Parents, Thank you for all you've done for me and the class this year. I appreciate all the treats, gifts, help, and notes. I especially loved my Vera Bradley purse as my end of the year gift. You have been more than generous this year and I appreciate all your kindnesses. Have a great summer! Love, D.Dion
Wow! Where has the year gone! I know the children are looking forward to getting out of school, but I will miss all those smiling faces next week! I hate when the school year comes to an end, but I know they are ready. Not much news for this week.
Thanks to all who came to the Author's Tea. The children appreciate your interest in their writing and they are so proud to share their growth. They love looking at what they wrote in August and comparing it to the May writing.
Field Day was wonderful. We lucked out with the weather...no rain and not too hot. We had good participation and the children enjoyed every station. Thanks to all the parent volunteers.
Friday we had a wonderful Mexican celebration with taquitos, tacos, salsa and cheese along with a pinata. The children enjoyed that very much. Thanks moms for making the food and sending in the stuffed pinata.
This week I will try to keep the children busy, and still learning! The challenge of the week!!! Our room mothers are planning an end of the year "celebratiion" with popsicles and some games. We are going to have some "themed" days to keep the children's interest.
Tuesday is Puzzle Day. Children can bring in puzzles to work on with partners or groups. We will do some "puzzling" work also.
Wednesday is Beach Day.....but just for activities...no water events. I'll explain that to them. We will do some "beach work" and play some "beach ball games." Children can wear shorts, but remember, no tank tops.
Thursday is Art Day......We will be studying the author, Bill Peet, and we will try some different art projects.
THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Parents, Thank you so much for all you have done to participate in the classroom activities this year. Thanks to the reading parents, the computer volunteers, the room mothers and all those who have so graciously contributed food, supplies or money to help with the holiday party, centers or celebrations. You have helped make this a wonderful year for me and especially for the children. I am so grateful to have had your children for a year...and you as parent supporters. I will miss you all. I hope you have a wonderful, safe summer. I will look forward to seeing you in August. D.Dion
Teacher Appreciation Week
Thank you so much for all the nice things parents and children did last week. The flowers the children brought in on Wednesday were beautiful!! I loved the book with pictures and notes from all the children and the "frog" bulletin board. That is so cool! I had several "breakfast treats", Dunkin Donuts coffee, and a wonderful lasagna dinner for Friday night. Thanks to all who participated and also to others who sent in personal gifts. I really appreciate all you have done for me! It was a wonderful week!
Math Buttons
You may see many of the children around the school sporting math buttons. They have been awarded to those children who have mastered the appropriate math facts for their level. In first grade, the children had to master the addition facts to 18. I am happy to say everyone in our class has mastered them sufficiently to get a button. They are wearing them in school and will bring them home next week. It's a great incentive!
Wednesday is Field Day....8:35 to 1:45
We are planning on having a fun day with lots of activities. Children should wear their class t-shirt if they have one. Please watch the weather for that day and have your child dress appropriately. It would be good to send a water bottle with your child's name on it and have your child wear sunscreen. They are very excited that day and will probably come home very tired!!
Friday, May 9th, was the Cobb County Relay for Life Celebration at Jim Miller Park. Garrison Mill had a booth and several teachers attended. It was my first time to attend I was so moved by the Survivor's Walk. They had all the Survivors and their families walk around the track first, and then asked others to follow. It brought tears to my eyes to see how many families have been touched by cancer. Thank you so much for your support through bake sales, biscuit sales, auctions, and all throughout the year. Your support is greatly appreciated.
Happenings this week:
Monday..........Author's Tea, 8:05--8:45
Wednesday.....Field Day, 8:35-1:45
Friday..........Mexican Food Tasting Celebration to end our unit on Mexico
Family Celebration Night, 6 to 7p.m.
We will be having a busy week and if more things come up, I will send home a note or another blog. School is almost over! I can't believe the year has gone by so fast!! Have a wonderful week D.Dion
WOW! What a busy week we had! This week promises to be just as busy. Didn't the child
ren do a great job on their music program? Mrs. Zairn had to work around testing last week for practices, and I think they did a great job performing! Thanks to Mrs. Zairn and your wonderful children.
Zoo to You, our in-school field trip, was a huge success! The children were outside on the covered play area and saw an albino kangaroo, a snake, the biggest toad I have ever seen, and many more interesting animals.They were able to touch most and learned a lot of interesting facts. The program was well worth it.
I will try to give you a quick summary of what is happening this week and next, so you can be planning ahead. There are still 3 more weeks of school and learning ( I always tell the children I am not a babysitter!) so we will be busy. The structure of our days may vary due to all the activities planned, but we will still be doing our math, reading, spelling, phonics and science or social studies.
This is what we have planned this week:
Monday, May 5th Cinquo de Mayo. We will start a unit on the study of Mexico. This is one of the first grade social studies units. This is a good time of year to study Mexico because it is interesting to the children and there are some fun activities to do.
Science We are studying about how eggs hatch, what other animals hatch from eggs, what baby and parent animals are named. If all goes well, we will have some baby chicks this week! (this is always an experiment and sometimes it doesn't work. If it doesn't, we will try again!) The children are excited and looking forward to the day.
Author's Tea.......Monday, May 12th 8:05--8:45
Writing We are finishing up some writing pieces to put in our writing books for the Author's Tea. Your invitation should go home Monday. It is totally understandable that some parents cannot take off work to attend and that is no problem. If you are unable to come, Monday, May 12th at 8:05, just fill out the form and let me know. We are inviting a "buddy" for each child who needs someone. The children will read some of their writing to you and we will have light refreshments. They are very proud of their work.
Author Study We are reading and learning about the author, Tomie de Paola, who wrote quite a variety of books. As I mentioned before, our writing standard for this nine weeks is response to literature. As we read Tomie's books, we do writing activities connected with his work. We will also be doing some "art" activities also. We will be popping popcorn and after some "good" writing, we will be making popcorn pictures. We will also do "noodle art". The children really enjoy his books!
Spelling I gave the Wall of Words test in a "list" last week. Most children missed one or two. If your child missed more, please keep that list and spend some time reviewing this week. Our next spelling test will be using some, not all, of those same words in a sentence format. I have a list of words each child missed and will retest them on Friday.
Thursday, May 8th.....Mrs. Wilson's Retirement Party.....5--6 p.m.
Friday, May 9th..........Volunteer Brunch........8:30-11:00
Career Day
all books due to the Media Center
Monday, May 12........Author's Tea, 8:05-8:45
Wednesday, May 14 Field Day
Friday May 16 Mexican snack
Thanks again to all the parents who help and organize our activities. You are the best! Have a great week. D. Dion
WOW! CRCT testing is over!!!
Thank you for getting all the children to school on time, well rested and with a good breakfast. I'm sure they told you how loooong the test was! They did a wonderful job focusing and trying to stay on task. Each section of the test was 60 minutes. We did two sections of Reading on Wednesday, Language Arts on Thursday and Math on Friday. They were truly worn out when we finished the testing. They enjoyed the afternoon activities. They built recycled projects on Wednesday. We had wonderful baseball centers provided by the moms on Thursday. They even went outside and hit a ball with a plastic bat and answereed trivia questions. The snacks were baseball cupcakes, popcorn (of course) and healthy water! I loved it! On Friday afternoon they played board games with their fourth grade buddies. They did have fun and needed to relax.
Weekly News
Monday and Tuesday we will be practicing for our music program. If your child has a stuffed animal puppy and has not yet brought one in, please send it in. They will be holding them to sing one of their songs. I do have extras.
Wednesday we will have 2 music performances for the school 8:30 and 9:30.
On Thursday we will have an in school field trip called "A Zoo to You". The children will get to see and touch live animals.
Thursday night will be our night time music performance. Children are asked to be in the classrooms at 6:15. They will perform after the PTA meeting which starts at 6:30. You've received a letter from Ms. Zairn about what to wear, etc.
CURRICULUM NEWS
Math...We will work on problem solving, finish our unit on measuirng (capacity) and more practice mastering the facts.
Phonics...More review of double vowel sounds and their spellings...au, aw, ew, oi
Author Study....Our focus will be Tomie de Paola who has written some great children's books. Our writng will be in response to his books. Our Georgia writing standard for these last few weeks is a response to literature, so we will focus on these books for reading and writing.
Spelling....We will have a test on the Wall of Words on Friday. We have emphasized these all year in our writing, so I am not expecting any difficulty. The test is not for a grade. It's just to eveluate which words are still giving the children trouble and we will concentrate on mastering these in the last few weeks.
Computer...We missed computer class last week due to testing. We will be doing a project this week and will have computer two days...Monday and Friday. The children will be writing a story to go along with a picture of their choice. Then they will read it in a microphone and can play it back and listen to it. Ever since Mrs. Schulman introduced them to the microphone, they have been dying to use it!!!
MARK YOUR CALENDARS!
Monday, May 12th is our Author's Tea from 8:05 to 8:45. We hope each child will have a parent or someone to attend. Children will share the writing they have done all year. If you cannot attend, due to work schedules or other circumstances, if you write me a note, we will have someone share the time with your child. We have someone who can come and be a "stand in" for the Tea.
Wednesday, May 14th is Field Day.
I can't believe we are getting to the end of the year already! Only a few more weeks left. We have a lot to do in a short time. I hope you have a great week. D.Dion
If you need to schedule a large item pick-up to be donated to the Foundation Garage Sale,
Please call Patti Lavender: 770-552-1162
We are planning to schedule pick-ups for Sunday afternoon, April 27th, but we may be able to make other arrangements.
Hi, Hope everybody had a nice spring break. Listening to the children's stories, it sounds like everyone had a good time, if they went away or stayed in town. Lots of fun activities.
It's CRCT TIME!!!
As you know, all grades are tested on the skills they have been learning all year. I am very confident that we have covered the material they will be tested upon. One of the problems with testing 6-7 year olds is they get very TIRED during this testing . We have 2 one hour sessions each day....starting Wednesday. We will start about 8:05 and with a snack and break in between, will finish about 10:25. That includes testing time, directions, etc. It's really important for the children to get a good night's rest and have a healthy breakfast especially this week. That way we can feel we have done the best we can to prepare them for this testing week.
After the CRCT
As a reward for all that "concentration" and hard work in the morning, we have some fun, relaxing activities planned for 1_2 in the afternoon. On Wednesday, the children have storytime in the Media Center first, and then they will make their "project" from leftover materials. In celebration of Earth week, we are discussing reusing and recycling materials. They will work in groups of 4 to make their projects. The had lots of ideas last week! On Thursday we will have baseball centers with moms coming in to help. Friday afternoon is Board Game Day with our fourth grade buddies. Children can bring in any board game and they can play with their buddies.
Music Program.....Thursday, May 1 6:30
First grade will perform in a Music Program next Thursday. We will be practicing this week on Monday and Tuesday. TARGET children will go to class after Specials, 11:10. If you haven't sent in the permission slip for the night performance and your child is coming, please send it in. Thanks!
REGISTRATION FORMS
If you haven't turned in your registration form for next year, please send in as soon as possible! We want to know if you are coming back!!!!
Congratulations to Molly! We already announced that Molly won the Writing Fair for First Grade at Garrison Mill. But she also received Honorable Mention at the County Level. She will be honored at a Reception in May.
Most of our work on Monday and Tuesday will be reviewing for the CRCT. There will be limited homework this week. Hope you all have a great week and enjoy this beautiful weather we are having. D. Dion
Garrison Mill has recently established a Foundation whose purpose is to provide resources above and beyond what the County and the Garrison Mill PTA is able to provide. Please visit their web page to find out more about who they are, what they do, and help support their first fundraising event. You can visit them at: GME Foundation.
Spring Break is almost here!!! Well, the children are anxious, looking forward to spring break. Baseball has started, spring sports, and lot of outdoor activities are underway. Keeping their interest at this time of year becomes quite a challenge! But we have been busy!! We are continuing to work on our first grade standards, preparing for our CRCT testing at the end of April. I feel the children have progressed so much! There are still several new concepts to learn before the CRCT testing so we are concentrating hard on these areas. Along with that, we are reviewing and learning test taking tips.
CURRICULUM NEWS FOR THIS WEEK....
Math...We are working on measurement. We will investigate length, weight and capacity. At this time we are concentrating on measuring with non-standard units. First, children will learn the concepts and vocabulary associated with each of these areas. Later on we will use rulers, learn inches and centimeters, ounces and pounds, cups, pints and quarts, etc. Along with this, we are reviewing and working on 2 digit addition and subtraction.
CONGRATULATIONS! All the children passed the addition math facts 5 minutes test required in first grade! I am very pleased with their progress in learning the facts. We still have "finger counting", but we will continue with our "time tests" in subtraction and our games and activities to insure their memorizing the facts. We played a new "fact game" last week called "Beat the Champion!" They were very enthused, very competitive and everyone wanted to try it!
Phonics..We are working hard on mastering the double vowel sounds.. these are hard because there are so many different sounds. We have learned au, aw, ou, ow, ew, oo, and now oi and oy. We keep reviewing these words and practice sounding out and spelling words with these sounds daily in our phonics/spelling review.
Language..Our big review this week is contractions, compound words and homophones. We are concentrating on when to use which homophone. Two of our spelling words, there and their are two of the most misused words. We will work hard on those this week.
Reading....The children are becoming very independent readers. I am really pleased with their levels. In our guided reading groups this week, we will work on paragraph reading and comprehension similar to what they will see on the CRCT. Most children are taking AR tests independently and regularly. The book reports were excellent. The children did a great job sharing their vocabulary words.
Dental Health Play...Thursday, April 2...in the classroom
We have been learning about taking care of our teeth for the past week. On Thursday we will have a short play as a culminating activity. The children love to "act" and "dress up" so they are having fun preparing for this play. Parents are invited. It will be at 9:00 in the classroom. We will have a "healthy snack" afterward.
To the parents who watched the class while I had my "long" lunch for Teacher Appreciation Day. I enjoyed it tremendously. The PTA did an awesome job. We really felt Special! What a treat! Thanks also to the parents who come for computer and story time. You are such a big help!
Dates to Remember
April 2...Kindergarten registration
April 3...PTA Art Show 6:30-7:30
April 7-11 Spring Break No School
Have a great week! D.Dion
Hi, Hope you had a wonderful Easter week-end. We had a busy week at school last week. It was nutrition week and we worked on learning about the different food groups and the importance of a healthy breakfast. Children are able to identify foods from the different groups and we ended the study on Friday with a "healthy snack" with food from all the groups. I found a great nutrition website and the children played it this week. You can find it under health on the first grade website or you can click on the link below.
Thanks to all the parents who sent in eggs for our "egg hunt." It was a fun activity to do with our fourth grade buddies on a Friday afternoon. Our fourth grade buddies hid the eggs, and the first graders hunted first. Then the fourth grade buddies found what was left. They all had a good time and enjoyed each others company.
Our next health unit will be taking care of teeth. One of our Georgia standards for first grade is learning the proper way to take care of our teeth and some dental health rules. We will work on that this week, and as a culminating activity, we will have a classroom play next week. It will be on Thursday morning. (April 3). Parents will be invited. I will let you know later this week the time if you are interested in coming.
We started a discussion of spring last week. We wrote some poetry and will continue using the spring theme in a variety of writings this week.. We are trying different kinds of poetry. In the next few weeks , we will also be reading books about spring happenings and writing responses to the literature. That is another one of our Georgia writing standards for first grade.
Other Curriculum News
Math... We learned to count different denominations of dollar bills and make fair trades. This week we will start on fractions, one half, one third and one fourth. We are working on problem solving daily. Much of the work on the CRCT in math is problem solving, so we are doing a lot of practice in that area. Of course, we work on the additon and subtraction facts also.
Phonics...Our new sound is aw and au as in saw or caught. We continue to review ew as in new, ou and ow as in now and about. Learning these sounds has really helped in spelling. We continue to spell each day in our phonics lessons.
Reading....The book reports have been excellent. The children who have given them have been very proud of their kites and have done a wonderful job sharing the information.
The "science guy" visited GM on Tuesday. He did a program called "Science for Everyone." It was one of two in-school field trips that we have in first grade. The children loved it. He was very entertaining and really taught them a lot of science concepts. I am looking forward to our next one in May. The next one is with animals.
Two more weeks til spring break. We will use these weeks to continue with our learnings, but will be taking some time to review the skills we have been learning all year. We will do some practice for the CRCT tests which are a week after we get back.
Thanks again parents and volunteers for helping out with this busy time of year. DDion
