First grade has math homework for the first time tonight.

Spelling City -
Today I introduced Spelling City to the first graders.  (The second graders already know how to do this.)  Spelling City can be used as an app or a website.  (www.spellingcity.com)  All of our spelling lists are on Spelling City.  This is just another way for them to practice their spelling words.

On the website -
  1.  Type in www.spellingcity.com.
  2.  Go to the search tab.
  3.  Type in Jodi Sullivan.
  4.  Find Jodi Sullivan from Resurrection Catholic School and click on it.
  5.  This will bring you to our page.  Now you need to find your child's list.
       (This week it's either short a words, words 21-30, second grade short e words, or second grade
         211-220).
  6.  Click on play a game.
  7.  The students can do any of the free activities.

On the app -
  1.  Click on the app.
  2.  Click on more lists.
  3.  Search by teacher name.  Type Jodi Sullivan.
  4.  Find Jodi Sullivan from Resurrection Catholic School and click on it.
  5.  This will bring you to our page.  Now you need to find your child's list.
       (This week it's either short a words, words 21-30, second grade short e words, or second grade
         211-220).
  6.  The students can now select an activity.

Spelling -

Today we had our first spelling pre-test.  Here's how spelling works.  On Mondays the kids get a pre-test.  The pre-test is always a phonetic list.  It's 10 words.  If they get 9/10 or higher on the pre-test, I move them to a high-frequency list.  This high-frequency words (also called sight words or trick words) come from the Rebecca Sitton spelling program.  It's a list of 500 of the most frequently used words.  The first graders will start at the beginning of the Rebecca Sitton list.  (Actually it's the third list - the first two are pretty easy.)  The second graders will start where they left off at the end of first grade.  Throughout the week at home the students are to practice the words that they come home with on Monday.  The students may practice their words during Daily 5 too, but not everyone will make that choice every day.  On Fridays the students will be tested on the words they studied all week.

This week's spelling words are...

First Grade Phonetic List - short a words
an
can
man
ran
had
dad
ant
lap
tag
pants

First Grade High-Frequency List - Words 21-30
be
this
from
I
have
or
by
one
had
not

Second Grade Phonetic List - short e words
send
bell
well
help
fell
went
spell
next
best
sketch

Second Grade High-Frequency List - Words 211-220
four
head
above
kind
began
almost
live
page
got
earth

Reminder - Tomorrow is picture day.  It is a dress up day.😊

Tomorrow is a Packer Dress Down Day!!!  

First Grade Math - The first unit is a review of things learned in kindergarten.  We have been working on partners and switch partners up to 10.  Today we took our first unit test.  Tomorrow we will start unit 2.

First Grade Phonics - This week we continued working on tapping our c-v-c words.  We are starting to get trick words and words of the day.  As we get these words, we write them out on the dry erase board and write them in our student notebooks.  (The trick words are sight words - words you can not tap out.  Word of the day cards are words that follow whatever our unit is about.  So far our trick words are a, the, and, is, his, and of.  Our word of the day cards are fix and quit.)  This week we also wrote our sentences on letter tiles, found our trick words, and reviewed scooping sentences.  (Scooping sentences deals with fluency - how words flow in a sentence.)  We are also working on dictation.  Dictation is me saying a sound, a letter, a word, etc. and the students writing down what they think it is.

Writing - We are continuing to write in our journals.

Science - This week in science we learned about being a meteorologist.  I also contacted Steve Beylon, a meteorologist from channel 2.  We are working on a date for him to come on into our class for a weather talk.  :)  We talked about how to remember what the weather was like and recording weather.  Then I showed the students a calendar I made on the SMART Board.  Each day we are recording three things - cloud cover, precipitation, and wind.  The last lesson we had this week was about wind.  We learned that the instrument a meteorologist uses to measure wind speed is called an anemometer.  We also learned about the Beaufort Scale - a scale for 0 to 12 that describes wind speed.

Reading - We are continuing to dive into the Daily 5.  Remember, this takes time...a lot of time. :)  This week we worked on listening, work on writing, and tomorrow - word work.  We have practiced each component separately.  Next week we will have rounds of Daily 5 where they will rotate between all of the Daily 5.  We will practice and practice!  Reading groups can't begin until we get this perfect!  We are building our stamina!

Handwriting - We are continuing to work on letters.  Our goal - form letters correctly, write them in the correct spaces, and write letters neatly.

Religion - We are still working on our Creation books!  They are absolutely beautiful!  We have also been reading out of our Children's Bibles.  The students are learning how to look up verses in the Bibles.

Read - Aloud - We are reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  Just yesterday, Charlie found a golden ticket!  It was fun to listen to the squeals of excitement when that happened.  :)

Reminder - The Spirituality of Change Workshop is on Sunday, September 27th.

A note to the second graders from Mrs. Van Zeeland -

We are off to a great start in second grade math and phonics.  In math, we have practiced counting money and writing it with dollar signs instead of cent signs.  We are telling time to the minute and learning different ways to say the time, such as 10 minutes after 6 instead of6:10. 

 One thing we are starting early this year is learning math facts.  Every child in second grade has math facts to practice during the week. Thursday is our testing day.  I time them for 3 minutes and their goal is to get an 80% or better before moving to the next sheet.  Everyone works at their own pace.  Right now all are in "green" facts.  After the first timed test, some will move up and some will stay in green. At this time, we are all in addition and subtraction.  The last 6 levels are multiplication.  Please ask your child to show you their practice sheets.  They are covered in plastic and can be written on with a dry-erase marker.  Thanks for your help with this.  We will start timed tests next week.  

In phonics, we are reviewing our sounds from last year.  I am impressed by how much they remembered from last year.  Today is our first unit test.  Corrected tests should be coming home on Friday!

A few FYIs...

MAP Testing - 1st grade takes 2 tests - math and reading.  2nd grade takes 3 tests - math, reading, and language.  The math test is tomorrow, the reading test is next Tuesday, and the language test is on Thursday.

Sprituality of Change Workshop

Sunday, September 27^th the Res and St. Matt’s communities will be hosting a workshop called The Spirituality of Change.  Judy Turba, Mary-Beth Friday, and teachers from Res/St. Matt’s will be presenting.  The workshop will be at St. Norbert Abbey from 1:00-4:00.  All family members are encouraged to attend.  The workshop will begin with everyone gathered together.  We will then break out into small groups – adults, K-2, 3-5, and middle school.  The workshop will conclude with all attendees back together for a Mass beginning at 3:00.  Please join us!

The first week of school has been wonderful!  Here are a few updates...

First Grade Math - The students are reviewing the concepts they learned in kindergarten...and expanding a little bit - math mountains, tiny tumblers, partners, switch partners, and break aparts.

First Grade Phonics - We reviewed all of the letters, keywords, and their sounds.  We took a test on all of the letter sounds.  We reviewed tapping out c-v-c words.

(First grade stays in our room for math and phonics.  Second grade goes to Mrs. Van Zeeland.  When Mrs. Van Zeeland gives me updates for second grade I will post those on the blog as well.)

Writing - We have started writing in our journals.  It is so cool to watch the second graders become the olders!  They have been such a great help to the first graders with spelling words in their journals!

Reading - We are starting the Daily 5 process.  Daily 5 consists of read to self, read to someone, listening, work on writing, word work, and meet with teacher.  To make Daily 5 successful, you need to do A LOT of practicing...A LOT!  :)  Each day we pick one of the concepts and work just on that concept.  So far we have gone in depth with read to self and read to someone.  We made charts of each of them, learned about each bullet point, and practiced, practiced, practiced!  By practicing, we are building our stamina.

Science - We are working on the weather Einstein kit.  So far we have only gone through the first two lessons - sharing what we know about weather and observing the weather.

Handwriting - We have been practicing our letters.  The goal of our handwriting is to form the letters correctly, write the letters in the correct spaces, and to write neatly.  The first graders work on one letter each time.  The second graders work on two letters at a time.  After the second graders have reviewed each of the letters, they will start learning how to write in cursive.

Religion - This year we are in the A year of multiage.  That means we are working out of the first grade Religion series.  (Last year we did the second grade series.)  We read through the first chapter in our book.  The first chapter talks about the story of Creation.  After we read the chapter, we found the book of Genesis in the Bible and we found the Creation story.  Then we read the story out of the Children's Bible.  We are now creating our own Story of Creation books.

The rules - We have spent a lot of time going over classroom rules, expectations, whole body listening, etc.  We review this information every day!  This year we will also use PBIS faith shields again, as well as class dojo.  For the new families, class dojo is an app.  It keeps track of student behaviors - positive and negative.  I can go in and see how they're doing by the day or by the week.  Each Friday we do a check in.  If the student has at least 60% positive for the week, they'll earn Friday Fun Time.  (The percentage will get harder as the year goes on.)  Friday Fun Time is simply free time - the last 20 minutes of the day.  They can use ipads, play games, color, etc.  The kids love it!  If a student is below 60%, they do not earn Friday Fun Time that week.  Instead, they talk with me.  We figure out what went wrong, how to change it into a positive for next week, and they write out their plan.

Read-Aloud - We are reading the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.

Book Orders - I will do my best to get our first book order out some time next week.


Each of the students traced their hands and decorated their hand prints.  We then put all of the hand prints together to create this beautiful piece of artwork!

Every time I post on the blog it should go right to your e-mail.  If you ever want to check out the full website, it is www.ressullivan.blogspot.com.  You'll be able to see all of the previous posts, pictures, etc.  When you get the e-mail it's just black and white.  When you go to the website, it's all pretty.  :) 

Check it out sometime.

Have a great weekend!

Hello!  I'm doing a test run tonight.  I'm hoping that I have last year's families deleted and all of this year's families added.

If I entered an e-mail that you don't want me to use or if you would like me to add a different e-mail please let me know.

If I don't have your student and you are still getting the blog postings please let me know as well.

My e-mail is jusllivan@gracesystem.org.

Thanks and have a great night!