Ticket Party

Can't think of a better way to end a great week than with a party!  Today we celebrated our great behavior by having a popcorn and movie party.  We watched The Littles since we have been enjoying that book. We will have parties throughout the year whenever we reach our ticket goal.  All first grade students receive tickets for great behavior choices.

Meet Our New Principal

Columbus has a new principal, Jamie Cranston!  She is extremely positive,  knowledgeable, and always keeps the kids in mind when making decisions.  We are very lucky to have her!  I asked her to write a note introducing herself...

Mrs. Jamie Cranston

Hello there! My name is Jamie Cranston and I am so excited to be the principal at Columbus school this year! I have already had so much fun meeting the great people in Chariton and working with some really great students. Mrs. Kampf has been one of the most welcoming people that I have met and she is so excited about her classroom full of 1st grade students. 

She has asked me to share a little bit about myself...

I grew up in Houston, Texas until I was 10 and then we moved to Sigourney, Iowa. I graduated high school from Sigourney and then traveled to Cedar Falls for college at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI). While I was in college at UNI I become a member of a program called Camp Adventure. This program allows college students to travel all around the world and put on day camps for children whose parents in are in the military. My first assignment was in Taegu, South Korea. This is where I found my passion and love for working with and teaching young children. When I returned back to Iowa I immediately changed my major to Elementary Education! I traveled more through college, graduated with my Bachelor's degree and then got my first job in teaching. Since then I have gone back to college and gotten a couple of different degree's(all from UNI-go Panthers!). I guess I really love to be in school! I most recently received my administrative degree from UNI in 2012.

My family and I recently moved to Chariton and we love it here. My husband's name is Jeremy and he is a funeral director in Eldon, Iowa. Our daughter's name is Ireland and she is four years old. She is going to the Chariton preschool and is having a blast there. Ireland loves to play outside and is really excited to dance this year and do tumbling.

Well, I have shared some things about me so please feel free to stop in the building and share a little bit about you! I look forward to meeting you all. I look forward to following the information on this blog. I know that Mrs. Kampf is very excited about this and has worked very hard in putting it all together.

Good luck with everything and have a great year!

-Mrs. Cranston

Building Our Reading Stamina

Has your student been talking about their reading "stamina" at home?  I hope so!  Everyday we have been working on building our silent reading stamina. Students must have multiple opportunities each day to practice reading silently.  Each day we have been improving and we are up to 8 minutes.  This is great!  By the end of the year, our goal is to get to 30 minutes.  I know we can do it.  Below are some pictures of the students working on their stamina.  Look how dedicated they are. 

Math Tools vs. Toys

Having fun with blocks

Look at that long cube train!

Cool design

Math Time Smiles

Leaning Tower of First Grade

Throughout the year I will encourage the students to use manipulatives to help them solve math story problems.  I have a wide variety of them to choose from including cubes, base-ten blocks, counters, shapes, and buttons.  The students find it very enjoyable to use these tools so we will often talk about the difference between using them as toys and tools.  In the pictures featured above, the students had some time to experiment with the manipulatives and play with them as toys....that way they'll have it out of their system when it comes time to solve challenging math problems.

Quick as a Cricket

This year our building's reading goal is to improve reading comprehension.  I am very excited about this because I truly believe that it isn't true reading unless you understand what you read.  This can be very difficult for young children to grasp.  We are starting a new comprehension curriculum this year called Making Meaning.  Each week we will read a high-quality text and work together as a group to get meaning from it.  This week our story was Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood.  I was super excited about this because Audrey Wood happens to be one of my most favorite children's book authors!  I have included a link below of the story for you to enjoy at home.

Quick as a Cricket

Math Games

Every week the students will have opportunities to build their number sense and mathematics abilities by playing math games.The advantages of using games to teach math have been summarized in an article by Davies (1995) who researched the literature available at the time.

• Meaningful situations - for the application of mathematical skills are created by games
• Motivation - children freely choose to participate and enjoy playing
• Positive attitude - Games provide opportunities for building self-concept and developing positive attitudes towards mathematics, through reducing the fear of failure and error
• Increased learning - in comparison to more formal activities, greater learning can occur through games due to the increased interaction between children, opportunities to test intuitive ideas and problem solving strategies
• Different levels - Games can allow children to operate at different levels of thinking and to learn from each other. In a group of children playing a game, one child might be encountering a concept for the first time, another may be developing his/her understanding of the concept, a third consolidating previously learned concepts
• Assessment - children's thinking often becomes apparent through the actions and decisions they make during a game, so the teacher has the opportunity to carry out diagnosis and assessment of learning in a non-threatening situation
• Home and school - Games provide 'hands-on' interactive tasks for both school and home
• Independence - Children can work independently of the teacher. The rules of the game and the children's motivation usually keep them on task.

Below are pictures of the students playing the classic game of "War."  I sent each student home this week with a package of playing so they can work on their math by challenging their family members at a fun game. 

Looks like he just won a big war!

Writing numbers to 100!

Getting comfy while learning.

They are taking their math very seriously! :)

Classroom Rules

I believe it is essential to include students in making the classroom rules.  When the rules are agreed upon by the community, they are more likely to be followed. We discussed what it means to sign a contract and that signing the classroom rules means they agree to follow them. I think they did  a nice job of coming up with rules that will help us all have a successful year.  I might have had to help with wording a little bit....the students agreed with me that we should change the important rule of "Don't eat your boogers" to "Be Clean."  :)

Building Buddies

We do free time at the end of the day while we are waiting for all the bells.  This is two teepee builders hard at work.

First Day of School

We had a great day!  I am very lucky to have such a great group of kiddos.  Everything was smooth sailing.  To ease some of our first day nerves, we read the book First Grade Jitters and drank some Jitter Juice that we made.  We also got to celebrate a special birthday boy who brought us cupcakes to enjoy. It was definitely a good way to start the year! :)

Happy First Day of School!

I love Jitter Juice!

Frosting nose!

Cheers!

Happy Birthday!

Yum! Yum!

Sight Word Ring

With sight words making up 50 to 70 percent of all text, knowing them is essential to be a fluent and skillful reader.  We will waste no time reviewing our Kindergarten Sight Words and adding to our sight word knowledge.  Each night students will be bringing home a ring of sight words in their book envelopes that will need to be practiced.  If your student is really struggling with these words, practice only 5 or 6 a night.  Until we start our weekly word lists, they will be Kindergarten words.  I will be testing students on these Kindergarten words weekly and the students will receive a small prize as soon as they know all their blue words.

Letter Sounds

Columbus will be starting lots of new curriculum this year that we are very excited about.   Our new phonics program is by Fountas and Pinnell.  We will spend a lot of time at the beginning of the year reviewing sight words and phonics sounds.  I believe it is very important to teach with the brain in mind.  One of the ways to do this is by incorporating movement into lessons.  I will be using the letter-sound movements depicted in the video above to help the kids efficiently remember their sounds.  I encourage you to have your child teach you their new "moves" at home.

Back to School Night

It was so great meeting all of you tonight!  I am thrilled to have such a great group of First Graders and such supportive families.  Hurry up, Monday! :)  Click on the video below to see your Back-to-School Night photo. 

Teachers Hard at Work

Picture of Columbus First Grade Team hard at work on our new Lucy Calkin's writing curriculum.

The Classroom is Ready

The classroom is all ready to go for Back to School Night.  I love to look around at my room, with it's clean desks, organized library, blank white boards, and shiny posters and think about the great adventure we have ahead of us.  So many discoveries and so much growth will take place in this room.  However, the most important aspect of a classroom is missing....the students!  A room is just a room without the unique individuals that make up our learning community.  I can't wait to learn who loves horses, who loves to read books about rocks, who hates a messy desk, and who loves to play basketball.  I truly believe that individual differences help each of us grow as individuals!  I am counting down the minutes until I get to meet some of my special students tonight.  

Welcome to Mrs. Kampf's First Grade Classroom Blog.  I am so excited that you have visited!  This will be a place to obtain information about the learning that takes in our classroom and see your kids engaging in learning activities. I can't wait to get to know each of my students this year and watch them grow as learners.