Monday, May 18, 2009

May 18 - 22, 2009

WOW!! I am so blessed to have such a wonderful class and wonderful parents. This past week I was completely overwhelmed with your kindness and generosity. Each flower, note, sweet treat and gift was very much appreciated! I can't thank each of you enough for making me feel so special. I also want to thank the PTA who served the faculty lunch on Thursday and to Sarah Sheffield who came and kept the children while I went to the luncheon. You all are the BEST! Thank you so much!!

I can't believe that there are only 7 days of school left...is seems as though we just started last week. I am so very impressed and excited how far all of these students have come this year. I truly believe that all of these student will go very far in life. I have been blessed with an amazing group of students this year. I am so sad to see them go, but I am very confident that they will do well in 2nd grade.

We had Honor's Day today. Every student took home an award. If you were not able to attend, please check the B.E.E. book, where you should find your child's award.

This week will consist of some work. Although, I will not take any grades this week. We will be taking care of some make up work and trying to complete those last assessments prior to moving to 2nd grade. If you have questions or need any information, please feel free to contact me.

I spoke with Mrs. Green today, there will not be an end of the year party. We will have ice cream on the last day of school as a treat. I hope that you can make it to school that day and enjoy ice cream with us!

UPCOMING EVENTS:
May 22nd: Grades must be posted.
May 25th: Memorial Day Holiday - No School!
May 28th: Last Day for Students!
May 29th: Teacher Workday!
May 30th: 1st day of summer...for me! WOOHOO!!

Thank you for all that you have done this year!
Ms. Messick

Monday, May 4, 2009

Slideshow for this year...so far!

May 4 - 8, 2009

We had an awesome time at Spirit Day. Thank you to all the parents that helped by providing water, movies, and were present to participate with us! You made the day that much better.

This week in whole group we are focusing on the -y says /e/ as in baby. We will also discuss the soft c sound (it says /s/). We will learn the rules to the soft c and the -y as in baby sounds. There is a pattern that they typically follow and we will learn songs that help us remember when they change. Hopefully, this late in the year, the song will stick better than a poem.

We are still working hard in small group too. We still have 6 students that are trying to graduate out of Read Well 1 and into Read Well Plus. They are much closer and we applaud their progress. Keep reading at home and you will get there.

This week is DIBELS week for us. We will take our tests on Thursday morning. Please try to get plenty of rest the night before and be on time to school on Thursday morning. I feel pretty good about where we are with the possibilities of everyone benchmarking for the end of the year. Regardless of whether everyone benchmarks or not, we will celebrate any success that we accomplish.

Due to DIBELS testing, the library is closed this week. NO ONE will be allowed to check out books in the library. In light of this, we will only take one test a day (if possible). Most of the students are reading outside the level of books in my classroom library, so we are at a point that we are relying heavily on the library for books. While we are talking about the library, students will only be allowed to check out ONE book next week...library rules not mine...so we will also only take one test per day next week too. ALL LIBRARY BOOKS WILL BE DUE ON FRIDAY, MAY 15th, 2009!!!!! Please make sure to turn in all library books next Friday. We will STOP AR testing on the 15th.

This week in Math, we are trying to cover length and measurement as well as weight and capacity. I am going through these sections fairly quickly as I would like to cover 2 digit addition and subtraction before the end of school. I will not test these sections of math, since I would like to take one grade (at least) on the 2 digit addition and subtraction sections.

I am going to try and put together a May calendar of events for 1st grade to send home to you. This is a pretty crazy month, as we will be closing out another school year.

Have a great week!

Ms. Messick

May 1st, 2009 - Spirit Day

We had a great time at Spirit Day. Above you will find a video (sorry that it is such poor quality, I took it with my camera) that was taken toward the end of Spirit day. In the running photo slideshow (on the right side of the blog) you will find photos of other dancing that good times at Spirit Day! Enjoy!

Ms. Messick