Miss Ursillo's Blog

March 19th!

2010-03-19T12:32:00.000-07:00

Happy Spring!

We have had a beautiful day today. The students are full of energy and excited for the spring weather. Lot's of smiles!!!

I had a chance to glance at the book reports that were turned in today. They look wonderful. I can't wait to read them this weekend!!!! :)

Calling all paper towels. We are out... If you have any paper towels that you could send it we would really appreciate it. We seem to have a lot of spills with our water bottles and they go really quick. Thank you so much!

I hope everyone has a blessed weekend.

March 15th!

2010-03-16T14:34:00.000-07:00

A huge thank you to everyone who took the time to come out and celebrate my bridal shower. I am so blessed to have so many wonderful families in my life. I am beyond thankful! It was so beautiful and truly touched my heart. A forever memory for me to always look back on and smile.

Mrs. Gentry wanted me to say thank you so much for all of the cards and thoughts on her birthday. It was so sweet and warmed her heart. :)

This week in 1B we are busy busy busy...

We are exploring space in Reading this week!!! We are having a blast discussing spacecrafts and expeditions. We are even writing a personal narrative about an exploration we would like to take into space. The children are stirring with ideas! :)

Literacy

We are working on variant vowel /u/oo this week. Our reading words reflect this sound.
Our high frequency words are bear, birds, Earth, table. Work on using these words this week.
We are working on the oral vocabulary words fooling, guess, helmet, space.
We are using the strategy: Monitor
Comprehension: Reread
Skill: Make predictions. The students made predictions about the story Little Bear Goes to the Moon.
We are having fun sorting -ood, -ook, and -oot words.

Math

In math we are finding patterns on a hundred chart to count by two's, fives, and tens from any number.
We will also be using pattern to classify numbers as even or odd.
Skip counting is fun... you can play a skip counting number in the car on the way to school!!!

Religion

This week we are learning about the 4th week of Lent.
We have a beautiful Lent book that we are working on. We are already on Station 10. We are having lovely reflection time to be with God and say special prayers.

Vocabulary

This week we are working on continent and ocean.

Social Studies

We are identifying the physical of characteristics and forms and bodies of water.
Using maps is fun!! We are learning how to read and make a map key.

Have a wonderful week!

March 11th!

2010-03-11T14:10:00.000-08:00

Students received "Raise The Roof"green t-shirts today that they can wear tomorrow! They can also wear jeans for Buck-A-Jeans.

The students are excited to write letters to second grade tomorrow. I told them to go home and think about questions that they would like to ask!...?? Very fun!!

The Way of the Cross will be tomorrow in the church at 2:00. You are welcome to join us.

March 9th!

2010-03-09T14:01:00.000-08:00

It's already March 9th! Wow. Please continue to send in white t-shirts clearly marked with your child's name for tie dying. If anyone would like to volunteer that would be great! We will be tie dying in art class next week.

I posted some class pictures of the students building in PE class today. Rainy days can be fun!! :)

This week we have a lot of learning to do. We are focusing on reviewing Unit 5 just in time for our assessment that will come at the end of the week.

We are working on the vocabulary words between and country. Ask your child about the meaning of these words and how they illustrated their understanding.

In math we are working on ordering numbers least to greatest and greatest to least. The students are doing wonderful!

TOMORROW we are having a pep rally. Students are allowed to bring Pope John XXIII colored accesories to school and then put them on right before the pep rally at the end of the day. If your child has accessories that they would like to wear for this please send it in the backpack. Thanks!!!! Have a wonderful day!!!

February 25th!

2010-02-25T12:16:00.000-08:00

A few reminders about things that are coming up at Blessed Pope John XXIII...

ART CLASS ~ Please bring in a white t-shirt for tie dying. These will be for field day in April. PLEASE clearly write your child's name inside the t-shirt with a black sharpie. No tank tops please.

Spring Conferences: Spring conferences are the week of March 22-26th. These conferences are optional. If I find a need to meet I will let you know. I meet with many of you on a daily or weekly basis. However, if you would feel the need to conference with me, please fill out the conference form that will be sent home next week or email me when the dates and times come home. Remember these are optional.

First Grade Retreat: Our retreat will be at the end of April. More information will come home at a later date.

A little note about parent support! My job is a whole lot easier when I receive support from home. All of you have been so supportive and I just want you to know that it is noticed and I appreciate all of you from the bottom of my heart. :) Thank you for all that you do for your children in supporting them academically.

February 24th!

2010-02-24T12:34:00.000-08:00

Well February just flew by as it always does. Spring is in the air. Spring is a wonderful time when we as teachers see a huge jump academically. I have already seen this in so many of the students. It is a very exciting time! Keep up the reading and math facts practice. :)

SPRING PICTURE day is tomorrow. Your child may wear their Sunday best.

SNACK... if anyone would like to donate snack to our classroom we are really low. We are averaging about 3 to 4 children a day that forget snack. I never want anyone to go without snack so if you have anything you would like to donate it is much appreciated. Thank you so much. :)

This week we are learning so much. In literacy we are learning that the letters er, ir, and ur can stand for the same sound as in fern, girl, and curl. R-controlled vowels are a big hit and the students are doing great. We are working on the comprehension strategy Generate Questions and the skill Classify and Categorize. Our HFW are places, animals, from, ground, and beautiful. Our oral vocabulary words are crowded, part, and tiny. We are discussing the reading strategy of using context clues to help us with unknown words.

In grammar we are working on synonyms and antonyms. The students were really excited to use their prior knowledge from our vocabulary packets to excel in grammar.

In math we are working on greater than and less than. Ask your child about our class alligator. The students learned a fun song and they loved it.

in religion we are working on the our stations of the cross booklet. We are spending a lot of time in reflection during this beautiful time of prayer for Lent.

During social studies we are learning all about geography!!! The kids had a fun time filling out a KWL chart. What we Know... What I Want to Know... What I Learned.

Have a blessed week :)

February 18th!

2010-02-18T20:48:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday! I gave the students the spelling pre-test today but had to leave shortly after to take care of my health. I did not get the chance to grade and pass back the tests as I usually do each Thursday so that those students that need to study for the Friday test can. With that said I will be passing the pre-tests back tomorrow. I will not give the spelling test until Monday so that those students that are retaking it can study over the weekend the words that were missed. I hope this helps!

Tomorrow our school will be having The Way of the Cross in the church at 2:00. It is a beautiful reenactment of the stations. During this time of Lent it is so important that we reflect on all the Jesus did for us. We will be doing this twice...tomorrow and then again in March. Our class will be reading our station tomorrow and then reading AND acting it out in March.

Our 1B class will be participating in JUMP ROPE FOR THE HEART tomorrow at 12:10-12:40. If you would like to come a volunteer to help during this time please feel free to join us. :)

February 9th

2010-02-09T13:25:00.000-08:00

Joseph told me that he had a wonderful day today! He added that he can't wait to go home and make some new inventions. :) Catherine, Payton, Cole and Noemi couldn't wait to tell Ms. Bernier about our assignment when she came in today.

We had a lot of fun today talking about inventions and then writing about them. Yesterday we brainstormed some ideas of inventions that we could make. Today we took our inspiration (a cup, a piece of string, some glue, markers and a button) and used our ingenuity (our new favorite word) and came up with rough draft how-to. It was amazing what the students came up with. I can't wait to have writing conferences tomorrow and then see the final draft at the end of the week. The student were so excited that we decided we would try out our inventions after we finish our writing assignment.

A lot of creativity and imaginations running free today... it was a wonderful day!

February 8th!

2010-02-08T14:18:00.000-08:00

This Thursday we will have free dress because we won the BOXTOPS competition. Yay! Students can wear free dress but please follow the free dress guidelines in the handbook. We will also be having pizza in the afternoon as a snack. PLEASE SEND YOUR CHILD WITH LUNCH. Pizza will not be substituting lunches... it will be served during out Valentines party.

This week we are learning all about inventions. The students are really excited to use their ingenuity (our new fun word we used) and determination to invent things. Ask your child what they are going to write about this week and what they created in centers.

We are working on r-controlled vowels this week /ar/ar. We are blending and spelling all sorts of ./ar/ words (car, star, scarf). Pick two words with this sound and one that has a different sound and ask your child to find the work that does not belong. Ex: far, pan, star... which word does not belong?

We are working on cause and effect this week. What a great skill!

In grammar we are working on color words. Ask your child to tell you a sentence with a color word.

We will be writing letter this week to special people in our community. Today we wrote a letter to Fr. Joe for coming in during Catholics schools week to talk with us. The students wrote from their hearts and we put together a beautiful book for Fr. Thomas wrote, "Thank you for being a Father." Joseph said, "Thank you for being a priest." Catherine added, "Thank you for being a priest. You are a wonderful priest. When I am sick I will want you. But I hope I am not sick. Please come again. I love you and say hi to Fr. Pete for me." The students are so amazing and I am so proud of their writing and how far they have come. They are so sweet and Fr. Joe is going to love his book of thanks! :)

In math we continue to work on 10's and 1's to 50. We are doing a wonderful job!

Our vocabulary for the week is fantasy and president. Ask your child how they are going to illustrate their understanding of the words.

In science we are finishing up our unit on planets. We will be finishing our wonderful science planet books. Yippee. Can't wait for you to see the wonderful work that they have done.

Have a wonderful week!!

February 3rd, 2010

2010-02-03T13:27:00.000-08:00

Happy Catholic Schools Week! This week started off wonderfully. We decorated our door on Monday. Tuesday we had Father Joe come and talk with us about vocations. It was a treat! Today we had a beautiful Mass and were blessed with the St. Blaze throat blessing. We ended the day with an amazing Rosary spoken in different languages. Amazing!!

Don't forget that tomorrow is FREE DRESS day! Yippee... and come join your child for a family community picnic during lunch time. 1st grade lunch is from 11:30-12:10. Lunch starts at 11:50 but you can come earlier (11:30) and have recess too. This is a time for you to eat with your child and enjoy the community. See you tomorrow!

This week we are focusing on the oral vocabulary airborne and ascend. One child raised there hands and said I already know that work... My mom takes that when she is getting sick..! Haha.We are focusing on the long vowel /i/i this week. Long /i/i is heard as i, y, and igh. We are also working on the inflectional ending -er, -est. Ask your child which one tells you about now and which one tells about something that is already happened in the past.
This week's high frequency words are shout, ball, head, should and never.
Our comprehension strategy is visualize. We are discussing how good readers can use this strategy to help them understand the story better. Our skill this week is problem and solution. In fluency we are working on word automaticity and choral reading.
Our vocabulary words this week are miracle and place value. :) Ask your child to tell you what these words mean. Ask them about the picture that we drew for place value and the story of Jesus first miracle. What a beautiful story!

In math this week we breezed through Chapter 9 and are now onto Chapter 10 Place Value to 100! We will be doing a lot of hands on fun this week with place value.

In religion we will discuss the we live as children of God. We will discover that God shares the gift of his life with us. We will also highlight why God created us. We will also learn about the work of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament.

We are having a blast with our Science unit. The students are still talking about our wonderful field trip that we went on to the Planetarium. I hope that everyone had a chance to check out the link that I have posted on above the homework note on the class page. 1st grade and 7th grade worked together to create the most amazing animated planets. We came up with scripts and then had them come to life.... wow!! If you have not had a chance... check them out! Let us know what you think! This week we continue on in our science books working on Neptune and Pluto (our dwarf planet).

Have a wonderful week! I am so blessed to be part of this wonderful Catholic School Community! What a wonderful Catholics Schools Week... and a big thank you for the sacrifices you all make in your families to send your children to Catholic School. :)

January 26, 2010

2010-01-26T15:46:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to 1B... we won the BOXTOP contest!! Woohoo... excellent job! Keep collecting so we can win again! I will let you know when the party is as soon as I am notified so stay tuned.

Today was a wonderful day...The Science Center was so much fun! Ask your child all about the story time in the Planetarium!

January 20th!

2010-01-20T09:34:00.000-08:00

Wow.. it has been a while. I apologize. We have been busy busy busy!

Yesterday we had a beautiful discussion about the wonderful Martin Luther King Jr. I read the students a poem entitled, "Crayon Box". It goes like this:

While working in a toy store
the day before today,
I overheard a crayon box
with many things to say.

"I don't like red!" said yellow.
And green said, "Nor do I!"
And no one here likes orange,
but no one knows quite why."

"We are a box of crayons
that really doesn't get along, "
said blue to all the others
"something here is wrong!"

Well, I bought that box of crayons
and took it home with me
and laid out all the crayons
so the crayons could all see.

They watched me as I colored
with red and blue and green
and black and white and orange
and every color in between.

They watched as green
became the grass
and blue became the sky.
The yellow sun was shining bright
on white clouds drifting by.

Colors changed as they touched,
becoming something new.
They watched me as I colored.
They watched till I was through.

And when I'd finally finished,
I began to walk away.
And as I did the crayon box
had something more to say...

"I do like red!" said the yellow
and green said, "So do I!"
"And blue you are terrific
so high up in the sky."

"We are a box of crayons
each of us unique,
but when we get together
the picture is complete."

By Shane DeRolf

Ask the students about this beautiful poem. After we read it and discussed how it relates to Martin Luther King Jr... we had a beautiful discussion about how Martin is like Jesus. The students wrote a beautiful writing entitled, "I have a dream...." Here are some of the wonderful things that the students said. Trinity wrote, "I have a dream that everyone would love God." How wonderful! Ashton wrote, "I have a dream that people would have a better day!" We prayed for the people of Haiti. Jacob wrote, "I have a dream that it was a happy day everyday!" Chance wrote, "I have a dream that everyone would know God."

It was a truly beautiful day and each child spoke from the heart. May you have a beautiful day today remembering the wonderful people that stand up for us everyday!

Thursday January 7th, 2010!

2010-01-07T14:07:00.000-08:00

Wow!! This has been a whirlwind of a week. WELCOME BACK AND HAPPY NEW YEAR! I just want to say thank you again for all of your generosity over the holiday. You are all such a blessing to me.

This week in first grade there has been lot's going on. Tuesday I attended a wonderful seminar with some other PJ teachers on guided reading. It was wonderful!! I look forward to implementing all the wonderful ideas that I learned. The students had a laugh as I told them that I was the student for the day... they always think that is funny. :)

This week in literacy we are learning all about the long /a/ay,ai sound. We are building words and sorting words. It is a lot of fun! Ask your child to point out words with this sound that have ay and ai (say, bay, rain, chain). You can do a ai, ay word search in the newspaper! This week is alllll about weather. "How many kinds of storms do you know about?" "What could you compare and contrast about the storms?" Wow! Tons of oral vocabulary. Speaking of... our oral vocabulary words this week that we are focusing on are conditions, forecast, extreme and predict. Our high frequency words are warm, sound, cold, know, great, their. Our reading strategy that we are focusing on this week is REREAD. This is a wonderful strategy. Going back and rereading when we come to an unknown text is a great way to check ourselves and ask the question, "Does this make sense?"
We are learning compound words this week. We are having a blast finding compound words. The kids learned that some words are made up of two smaller words. These words are called compound words. Some words we found are (mailbox, playmate, daytime, raindrop).

In grammar we are learning how to use the present- and past- tense forms of go and do correctly.

In vocabulary this week we are learning the words orbit and temperature. We show our understanding by writing the word, picture, sentence, and antonym and synonym of the words. We are really learning our vocabulary. :)

In religion we are identifying the Church's Celebrations. We are having many discussions about what the sacraments celebrate. We are really learning our sacraments.

In science we are learning about the planets of Mercury, Venus and Earth. The students have a great science book that we put together are collecting facts in. They will take this home when they are all done with this unit. Next week we have a special project planned with 7th grade. We are going to be doing a really fun planet assignment. We are planning a field trip for this 3rd quarter that has to do with the planets. It will be a blast. More info will come home in the near future.

This week in math we are learning how to follow a addition and subtraction rule. Add 4 or subtract 3. We even came up with some of our own. We are also representing equivalent forms of numbers to 12. Another objective is to create addition and subtraction situations and write corresponding number sentences. Woweeee... Lot's of math concepts.

Report cards came home today. Please return the white envelope with your child. I am very proud of our class. We are learning a lot and each and every student is a blessing. I talked to the students about the new expectations for 3rd quarter. I told the kids how I believe in them and know that they are ready for higher standards in this next quarter. I will be posting these new expectations in next week's homework note.

Have a wonderful day!!

Wednesday December 16th!

2009-12-16T15:08:00.000-08:00

A big thank you to everyone for sending in all the goodies for our Christmas festivities.

I just want to let everyone know that you do not need to send in a box for the gingerbread houses on Friday. Mrs. Hays has enough for both classes so we will use those. Thanks!

A reminder: Friday is Buck-A-Jeans Day!

Monday December 14th

2009-12-14T14:23:00.000-08:00

We will be meeting with buddies on Wednesday after Mass to give them a special reindeer pin that we made special for them. It is always fun to take a field trip upstairs to the big kids class.

This week our literacy theme is recycling. This is always a fun topic to discuss in class. Some oral vocabulary that we are using is waste and recycle. Our phonemic awareness/phonics for this week is long /u/u_e. Our high frequency words are find, after, done, old, new, work. We are doing some fun centers with our high frequency words. Ask your child about clap the syllables. This week we are practicing the skill of drawing conclusions.

We will be taking a vocabulary assessment tomorrow. The students are doing so well with their vocabulary this year. We have wonderful vocabulary packets that we fill out daily.

There is no homework this week. Please read the homework note for more information.

We have many first grade Christmas crafts planned for this week. It's always fun in first grade!!

Have a great week!

Friday December 11th!

2009-12-11T17:57:00.000-08:00

We had a lovely day today. I read the students a story today and the kids were really excited to find out "What God Wants For Christmas?" Ask your child to tell you the story about the presents and what the final present was... "what God wants most of all..." It was beautiful to see the children so excited to see what God wanted. There were many big smiles when they found out the answer.

The students are soooo excited about learning about our solar system in science. We are going to team up with 7th grade to learn even more. 7th grade are a great example of leadership for our first graders. We can all learn from each other! This will be a lot of fun.

We have many exciting things planned for next week! I look forward spending another faith filled week with the students before we are off for Christmas break. I can't believe time flew by so fast.

I hope everyone has a great weekend.

December 7th! Monday

2009-12-07T14:07:00.000-08:00

We are already on Unit 4 in our literacy! The Unit theme is Nature Watch! This week's theme is Birds. This week we will be using the oral vocabulary group and behavior and reviewing connection and support. We will be identifying and generating rhymes this week. We will be reading and spelling words with long o this week. Ask your child about the centers that we are working on this week. We have fun centers filled with contractions, digraphs, and long o_e.

Our high frequency words are saw, opened, soon, every, and any. Ask your child to use the words sparkled and floating in a sentence. We are discussing these words in our story, "Floating Home."

We are making 'inferences' in class. We discussed how good readers make inferences! Wow we are such good readers in 1B!

Our new vocabulary for our vocabulary packets are hero and star. Ask your child to come up with a good sentence for these words. On Monday we write the word and definition. On Tuesday we draw a picture of the word. On Wednesday we use the word in a sentence. On Thursday we come up with an antonym and synonym for the vocabulary words. We really are great at vocabulary.

In math we are working on fact families. Ask your child to define a fact family... this was one of our vocabulary words last week.

SCIENCE!!
The students are very excited about our new science unit... Space! The students were very excited to come in today and see the planets hanging from the ceiling. We have a space book that we are working on and each day we will learn a little more. Each child wanted to tell me everything they knew about space... I can tell that they are very thrilled about this unit.

Have a cozy Monday night!

Tuesday December 1st!

2009-12-01T14:07:00.000-08:00

We are welcoming December with open arms! Advent is such a beautiful season and we are taking time to prepare our hearts for Jesus. We talked all about how Jesus asks us to be the light of the world during this beautiful time and so we made candles to say what we can do to let our light shine!

Each day we are tearing off a part of our advent chain. Each day it tells us something we can do to prepare our hearts for Jesus. We are keeping a daily advent book that the students can take home for Christmas break and share with the family. Today our chain link read, "Say a word of thanks to another person". What a wonderful thing to do!

Our weekly theme for literacy is Family Time. Ask your child about the book that we are reading about Grandpa. We are working on three letter consonant blends... spring, sprig, sprung....etc...We are also reviewing long i words. In grammar we are learning all about contractions. Ask your child what words isn't is a contraction for (is not). They love that game!

We just took our Chapter 6 math test today! The students did a wonderful job using a number line to help count back. Nice work! We are now going to begin learning about fact families. We also have fact family as a vocabulary word this week. Ask your child to define fact family.

In religion we are talking about advent. We have learned all about the candles and what they represent. We have begun making advent wreathes that will be displayed as decoration at Mrs. Trayers Christmas concert next week. We are making wreathes out of our hands!

We are learning about many important people in history... George Washington and Sacajawea to name a few.

I hope you all have a beautiful day... Happy December!

November 30th

2009-11-30T13:58:00.000-08:00

I hope that everyone had a beautiful Thanksgiving! Mine was filled with friends while my family is far away.

Yesterday we received a phone call that a very dear friend had lost her little angel...her son. He stopped breathing during the night and had passed away when she found him in the morning. His name was Joey and he was only 15 months old. We spent Thanksgiving with him and he was such an angel.... I ask for your prayers for his mom and her family during this difficult time.

During Rosary I told the children about Joey and about how lucky we are that we have such an awesome God. We have started praying the sorrowful mysteries. We discussed how these stories of Jesus tell us not to give up--even when things are very bad. God will help us through; God will make us strong enough to go on." We discussed how sometimes our hearts are sad but knowing that God is with us helps us. We are so lucky to have faith in that we know our loved ones have God's arms wrapped around them in a beautiful place and that one day we will see them again. Memories last and we have to cherish those times that we have together. I thanked the kids for making me smile everyday and for bringing such joy into my life each and every day that I get to teach them...

Thank you for your prayers of peace for this family during this time...

Wednesday November 25th

2009-11-25T13:22:00.000-08:00

Today we had the most beautiful friendship feast! Thank you to all my wonderful families that volunteered to help and to all those that donated food and cooked that wonderful meal. The students truly had a memorable day that will hopefully be remembered always. It will definitely go in my book of great teaching memories.

During Thanksgiving I always look back upon my life and thank God for placing so many wonderful people in my path. To my students... I thank each and every one of you for just being you. You are all amazing little people and you bring joy to my life each and everyday! To my wonderful and caring families... you are all such Godly people who set the most wonderful examples of what it means to be a faith filled family. I thank you for showing your love and support each day.

May you all have a blessed Thanksgiving. See you all on Monday! :)

Monday November 23rd!

2009-11-23T15:11:00.000-08:00

Wow... Turkey day is appoaching! Today we had a fun filled high paced day. We had some beautiful time spent with Sister Thomas Augustine. The students practiced strategies for putting words in ABC order. We also practiced our patience skills today while we made our very fun but time consuming Native American friendship gifts. This craft is for our friendship gift exchange with the Pilgrims on Wedesday during the Feast. Ask your child about this very special gift!!

A big thank you to everyone who sent in items for the craft and for the Feast. A big thank you to Ms. Cicora for making our Native American vests! A big thank you to Mrs. Stehly for cutting so many peices of string for our craft! I really appreciate it. :)

November 20th!

2009-11-20T13:31:00.000-08:00

I cannot believe how much time flies. Ms. Martin our wonderful student teacher has been doing a wonderful job with the kids. I have slowly been taking responsibility away as she prepares for graduation and the end of her student teaching experience. This was Ms. Martin's last day teaching in our classroom. She is officially done with her teaching time and is going to help our in our classroom next week and then observe some other classrooms the following week. Ms. Martins official last day is on December 8th. We have a special surprise planned for her. Thank you for all of your support through this wonderful experience. I still remember my student teaching experience and I will always remember those children. Ms. Martin has expressed how much she is going to miss this wonderful class and what a wonderful experience she has had teaching your children.

In math we have been practicing so many strategies. Have your child teach you the strategy of counting back. We talked about counting on fingers today and how this is not the most effective way to solve a math problem. We have now learned so many strategies and the kids are enjoying using them on their weekly computation tests and our daily math concept lessons!

In writing this week we focused on descriptive sentences. The students chose a character from a play and wrote two descriptive sentences. Wow! During our writing conferences we had some wonderful discussions and all the students are such great writers!

Next week we are going to be preparing for our special Wednesday Feast. We have been learning all about the Native Americans and Pilgrims. Ms. Church's class will be the Pilgrims and we will represent the Native Americans during our Feast. Both classes are making a special craft and we will have a special gift exchange during our Feast. It is truly amazing to look back on history and how it shaped our lives today.

During this beautiful Thanksgiving holiday may we remember those that came before us to help lead us down this wonderful Godly path!

Happy Weekend!

November 17th!

2009-11-17T13:37:00.001-08:00

This week in literacy we started our family unit. We will be discussing ...What is a family?...How are families alike and different? Our oral vocabulary words this week will be member and share. Two wonderful words for our family unit! We will be discussing long /i/i_e this week. Our high frequency words that we will learn this week are call, how, more, funny, there, and so.

We love grammar! We are learning all about Is and Are this week. We learned that we use is to show singular and are to show plural. Wow!!!!

In religion we are learning all about the seasons of the Church. Ask your child to name to 5 seasons of the church. So far we learned that season of Advent is represented by the color purple and the Christmas season is represented by the color white.

Our two vocabulary words this week are pilgrims and advent. Ask your child to tell you all about our vocabulary packets!!!!

In math we are learning to use a number line as a math strategy. Ask your child to tell you how using a number line to count back helps you to find the difference? (The number line helps us see the numbers as we count back!)

Have a wonderful day!

Wednesday November 11th!

2009-11-11T15:07:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a peaceful Veteran's Day. We had a beautiful prayer service this morning. The students learned all about our wonderful Veteran's and made a 'Praying For Our Veterans' poster that is hanging outside our classroom. Check it out! The students had many things that they wanted to pray about. God Bless our Troops!

This week we are working on digraphs ch, -tch, wh-. We are learning past-tense verbs in grammar. Our strategy we are focusing on this week is text structure and the skill is identifying main ideas and details in a story. We will have a homework assignment on this skill next week. Our high frequency words are: our, again, would, your, light.

In writing we are working on descriptive sentences. We loveeeeee writing!!!! We will be writing about Day and Night

In math we are focusing on Doubles and Doubles plus one (near doubles). We are using doubles and near doubles as strategies to find sums to 12. We will be taking out chapter 5 test on Friday. Wheeee we are moving right along.

In religion our focus is The First Christians Follow Jesus. We made a road to following Jesus and discussed the signs that keep us on that road... prayer....love... faith. It was a wonderful discussion. Ask your child about this poster that we have hanging on our exploration wall.

In vocabulary we added two new words to our vocabulary journals (Native American and Verb). Ask your child to tell you what these words mean.

Social Studies is so fun! We continue to talk about how things have changed from a long time ago until now. Ask your child about some things that have changed about how we live now and how people lived in the past. We will have fun homework assignment about this next week.

Have a wonderful day of reflection on this wonderful Veterans Day!

Thursday November 5th!

2009-11-05T15:43:00.000-08:00

I am out of snacks for the classroom. If you have anything you would like to donate I would really appreciate it. I always like to have snack for students that forget snack. We have many students that forget snack and we have run out this week. Also, we are running low on treasure box items. If you have any little trinkets that you would like to get rid of please send them to school. I can add them to the treasure box!!! Thank you so much! :)

We are having fun identifying present-tense verbs in grammar this week. Next week we will focus on past-tense verbs! Ask your child to identify present-tense verbs!

It's almost Friday!

Wednesday November 4th

2009-11-04T12:51:00.000-08:00

I love Wednesdays! We had a beautiful mass today thanks to Father Pete. We learned all about why the alter had special candles on it. Ask your child what a table looks like at a special celebration.

In math we are learning to use a number line to count on. We learned that we circle the bigger number and then count on using a number line to add. Wow! Very fun strategy!

In literacy we are identifying s blends. Our high frequency words are boy, girl, people, when, care, water and together. We will be reading poems this week. You can read fun poems with your child this week!

In grammar we are learning all about present-tense verbs!

Have a great day!

Tuesday November 2nd!

2009-11-03T19:36:00.000-08:00

I hope that everyone is having a beautiful week!

Today the children were all blessed with a special Saint Blaze blessing. Ask your child about this blessing and about the wonderful things that Saint Blaze did. May this blessing help guard us from illnesses and may God bless us all! :)

PUMPKINS

2009-10-28T16:56:00.000-07:00

Don't forget your pumpkins for our Fall celebration tomorrow!

Wednesday October 28th!

2009-10-28T09:54:00.000-07:00

Conferences are going wonderfully. Thank you everyone for coming and and seeing me. I always love talking with parents about the students! They are all so wonderful and I have so many good things to say about them.

We are excited to celebrate the wonderful season of Fall tomorrow. If you would like to join us for this celebration you are welcome to come. The festivities will begin at 1:00pm. See you then!

It is buck a jeans day tomorrow. If you would like your child to wear jeans please bring in $1. The money will be donated to charity.

We will be meeting with our buddies tomorrow morning. Thank you to all my wonderful moms that come in and help me out with reading words and homework folder stuffing. I cannot express how much this helps me!

October 26th!

2009-10-23T14:17:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday everyone! We have just finished up Unit 2 in our literacy program. We will begin Unit 3 on Monday. The Unit theme is Let's Connect. Our weekly theme is Being Friends! We will be working with long vowels. In grammar we will be working with verbs, verbs, verbs!

We will continue our Saints Unit in religion.

Next week in social studies we will be investigating animals and how they move. What an exciting topic.

We will be taking our vocabulary assessment. The students are learning so many new words.

In math we are finishing up Chapter 4. We will be taking our assessment on Thursday.

If you have not returned your white report card envelope please return it on Monday. I look forward to meeting with you all during conferences! I hope everyone has a restful weekend.

Wednesday

2009-10-21T17:22:00.001-07:00

What a wonderful Mass we had today. Father Pat left us with such a wonderful message that we are disciples of God and we are held at a high standard of living since we are very lucky and have God in our lives. I always leave feeling a sense of renewal each week after our beautiful school masses. The students had such beautiful voices! I could hear each and every child.

Today we had a class meeting about scary stories. I know that it is close to Halloween and kids like to tell scary stories but during our class meeting today we brainstormed some "not so scary" things that Halloween represents. I have asked all students to keep the "scary" story telling for home fun. Please talk you your children about this. Thank you for your support.

We are working on l blends. Ask your child to read you words that begin with l blends. Example: black, blob, clap, clump, glad, glass...etc... We are all becoming such wonderful first grade readers!!!

TUESDAY!

2009-10-20T16:08:00.000-07:00

Our school email server is down so I am not receiving any emails. If you have an important message please send in a note or call the office and leave a message and I will try my best to get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience as this gets fixed.

On Monday we learned about Saint Gregory and how he was a very good teacher. We said a special prayer for people in our lives the teach us. We also learned about Mary the mother of Jesus. Say a special Hail Mary prayer at home with your child.

Today we talked about a special messenger of God... The angel Gabriel. We decorated an envelope and wrote a special note to someone that was sad or lonely. We also learned about Saint Therese the "little flower" of Jesus. If you can, plant a flower and give Jesus a "little kiss".

We are enjoying learning more about the Saints and the special symbols that represent them. Ask your child to tell you all about the saints symbols.

Monday October 19th

2009-10-19T17:27:00.000-07:00

I had a blast seeing everyone at the Harvest Festival. Everyone did such a wonderful job putting it all together. We are a very blessed community!

Today we had a class meeting! We asked God to send down the Holy Spirit so that we could open our hearts and minds to the topic of friendship. We talked all about what friendship is and why it is important to be nice and safe. Ask your child why I teach at Pope John XXIII and why I come back everyday to teach them. We had a beautiful discussion to help us refresh our thoughts about rules and friendships. It is always nice to hear the ideas of the children and figure out together how to implement them to help us stay safe and happy at school.

We started our Saints Unit today! Very exciting. We are learning all about the symbols that represent our Saints. We will be learning about two Saints per day.

We are beginning to recognize the days of the week as proper nouns. We are learning some BIG concepts! The students are excited about their big first grade knowledge!

Have a great day!

Thursday October 15th

2009-10-15T14:56:00.000-07:00

Today was a busy busy day filled with spelling, writing, reading, and watercolors. Oh what fun! Tomorrow is buck a jeans day and spirit day. It is also fall colors accessory color day.
This means :
-Long-sleeve fall color shirts under the Pope John Shirt
-Ties, Socks, Earrings, and Necklaces in fall colors are allowed!
-No Hats or Shoes in fall colors

I cannot wait to see everyone at the Harvest Festival! The Harvest Festival is tomorrow night from 6-9pm. Thank you for volunteering at our booth. Be sure to stop by and take a look at the banner that we made entitled, "The 'Gold' In Our Lives".

Wednesday

2009-10-14T18:30:00.001-07:00

I sent home the ticket to read passwords yesterday. The students are sooooo excited about this wonderful program. I hope that everyone is enjoying it! Please let me know if you are having difficulty getting started with this program and I can fit it into our conference time so that I can show you.

Tuesday October 13th!

2009-10-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

Thank you Mrs. Hiland for organizing the trip to Pueblo Norte and a big thank you to all the parents that drove. The kids had a great time and came back with big smiles. The rest of the students are anxious to go and be a part of this wonderful service project.

We NEED volunteers for the Harvest Fest. We still have slots open and I really don't want our room moms to be filling in for all the empty slots. Please please please sign up if you have not already. After 7:30pm is empty and the Harvest Fest is right around the corner. Thank you for all those that have signed up to volunteer!

We are in need of cleaning supplies. CALLING ALL SUPPLIES... with all the hand washing and sniffles, we are running out of paper towels and tissues. If you have not sent in your cleaning supplies, please send them in. Thank you for all of your donations.
Here is the supply list:
1 - anti-bacterial hand soap
1 box - diaper wipes
2 boxes - Kleenex
3 rolls - paper towels

On a spiritual note... In religion we have been talking all about prayers. The students discussed prayers that they know and prayers that they would like to learn. The students were asked to come up with their own prayers. Thomas titled his prayer, "From My Heart." He went on to write, "You made me from dust, you made my heart, you made me." That is so sweet! Jake H. titled his prayer, "Thank You Our Virgin Mother." His prayer said, "Thank you Mary for Jesus!" Wow! What heartfelt prayers that we hold in our hearts.

Today we practiced spelling stairs. Spelling stairs are a great way to sound each word phonetically and "hear" each sound in the word. I will send home some blank spelling stairs in next week's homework folder so that the students can use them to practice spelling words.

Monday October 12th!

2009-10-12T14:32:00.000-07:00

Today was a beautiful breezy day. We were able to do some school work outside which was really nice.

Today we made a big poster for the Harvest Fest. Our game this year is panning for gold. We made a backdrop for our game entitled "The "Gold" In Our Lives" We talked all about the gold (treasures) that are in our hearts. The students sat outside and wrote heartfelt words on pieces of gold. Be sure to stop at our booth and check it out on Friday. A HUGE thank you to everyone that has signed up to volunteer at our 1B booth during Harvest Festival. There are still several slots open so please be sure to check out the open times and sign up if you can. The more the better!

Thank you for keeping your children home if they are not feeling well. We really appreciate it! Please rest assured that we are disinfecting the room daily and spraying pencils, tables, door handles, etc... to try and keep the germs contained. If your child is out please don't worry about missed work until they are back at school. We will do everything we can to catch them up as soon as they are well.

Today we learned about proper nouns. Ask your child to tell you an example of a proper noun. The students learned that a noun that names a special person or place is called a proper noun. A proper noun begins with a capital letter. We found proper nouns in groups of nouns. Very fun and exciting!

Our two vocabulary words that we are adding to our vocabulary journal this week are subtraction and character. Ask your child to define these two vocabulary words.

We are so blessed to have Sister Thomas Augustine come in every other week to teach us more about our faith. Today Sister taught us all about the mysteries of the Rosary. She showed us beautiful pictures to go along with each mystery. She even told us the story of why the church sets aside a time to celebrate Our Lady of the Rosary every October 7th.
"500 years ago there was a part of the world where the Pope lived and other Christians. There was land controlled by the Turks who were not Christian. Every time they took over more land they gave two choices...Give up your faith or die. There were so many Turks that they outnumbered the Christians. The Pope sent our a message to all the Christians (by foot & horses) to Christians all over the world to pray the Rosary. Pope St. Pius V needed a miracle.
On October 7th, 1571 the Battle of Lepanto was fought for five hours. Against all odds the Christian won and the Turks sailed away. Christian Europe was saved! Every year for 500 years the Church has celebrated Our Lady of the Rosary."
Wow!!! That was a very neat story. We learned all about the importance of this battle and how it changed the world as we know it! As we celebrate Columbus Day we realize that without this battle the Christian King and Queen Ferdinand and Isabella would not have been in power to send Columbus on his quest. Wow... the power of prayer is amazing. This was a very empowering story of prayer and faith.

I will leave you with this wonderful story and hope that you all have a wonderful day! Remember that prayer can lead us to miracles!

Thursday

2009-10-08T16:23:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone has a wonderful 3 day weekend! See everyone on Monday!

October 7th!

2009-10-07T13:36:00.001-07:00

This week we are learning all about where animals live. We love to learn about habitats! Two reading vocabulary words that we are focusing on are habitat and survive. In Phonics we are building words with short /o/o. We are learning all about digraphs sh and th. We are also building words with -ing.

Our high frequency words are into, many, live, and out. Our comprehension strategy is summarizing and our skill is main idea and details. Ask your child to point out the main idea in stories!

In grammar we are learning about irregular plural nouns.

We reviewed touch math subtraction this week and the students really enjoyed it. This is a great strategy to use if you are stuck on a subtraction problem.

The Holy Spirit is our Helper! We are discussing the Trinity and how God promised that the Holy Spirit would come help the people. We wrote all about what we would like the Holy Spirit to help us with this week. Angela wrote, "Holy Spirit please help me to not fall off my bike." Ben wrote, "Holy Spirit please help me with your love this week." Wow... what wonderful prayers we have.

Our vocabulary words this week are law and Trinity. Ask your child what these words mean.

Have a wonderful day!

October 5th

2009-10-02T14:36:00.000-07:00

We had such a wonderful week!

We did not take our math facts club test today. They will be ready for Monday. Another wonderful week for spelling. Thank you for practicing at home.

Today in social studies we talked all about being a good citizen. We learned about a little boy named Spencer. This little boy saw that children in a hospital needed medicine when they played. Spencer Whale made a toy car that carries medicine in the hospital. Spencer thought of his invention when he visited the hospital. Catherin-Andrea mentioned that she saw one of these cars when she was in a hospital visiting someone. He named the invention the KidKare car. He was inducted into the National Gallery for America's Young Inventores in the year 2000. I shared my invention with the class. Max and Chance mentioned two more wonderful inventions. Ask your child to come up with an invention. I told the students that they can bring in a picture of the invention to share! We discussed many ways to help others. We love to help!

Have a wonderful weekend! Enjoy the beautiful weather.

SIGN UPS for harvest festival are hanging by the door. Be sure to sign up for this fun event!

September 30th

2009-09-30T12:52:00.000-07:00

I am so excited that October is right around the corner! October is such a fun festive time. A lot of things to celebrate and be thankful for. I sure hope one of those things will be cooler weather!

I was reading the must read letter that was sent home last night and really wanted emphasize this meeting:

Parent Training Date for New Technology Programs
October 8th, 2009
Ticket to Read (K-7) & Write to Learn (4-8) will present a parent training session on each program on Thursday, October 8th, beginning at 6:00 pm in the lab. There will also be a morning session for Ticket to Read – beginning at 8:15 am. Ticket to read was generously sponsored by “Baird Private Wealth Management.”
*RSVP to the school office for the morning/evening session.

Ticket to read is a wonderful program that we will be participating in. I will be sending home logins and passwords as soon as all the information is programmed into the system. If you would like to attend this parent training I think it is a wonderful opportunity to learn all about his great program!

CALLING CLEANING SUPPLIES! If you are numbers 1-15 in my class could you please send in your cleaning supplies. In the beginning of the year I asked everyone to keep supplies at home until I call for them due to limited space. Some of you brought yours in and I did use them. Thank you for sending in the supplies if you have not already. Only numbers 1-15. I will call again when more are needed and space becomes available again. Thank you so much... with all the flu viruses going around we are doing our very best to keep the room CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN!

The supply list contains:
1 - anti-bacterial hand soap
1 box - diaper wipes
2 boxes - Kleenex
3 rolls - paper towels

Have a wonderful afternoon on this lovely Wednesday.

September 29th

2009-09-29T14:18:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon! The students are enjoying a fun filled P.E. class right now!

Today was very exciting. We had a very special visitor from the past. Ask your child who came to visit us in our classroom today. Clue: He was an inventor and he invented the light bulb. Wow! It was really neat.

In religion we are learning all about the Archangels. The students are learning all about these wonderful messengers of God. Ask your child to tell you about the statue that Ms. Martin brought in to show the students. Sr. Thomas Augustine came to visit us yesterday and did a wonderful introduction to angels this week. She showed us some magnificent pictures. Thank you Sister.

This week in grammar we are learning all about plural nouns. Wow! Big learning! The students learned all about adding s, and es to make more than one. Practice making words into plural nouns (couch__, toy__, box__, etc...) We learned that when adding an s or es to make more than one, we always say the word to see if it makes sense. It doesn't make sense to add s to box. Say boxs. It doesn't sound right. Try...es... boxes. Yes! That makes sense! A plural noun names more than one person, place, or thing. Add -es to form the plural of nouns that end with s, ss, sh, ch, or x.

We are learning many vocabulary words. We are learning the words responsibility, cooperate, angel and predict.

In phonics this week we are blending and building words with short /e/e. Practice making these words at home! Our high frequency words are who, some, of, no, eat.

As I mentioned... A LOT of big learning. The students are doing a wonderful job! These students are constantly showing what beautiful Christian Leaders they are. Each time I pass out a sticker or give a praise for sitting correctly or putting papers away quietly...the rest of the students clap for their classmate. I am so proud of each student in my 1B class!

September 28th!

2009-09-28T15:11:00.000-07:00

I have to ask that you talk to your children about keeping valuable items at home. I have had many tears over lost squishy doo's and stuffed animal key chains. Please ask your child to keep all trinkets and stuffed animals at home. Thank you for your support in this matter.

If you decide to take advantage of wearing free dress this month (for wearing uniform to mass) please wear it tomorrow since the last day of the month is a Mass day. Thank you!

Today was a fun day full of learning! The students are just amazing! :)

September 25th!

2009-09-25T15:30:00.000-07:00

Today was a very long but fun day! I hope everyone has a restful weekend.

Ms. Martin, our wonderful student teacher is officially teaching next week. She is great and I will be here guiding her every step of the way. Thank you for your patience as we make this transition. The students love Ms. Martin and we are lucky to have her as part of our team.

September 24th!

2009-09-24T17:28:00.000-07:00

Fall pictures went wonderfully today. Beautiful smiles all around!

We took our spelling pre-test today. The test was out of 10 points with the potential of receiving 11 points because of the extra credit. The bonus can never hurt you only help you! If your child received a 10 or 11 on the pre-test they do not have to take the spelling test tomorrow.

I hope homework went well this week. I know that the students are tired when they get home. I ask that you just take a little at a time so that the child does not get overwhelmed. Please don't forget to send in the homework folder tomorrow with their homework inside. Also please place the spelling neclace inside the folder. The little flashcard book can stay at home for practice but the neclace needs to come back in order for me to get them ready for next weeks words.

Have a great day!

September 23rd!

2009-09-23T15:23:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is picture day! Please remember to wear the Blessed Pope John XXIII uniform for picture day. These pictures will go in the year book.

Thank you for helping your child remember to keep the homework folders at home until Friday. We will be administering the spelling pre-test tomorrow. I know we are all wonderful spellers. If your child gets 100% on the Thursday pre-test they do not have to take the test on Friday.

For morning message today the children wrote me questions. I was expecting simple questions like, "How are you?" To my surprise I had some hard hard questions. The students came up with some amazing questions. Thomas asked, "How long does it take to get to space?" Another child asked, "What are our internal organs?" Mikey asked, "Who is the father of Joseph?" Noemi asked, "Do you like teaching first grade?" I was so proud to answer that I LOVE teaching first grade! I am so blessed to have a job that I love to come to everyday. I hope that the students enjoy all the responses. Have a blessed day!

September 22nd!

2009-09-23T07:46:00.000-07:00

Today the lovely ladies from Pueblo Norte came to visit our classroom to talk to the children about our faith in action project. Pueblo Norte is a nursing facility that the children that will be visiting. We will go in small groups to visit with the residents and make crafts. Each child will get to go at some point this year. I am so excited to begin this wonderful service project. I will be sending home a letter from Mia Marr the FIA committee head on Wednesday.

September 21st!

2009-09-21T14:55:00.000-07:00

Sister Thomas Augustine came again today on this lovely Monday morning! We love when she comes and shares her beautiful faith with us!

We are blending words with short /o/o this week. Yay! Our high frequency words are one, two, her, they, does. Today we learned all about nouns in grammar. Ask your child what the word noun means. Go on a noun hunt in your house! The students went on a noun hunt in the classroom and found many nouns.

Your child is wearing a spelling necklace. These are the words that the students will be practicing spelling all week. Please return the necklace (not the spelling notecards) in your child's homework folder on Friday to ensure that your child gets a new one the following week!

Today in Vocabulary we learned two new words. Ask your child to define the words solve and noun. We are having so much fun with all of our vocabulary words.

We learned all about the Good Samaritan today. We talked all about Jesus' message of love and care for others. Jake H. told me about a time when he helped a new student learn the rules. What a great way to help our neighbors. Ask your child what stories help you make good choices and why Jesus told stories.

Have a wonderful day!

Friday

2009-09-18T14:59:00.000-07:00

It's Friday! I hope that everyone has a fun filled weekend. I big thank you to everyone for sending in so many donations from my jungle wish list. I am so thankful to have so many wonderful families!

Math facts club is moving along wonderfully. I have been sending home the graded math facts sheet. This is a school wide timed test to improve computation. Please encourage your child to do the best that they can do. The test is a race against ourselves and nobody else. I always tell the students to try their best and that is always good enough. I don't want any child to be discouraged. This is a fun test and all we are looking for is improvement. It's always fun to see if we can complete one more than last week. EVERYONE is doing a wonderful job. I have seen so much improvement in the past two weeks.

September 17th!

2009-09-17T17:07:00.000-07:00

Wow... this week just flew by and I can't believe it is Friday tomorrow!

Ms. Martin taught the students today about the Ascension of Jesus. The students learned that the Ascension of Jesus was his return to his father. One day we will return to Jesus. Ms. Martin asked the students to respond by writing, "What would you say to Jesus when you see him?" Christopher said that he would say, "Jesus I love you!" Jake J. would say, "I missed you so much while I was on earth Jesus!" What wonderful and heartfelt responses.

Remember that Buck A Jeans day and Spirit day is tomorrow! If you would like to wear jeans please bring a dollar. You can wear a spirit shirt for free. You can also just wear a uniform if you would like.

September 16th!

2009-09-16T13:42:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon to all of our wonderful families! Another wonderful week for Mass behavior. I am very proud of each student and how faith filled everyone is!

This week in Social Studies we continue to learn all about family's. Family celebrations, family homes, family addresses. We have been discussing the importance and meaning of an address. We went onto Google Earth yesterday and found our school! Many students came in today and told me that they went home and found their own addresses on Google Earth. WONDERFUL! I always enjoy hearing that students are taking what we learn and applying it at home. If you have never used Google Earth it is a wonderful tool to use!

I have many positive enforcement incentives in place this year to reward good behavior. We have star student, jungle friends, team captains, individual sticker books, AND class jobs! The students really enjoy all of these. I have also started to read the students Bible stories from my Children's Bible. We have started with the Old Testament and are working towards the New Testament. It truly amazes me that out of all the incentives this is the students favorite. Each day at the end of the day the students beg me to read another Bible story. When were are done and it is time to go the students always beg for one more. Today Chance came up and asked, "Will you please read us two tomorrow?" Each child truly touches my heart! You have all done such a wonderful job with your children. They truly are amazing little people with such good hearts.

September 15th!

2009-09-15T14:40:00.000-07:00

We learn lots of weekly vocabulary. One of our words this week is QUESTION. The students write the word and definition followed by a picture, sentence and antonym/synonyms for the word. Callie drew a picture of herself asking Sister Thomas Augustine a question. Great idea! Cade suggested that we could draw a picture of the question symbol... a question mark. Wonderful! Sean shared that he was going to write the question, "Did you win?" We all have very good ideas on how to define the word question. Excellent learning today!

Please remember to send your child to school in a white uniform shirt for Mass tomorrow. Thank you and have a wonderful day!

September 14th!!

2009-09-15T10:21:00.000-07:00

We had a substitute on Friday and I heard that the day went great! I missed the students while I was not here but had a wonderful substitute here to take my place.

Monday was wonderful! Sister Thomas Augustine came to the classroom today and it was lovely!

The students observed that the Dominican Friars (priests) wear the same color as the Dominican Sisters. Ask your child what color they wear.

Catherine D. pointed out that the Franciscan Friars are different then the Dominican Friars because they wear the color gray and wear ropes around their wastes.

We viewed a beautiful Fresco painting. We learned that Fresco are paintings that are painted on the wall. We viewed a painting called Our Lady of the Blessed Mother being crowned. This Fresco was from Italy by an artist named Friar Angelico. Friar Angelico was a Dominican Friar. Saint Dominic, Saint Francis, and Saint Benedict are all painted in this Fresco kneeling around the Blessed Mother.

We discussed how a Sisters habit tell us about who they are. Ask your child what Sister Thomas Augustine's habit tells us about her (She is married to God, She is a Dominican Sister, She is part of the Dominican Sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist).

Have a blessed day!

September 10th!

2009-09-10T17:01:00.000-07:00

Today was a busy busy day! We were busy learning and writing. We have been writing descriptive sentences this week. I had a lot of fun discussing everyone's pets in our writing conferences. Ben used some wonderful descriptive words when he was describing his dog. Ben said, "My floppy eared dog always barks during an emergency!" Great job Ben!

Holden was so faith filled during Rosary. Holden let a friend use his rosary and together they followed along with each bead of the decade! Zoe is our prayer leader this week and has been doing a wonderful job leading us in prayer. We have so many wonderful Christian Leaders in first grade! Rosary is always my favorite part of the day and it always fills my heart to see how much love these students have for God!

September 9th!

2009-09-09T13:49:00.000-07:00

Another wonderful day in first grade! Question of the day, "When is the weather going to cool down?" It is hot, hot hot! Thank you for continuing to send in a water bottle with your child.

Today we learned the touch points for numbers 3 and 4. Chance shared that he has been practicing all his touch math touch points in his math notebook. Way to go Chance! Keep up the good work! Max also shared that he thinks this is a GREAT strategy for adding numbers. He said, "It's a lot better than thinking hmmm..." I am glad that touch math is fun!

We are discussing families in our social studies unit. We had a beautiful discussion about our favorite family memories. Emily shared a time when she wanted to go outside but it was a bit chilly. Her family waited and waited and finally it was nice enough to go out and enjoy the day. I love to hear all about memories that we hold dear to our hearts.

We continue to blend words with r. Ask your child to blend words with r (crib, crack, drag, drip, grin, Fran, brass, trim, grass). You child can also tell you which words have double consonants. Wow... lots of great learning going on! We are all such great readers.

September 8th!

2009-09-08T21:24:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone had a nice long weekend! The students had many fun stories to share.

I enjoyed reading with the students in small groups today. The students broke out into centers and independent work as I met with reading groups to work on fluency and comprehension. I can tell the students have been reading at home!!! Keep it up! Ask the students to tell you all about Toto and Percy!

We worked on exclamations and questions today. Ask your child to tell you the difference. The students are doing so well learning grammar! Please encourage your child to look over the grammar packets as they come home corrected and pay attention to things that they may have missed. This may help them the next week!

In math we began learning touch math strategies. The students had a lot of fun solving problems on their wipe boards. Sophia exclaimed, "This is funner than the other math!" Theresa excitedly stated, "Great teaching Miss Ursillo!" The students were excited about the new strategy and I am always pleased when they are eager to learn.

I hope you all had a wonderful day.

September 4th!

2009-09-04T16:01:00.000-07:00

Wow... I can't believe we have already been in school for 17 days! The students are working really hard! Today we started the Math Facts Club! I think the students really had fun. The Math Facts Club is meant to be a FUN way to improve automaticity by taking timed tests and trying to do better each week. I told all the students that we just try OUR personal best and that is always good enough. The students were excited and we had fun!

We will be starting Unit 1 of our Social Studies series next week! All about families! Blessed Pope John XXIII is surrounded with wonderful families and I look forward to discussing our family's next week!

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Labor day weekend. Joseph declared today, "I am ready to go out into the world!" I hope we all get a chance to go out in to the world this weekend and enjoy all of Gods creations! Be safe and have fun!

2009-09-03T12:48:00.000-07:00

September 3rd!

We had the most faith filled discussion today. The students always seem to amaze me during our religion lessons... I always have a plan and somehow the students just take us to a whole new level of wonderment. My heart was filled with happiness today as I sat watching 34 students raise their hands anxiously waiting to be called on so they could ask me a question about God.

We began by discussing how everything Jesus said and did tells us about God. Jesus showed us how to love God and others...This of course led to many questions about God's love and our faith in Jesus! The students have many questions this year about Heaven. We marveled over how beautiful Heaven will be and how amazing it will be to see God in all his glory. Max waited so patiently so he could ask, "When we go to Heaven will we still have birthdays?" Maguire wondered, "What does God look like?" Maguire assured us that he has blue eyes! Mikey added, "All I know is God is really shiny."

Catherine said, "Ms. Ursillo, how do you know so much about God?" I spoke to the students about how much more I can learn and how reading about God in the bible and going to classes and asking my family has really helped me learn about God. I told the children that they are a BIG reason why I know about God... they teach me everyday! Catherine just lit up and said, "so we are just like little teachers?" Yes... yes you are! And I am so truly blessed to have so many little "teachers" in my room!

September 2nd!

2009-09-02T14:23:00.000-07:00

What a faith filled day we had today! Mass was beautiful today. I am so impressed by all of our singing and reverence. The students came back to the room and sang We Belong To You during our Rosary time and it brought tears to my eyes. It always fills my heart to see how filled with God each student is. Theresa is our prayer leader this week and she did a lovely job leading us in prayer!

I look forward to seeing everyone at curriculum night tonight!

Thank you Maguire for helping a friend find his behavior folder today during pack up.

September 1st

2009-09-01T16:08:00.001-07:00

Just a reminder... Curriculum night is Wednesday night from 6-7:30pm. There will be 3 sessions running every 20 minutes with 5 minutes of travel time between classes. You only need to attend one session per class. I look forward to seeing everyone!

We welcomed September today by creating our new weather charts on our behavior folders! We will use this weather chart as part of our science grade this year. Wow... August just flew by. I look forward to the change in weather and am hopeful for breezy days.

This week in literacy we are building and reading words with the short vowel /i/. You can help your child at home by reading words and nonsense words that have /i/ as the middle sound.

In grammar we have been learning all about what a sentence is. A sentence is a group of words that tell a WHOLE idea. Jackson received an effective communicator sticker today for being able to confidently tell his classmates the difference between a question and a statement! Way to go Jackson! We are also learning about statements. Statements tell us something and end with a period. You will see grammar packets coming home. We have really been focusing on starting our sentences with a capital letter and ending our sentences with punctuation.

Today was a wonderful day! We had fun learning all about Ashlyn's ABC all about me book! Payton did a great job being our class monkey (one of the classroom jobs that acts as a teacher helper)!

August 31st!

2009-08-31T16:14:00.000-07:00

Today was an exciting day!

We welcomed Sister Thomas Augustine to our classroom. Sister Thomas Augustine is a Dominican sister and we are blessed to have her come in and be with us every Monday. Today the students had a chance to get to know her and ask many questions. We will be learning a lot from her this year!

In reading we are learning all about Growing Up! We are reading all about animals growing up and how they change. This week in writing we will be thinking of a toy that we liked when we were babies and using this idea to create descriptive sentences. Christian shared, "When I was little I had a little bear that I liked to sleep with!" Great descriptive sentence Christian!

In math we are beginning our Addition Concepts Unit! Yippee! We love solving addition problems using concrete objects! Math Facts Club (our timed math facts tests) will be starting soon. Very exciting!

Have a great day!