College Week

Chesterfield County Public Schools celebrated College Week last week!  The teachers at Hopkins wore college attire all week.  Students at Hopkins gathered for a school-wide morning meeting on Friday.  All students were presented with a "diploma" to the college or trade school that they are currently interested in attending.  It helps to set goals early in life!

 Teachers decorated their doors to let people know what college they attended!

 I went to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro!

Mr. Hendricks went to Virginia Tech!  We cheer for both schools!

Here's a little bit about UNC-G and why I chose to attend!

What college or trade school did you attend?  Comment to let us know!

Contest

Thank you so much to everyone who voted!  Unfortunately we lost by 3 votes!  Can you believe it?!  It was still exciting to be in the top 2 classrooms in the USA!

Fun Halloween Websites

For those of you who celebrate Halloween, here are some fun Halloween websites to visit while you're at home today!

Carve a jack-o-lantern online!

http://www.ncs-tech.org/pub/carve_pumpkin.swf

and

http://www.primarygames.com/holidays/halloween/games/jackolantern_creator/

Dress up a pumpkin!

http://www.thekidzpage.com/freeonlinetoys/jackolantern-dressup/dressup.swf

Dress up!

http://www.thekidzpage.com/freeonlinetoys/jackolantern-dressup/kidshalloweendressupgame.swf

Read a fun pumpkin story!

http://www.starfall.com/n/holiday/halloween/play.htm?f

Arthur's Halloween Fun

http://pbskids.org/arthur/halloween/index.html

PBS Halloween Activities

http://pbskids.org/halloween/

Have fun!

Writing and Our New Rocking Chair!

 Meet our new first-grader-size-rocking-chair! Mrs. Hendricks painted it and added the dots for us!

 We LOVE to sit in the new rocking chair and share our writing!

 Katelyn

 Dennis

 Jaelin

Kamran

 We took our first quarter Writing Prompt (test)!

 We had to write about a time when we had fun with our family.

Jamia

Facebook!

Please "like" our new Facebook page to get updates! 

https://www.facebook.com/MrsHendricksHappeningsAtHopkins

Word Attack Strategies

At the beginning of the year we learned that good readers make connections to help them understand what they read.  We spent the last two weeks learning that good readers use word attack/reading strategies to help them figure out unknown words.  

We met these four word attack friends first!  Lips the Fish says, "Get your lips/mouth ready to say the first sound!"  Eagle Eye says, "Look at the pictures for clues!"  Stretchy Snake says, "S-t-r-e-t-c-h   i-t   o-u-t (slowly say the sounds in the word), stretch it out (quickly say the word)!"  Chunky Monkey says, "Chunk the word (look for word chunks that you know)!"  Our friends help us figure out words on our own so that we don't have to ask for help!

 Nevaeh, Maria, and Destiny are working together to figure out words using Chunky Monkey!

 We love to figure out words on our own!

When your child is reading at home, please make sure they are using their word attack strategies!

Stay tuned to meet our next four friends!

Christopher Columbus

You may notice that the blog received a bit of a makeover this weekend!  

I hope you enjoy the new look!  :)

 We learned all about Christopher Columbus!

 We learned that he was an explorer who discovered the New World in 1492.  He sailed on the Santa Maria.  The Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria sailed together.

We made Christopher Columbus holding a telescope!

Daily 5: Listen to Reading

We learned about the last part of Daily 5: Listen to Reading!  Now we are able to go to all of the Daily 5 during the week!

 We can go to the computers and listen to stories on Raz Kids or Tumblebooks!  Your child can access both of these great sites from home or the library!  Raz Kids: http://www.raz-kids.com/main/Login .  Type in srhendricks78 .  Your child will click on his/her name and special log in button.  Tumblebooks: http://www.tumblebooks.com/library/asp/book_details.asp?Category=PictureBooks&isflash=1 .  Thank you so much to my mom, Gayle Hefty, for providing the Raz Kids subscription for us this year!!!  Tumblebooks is courtesy of Chesterfield County Public Library!

I sent home your child's username and password for logging in to the school computers.  Please help your child practice both at home on a keyboard.  They will also practice typing them in Computer class.

 We can also listen to books on CD!  We have lots to choose from!

We can choose to go to the iPad too!  We love to go to Raz Kids, Storia (Scholastic ebooks), and iBooks!  If you have an iPad, these are apps that you can download too!  We treat Mrs. Hendricks' iPad like gold!  :)

Daily 5: Word Work

Word Work is lots of fun!

 We love to learn sight words by Pokey Pinning!

 We practice our word study words and word wall words by painting them or making them with play-doh!

 Practicing our words on magnadoodles is fun!

 Stamping our words in play-doh is lots of fun too!

 Dennis likes to practice reading his words when he plays Sight Word Jenga!

 Vilica and Hannah love to practice reading their words while building a word tower!

 Hayden enjoys building word puzzles!

Did you VOTE for our CLASSROOM?

Did you vote for our classroom?  Did your husband or wife vote?  Did each of your children vote?  Did your extended family vote?  Did your friends vote?  Did your cat and dog vote?  What about your fish?

We are in 2nd place at the moment!  Please help us win!!!

1.  Click on this link:  http://www.schoolgirlstyle.com/2012/10/schoolgirl-style-challenge-finalist-4/

2.  Go to the very bottom and leave a COMMENT!  This counts as your vote!

Thank you!  :)

VOTING ENDS TOMORROW AT MIDNIGHT!!!!!

Math Tubs

We've added "Line Up" and "Grab Bag" to our Comparing Numbers to 30 (More/Less/Same) math tub games!

Line Up

 Grab Bag

Take Your Parents to Lunch Week

The Bobcat Cafe (cafeteria) celebrated Take Your Parents to Lunch Week last week!  Tuesday was the day when First Grade parents joined their children for lunch.  Mrs. Parham, our wonderful cafeteria manager, and her dedicated staff decorated with balloons and put tables on the stage for the parents and children to dine!  She encouraged parents to purchase a school lunch so that they could see the new portion sizes and new menu items.  It was truly a wonderful experience!  We hope you'll join us again soon!

 Devin and his dad

 Katelyn with her mom and family

 Daron with his mom and dad

 Dennis with his mom and dad

 Shayla with her dad and twin brother, Isaiah, in Ms. Lankey's class

 Hayden and her mom

 Josiah L. with his mom and dad

Caden with his mom and dad