Slideshow of the Week

NOW PLAYING - Living Things Photostories - Coming to a YouTube website near you!

Our nonfiction reading and writing, and Living Things science units have come to the end. Our first graders have worked so hard reading and writing like scientists, researching, making and collecting notes and pictures for their living things project. They have done an amazing job synthesizing information and rewriting facts in their own words. Finally they compiled the facts and pictures together and created a photostory in I.T. class with Mr. Hoffman. The link to these marvelous photostories is shown below. Please click to enjoy them. The students are very proud of their hard work.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDB63AFA7A6A2FC7F&feature=mh_lolz

Danielle - Our Star of the Week

Thank you Danielle for presenting your Star of the Week poster. You did a fantastic job sharing. Danielle is a big sister of two twin siblings. Prior coming to Oman, Danielle and her family was living in China. One cool thing about Danielle is that she can speak Mandarin fluently (she definitely speaks better than me!), a skill she learned when she was living in China. We had a fun time watching Danielle being the MC in a school concert in China on a DVD. That's neat!

It's almost the holidays.... tying up loose ends

Thank you Rasmia, Sara, and Rania (our class room moms) for organizing in a little festive party yesterday in our classroom. The kids had a great time enjoying a light snack with gingerbread cookies and juice/milk, as well as listening to a holiday story, and taking home a goody bag. Thank you for all your hard work, room moms!

Today our students also experienced another festive event - the Winter Wonderland. They were buddied up with their 4th grade reading buddies, and together, they made different holiday arts and crafts, decorated gingerbread cookies and enjoyed some storytime with parent-volunteers. It is always wonderful seeing many of you volunteering and participating in TAISM events. We couldn't have done it without you and Betina, our parent-volunteer coordinator. What a fantastic event!

Starting today, you will see the pink communication book, and reading log in your child's green folder. I have collected all the guided reading books and other classroom library books for inventory. Please continue to encourage your child to read over the holidays, and read to your child at night. Feel free to log your reading in the reading log, too. After the holidays, the children will be bringing books home as usual.

Please note that report cards will be sent home tomorrow, Wednesday December 21st (the last day of school before the holidays). Inside your report card envelop, you will find the same math unit 1 summary checklist that you got in November for your reference. Unit 2 summary checklist and math work was also sent home yesterday for you to keep. If you have any questions or concerns regarding these assessments, please do not hesitate to contact me.

After school activities (ASAs) sign ups are now in progress. Ms. Lillie is already collecting the requests. If you have not returned the form yet and your child is interested in participating, please hesitate. The spots fill up pretty quickly, and we cannot guarantee a spot if you hand in the form after the holidays. So, HURRY! = )

Tomorrow, Wednesday December 21st is a HALF DAY. Students will be dismissed at 12:00pm. However, they will still need to bring a snack to school for the morning. Classes will resume on Saturday, January 7th, 2012. 

Finally, I want to wish you a very happy holidays and enjoy the time off with your kids and family. If you are traveling, have a safe and fun journey. Happy Holidays and New Year to all of you. I will see you in 2012!

Winter Concert

Congratulations boys and girls, Mrs. Wilson, and Mr. Drahos, the ES Winter Concert was a great success! I was so happy to see many of you in the audience on Sunday. The children did an amazing job singing and playing on the Orff instruments. It was a wonderful experience for all of us - seeing our kids performing under the spotlights on stage. Job well done, everyone!

Winter Concert

The time we have been waiting for... the WINTER CONCERT is tomorrow, Sunday December 18th. The concert will begin at 2pm in the Blue Gym. Reminder - students are to wear red or white tops with dark bottoms. If girls wear dresses, any read/or white is fine. "Smart shoes" are strongly recommended (footwear other than Crocs or flip-flops will be fine).

Slideshow of the Week

Farewell to Ms. Sheikha

Last week was our SQU student-teacher, Ms. Sheikha's last week interning at TAISM. We are extremely grateful to have Ms. Sheikha with us for the past 7 weeks, as she took the initiative to jump right in to observe and help support our children in reading, writing and math. She also taught an amazing reader's theater lesson and allowed our readers to take charge being the storyteller and be expressive. Ms. Sheikha will now return back to class and continue her academic work at the College of Education in SQU. She will be missed! We wish her all the best in her future endeavor.

Field Trip to Qurum Park

Last Wednesday, all the 1st grade classes went to the Qurum Park Nature Sanctuary for a birdwatching excursion. We were so fortunate to have TAISM parent and bird expert, Mr. Ross Macfadyen to accompany us and share his knowledge about birds. Our little scientists noticed many different kinds of birds and their habitat in the park. We spotted white-cheeked bulbuls, great white egrets, house sparrows, mynahs, a dove and an eagle. The children were so excited about seeing each one of them and made careful observations and sketches. A big thank you again to Mr. Ross Macfadyen, as well as Ms. Kelly Gilreath and Ms. Karen Gates, our parent-volunteers who helped us out that day! We had a wonderful time.

Ananya and Soultan - our STARS of the WEEK

Fantastic job, Ananya and Soultan, in presenting your star of the week poster. Both of you had great and fun pictures to share and we had fun looking at them and learning more about your families, the things you like to do and the places you have been to with your families.
Next week, we have Danielle as Star of the Week!! Can't wait to find out what she will be sharing with us.

Last week's slide show

Field Trip to Qurum Park on Wednesday, Dec 14

Thank you for all your prompt response in signing and returning the permission slips for our field trip to Qurum Park this Wednesday. We will be leaving the school by bus at 9am, and return by noon (will have lunch at school). Please send your child to school that day with a snack, hat, water bottle, and sunscreen (or put it on before coming to school). We look forward to learning more about the natural habitats of birds and other living things we will be seeing in Qurum Park Sanctuary.

Living Things Research

Is your child talking about sharks? Dolphins? Sea turtles? Or snakes or scorpions? Our first graders are currently doing an integrated nonfiction reading and writing unit in conjunction with our science unit, Living Things. In partners, your child is researching and learning about a living thing of their choice through various informational resources - books, posters, fact cards, internet material, videos and our guest speakers! They have been gathering information and organizing them in categories: physical features (what they look like), animal classification (mammals, reptiles, fish etc.), and habitats. As they read, they also stop and jot down interesting facts about their living thing in their own words. After gathering and organizing their information, students will be creating and presenting their photo stories on their living thing in I.T. class before the holidays. Stay tuned!

"Wow! Did you know there are 100 kinds of different octopuses in the world?" - Alex
"I didn't know that snakes have no ears." - Kasper and Harrison
"Some orcas have lived as long as 80 years!" - Ananya

Pelle - Star of the Week!

Thank you, Pelle, for your great work on presenting your Star of the Week poster. We learned so much about you. Pelle is from Sweden. He has one younger brother, Anton. He likes soccer and cars. Now, we also know what to get him for his birthday and Christmas - Star War Lego!!! = )

We've planted our seeds, and now we are observing and making notes

Our little scientists have planted seeds in a cup! Some of them chose to plant pumpkin seeds and some chose papaya seeds. We learned that plants need soil to grow, as well as sunlight, water and air. After planting our seeds, the children watered them and observed them with a magnifying glass. Right now, they are all saying they can't see anything yet happening, but they predict that something is probably happening to the seeds deep down in the soil. We will be watching closely to see what happens and record our observations in our plant journals.

More on Living Things

Our 1st grade scientists have been so fortunate to have different guest speakers teaching them about living things. Last week, we had Cassie Irish (Mrs. Irish's daughter), a 6th grade student to share with us her living things PowerPoint slideshow. She creatively put together a series of slides including facts, diagrams and photos and questions to engage our little scientists in learning about "what living things are" and "what living things need to survive?" Our scientists were eager to participate in her question-and-answer section.

Yesterday, we had another guest speaker visit. Mrs. Carey Johnson, our high school science teacher came and gave a special presentation about desert and camels. We learned that camels are able to live in a desert for many reasons - mainly because of their physical features and body structures.
"I learned that camels have 2 sets of eyelashes that protect their eyes from sand and strong sun" - Yaseen
"I learned that camels have a leathery patch on each knee so that they can kneel and rest on the sand without burning their skin. " - Tina
"I learned that the hump is not filled with water, but body fat" - Pelle

Today in your child's green folder you will find a camel diagram sheet with different labels of their special features. Let your child teach you what they know about camels. Feel free to have them color. It is for you to keep!

Bookmark Competition 1st Grade Winner.... SHEREEF!

Congratulations, Shereef! You are the 1st grade winner in the Book Week Bookmark Competition. We are all so proud of your work and creativity. Shereef's prize was a book from our librarian, Ms. Catherine. Fantastic job to all the 1st graders who put forth their effort in making their bookmarks!

December Specials Calendar is UP! And Star of the Week...

Our December calendar is updated. To view and print, please go to the left side-bar and click "click here", which will bring you straight to Google Doc.

This week was extremely short and busy. Therefore we have 2 Stars of the Week next week - Soultan and Pelle! Hooray!

Publishing Party

Thank you so much for sparing your time today and came to our first publishing party of the year (and many more to come!) The students were thrilled and proud of their hard work and that you were here to support and celebrate with them. A big thank you to the room moms, Rania, Rasmia, Sara and Lesley for organizing the snacks and refreshments. Today in your child's green folder you will find a collection of the compliment strips written by the parents today. Enjoy reading them to your child this weekend.

Job well-done, everyone!

Slideshow of the Week

Happy Holidays!

Happy Islamic New Year, Oman's National Day, and American Thanksgiving to those who celebrate. Enjoy the time off and we will see you back Tuesday, November 29th.

Don't forget our Publishing Party is Wednesday, November 30th. Please save the date!

Say No to Plastic!

Today our scientists decorated their canvas bag to help promote saving the environment by saying "NO" to plastic. We learned from Mr. Montoya and Ms. Tania's presentation that people, inevitably and unknowingly are doing many things that are harming our environment. For example, wasting paper, not turning off lights and TV, littering, leaving the water tab running while brushing teeth, and using too much plastic. You will find your child bringing home a beautiful canvas bag with a environmental message that he/she came up with. Ask them what they learned from our guest speakers this week, and you will be amazed! Don't be surprised if they forbid you using plastic bags and cutlery! = ) These kids are getting more and more environmental friendly now!

Inside their bag, you will also find a Living Things research booklet. If you and your family are traveling out and about in Oman or other countries, encourage your child to jot down and draw the living things they see around them. We brainstormed a whole list of living things - from things as small as ants, spiders, butterflies, lizards, to bigger creatures like birds, turtles, and even bigger like camels and whales.We look forward to sharing our journal after the holidays.

Book Week

The Elementary School Book Week was a great success! Thank you all those parents who volunteered to be our "mystery reader". The children had a swell time- guessing who our mystery reader was everyday. Thank you Zohra, Rania, Rasmia, Aditi, Lesley, Kelly, Fatima and Sara for taking your time to come in and read with us. It was surely a big treat! We enjoyed your company.

This year our Book Week's theme was "Reading in the Wildest Places". Our 1st graders had a chance to create bookmarks with our 4th grade reading buddies this week. They were very creative in working together coming up with slogans/messages to promote reading. It was a job well-done!

For more pictures, please browse through the slideshow of the week.

Mahmoud - Our Star of the Week

Thank you Mahmoud for sharing your beautiful poster with us this past week. We've learned so much more about you. We all loved your baby photo and your family photo. Now we know you are a Tae-Kwan-Do martial artist, as well as a Star Wars enthusiast. Thank you for all your hard work on the poster.

Next week, our Star of the Week is.... SOULTAN!!! Yay! We look forward to learning more about you.

Living Things of Oman

This week our Living Things guest speaker was Ms. Tania Al-Said, the president of Environment Society of Oman, also a TAISM parent. Ms. Tania presented to first-graders about the diverse living things of Oman. She focused on how humans can impact these living things both positively and negatively. We learned how the Arabian oryx is now protected in a reserve in Oman because they have been hunted for many years and started to become endangered. We learned that the Arabian leopard has sometimes been killed by people who are trying to protect their own animals such as goats. We learned that there is a rescue team to help dolphins and whales when they get stuck in fishing nets. We learned that baby turtles often get confused by electric lights at night as they try to follow the moonlight to the sea. Adult turtles often mistake plastic bags in the ocean for jellyfish and can choke and die as a result. Finally we learned that there is a five-year study happening to figure out how many times a frankincense tree can be cut to collect its sap before it dies. Students are buzzing with new knowledge and probing questions, such as "How many frankincense trees are there in Oman?" and "Is it okay to help baby turtles make it to the sea?", so be sure and seize this opportunity to chat with your child about the very special living things of Oman!

Upates on Trimester 1

Our ES principal, Dan Hovland, together with the other administrators and Mr. Schafer have discussed and decided to extend trimester 1 due to the number of unforeseen holidays that we have been getting the past few weeks. The extended trimester is going to allow teachers to administer various assessments and gather other information that would be helpful to complete the report cards, continue their units of study, lessons and activities that were missed and impacted because of the holidays.

Here are the new dates for end of trimester 1:
Nov 30 - Last day of ASAs
Dec 7 - End of Trimester 1
Dec 21 - Report cards go home

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this extension, please do not hesitate to address it to Mr. Hovland or myself.

We were in a great big sperm whale!

Today our scientists learned about whales, dolphins and sea life of Oman. Our first guest speaker, Mr.  Montoya, is an art teacher, and also a great sea life adventurer. He loves kayaking, boating and swimming in the ocean. Earlier last week, he shared two video clips with us that documented his encounters with sperm whales and false killer whales while he was out kayaking in the ocean. The children were fascinated by what he did. Mr. Montoya talked more about his encounters with the whales in his presentation today. He answered questions about whales and his adventures, as well as shared a whale skull that he found on a beach one time. Later, Mr. Montoya also drew a whale (approximately in real life size) using chalk on the playground outside to show the kids how big real sperm whale is. The kids all jumped inside the whale's body and realized that a sperm whale is enormous-  just its tail can fit 60 kids!
Thank you Mr. Montoya for sharing your expertise with us today. We learned a lot from you. 

Personal Narrative Publishing Party

TAISM has just announced the holidays for the National Day and Islamic New Years. There will be no school on Saturday, Nov 26 to Monday Nov 28. Classes resume on Tuesday, Nov 29.
Due to the long weekend holiday, I already have a couple families informing me that they will leave town early starting Wednesday, Nov 23. In light of this, the publishing party has been postponed to the following Wednesday, November 30th at 8:45am (it will take about 30 minutes).

Please save the date to attend our first publishing party. The children are very excited about sharing their stories with you. We hope to see you there!

Math assessments and new unit

Yesterday your child's math packet was sent home for unit 1 - Routines and Data, as well as a introduction letter for unit 2- Understanding Operation. I hope you will look at the skills that were assessed and your child's work. Some of their math work is kept for their grade one portfolio (which they will get at the end of the year). Some parents have asked if they can keep the material. Yes .....it is yours to keep.

National Day and Islamic New Years

The Holidays have been announced yesterday. There is no school on Saturday November 26, Sunday November 27, and Monday November 28. Classes will resume on Tuesday November 29.

For the most up-to-date November Specials calendar, please go to the right menu bar titled "Monthly Specials Calendar" and click to view.

Slideshow of the Week

Thank you Mahmoud and Rasmia!

As you know, Oman's National Day is coming up... TOMORROW! Today, Rasmia (Mahmoud's mom) brought in some delicious Omani snacks for the students during snack time and they just...enjoyed it so much! Rasmia was also kind enough to give each kid an Omani flag, a pin, a map, and a blank flag for them to take home and celebrate the 41st birthday of Oman and His Majesty in leading this beautiful country. Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness, Rasmia. Happy National Day, Oman!

Publishing Party - Tentatively set for next Wednesday, November 23

This week in writing, our writers worked hard on choosing one story to have it published. They went through their writing folder, read through every single story they wrote and made two piles - a "yes" pile and a "no" pile. They asked themselves as they read each story again, "is this what I want to publish?", "does this story sound interesting?" "What could I add more or revise to make this story even better?"
These are some ideas our writers have come up with:

"I can add more details." - Gabriela
"I want to add more to the picture." - Magda
"I want to add more action in my story." - Adessa
"I can fix some words I spelled wrong." - Salem
"I can add punctuation." - Pelle

Right now, I have tentatively scheduled our publishing party for next Wednesday morning, November 23rd. However, with Book Week ahead of us and Living Things guests speakers' presentations (as mentioned in previous post), things might change. However, I do wish you could spare that Wednesday for now and reserve the morning for our first publishing party. I will definitely keep you all posted and confirm the date early next week.

Swimming

Tomorrow will be the last swimming class in P.E. Next week, students will be back to the gym for a new unit. Please send your child to school with P.E. uniform and running shoes on days 1, 3 and 6.

Book Week

Next we will be celebrating Book Week in the elementary school. This year's theme is Read in the Wildest Places. A detailed letter has just sent home with your child today, explaining the different activities and events happening on each day. We will also be having "mystery readers" in our classroom everyday next week. Thank you those parents who volunteered to be our mystery readers. It is going to be WILD-TASTIC!

Saturday 11/19 - Wild Hat Day
Sunday 11/20 - Book Scavenger Hunt
Monday 11/21 - Brilliant Book Marks
Tuesday 11/22 - The Big Share
Wednesday 11/23 - Celebrating Young Authors

Patterns, Patterns, Patterns...

Patterns are everywhere! This week, our mathematicians learned that patterns repeat and in every pattern, there is a pattern core (which is the part that repeats). As a class, we came up with different types of patterns: movement/sound pattern, color pattern, and shape pattern. Some of these patterns have a short pattern core (for example: black, white, black, white...). And some of these patterns have a longer pattern core (for example: triangle, pentagon, square, heart, triangle, pentagon, square, heart...). We learned that we can label these patterns by using letters to represent each element in the pattern. For instance, in the pattern mentioned above, black, white, black, white... we can label it as AB,AB. The latter one we can label it as ABCD,ABCD. Our mathematicians have been busy making their own pattern books featuring different patterns they created using buttons, pasta, pattern blocks, snap cubes and stamps. This weekend, do a pattern hunt with your child. Look around your house, check out the grocery stores, and billboards and posters on the streets... you will be amazed of what these mathematician will find.

Wrapping up our unit on Community and moving on to the next... Living Things

Have you come by the ES foyer lately and noticed the beautiful TAISM Community mural that our 1st Graders from all three classes have created? If not, please drop by one day. Our first Social Studies unit on Community has come to an end. After gathering information from the members of the TAISM community through interviews, we finished the unit by creating an enormous mural that features many of our community members about their jobs and some fun facts. Thank you for all the parent volunteers who helped us in creating this giant eye-catching mural. We couldn't have done it without you!

Moving on, our next Science unit is "Living Things". What is a living thing? What do living things need? How can we group living things by looking at their physical characteristics? This week, our scientists began thinking about these questions by browsing and reading nonfiction books and looking at photos about various living things. In the upcoming weeks, we will studying different plants and animals and observing and studying closely to what they need to reproduce, grow and survive. We will also be having guest speakers to share with us their expertise in different living things seen in Oman, and how humans affect animal habitats and what we can do to help preserve. "Living Things" will be the talk of the town in the 1st Grade hallway!!

Star of the Week - Gabriela!

Our Star of the Week this week was Gabriela. We learned so many great things about her. She is Colombian and speaks Spanish. She likes gymnastics and dance. She is also enjoys traveling with her family. One time she even dressed up in a traditional Thai dress when she was visiting Thailand. Her mother, Dominique, was kind enough to make us some Colombian sweets for the class to enjoy. It was delicious. Thank you for sharing with us, Gabriela and Dominique. We truly enjoyed your presentation.

Next week, our Star of the Week will be Mahmoud. We can't wait to see what you will show us!

Slideshow of the Week!

Thank you and Eid Mubarak

Thank you to all of you for making time to meet with me this past Tuesday and Wednesday at our first Parent-Teacher Conference of the school year. I enjoyed talking with each one of you about your child's progress and appreciated all the feedbacks and questions you had. This conference really helped me in getting to know your child better. If you have further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to email me.

Our first graders' sweet teeth have been very much satisfied with sweets, sweets and more SWEETS! Thank you all the parents and kids who brought in goodies this past week to celebrate the many occasions and festivities. Thank you again for Sara Jansson and Pelle for bringing in Fall Festival cookies. Thank you Kelly Gilreath and her mother and Alex for baking us some delicious Halloween short bread. Thank you Aditi and Ananya for bringing us beautiful Diwali treat boxes and sharing stories of the Diwali tradition. Finally, thank you Birte and Kasper for bringing us cupcakes on Kasper's Birthday.

School will be closed from November 3rd to November 8th (inclusive) for Eid Al Adha Holiday. Eid Mubarak and have a good break everyone! See you back on Wednesday, November 9th. 

Button sorting and living graph in math

This week in math, we read aloud a book called, The Button Box. Like the character in the story, our mathematicians sorted a variety of buttons according to the type, size, color, shape, number of holes, and more. We learned that mathematicians notice different attributes of objects and sort them by properties. Try sorting any collection of objects at home this weekend and see what your child comes up with.

In addition to sorting, we also learned a bit about graphing. We first came up with a question, "What is your favorite food?" and selected 6 different popular choices: fish, pancakes, noodle, pies, rice, and pizza. Next, we surveyed the class and kept a tally mark of each of the food picked. We then graphed the result on a piece of chart paper with labeled axises. Finally, we studied the graph and made some observations.

"Fish and noodle are the same!"
"Fish and noodle have the most."
"Rice and pies have the least."
"There is 1 more in pizza than pancakes."

To wrap up the graph of the day, we made a "human living graph"! We will be learning more about graphing the week after Eid Holiday.

Adessa - Our Star of the Week!

Congratulations Adessa for being brave and be the first student "in spotlight". She brought in a beautiful poster with many pictures of her friends and family and shared with the class last week. We learned a lot more about her - where she is from, who is in her family, her dog's name, and what she likes doing in her spare time and holiday.Thank you!

Next up... Gabriela! We look forward to learning more about you!
For upcoming "Stars", please take a look at the left side-bar titled "Star of the Week" located  under "Important Dates and Events" 

*Revised November Calendar

This afternoon you should have received a text message from TAISM regarding Eid Al Adha holiday. It is going to be from November 5 to November 8. Classes will resume on Wednesday, November 9.
November Specials Calendar_Jenny

la la la ... you will hear someone singing in the shower!

Today in your child's folder you will find a couple song sheets from Mrs. Wilson, our music teacher. The children have been learning and practicing these songs and Mrs. Wilson thought it'd be nice for them to sing to their parents and siblings at home. It will be so fun to see them track the words as they sing (putting some extra reading time there)! Don't worry about bringing the song sheets back to school - they are for yours to keep. Have fun!
Grade One Songs, 2011

Slideshow of the Week

Week of October 22-26

View more presentations from kwokjenny110.

More info on Parent-Teacher Conference and Star of the Week

Our parent-teacher conference is next Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday, November 1st will be a half day for students and they will be dismissed at noon. Wednesday, November 2nd is a full-day conference so there will be no school for the kids.

Our first Star of the Week is going to be...... ADESSA! She will be ready to do some "show and tell" this upcoming week. We are excited to see what she's going to show us and tell us.

This past week, Ms. Zulfa and I were Star of the Week. We made a poster with photos of family and friends, pictures of our favorite holidays and food, and things we like to do. Please take a look at our poster to get some ideas for your child's Star of the Week. If you have any questions, please feel free to write to me.  

This week in Reader's Workshop

Our readers have been doing such a great job tackling harder texts in their guided reading groups and independent reading time. This week, we focused on "partner reading". We learned that "readers never travel alone" because they have friends and partners they share their stories with. They talk to each other about their books and sometimes they even help each other out when they get stuck with a tricky word or a tricky part. We learned that readers also ask questions and give comments about the story. Reading with someone is like taking a hike up the mountain; it gets more fun and enjoyable knowing there's always someone to talk with and support you when you fall. This weekend, be your child's reading partner and share some of your favorite parts.

Lucky readers! Our readers had another special reader's treat this week. Our student-teacher from SQU (Sultan Qaboos University), Ms. Sheikha comes into our class every Monday morning to learn about teaching. This week she shared a story with our students, Edwina the dinosaur who didn't know she was extinct by Mo Willems. After Ms. Sheikha read the story to the class, our readers put on character masks and acted out the story. The readers were very excited about the acting and were expressive in their lines and actions. Good job readers and Ms. Sheikha!

What a busy week!

The 1st Grade Super Kids have had a really busy week. In Social Studies, we finished interviewing our TAISM community members. We learned about the jobs of our school security guard, Mr. Qayser; our cafeteria manager, Mr. Binu and his team; our school's swimming and P.E. assistant, Ms. Grace; and our admissions coordinator, Ms. Nimmi. We extended this activity by typing up some of the quotes in a speech bubble format in I.T. computer lab. The final product will be put up on the walls in the ES foyer later next week.

Who has a sweet tooth? 1st Grade Super Kids do! This week, our "Super Kids" earned a little "Cinnamon Roll" party for their hard work and spelled out "Super Kids". Every time they work well together, they earn a letter. Thank you Ms. Zulfa for baking us some delicious cinnamon rolls! Also, a big thank you to Sara Jansson (Pelle's mom) who brought in some yummy homemade "Fall Festival" spider cookies. The kids enjoyed them at snacks today.

TAISM's Got Talent!

Congratulations to all the boys and girls who participated in the TAISM ES Talent Show 2011. This year we have two wonderful students from 1JK who performed at the Saturday show, on October 22nd. A big thank you and congratulations to Gabriela and Ananya for their awesomeness. Gabriela and her friend did an energetic dance routine that "rocked" the whole gym, while Ananya's beautiful singing of "Feed the Birds" serenaded the whole audience. Great job girls! Finally, a big kudos to Mrs. Wilson who organized the event and teacher-volunteers who helped make the event a great success! 

Reminders...

Next week in math we will be sorting buttons! Yes, we could always use more buttons! If you have a pile of buttons that you don't need at home and you are willing to donate, please send them to school with your child starting Saturday. Thank you!

It's time to say, "Cheese!" Photo day for yearbook is fast approaching. It is Monday, October 24th, day 3. We have P.E but since the children have swimming and they are going to change into their swimwear anyway, children can just wear their regular school uniform to school. Regular TAISM uniform consists of a white, red, or navy blue polo shirt with colored pants, shorts or skirt.

Please remember that the 1st graders have already begun their swimming unit. Our P.E./swimming days are every day 1, 3, and 6. Please send your child with a 'swim bag' that includes a swimming suit, goggles, towel, and underwear if your child is wearing his/her swimming suit underneath the uniform in the morning. Wearing crocs or flip flops/sandals on swimming days might be helpful when they change and get in and out of the pool.

Finally if you haven't subscribe to our class blog, please do so by entering and submitting your active email address in the "follow by email" box located on the left side bar of the blog. Once you subscribed, you will be receiving email notifications when new postings are updated and hence it saves you time from visiting our blog regularly to see if there are any updates or not.

2... 4.... 6.... 8.... 10....

In math this week, our mathematicians learned to skip count by 2's and 5's. We made a skip counting booklet and we practiced counting and shading in hundreds chart in I.T. class on the computers. This weekend, have your child practice skip counting by 2's or 5's... count some crayons, buttons, markers, candy and see how far he/she could go up to.

Go to http://www.abcya.com/interactive_100_number_chart.htm to make your own skip counting hundreds chart.

Our TAISM Community

A community is...
 "A place where people work together."
"Sometimes people work in a different place."
"When people help each other."
"There are rules and expectations in a community that help keep us safe and healthy."
"People in the community share."
"People take care of their community."

These are some ideas and understandings that our 1st graders had when they hear the word, "community". This week we started to talk a lot about the TAISM community. We brainstormed many groups of community members at TAISM, such as nurses, teachers, principals, counselors, cafeteria workers, guards, administrators, and many more! We learned that in order to have a healthy and organized community, we need different teams of people to do a certain job. This week, we had a chance to meet and interview our aquatics coordinator, Mrs. Lisa File, our admissions office associate, Mrs. Urmila Seymour, and one of our school guards, Mr. Qaiser to learn more about their jobs and how they work as part of their team. We are going to continue our community interviews next week with different community members. At the end of the interview project, a mural of our community will be displayed in the ES foyer. Stay tuned!

Writer's Workshop and Word Work

Our writers and word workers have been extremely busy! In writer's workshop, our writers have been writing so many personal narrative stories and their writing folders are just stuffed with page and pages of these fantastic stories! This week we learned that writers don't always start a new story, and instead, they work on an "old story" by adding more details. A lot of them continued working on their old stories this week by telling more about "what I did", "what I saw", "what I said", and "how I felt". Now these writers are writing their stories across pages with matching illustration, labels, and even speech bubbles. We are at the stage of "revise and edit" now, and soon we will be ready to publish our very first personal narrative story of the year! Stay tuned for our publishing party!

In word work, we have been working hard in our small groups. Each day, these small groups rotate to a different word work activity. This week I introduced a new activity called "read, make and write". After introducing the word sort to them, students draw the picture/word card and they have to read what it says, then make the word using magnetic letters 3 times, then they write it. This is a great activity to reinforce the word sort feature that they are working on that week. Some of the word sort features that our children learned this week are: beginning consonants B, M, R, S, P, T, M; word family "-at"; beginning digraphs /th/ and /wh/; and short vowels /a/ and /o/.
Ask your child to put on their word detective hat and "word hunt" some of these features in their books this weekend.  = )

Word Work of the Week

Guided Reading

We have just started our guided reading program this week as part of our Reader's Workshop. Guided Reading is a time when teacher gathers and reads with a small group of students who share similar reading behaviors and reading similar leveled texts. Each day I meet with 1 to 2 groups of readers, gather them on the rug and preview the text with them, introduce the story pattern (if applicable) or give a brief synopsis of the text and characters, and introduce some tricky words they might encounter. Then, the readers read the text on their own while I pull one kid at a time to read to me until I get to everyone. Finally, we reconvene again to discuss the text to check for understanding and deepen our thinking about the story.
This week, we learned that good readers get their minds ready to read by doing a 'picture walk'. This is a helpful strategy to practice with your child before the actual reading because it helps build schema for the text that supports reading fluency and comprehension. In other words, when looking at the pictures before reading, readers have the opportunity activate their prior knowledge by making self-to-text connections, text-to-text connections, or text-to-world connections. You might hear your child say, "Oh this part reminds me the time when I..." or "this part reminds me of another book ..." or "I know about this because I've seen it in a magazine or heard it on the news..." Picture walk is really a good way to get readers to 'warm up'!

Starting this week, you will see that you child is bringing home 2 books everyday - 1 guided reading book, and 1 'just right' book or a 'look book'. Please continue to support your child at home by having them read to you or a sibling everyday.

Week of October 8th - 12th

Week of Oct 8 - 12

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Another busy week has flown by!

Wow, what a great week we've had!! Our 1st graders have had a really busy week - learning new "just right book" and "look book" book-shopping routine in reader's workshop, writing many personal narratives in writer's workshop, skip counting by 5's and 10's in math, and setting personal goals and learning more about the members of our classroom community in social studies. Not to mention we had a great time meeting our visiting authors, Steve Skidmore and Steve Barlow on Sunday. Finally, last but not least, we also met our 4th grade reading buddies from Mr. Bernhardt's class yesterday and did a fun pirate activity with them!

This week in Literacy, our children focused a lot on Word Work (or sometimes people call it Word Study). Word work is one of the components of Balanced Literacy. Word work plays an integral part of children's literate-rich lives because it helps develop their accuracy in recognizing and writing sight words, understanding the meanings in texts, and most importantly, it allows them to enjoy and appreciate language when they are able to use different word-solving skills such as the understanding of phonics, spelling patterns, suffixes and prefixes and many more to read and write (Bear, Invernizzi, & Templeton, 2008) 

So this week, our "word workers" have been working hard on the beginning consonants (/b/ and /d/) and beginning and ending digraphs (/sh/ and /ch/). Together with their partners, they sorted the picture cards that have these sounds (i.e. cheese, ship, chair) under the proper heading. Later, we also did another activity called "Word Hunting" where we became word detectives and carried our imaginary magnifying glasses around the classroom, "hunting" for words that had these sounds and recorded them on dry-erase boards.
The digraphs we have been working on this week is: /th/, /ch/ and /sh/.
The blends we have been working on this week is: "st", "fr" and "sw".
Ask your child what words they know that have those sounds in either the beginning, middle or end of the word. Or they can try to do a word hunt around the house!

Reference: 

Bear, D.R., Harris, R.C., & Pearson Education, Inc. (2008). Words their way DVD tutorial: Planning for word study in K-8 classrooms. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson Education. 

P.E. - Swimming Unit

Starting next Wednesday, October 19th (Day 6), your child will be swimming during P.E. time until November 16th.Your child will need to bring a "swim bag" of swimming gears.
 - one-piece swimsuit for girls; mid-thigh suit for boys
 - a towel
 - waterproof sandals for walking on the deck and in locker room
 - goggles are recommended
  - something to tie up long hair
Please refer to the October Specials Calendar for P.E. days. There's no P.E. on Sunday, October 16th due to noon dismissal for all staff inservice.
The November Specials Calendar will be out at the end of October.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact our P.E. teacher, Mr. Luther Rauk at raukl@taism.com.

The 2 Steves Visit

Today your child will probably come home saying "Thingamabob" and "whatchamacallit?" and you will be like "huh?". Well, today our visiting authors, Steve Skidmore and Steve Barlow (aka the 2 Steves) were here at TAISM and your child got to meet them both! These are made-up words that keep appearing in the play called, The Thingamabob that Skidmore and Barlow co-authored.
Together with the 2 Steves, children participated in an interactive play written by Skidmore and Barlow called, The Thingamabob. The story is about this monster called "Thingamabob" appearing in town causing major distractions and delays and making a lot of kids late for school. All the kindergarteners and 1st graders were extremely engaged in the interactive play. They learned lines and silly, made-up words like "thingamabob" and "watchamacallit" from the story, as well as actions that go with the different expressions of the characters.
Go to http://www.the2steves.net/default.aspx to learn about these authors and their books.