Writing- 
This week we have been reviewing what we have learned about writing and being a writer. 
Caleb- My handwriting got better. 
Connor H- Poetry is fun to read and write. 
Gaven- I can write more in one workshop now than at the beginning of the year because I learned how to never let my pen stop. 
Mason W- You can have mentor and you can have ideas from them. 
Anslee- We learned that our writing lives for ever. 
Paxton- Poetry is fun because you can write about anything. 
Zoe- We all have mentor and some of us are mentors. 
Graham- We learned how to write opinion pieces. 
Mason V.- we can write fiction or non-fiction
Madi- craft is like when you have a beat in poetry. Craft makes all writing better. 
Graham- Slice of Life was when we blogged for 30 days! 
Taym- Poetry lunch was when we wrote poetry and shared them with people at poetry lunch. You could share them with your family, friends, or even your teacher. 
Gaven- I made myself a challenge and I wrote 30 poems from April 4- May 4! 
Matthew- I am just starting, I have 13 poems!

Read all the wy to the bottom for RSVP and important details! 

This week we tried something new! The kids are reporting to you live from our classroom sharing their perspectives on Celebrate~ this week!  Take a minute and visit here to register so you can comment! Then by clicking the + at the bottom of the Voicethread you can leave a voice comment to the kids! If you'd rather and you're feeling really sassy, sign in with your child's lunch number as the user name and then dcr123 as the password and add YOUR OWN avatar to your child's identities and then comment! You could even add your pet, grandma etc and jump in the conversation! 

Click on over to Updates for more academic information and upcoming dates. 

Dear Families, 
This year our class is using a variety of Web 2.0 tools to enhance our learning.  These Web 2.0 sites may include, but are not limited to:  Kidblog, VoiceThread, Weebly, and Padlet.  These tools are allowing students to create a message, collaborate with other learners, share their work with a larger audience, and extend their learning. These tools give students a voice in their learning,  improve engagement, motivate learners, and provide opportunity to communicate in different ways.  

Today, we learned how to login into to Kidblog! We are beginning to blog. I encourage you to log on at home with your child and explore the possibilities of KidBlog. I am moderating all post so you won't need to worry about the safety of your child on KidBlog. 

New tools have been introduced through shared experiences in the classroom.  We are moving toward independent use of these tools as students develop an understanding of the tool’s functionality and purpose.  Thinking of your message and typing on the computer can be a lot of work for young children.  This work is authentic and honors individual development of the child.  Attempted spelling is normal for these beginning stages of writing and shows the risk-taking needed to become conventional spellers.  

Students are able to share their thinking through written response, photographs, video clips, and other multimedia formats with a real audience.  For this reason, time is spent learning to be responsible digital citizens, interact safely in this environment, the difference between social and academic commenting, and leaving a responsible digital footprint.  
We’ve included the sections from the Hilliard City Schools Elementary Handbook that explain the acceptable use policy for technology in the classroom. If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact your child’s teacher.

 The First Grade Team
Please refer to your handbook for these acceptable use policies.  
Technology Use and Misuse
Technology can greatly enhance the instructional program, as well as the efficiency of the District. The Board recognizes that careful planning is essential to ensure the successful, equitable and cost-effective implementation of technology-based materials, equipment, systems and networks. Computers and use
of the District network or online services support learning and enhance instruction, as well as assist the administration. Computer networks allow people to interact with many computers; the Internet allows people to interact with hundreds of thousands of networks. All computers are to be used in a responsible, efficient, ethical and legal manner. Failure to adhere to this policy and the guidelines below will result in the revocation of the user’s access privilege. Unacceptable uses of the computer/network include but are not limited to:                     

• Violating the conditions of the Ohio Revised Code dealing with students’ and employees’ rights to privacy.
• Using profanity, obscenity or other language that may be offensive to another user.
• Reposting (forwarding) personal communication without the author’s prior consent.
• Copying commercial software in violation of copyright law.
• Using the network for financial gain, for commercial activity or for any illegal activity; and accessing and/or viewing inappropriate material.
• Using software or web sites intended to circumvent the district’s web filtering system.
• Because access to online services provides connections to other computer systems located all over the world, users (and parents of users who are under 18 years old) must understand that neither the school nor the District can control the content of the information available on these systems. Some of the information available is controversial and sometimes offensive.
• The Board does not condone the use of such materials. Employees, students and parents of students must be aware that the privileges to access online services are withdrawn from users who do not respect the rights of others or do not follow the rules and regulations established.
• Along with monitoring the online activities of minors, the District will educate minors about appropriate online behavior, including interacting with other individuals on social networking websites and in chat rooms and cyberbullying awareness and response. The Superintendent/designee will develop a program to educate students on these issues.
• Students engaging in any of the above behaviors are subject to severe penalties.

            
Using the computer correctly and responsibly is very important. I promise to follow these rules:

• I promise to use all computer equipment carefully and not damage, change or tamper with the hardware, software, settings or the network.
• I promise never to use any form of electronic communication* to harass, frighten, or bully anyone.
• I promise to use the computer and the Internet for schoolwork only.
• I promise not to share my passwords.
• I promise not to view, send or display inappropriate messages or pictures.
• I promise to tell an adult if I read or see something on the computer that is inappropriate or makes me feel uncomfortable.
• I promise to obey copyright laws.
• If I use a personal email account at school, I promise to use it only for educational purposes.
• I promise to only use my own files or my own folder on the student server and I will not purposefully attempt to destroy or modify other users’ data.
• I promise I will not download software without permission of an adult.
• I promise I will not attempt to access the district’s non-student systems, such as the Student Information System.                           

Photo Permission    
From time to time, Hilliard City School District staff take pictures or video of students in their learning environments. The photographs and videos can be used in a variety of publications to document programs. The images may appear in, but not limited to, staff newsletters, community newsletters, media releases and the District website. While we make every attempt to work with the media, they may also take incidental photos and/or videos of students in situations we cannot control.
                    
The district keeps a record of students who do not have permission to be photographed. Kindergartners and new enrollees receive the photo consent form in their registration packets. Parents/Guardians who wish to change their child’s record should contact the office of the school their child attends.


 

Guidance, Gaven reporting 
"In Mrs. Hawley's class we learned about E+R=O and you can go below the line or above the line. Mrs.Hawley thinks it should be E+Pause +Think+R=O. So you can pause and think before you go below the line. 
We are learning about E+R=O so we can be kind to others."

Writing Precise Details, Addison Reporting
"Well, there's lots to say about writing. The precise details, like I was walking down the street. Is that precise? No , but I was walking my dog when suddenly we saw kids also walking their dogs and we said hello. This is precise details" Addison 

Why are we learning about precise details?  Addison Reporting
Because we want our writing to more interesting.

"I did a lot of more writing than I did before. They are longer because I did precise details." Gavin J

KidBlog, Zack Reporting 
On Kidblog we learned how to type our own blog and what we did in our life. We write about what we know good, like our books. our math, and our reading.  

To get on Kidblog we just need to our class page, behindthescenesinfirstgrade.com and then we will take it from there!  We know how to work Kidblog by ourselves. PLEASE LET US GET ON KIDBLOG AT HOME!!!! 

Math,  Graham Reporting
We learned how to break up numbers.  You have a number and we take it apart to see what pieces there are left. We are still practicing counting by tens and ones. Using the tens and ones cubes make this easy.  

​We learned about a fact Triangle and fact families. 

​Reading
We are learning to find the precise details in our reading. This helps us remember what we read and understand our reading better. It also helps us write more interesting stories! finding and recalling precise details is very important in building comprehension. 

First, we celebrate being back to school and the new year! We also celebrate our new room arrangement! 
*Reminder- I honor student language. All post are authentic student language. Edits are only made with student suggestion and approvel. 

Reading~
​​We are reading all the top fiction picture books from the Nerdy book club. We saw the Nerdy book club on their website. The Nerdy book club is a bunch of teachers, librarians, and book lovers everywhere- we are Nerdies too! We have all the books in our room, and we have read almost all of them! 
We are learning to make our own author's notes. An author's note is when the author is born, and it tells you about the author.  Author's note are at the back of books or sometimes at the front of books. 

Writing~
Gavin said he is writing more words and pictures in his writing. 
We have learned how to read when a book was written. 
Kypton has a bunch of pictures in his writing, "It's more than I had before" Kypton

Math~
We are learning part-part- whole, equaling two numbers to make a new number. 
We are learning how to use connections to count bug numbers. "Like if you can count to 199 you can count to 299." Addison


Phots credits- Paxton and Mason 

Reading-
We are learning to grow as readers. We are building stories starting with the beginning all the way to the end to find the author's message. The author's message is what the author is trying to tell we can use this lesson in our lives too. The author's message isn't just for the book it's for  real life. 

Book Bits 
We watched Liv Bits to learn about how to talk books. 
We learned:
We start  introducing ourselves.
Then say the title and author.
Then we tell a few bits of the story. 
​Finally, we try to tell the authors message. 

 Writing
We are learning how to do dialogin our writing. Dialog is when characters are taliking in a story. Almost everyone is writing more now that we practice our Muscle Minutes Monday! You can read our MMM's tonight! We are bringing them home! 
We learned how to write personal narratives. These are stories that happened to the author. We can share our stories all over the world so people can read them at the same time. We can put our stories in Educreations, Padlet, Voicethread, or Pixie and then Mrs.Frazier can put them on Twitter for us. 

​Go to Voicethread here!  or go to the app store and grab the app for your phone or tablet to hear our learning! 

Math
We are learning all the ways you can make ten with the number 0-10!Do you know how many ways there are? In math workshop we are working to change numbers. 
We can change numbers by-
counting
adding
subtracting
counitn on
counting back
making tens and. ones

photography by Mason G​

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​We are doing personal narratives. Personal narratives are stories about us. 

​We learned from Mrs. Moore to write without stopping. Now we can do this for 11 minutes and we have noticed  as writers:

• it makes us write faster
• It makes us write more
• we can go without stoping
• we can use ending marks and quotations marks
• we can write more words
• our writiing can surprise us

We went back to our mealworms and we  noticed we had larvas and some of us even have beetles!

We got a new student and she is wonderful! Her name is Taym (Tame)  have 26 friends! 

We have reading steps from when were babies chewing on books to when we got bigger and we reread one book a millon times and then reading pictures and words and now we are reading for authors message. 

Some people are reading poetry.

We are learning authors' message. We write it on paper or make it in Educreations.  We like reading for authors message. Listen the Educreations (below). We are thinking as we read to find authors' message. 

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We have math steps. They show us what we knew when we were babies and how we are walking up and up in math.
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Photo credit- Kypton (and Alex when Kypton was absent)