March 14-18

Hello Families!
What an enjoyable week we had! I just cannot get enough of your poets. They are such a talented bunch! 

We read Naomi Shihab Nye's poem How to Paint a Donkey and drew the image this poem created for us and wrote about the big feeling in the poem. 

We continued to write our own poems during Writer's Workshop this past week. Our focus was on trying out different line breaks and words to make our own music in our poems, using repeating lines or words, thinking about small moments or objects that hold a big feeling for us and writing about that big feeling, and using what we've learned in prior writing units to help us write new poems. Next week, each poet will select his/her favorite poem, and we'll spend time in the computer lab word-processing them for our classroom poetry anthology.

In Reader's Workshop we paid attention to the words poets use to share big messages and feelings, we noticed the details of poems to determine the big meaning or feeling, and we each wrote about why we loved a particular poem, commenting on all of the things we've learned about poems. We also read our latest issue of Scholastic News and got some more practice with identifying the main idea and key details of a nonfiction text. 

In Math Workshop, we continued to focus on collecting, organizing, representing and interpreting data. On Thursday we learned about comparison bars. These can be a bit tricky. Remind your child that they are similar to a math mountain - the largest number is on the top bar. We also had some fun with some St. Patrick's Day math games which helped us with fact fluency for addition and subtraction within 10 and adding 3 numbers. 

In science we explored what happens when we add baking powder to two different liquids - water and vinegar. Ask your first grader what the results were. 

Next week will be our last four days before spring break. We'll spend time in the computer lab; watch our school musical Cinderella; and explore solids, liquids and gases in a fun - and tasty - way! Until then...

Mark Your Calendars: 

***Please make note of the new event: FAMILY PICNIC on June 2nd.

March 23rd: Cinderella production will be streamed into our classroom at 2pm

March 25-April 3rd: Spring Break

 April 13: Early Release Day

April 19: Schlitz Audubon 11:45-2pm

April 22: No School for Students

April 27: Early Release Day

May 11: Early Release Day

May 25: Early Release Day

May 30: No School

***June 2: FAMILY PICNIC! 
Tentative time frame is 11:30-1pm

June 9: Last day of first grade

March 7-11

Hello Families!
We've embarked on one of my favorite units of study - poetry! I absolutely LOVE how first graders just seem to come by poetry so naturally, and what they create leaves me with chills on a daily basis! I can't wait for you to see the anthology we create with each child's selected poem in it - you'll understand my enthusiasm. What has been really powerful this go round with poetry is featuring my former students as our mentor poets! Just the other day they were introduced to second grader Jack who wrote a poem about his loose tooth. The kids were awe-struck! A couple days prior a third grader, Bryce, walked by our classroom, and when I said, "Hi, Bryce!" some of the kiddos said, wide-eyed, "Is that BRYCE?!" Yes, we have famous poets all over Stormonth! 

Some items from nature in our Poetry Museum.

Our Reader's and Writer's workshop lessons have been tying in with each other to make this unit a very powerful one. Thus far, we've focused on line breaks, amazing words, the power of patterns and finding poems hidden in everyday things. We began our unit of study with each writer receiving a small shell to write some ideas about. I then took all of those ideas and created a group poem with them. Our writers then began selecting items froim our "Poetry Museum." Ask your child what s/he has written poems about so far. Our "Piles of Poetry" bins have been making their way around to each group during Reader's Workshop, and the kiddos have been very engaged with poem after poem after poem! 

Sharing a poem with partners.

 

 

Here we are playing with line breaks. Each group decided on a different way to break up a single line of poetry about wind. 

This group tried the line breaks this way first...

then decided a slight change was needed.

This group decided word placement on the paper was important as well. Their pattern and line breaks mimicked the sound of the wind flowing between and around the trees.

In math we completed unit 5 and began our new unit which is focused on organizing, representing and interpreting data. 

Our science lesson this week focused on Separating Mixtures of Colors. At the beginning of the lesson, we talked about times when we've mixed colors and what happened. For the lesson we looked at that process, but the other way around. We took a single color and separated out the colors it was made from. Have a look!

                        

Ask your first grade scientist what colors they found in green ink.

What colors did they discover in the black ink? Which had more colors - the green ink or the black ink? Why?

The Irish Dancers from Beglan joined us on Wednesday, and our very own REX was one of the dancers! We're so proud of him! It was an amazing show!

Our resident Irish Dancer Rex telling us all about Irish Dancing!

On Friday, we attended second grade's Character Fashion Show. We're looking forward to being part of this second grade tradition next year!

Beautiful weather this past Tuesday brought us outside for a little extra recess time!

                        

 

 

I read this article over the weekend and thought you might find it worthwhile as well. It's about raising kind kids: 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2014/07/18/are-you-raising-nice-kids-a-harvard-psychologist-gives-5-ways-to-raise-them-to-be-kind/?postshare=6591457837140920&tid=ss_mail

Report cards will come home on Monday. Please remember that these report cards are standards-based. In other words, they aren't based on a point in time but rather on end-of-the-year expectations. Having a D (developing) at this point in the year is common as we have not yet taught all of the first grade curriculum. A D indicates that a child is on track to meet end-of-year expectations. As always, if there are questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Until next time...

Michelle

Mark Your Calendars: 
***Please make note of the new event: FAMILY PICNIC on June 2nd.

March 14: Report cards come home

March 23rd: Cinderella production will be streamed into our classroom at 2pm

March 25-April 3rd: Spring Break

 April 13: Early Release Day

April 19: Schlitz Audubon 11:45-2pm

April 22: No School for Students

April 27: Early Release Day

May 11: Early Release Day

May 25: Early Release Day

May 30: No School

***June 2: FAMILY PICNIC! 
Tentative time frame is 11:30-1pm

June 9: Last day of first grade

February 2-March 4

Hello Families!
What a fun week we had celebrating Dr. Seuss and "Read Across America!" We learned more about and celebrated the author Theodore Geisel, otherwise known as Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss fun permeated our week in reading, writing and science! 

During Writer's Worskshop we wrote and recorded book reviews for our favorite Dr. Seuss books. In Reader's Workshop we used all we know about reading to get the most out of our Dr. Seuss books. We focused on accuracy, fluency and comprehension. We learned more about Dr. Seuss on Brain Pop Jr. and also through our latest issue of Scholastic News. 

Stop by to see photos of us with our favorite Dr. Seuss books and to read our amazing book reviews!

Prior to recording, we practiced reading our reviews fluently with our peers.

On Tuesday, we enjoyed some Seuss-tastic Snacks! Thanks to everyone who made a donation! 

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, SNACK FISH!

Cat in the Hat strawberry, banana & marshmallow snack stacks!

Pink "Ink"!

Cat in the Hat string cheese snacks!

On Wednesday we created Cat in the Hat paintings through a directed art activity. Have a look!

First we drew them with pencil then traced them with a black crayon.

Next we painted the Cat in the Hat. 

Finally, we painted the background.

On Thursday, we listened to an animated version of Green Eggs and Ham while taking part in a fun activity! Each of us was handed a word or a picture from the book. Each time our word was said, we had to stand up then sit back down quickly. Some of us were up and down and up and down A LOT! We got quite a kick out of it! You can watch a quick video of a bit of the fun on our private youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdIgoFd1zQA

We also watched the original version of The Lorax and ate Hop-on-Pop popcorn, dressed up for Wacky Wednesday, and read Bartholomew and the Oobleck and created our own oobleck during science! 

Oobleck recipes were sent home on Friday. I hope some of you had a chance to see oobleck in action at home!

 

  

  


 

In Math Workshop we counted with groups of ten, used a vertical and horizontal number grid to help us to see tens and ones patterns and to practice adding and subtracting decade numbers to and from numbers. Here we are working together in teams to count large quantities of objects in efficient ways:

It was definitely a SEUSS-TACULAR week!

Next week we'll begin our reading and writing units in poetry. We're excited to see the Irish Dancers on Wednesday and second grade's Book Character Fashion Show on Thursday! Until then...

Michelle Mullen

Mark Your Calendars: 

March 9: Early Release Day
Irish Dancers will perform at 10:15am

March 11: We'll be going to see 2nd grade's Character Fashion Show at 9:15am!

March 14: Report cards come home

March 23rd: Cinderella production will be streamed into our classroom at 2pm

March 25-April 3rd: Spring Break

 April 13: Early Release Day

April 19: Schlitz Audubon 11:45-2pm

April 22: No School for Students

April 27: Early Release Day

May 11: Early Release Day

May 25: Early Release Day

May 30: No School

June 2: FAMILY PICNIC! 
Tentative time frame is 11:30-1pm

June 9: Last day of first grade