Mrs. Vella's 1st Grade Super Stars

Wonderful Quest Service Project

Posted on April 15, 2019 by darsie.vella

On Monday through Friday starting April 15th, Quest Academy will begin a simple week-long activity that teaches COMPASSION, COLLABORATION AND INNOVATION in a very hands-on way. This WHOlives Service Learning program also offers STEM-related principles that apply to real-life problems. You can learn more at: www.WHOlives.org/learning.

WHOlives is a nonprofit 501c-3 organization based in Utah, with a mission to bring water, health and opportunity to children in developing countries that are at great risk, due to scarce and contaminated water.

In an assembly at Quest Academy on Monday, April 15 we will discuss the world water crisis with a short 20-minute audio/visual presentation and introduce the Change for Water Challenge. The Challenge invites students to bring in coins throughout the week to help create a well in Africa.

Thank you for your support of this powerful week of service learning. Students are encouraged to do chores at home or for friends and neighbors to earn coins to bring to school each day. We also encourage students to find one sponsor to donate $5/month for 12 months, giving clean water to 12 children for life. With your help, our school will bring water, health and opportunity to thousands of children in need.

Please click on the link to see how you can help your student with an awesome service activity that we are doing at Quest!
Elementary Challenge – Note to Parents

Posted in Class News | Leave a comment

Quest Arts Festival

Posted on April 15, 2019 by darsie.vella

Arts Festival-Friday, April 26th from 5:00-8:00PM @ Quest Academy

-World’s Best Corndogs and Waffle Love food trucks

-Coloring Contest (K-5th grade) with prizes

-Chalk Art Contest with prizes

-Arts Showcase, categories are: pencil, colored pencil, paint/watercolor, photography, and other (sculpture, origami, pastels, chalk, etc.) with prizes

-Shirt Tie Dying

-Group Art Project

If you would like to submit a piece of art in the Arts Showcase, we will be collecting these soon. You may enter more than one art piece in the showcase. Also, stay posted for information on the group art project and shirt tie dying. Finally, the coloring page for the coloring contest will be distributed to teachers next week. It will be due back to your teacher no later than Wednesday, April 24th if you would like it to be judged in the contest.

http://qacblogs.org/ronda.hills/files/2019/04/Arts_Festival.png

Posted in Class News | Leave a comment

Homework for April 8th-12th

Posted on April 9, 2019 by darsie.vella

1- Math Homework: Lesson 27 Understand Putting Shapes Together
A letter titled “Dear Family” will be sent home in your child’s green take-home-folder (Monday). Please have your student review it as the students still need some extra work on it. It provides an activity to do together. Please read the letter and invite your child to share what they know about the concept by doing the activity together.

PLEASE HAVE STUDENTS SHOW THEIR WORK
- ***Parents, I need YOUR SIGNATURE on the math homework as well as your student’s, indicating you did this activity with your child**
*These are due on Friday. When students return this letter with their name and a parent signature (indicating a parent read it and did the activity with their child), the student will earn “Star Dust”
- Optional: for extra math practice, play any of these Math Fact Activities 2018
2-Fluency Passage:
YOU DO NOT NEED TO RETURN THE FLUENCY PASSAGE
1st- Using a yellow crayon or high lighter, have your student highlight each word in the passage they can read correctly without any help FLUENTLY.
2nd- Go back through the passage and have a “Good Conversation” about the words they were unsure of or didn’t know. Talk about what strategies good readers use to problem solve/figure out the word. Here are a few suggestions…CVC if there is only one vowel, it USUALLY make the short vowel sound, CVCe-is there an /e/ at the end of the word that makes the first vowel say it’s name. Is there a vowel team that follows the rule…When vowel teams go a walking, the first one USUALLY does the talking such as ee, ea, ai, oa, etc. Are there words within words like “ants” at the end of elephants…”and” in the word land…Go over the fact that they can skip the word and use the content of the sentence to help them figure out what the word is.
3rd- Lastly, Time them for ONE, one minute timing each day. Their accuracy/fluency should increase each time they read the sentences.
WE are looking for how many words they are reading correctly out of how many they read and then what they can retell.

3. Language Arts RAZ KIDS I
Below are the Login Instructions
Go to www.kidsa-z.com
Enter teachers username: Vella1
Find your student’s username on the class chart
Enter student Password: rams
This weeks PHONICS FOCUS: We will focus on words with spellings using oi and oy. Please help your student review these words and words from last week.
- Below is a bigger overview of this weeks LA focus:

Posted in Homework Posts | Leave a comment

Happy Birthday Lexi

Posted on April 3, 2019 by darsie.vella

Posted in Class News | Leave a comment

Happy Birth Nathaniel

Posted on April 2, 2019 by darsie.vella

Posted in Class News | Leave a comment

Weekly Reminders

Posted on March 28, 2019 by darsie.vella

1- FRIDAY: Early Out 1:30pm
Homework due
$1.00 Dress Down Day (Student participation is optional. Students are welcome to wear a Quest Spirit shirt with uniform pants or traditional uniforms).

2- ORDERS DUE NOW! Elementary yearbooks on sale now for only $17! Students enjoy signing yearbooks on the last day of school. Orders may be placed until March 29. Click here to pay: Yearbook Online Orders

3- POQA is offering an additional way to meet your 30 volunteer hours for the school year. You can donate $5 per volunteer hour needed. This donation will be used to install stamped cement along the front of the school where the grass struggles to grow.

4- Give a BOOK from Scholastic Books. Click here for easy online ordering, our class code is JBTR2: Scholastic Book Club

5- Spring Break- No School April 1-5th

Posted in Class News | Leave a comment

DUE FRIDAY: Homemade Instruments Project

Posted on March 26, 2019 by darsie.vella

Last week we talked about some famous inventors and will continue to talk about them this week.

This week we will also be talking about sounds we hear and how those sounds are made. I thought it would be fun to make (invent) some musical instruments in class this Friday, then attempt to “Make Beautiful Music” together

Please send in any of the following with your student on or before Friday March 29th: paper towel tubes, toilet paper tubes, clean plastic soda or water bottles, and or tissue boxes. If you have extra supplies PLEASE feel free to send them in anytime. I want to make sure we have a good variety.

I would love to have some help with this project…SO, if you have some extra time, and need make up some volunteer hours, I would love to have your help. I would like to start the project as close to 12:15 as possible then finish around 1:10ish. That should give us plenty of time to play and clean up before it’s time to go home at 1:30.

Posted in Class News | Leave a comment

Homework for March 25th-29th

Posted on March 24, 2019 by darsie.vella

1- Math Homework: Lesson 26 Understand Shapes
A letter titled “Dear Family” will be sent home in your child’s green take-home-folder (Monday). Please have your student review it as the students still need some extra work on it. It provides an activity to do together. Please read the letter and invite your child to share what they know about the concept by doing the activity together.

PLEASE HAVE STUDENTS SHOW THEIR WORK
- ***Parents, I need YOUR SIGNATURE on the math homework as well as your student’s, indicating you did this activity with your child**
*These are due on Friday. When students return this letter with their name and a parent signature (indicating a parent read it and did the activity with their child), the student will earn “Star Dust”
- Optional: for extra math practice, play any of these Math Fact Activities 2018
2-Fluency Passage:
YOU DO NOT NEED TO RETURN THE FLUENCY PASSAGE
1st- Using a yellow crayon or high lighter, have your student highlight each word in the passage they can read correctly without any help FLUENTLY.
2nd- Go back through the passage and have a “Good Conversation” about the words they were unsure of or didn’t know. Talk about what strategies good readers use to problem solve/figure out the word. Here are a few suggestions…CVC if there is only one vowel, it USUALLY make the short vowel sound, CVCe-is there an /e/ at the end of the word that makes the first vowel say it’s name. Is there a vowel team that follows the rule…When vowel teams go a walking, the first one USUALLY does the talking such as ee, ea, ai, oa, etc. Are there words within words like “ants” at the end of elephants…”and” in the word land…Go over the fact that they can skip the word and use the content of the sentence to help them figure out what the word is.
3rd- Lastly, Time them for ONE, one minute timing each day. Their accuracy/fluency should increase each time they read the sentences.
WE are looking for how many words they are reading correctly out of how many they read and then what they can retell.

3. Language Arts RAZ KIDS I
Below are the Login Instructions
Go to www.kidsa-z.com
Enter teachers username: Vella1
Find your student’s username on the class chart
Enter student Password: rams
This weeks PHONICS FOCUS: We will focus on words with spellings using ou, ow. Please help your student review these words and words from last week.
- Below is a bigger overview of this weeks LA focus:

Posted in Homework Posts | Leave a comment

Volunteer Hours Opportunity

Posted on March 22, 2019 by darsie.vella

POQA is offering an additional way to meet your 30 volunteer hours for the school year.

You can donate $5 per volunteer hour needed. This donation will be used to install stamped cement along the front of the school where the grass struggles to grow.

POQA is also looking for recommendations for a person who lays cement and a person who can move a tree. Send referral information to Kitty McKissen at poqavp@gmail.com.

If you are unsure how many hours you have, refer to an email you received the beginning of the month from Help Counter or contact Catherine Sumner at csumner@questac.org

Please take your cash or check donation to Q1 or Q2 office. If you need a receipt, let the office ladies know and POQA will gladly write one for you. Thank you for volunteering and helping make Quest the BEST!

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Weekly Reminders

Posted on March 21, 2019 by darsie.vella

1- FRIDAY: Early Out 1:30pm
Homework due
*Students are welcome to show their Quest pride by wearing their school spirit shirts (with uniform pants).

2– Looking for Easter gifts? Give a BOOK from Scholastic Books. Click here for easy online ordering, our class code is JBTR2: Scholastic Book Club

3- Elementary yearbooks on sale now for only $17! Students enjoy signing yearbooks on the last day of school. Orders may be placed until March 29. Click here to pay: Yearbook Online Orders

Upcoming: Spring Break April 1-5th

Posted in Class News | Leave a comment