One Hundred-Thirty Fifth Day

Of 24 students taking the topic 20 math test 17 scored a passing score of 15 or better. There were 3 perfect scores.

One Hundred-Thirty Fourth Day

Topic 20 math test today. No Homework.

One Hundred-Thirty Second Day

We started the day working on individual projects. We reviewed many spelling patterns. We wrote journals about our vacation week. We re-read the selection The Way of an Ant and concluded that there may be times when we will need to give up on a goal or task because of new information we receive, or it just becomes inpractical to keep pursuing it.

In order to review a bit more for our topic 20 test we will likely postpone till Wednesday. I was at a meeting on the Friday before break and tonight's homework was inadvertantly already done. I sent the family review sheet home today. No homework will be due tomorrow.

Question 2 & 3

If you have an opinion in the matter I would like to hear, especially since most of our families were represented at Back-to School night and all but one were represented at Open House.

2) In retrospect was/is the information presented at Back-to-School and on the Web site sufficient for you and your child's 1st grade experience? Is there anything you would have liked to have seen which was not included?

3) Was what you saw at Open House what you you expected to see?

One Hundred-Thirtieth Day

Today we read Itsy Bitsy Spider's story as part of our perseverance unit, then wrote her a letter. The letters will be sent off to Story Book Lane. She will more than likely read the letters and respond to our inquiries and well wishes.

We have completed all formal lessons for topic 20 in math. If you practice the skills from this topic with your child occasionally during the break, then I will review when we return before giving the test. We also discussed in class how the truly complete answers to the math homework journal questions include full explanations as to why you know what you've stated. If "Jose" is wrong, 'we know he's wrong because when counting back __ 10's the answer is __ not __.' Or we prove him wrong using inverse operations. Just such a question came up on the District Quaterly Exam and the more complete answers received a '4'. I gave a Chance ticket to those more complete answers in order to encourage more thoughtful responses. Please remember that these tests are given in all subsequent grades in school. If a homework question has 3 or 4 lines for a student to respond, it is likely that we are looking for more than a 3 or 4 word response.

One Hundred-Twenty-Ninth Day

It was great to see all the families tonight. I feel so lucky to have worked this year with such nice families. Members from 23 out of 24 families attended.

Today we examined and enjoyed a poem about perseverance.

We explored the idea of rockets and propulsion. It took us awhile, but we came to an understanding about how the balloon created exhaust to propel our rocket set-up.

We took our final District Quarterly Math Exam today as well as continued our work with subtracting two-digit numbers.

One Hundred-Twenty-Eighth Day

Attended triple GATE meeting last night (coordinator's, SAS, and parent). Nice to visit with parents from past years.

We've been completing long-term projects, reading selections and drawing conclusions about perseverance, watching plays written and produced by our class members.

In math we continue working with double digit addition and subtraction.

I may begin to taper off with blog entries as your child's first-grade year draws to its finish and only add entries as necessary. Please feel free to add questions (as comments), if any arise and I will be sure to respond.

This Week's Tests

Topic 18 math test had 20 out of 22 people passing with a score of 12 or better. There were five bonus points possible on the performance assessment. Four students achieved a perfect score. For the first full reading battery with all 24 students tested, 6 students achieved a perfect score. Eighteen students passed all sections. Six students passed our first time-limit-math-fact test. The writing test is not fully graded yet. We will take the district quarterly math assessment this coming week.

One Hundred-Twenti-Somethingth Day

Almost complete with this round of testing. Last quaterly math assessment will be next week. Statistics regarding this week's tests will be posted soon.

We have been drawing conclusions and comparing and contrasting as comprehension skills for our perseverance selections.

We have been continuing with our visual art unit. We also began examining Marilyn Burn's icons of depth and complexity.

One Hundred-Twenty-Second Day

Writing test was postponed due to poor attendance. We'll have to start tomorrow without regard to attendance. We read The Little Red Hen from our perseverance unit. We spelled words with /er/ spelled 'ure'.

We took the topic 18 math test. We began topic 20: Adding Ones and Tens.