Christopher Columbus & Tie Dye

THANK YOU TO MRS. CATALDO, MRS. HALLEY, MRS. LITTELL, MRS. MCDONNELL AND MRS. RIPKA for volunteering their time to help us tie dye and make our ships in bottles.  We had a wonderful day learning about Christopher Columbus.  Here are some pics from the day....

Next week in 1-3:

We WILL have spelling!  I encourage your child to visit Spelling City and review the sight words we have learned since the beginning of first grade.  We will finish our Autobiographies and begin How-To Writing.  We will also do some fun writing focusing on adjectives with Halloween themes.  In math we will begin money and time, reading charts and graphs for information and addition and subtraction.  We also will welcome Mrs. Watanuki back into our classroom to learn some lessons about the value of peer feedback.  It will be a busy week but a fun one! 

Apples, QR Codes and Dreambox

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHNNY APPLESEED!  Today we learned about the generous and caring historical man John Carpenter.  Using individual USA maps, we charted where he was born and his westward movement while planting apple trees for new settlers.  We learned what it is to "close read" for meaning and use information found in the text to answer questions.  This is a hard concept for first graders because many children want to tell what they already know or heard and are not used to having to go back and find the words in the story to support their thinking and answers.  All day was apple themed.  A highlight was reading a recipe to make applesauce.  Our room smelled wonderful all day as the apples cooked in the crockpot.  We will continue apple themed activities all week.

Rachel working on apple math activities and enjoying applesauce.

Kathryn loved the tart applesauce, but Evan wanted more sugar!

Jack savoring every drop!

QR CODES:  The kids are loving this Choice Board option.  A QR Code is a code that must be scanned using an app, like the app "Red Laser."  The code holds a lot of special information, such as a video, song, story or guided drawing.  Using a classroom iPad  the kids scan the code for the special activity.  Below is a code that will show you how to draw a scarecrow.  The kids can show you!  Each week I put up new codes relating to the topic we are studying that week.  When they finish their work, they can choose a code to enjoy and learn from.  They have a stamp card to keep track of the codes they have completed, so look for those stamp cards to come home.  This is a great way to bring in enrichment opportunities.

Scan to see step by step how to draw a scarecrow.

Here are some pics of the kids learning about living and non-living things through QR Codes:

Dreambox Math

DREAM BOX MATH:  Dreambox Math is a wonderful math learning opportunity for the children.  The kids are figuring it out quickly..... log-ins, adventure worlds, avatars, etc.  The kids each chose an Avatar and will be that character as they visit one of four adventure worlds:  Pets, Pixies, Dinosaurs or Pirates.  Each adventure world has basically the same math games that your child needs to progress through to get to the next level.  They can choose to visit the pirate land one day and the pixie land the next; the program saves where your child is mathematically, so it doesn't matter what world they go to.  It's like visiting Disney World with the different sections, but they all have fun games.  Your child brought home all the information today.  I encourage the kids to go onto Dreambox 15-20 minutes 3-4 times each week, but I do not expect this!  Regularity will help them remember concepts they are working through.  They will be going onto Dreambox 1-2 times each week at school.  CLICK ON THE LINK TO THE RIGHT FOR EASY ACCESS TO DREAMBOX!

That's all for now... Check back next week to learn about the science experiments we will do later this week!  Happy fall!

Science Begins!

Last week we began science!  We talked a lot about what a scientist is and what he/she can do or have.  We completed a brainstorm to organize our thinking and then made cute Science Guys with our writing tucked inside his/her lab coat.  Mrs. Watanuki, our Advanced Learning Facilitator came in and did an engineering project with us.  The kids were divided into teams and had to build a bridge with paper and cups, and then they had to see how many pennies could stand on their bridges.  Our high number was 53!  This week we will begin talking about Living and Non-living things.  We will observe a MYSTERY SUBSTANCE and predict if we think it is alive or not alive.  We will create an environment for it that IF it is alive, it will grow and breathe, and we will use proscopes to observe if there is movement or not.  CLUE... it looks like nutmeg but who knows!

This week we will begin our first writing unit called AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  We will learn all about Writer's Workshop, editing and publishing.  In first grade, grammar becomes a big part of our writing, so we will spend a lot of time not only learning to expand our ideas with details, but also on organizing our thoughts and writing in complete sentences.  This sounds easy to adults, but I assure you it is not to first graders!  Our completed projects, which will take a few weeks, will be displayed in the hallway.

We continue to practice routines and structure every day.  Many students are close to completing their "5 Finger Checks" without needing reminders.  This is helping us get so much accomplished everyday, so I commend their efforts!  I look forward to another great week!  Enjoy pics from last week...

Playing Top It in Math

Beginning the Engineering Project with Mrs. Watanuki

Parent Night Thanks!

Parent Night modified presentation

Thank you, all, for attending Thursday night's Parent Night.  Here is what's coming up this week...

Spelling begins!  Every Monday, after the pretest, I will post the word list on the OMS First Grade link on the right of the blog.  You can always access the spelling lists there every week.

Math homework will also begin tomorrow.  Homework will only be Monday - Thursday nights.

I will begin 1-1 testing of all the kids in reading this week to determine guided reading groups.  I will begin meeting with groups as soon as I complete all 1-1 testing.

Enjoy some photos.....

Playing Bunny Hop in Math....

Surveying....

Nathan & Ben enjoying recess!

Playing the Spinner Game in our Reading Notebooks using our self-selected books for retelling....

Our first time with iPads this year.... using Raz-Kids....

First Week Fun!

Getting ready to go find Pete the Cat!

We made it through our first week!  Our focus was learning routines and finding our way around the new building.  We enjoyed reading several Pete the Cat books and had fun looking for Pete the Cat, as he left clues for us all throughout OMS (even upstairs by the big kid 5th graders!).  Here are some of the other things we did this week:

-wrote about our night before 1st grade
-drew self-portraits of our first day of 1st grade
-took lots of pictures
-learned how to "survey"
-learned about weekly helpers and began doing our jobs
-learned our weekly schedule and made a schoolbus craft to remind us of each day
-had a special lunch orientation!
-began "Explorations" in math and learned how exploring is different than playing
-learned about building stamina during "read to self" - lots of practice yet with this!
-learned about OWL rules and made an OWL Rules booklet
-lots of Pete the Cat stuff!
-lots of Character Counts stuff! (The kids are watching a cool Character Counts movie now!)
-took two math pretests and practiced number writing
-made a cool guitar craft for Pete the Cat
-made a Name Bingo board and played Name Bingo
-had Gym, Music, Art and LMC
-learned all our safety drills
-took lots more pictures!

Next week we begin our "Schoolwide" Literacy program and our "Everyday Math" program.  I hope you will be able to join me next Thursday night, Sept. 8 from 6:30-7:00 in our classroom (parents only!) for lots of information about our year together.  Until then, enjoy some first week pictures!....

Looking for Pete the Cat:

Recess fun on the new playground: