to grow sprouts??  See if yours can grow big and strong! 

  We had a great morning and we finished off with a great FREE lunch that had fruits for EVERY letter of the alphabet...that was a LOT of fruit!!! Thanks again Sodexo!!

Mrs. Berry

Jog, 1st Graders, Jog!!

We all made it through the jog-a-thon with lots of laps!!  Everyone did really well and a good time was had by all.  We were separated into color groups of red, blue, yellow, and orange and that is where we checked in with a volunteer to mark the number of laps we ran. 

Thank you Mrs. Herbert and Mr. Hansen for helping organize this year's event and a HUGE thank you goes out to our amazing Myers PTO who puts together our annual fundraisers!!! THANKS!!! I also want to thank our local businesses for providing all the bananas and water as a snack when we finished our jog-a-thon!  It was definitely great to have something to munch on when we were finished and the water helped hydrate us when we were done!

Check us out as we helped raise money for Myers Elementary!  Happy Jogging!

 

 

We are ready to go and jog, jog, jog!!!

Look at us go!!!

 

How many laps did you do??



Definitely tired 1st graders, but happy to have participated in the Myers Jog-a-thon! 

 See you next year!!!!

Have a great weekend and enjoy the fall season!!

Mrs. Berry

Words of the Month

Hopefully by this time everyone has had a chance to practice the Words of the Month for September and October.  I wanted to give you some information about the words that are on the list and what are some things you can do with these words at home. 

The words that are chosen for the Words of the Month are high frequency sight words.  That means that these are words that we see A LOT in our everyday reading and writing.  These are words that can not be sounded out but simply just need to be memorized.  When we know these words without having to stop to remember them, it makes our reading much more fluent when we read--meaning we do not have to stop our reading to try and remember what the words are.  They are easy to recall  and easy to read words and we should know all these words by heart.

These words are also posted in various places in our room and I am trying to hold everyone accountable to spelling these words correctly.  Most of us know where to find these words and are starting to recall them quickly in our reading and as we write them in our journals during writing time.

Some things you can do at home to make these words easier to spell and read are:

• look for the words in magazines
• have a word hunt when you are reading
• bodyspell these words (ask your first grader how to bodyspell)
• Write these words in sentences
• use play-dough or modeling clay to make these words

You can also check out these websites for more practice: 

1. http://www.netrover.com/~crose/dolch/dolch.htm
2. http://candohelperpage.com/sightvocab_1.html#anchor_378
3. http://www.gamequarium.com/readquarium/sightgames.html

I hope these websites give you some ideas of what you can be doing at home with your first grader and feel free to check in with me if you have any questions about anything we are doing in our classroom. 

Also, be on the lookout for "turtle words" to start making their appearance!  If you are not familiar with "turtle words" it is simply an at-home spelling program that reinforces these high frequency words on a more individualized program that works at each student's own pace.  This is just another tool to incorporate these words to make them more fluent in our reading and writing.  Don't be alarmed if you see turtle words that are repeated as Words of the Month and vice versa if you see Words of the Month repeated as turtle words!  This will just make practicing the Words of the Month easier and then we should be able to recall them much faster as we read and write. 

Lastly, Don't forget this Wednesday is our annual Jog-a-thon fundraiser!!  Our Jog-a-thon is during our Rhythms time so make sure to wear comfortable tennis shoes!  Water and a light snack will be provided.  If you would like to come and cheer us on we will be jogging from 1:00pm-1:30pm.  Just check in at the front office to get a visitors badge and meet us in the gym!  Hope to see you there! :)

Mrs. Berry

Aloha from the Myers BBQ!

A good time was had by all who came!  Lots of parents stopped by to our annual Myers style Hawaiian BBQ.  There were plenty of hamburgers, hot dogs, and chocolate chip cookies to go around.  Check out some of our classmates who were definitely "hanging ten" on Friday during our BBQ!!

 good food...

                Good                                                                                     friends...

 and good times!! 

Hope everyone had a great weekend and don't forget that there is only 4 days of school this week because Friday, October 8th, is a Statewide In-Service day for teachers so there is no school.  See you on Monday! :) 

Mrs. Berry

Homework is Coming!!

Starting this Friday, homework will be coming home.  Our homework is a monthly creation that will need to stay with you for the entire month.  At the end of the month when all the activities are completed, it will be your 1st grader's responsibility to return all their homework in the envelope at the end of the month.  There will be a calendar on the front with different activities you can do with your 1st grader on a daily basis or whenever time permits as a family.  We designed this homework to meet the needs of all our busy day-to-day family activities. 

Each day there is an activity that can be done that night or on a night that works for you and your family.  We wanted to include some fun activities that can be done together and also begin to create some good study habits and routines for your student at home.  It is also a great idea to have them in their own space where they know they can work on homework.  This may be at the kitchen table or at a desk somewhere in the house.  It is also a great idea to have them keep their homework in the same space or hang the envelope somewhere visible so it doesn't fade into the background and never becomes a routine.  Also, this calendar of homework was designed to not take longer than 10-15 minutes a day because it is developmentally appropriate for 1st graders to work on homework no longer than 60 minutes a week. 
There will also be some extra Math worksheets that your 1st grader can practice as well as a page of Bonus Activities that can be done in addition to the activities on the calendar.  If these are completed, simply slip them into the envelope and you are good to go!

Don't forget to read, read, and then read some more to your 1st grader at home! This is such a HUGE part of being a successful reader and we have added a little icon of a book to the corner of each day on the homework calendar.  This little book can be colored in after you read together every night. 

Good luck and if you have any questions about any of the homework, please do not hesitate in asking me!  Email me at berry_victoria@salkeiz.k12.or.us or call me at 503.399.3175 and I will get back to you as soon as I can! 

Remember that homework can be fun and if something is too challenging for them, simply skip it and come back to it again another time. 

Thanks and hope everyone is as happy as I am to get rid of this muggy air and get back into Fall!
Mrs. Berry

Back to School Night Success!!

It was really nice to see sooo many smiling and excited faces tonight at Back to School Night!  Everyone had incredible introductions and I was quite impressed.  Thank you to all the families who made it out tonight and to anyone who may have taken a "wish" from the wish list!  Anything is greatly appreciated!
If you were a parent who would like to volunteer in the classroom I will definitely start looking over the list and see what things we can do to put ya to work!  Thanks for the information and hopefully I will be getting in touch with you soon.

Again, it was a great turn out and everyone did an AMAZING job with introducing their parents and I am also glad to hear that everyone enjoyed the slideshow as well and got some good information. 

We will see everyone tomorrow for Friday...it's my favorite day!!! :)

Thanks again!
Mrs. Berry

Back to School Night, a Bookfair, and a BBQ...Oh My!!

Lots of things to do this week and next week!  First off is Back-to-School Night on Thursday, September 23rd, from 6:30pm-7:30pm.  This is a chance to come in a see our room and a little bit of what we do in 1st grade.  During Oral Language time we have been working on introductions.  We have been talking about how it is polite to introduce people to each other so Back to School Night is the perfect opportunity to use this skills.   So I am looking forward to being introduced to everyone's family! :)   You can definitely practice this at home because it is something we have been working on since school started. 

Up next is the Scholastic Bookfair in the library.  The book fair officially kicked off today but will be running through October 1st.  Thursday night is PRIME time for book shopping if you are looking to add to your library at home.  There are lots of good choices so make sure you stop by and check it out!

Lastly, is our annual Myers Hawaiian BBQ!!  Aloha!  Everyone Fall and Spring Myers has a family style BBQ for the whole school.  It can get a little crazy so I wanted to include some of the details.  Remember:

• 1st graders eat lunch at their normal time from 11:30pm -12:00pm.
• Tickets will be on sale at the front office and can be purchased ahead of time.
• Tickets for adults can be purchased in advance at the Myers office for $3.00.
• Student/child tickets are $1.75 or the students may use their lunch card instead of buying tickets.
• Please meet your child at their classroom and bring a blanket to share with your child and their friends.
• Cross your fingers for good weather!

It sounds like we are due for some sun in the next few days so find some when you can! :)

Thanks
Mrs. Berry

Full Speed Ahead in 1st Grade

Well we are in the swing of things in our classroom and learning so many different routines all day long.  In the morning we have lots to do with our calendar.  We have been talking about the date, today, tomorrow, and yesterday, and we have also learned about odd and even numbers as we are doing some quick problem solving along the way. 

Last week we learned that you can read a book 3 different ways.  We learned you can:

1. Read the pictures
2. Read the words and/or
3. Retell the story

We practiced this with Little Quacks Bedtime.  First I read all the pictures and then I read the words.  When I was finished reading the words we talked with a partner about the Beginning, Middle, and End of the story. 

Today during Literacy we learned how to Read to Self.  Read to Self is a very tricky task that we did quite well with this morning.  We learned that during Read to Self time we are:

1. reading with a whisper voice
2. in our OWN bubble space
3. reading and NOT playing with our books and
4. independently reading

We even had time to practice this two times!!  Everyone did an AMAZING job and we will continue to practice this the rest of the week before we move into Read to Someone next week.

In Math we are still learning all about our workplaces.  These are cooperative groups that spend time together working with different manipulatives.  Our Math program is very hands-on and you will hear a lot about different games we play to reinforce different math concepts. Right now we are working with Polydrons (geometric puzzle pieces that fit together to make 3-D shapes) pattern blocks and pattern block designs, geoboards (pegboards with geobands or rubberbands to make geometric shapes) and my personal favorite...unifix cubes!! Lots of us have been using these to make patterns and really long trains that are as long as we are tall.  WOW! That is a LOT of unifix cubes. 

And in Social Studies we are getting into our Families unit.  Today we talked about the things we know about families and what we want to know or questions we had about families.  This week we will make observations using different pictures around the room to get our brains really thinking about families.  I am sure you will be hearing a lot more about families and even some songs that we will be learning along the way.

There are lots of things to remember in 1st grade and we are working hard on all of them.  One concept that I can not stress enough is our 3Rs that we use in our classroom.  We are ALWAYS talking about how we can be Respectful, Responsible, and Reliable first graders.  Please make sure you are using this language at home as well as we are getting back into the swing of things at school. 

I hope everyone had a great first weekend and ready for our first full week of first grade!  I know I am getting back into the groove of things and remember if you have any questions please do not hesitate in contacting me at: 503.399.3175 or simply send me an email at: berry_victoria@salkeiz.12.or.us I will definitely get back to you as soon as I have the chance. 


Thanks :)
Mrs. Berry

Lots to do on the First Day!!

Well we made it through our first day of 1st grade and what a day it was...WOW! We did a LOT!!! Our first unit of study for social studies is Families so you will hear a lot about that and we even started out our day by coloring a picture of our family.  We later shared our pictures and something fun we do with our family.  We heard lots of fun things from bowling to camping and even picking flowers together at the park.  Families do quite a bit of activities together!
We also had TWO assemblies today to find out about recess and lunch.  There was a lot of information but we did well with eating lunch at school for the first time...It was definitely exciting!  After lunch we had a chance to meet Mrs. Herbert and Mr. Hansen for Rhythms.  We will go to Rhythms every Wednesday and learn lots of fun dances to stay in shape, but we will see both Mrs. Herbert and Mr. Hansen again tomorrow for P.E.
At the end of the day we were able to head outside for the annual "ringing of the school bell."  This is done every year to commemorate each year Myers Elementary has been open for business...this year we counted 37 times! WOW! That is a lot of years! 
We had a chance to read two books and even took a tour of the school after reading Wemberly Worried.  We squeezed in a little time for our workplaces for Math.  We were very busy all day.

Just some things to remember...

• We are in DEFINITE need of some snacks (enough for 27-30 kids)
• Friday folders will have lots of information for you on Friday
• A monthly newsletter will be coming home on Friday with more information
• if transportation changes for your student please let me know with a note, email, or telephone call.  (This is extremely important because I will send your student home the way you told me unless otherwise mentioned.)

I am looking forward to Day 2 so I will see everyone tomorrow! :)
Mrs. Berry
  

First Day Jitters

Tomorrow is the very first day of school and I am pretty excited to meet all the new 1st graders in my classroom this year!  It is going to be a great year with lots of fun activities planned for us to do.  We will learn a LOT and have some fun too :)  So check back in when you can because I hope to post a lot of our classroom adventures and things that we are learning about so you can keep informed on all that is happening in our classroom and at school!  See you tomorrow for the beginning of a great year!! :)
Mrs. Berry

Summer is fading as we head Back to School

With the class lists posted on our front doors and new floors to boot, school is almost ready to begin!  I have been busy getting together my classroom that will soon be filled with excited first graders and I am just as excited!  If you are checking out this blog most likely I will be meeting you in two days and I can not wait! So check back in for more details and we will see you on Wednesday for the first day of school. :)

See you soon!

Mrs. Berry