Merry Christmas!

Who could have predicted that before the first day of winter that we would already have five snow days!!! I hope that everyone has enjoyed their snowy days off and the upcoming Christmas break! Enjoy the time spent with family and friends and stay safe.
Season's Greetings from my home to yours! See everyone in 2011!

Holiday Cafe'

Holiday Café

Date: Wednesday, December 8th

Time: 8:30–10:30 a.m.

Place: Stamping Ground Elementary Cafeteria

The fifth graders will host a restaurant-style breakfast.

During our economics unit we have learned how to make a product. We will sell our product to “earn wages” and make a profit. We will use the money we make as profit to buy new indoor recess toys. We have made adorable Moose Ornaments to sell at the Holiday Cafe for $2 each. Our students will be helping to run our small store.
We ask that you bring cash. ($1 bills would be super.)
We would love to see you there!

Quantities are limited - so don’t delay! Come join in on the fun!

If you are unable to come to the cafe', but would like to buy an ornament in advance, just let me know! :)

Interactive Websites For Kids

It has been one busy month, but I reassure you there has been a lot of learning going on!!! I apologize for not posting more frequently, however the newsletters and king and queen info. have been making it to the blog at least bi-weekly :) and you should be receiving a hard copy of the newsletter in your child's folder most weeks on Mondays!
Below is a list of websites that I have found extremely educational and age appropriate for first graders. As with anything on the Internet, please keep in mind to monitor their usage as they can occasionally drift accidentally off of the site you originally put them on and end up no telling where :) Please let me know your thoughts...if you like them, if you don't, if they are helpful, or not so much!!!

http://www.disney.com

http://www.scholastic.com

http://www.starfall.com

http://www.pbskids.org

http://www.funbrain.com

http://www.crayola.com

http://www.seussville.com

http://www.kids.discovery.com

http://www.mathgames4kids.net/

http://www.ixl.com/math/grade/first/

http://www.brainpopjr.com/games/

Reading Fluency and Comprehension

I often get the question on how parents can help their child with reading and comprehension.
Reading fluency includes the following components:

• Expression (stress, pitch, volume, clarity)
• Phrasing (pauses, word groups)
• Rate (just the right speed)
• Accuracy (correct words and punctuation)

Throughout shared reading, guided reading, and partner reading we focus on several decoding strategies. Keeping these handy on a bookmark as a visual reminder will help. Reinforcing these clues with your child when they are reading with you at home and get stuck on a word will also assist them in getting into the habit of automatically walking themselves through the steps.

1. Ask: Does the word you are trying make sense?
2. Ask: Does the word you are trying sound right?
3. Ask: Does the word you are trying look right?
4. Look at the picture clues on the page.
5. Get your mouth ready for the beginning letter sound,
6. Look for patterns (chunks).
7. Reread. Fix.
8. Skip word. Get clues. Reread.
9. Think about what word makes sense.
10. Stretch through word.
11. Try vowel both ways. (long and short)

*If you misplaced your bookmark or would like an extra, just let me know!!!

Metacognitive Awareness Comprehension means that the reader is aware of his or her thinking during the reading of various types of texts. Good readers are actively thinking while they read. They are aware when meaning has broken down, and they stop to fix the confusion. These strategies (clarifying, connecting, deciding what is important, inferring, predicting, prior knowledge, questioning, responding emotionally, retelling/summarizing, and visualizing) become the thinking tools needed for bridge building between their brains and the text.

Asking the following questions will help with each of these strategies:

1. What words or ideas don't I understand? (Clarifying)
2. What is important in the text? (Identifying Important Ideas)
3. Why do things happen? (Inferring)
4. How is it like something else? (Making Connections-text to self, text to text, text to world)
5. What might happen next? (Predicting)
6. What do I know about it? (Prior Knowledge)
7. What do I wonder about? (Questioning)
8. How does the character feel? (Responding Emotionally)
9. What was the text about? (Retelling)
10. What is the picture in my mind? (Visualizing)
11. What do I know about it? (Prior Knowledge)

KY KIDS DAY 2010

I celebrated KY Kids Day 2010 this year with 23 of Kentucky's finest and brightest kids! We had a wonderful day despite the fact that it was different than the traditional inflatables on the front lawn. To kick off the World Equestrian Games and to make it fun and educational we decided as a school wide theme to make all the activities horse related. We had a character education speaker with a horse named Lash come to visit us and discuss being a good friend. The real Gypsy horse will be at the Equestrian Games. We also had someone from the Scott County Public Library do a horse art project with us. At the end of the day the KY Derby Museum Outreach Program spent some time with our first grade classes. In between all of this we had Popsicles, managed to squeeze in lunch, recess, and work on our classroom horse for Horse Mania. Oh and don't forget treasure box at the end of the day :) All in all it was a great day!!! Thank you so much to all of the hardworking parents who volunteered their time to come and help throughout the day, especially with our classroom horse.

Happy Grandparent's Day!

I absolutely love grandparent's day, but I realize that at the same time it can be a bittersweet day for some. There are some children who are very fortunate to have a grandparent that lives nearby or a parent that can take off work and come to visit. There are some however, that cannot. I want to thank everyone who came today as a parent, grandparent, relative, or just a visitor for including my other children into your "nest" at lunch. All of my children felt included and special (which they very much are) and I thank you for that! Please remember it doesn't have to be a special occasion to come and visit. I have an open door policy so you can come any time and visit and eat lunch with the children. I also want to thank you for all of the support that you have shown towards our school. We celebrate Grandparent's Day for three days at Stamping Ground and yesterday we had 116 visitors, and today we had 168! That is amazing!!!

What children need most are the essentials that grandparents provide in abundance. They give unconditional love, kindness, patience, humor, comfort, lessons in life. And most importantly, cookies. ~Rudolph Giuliani

We Are Finally Finished Testing!

I think I can say that we are finished testing!!! We have tested basic skills, reading levels, and all the necessities for AIMSWeb for the fall. So, if you would like to meet in person I would gladly set up a time that we can get together or if you would rather me send a copy of the AIMSWeb printout, the basic skills assessment, and your child's reading level home I can do that. Then if you have any questions or concerns, we can meet. I will tell you that overall, I am very pleased with the beginning reading levels. Our goal as a first grade is to have every child reading at a level 10-12 by Christmas and at least a level 18 by the end of the year. If they come to us now reading a level 1-2 that means they can follow a pattern and are ready to begin reading. I cannot stress enough how important it is to read with your child and to continue working on those sight words. Once we begin adding 3-6 new words a week it will be essential to stay on top of it. You will be amazed at how much your child with grow as a reader throughout the year! As far as the AIMSWeb you will be able to see how they did last year at the benchmarks: fall, winter, spring, and this fall. Some areas were not tested every time. Please do not hesitate to contact me!!!

We are in Great Shape in Scott County!

I just have to share a story that I heard one morning on the radio on my way to school this week. One elementary school in Alabama due to budget cuts had added toilet paper to all of the class supply lists. The intermediate grade kids were very embarrassed to be bringing toilet paper to school in front of their peers and were begging their parents to carry it in for them. I guess things can be a lot worse off financially!!!! Next it may be light bulbs! When your kids come home and start complaining that Mrs. Napier gives soooo much reading homework you can say to them, "Well at least she doesn't make you bring toilet paper to school!" :)

Kindergarten Sight Words

This week in your child's homework you will find the list of sight words below.Your child worked on these words last year in Kindergarten. It may be helpful to make flashcards and focus on three or four at a time if there are some they are struggling with. Please remember this does not have to be like pulling teeth! You can turn this into a fun experience. You can play a matching game by making cards with the words that they don't know or go fish. You can use magnetic letters on the refrigerator to form words to work through the sounds of the letters. Don't spend too much time all at once and take frequent brain breaks. We will begin learning new words in three weeks and it is essential that they know as many of these as possible so that they are not overwhelmed by adding new words.

• a
• am
• little
• I
• the
• one
• to
• have
• is
• two
• three
• we
• my
• like
• for
• he
• four
• me
• five
• with
• she
• see
• look
• they
• you
• of
• are
• that
• do
• here
• go
• from
• yellow
• said
• what
• green
• was
• where
• blue
• come
  
  

We Survived Week One!

I have wanted to blog so badly all week, but was afraid that if I did I would jinx myself!!! This has truly been an amazing week! I have been counting my blessings everyday...all twenty-two of them!!! Does this mean that we are perfect? No, but this means that we are each unique, first graders that their teacher finds absolutely stunning with limitless potential! I have already had an overwhelming amount of parental support and that by itself makes all the difference in the world. The children have shown an interest in learning and a compassion in one another. We are off to a great start! Thank you!

Sneak Peak

Open House is almost here and I believe that I have everything close to being ready!!! I put names on everything and when I say everything I really do mean everything. I have cubbies to get ready, the door, word wall, birthday board, bucket filler board, transportation tags, lunch sticks, computer cards, take home folders, water bottles, and tables. I am sure I am forgetting something, but you get the picture. I hope I didn't misspell any names :) All in a good few days (weeks) work!

Welcome!

I can't believe that summer break is almost over and the first day of school is right around the corner! One of things on my "to do" list this summer was to work on putting together a blog. With some first graders things come naturally. Addition and subtraction comes quickly, reading skills move right along...well in the area of technology I am not one of those gifted children :) I really have to work at it. Let's just say it's been on my professional growth plan for five years! So this site is a huge accomplishment for me and a work in progress. I am sure that it is not perfect and that there will be some bumps along the way, but my goal is that it will become a useful tool for you to keep track of what is going on in the classroom and find some helpful resources throughout the year.