First Grade News: WHAT A WAY TO START OUR MERRY MONTH OF MAY!

First of all the entire first grade team wants to thank all the first grade students and parents who helped us with St. Paul's Ship to Haiti! By now you have heard about what a HUGE success it was. It would not have been that success had we not had your help. We do not have a final count, but as of Monday morning we had $1,550 in bills (we did not count all the coins!), since Monday we have had over $250 come in. The grand total from Chaplain Nolan: $1895.86! What a lemonade and cookie stand! AMAZING! That amount of money will take care of at least 16 students at our sister school for the entire year. Please pat yourselves on the back and enjoy these pictures of the big event!

Needless to say, our week started off with a big bang after announcing the grand total in chapel on Monday. The kids were so excited and we dove right in to The Merry Month of May and poetry. Our centers have been exciting and your children are writing some excellent poems which are on display outside our door and in the classroom. Please stop by to see them.

Miss Fate has worked with the children in their Math problem solving books on different strategies to use when solving a problem. For example, making a table, guess and check, and working with the children on the concept: process of elimination. In centers, Miss Fate guided them in synonyms, antonyms, and worked on building their vocabulary. They also learned how to write their first couplet poem and a brillant color poem.

With Mrs. Waller the students wrote a letter to the Kindergarten students who will be visiting in a few weeks to find out what first grade is all about. The students also described themselves using similies during a guided lesson using the boook Quick As A Cricket by Audrey Wood. We have discussed other poetic devices such as metaphors, rhyming, alliteration and personification. They are learning a lot. Wednesday, Mrs. Waller guided the students as they wrote their very first CINQUAIN peom. The rough drafts were sent home; the final drafts are on display ouside the door. They did an amazing job with this task. We have many budding poets in this classroom.

Independently, the students have worked on their spelling words, completed a subtraction review with hundred charts, made cards for Mrs. Haskamp and Amelia Rose, worked in their number scrolls and had fun reading and rating a variety of poems at: http://www.gigglepoetry.com/ .

In Math we have been busy reviewing subtraction before the year is over. Miss

Fate divided the children into two centers. In the first one they had to roll two dice independently and subtract the two numbers. The had to remember that the larger number comes first and transfer it down on paper and solve it. The second math center was a partner tic-tac-toe place value hundreds board game. The children had to pick two cards (A-9's) (A's being 1) They each had different colored chips. For instance...Lets say they picked 5 & 3. They had to say the number could be 53 five tens and three ones or 35 three tens and five ones. Then they could place their chip on those two numbers. Their partner would go next and do the same thing. If they landed on their opponent's space they could capture them and put their chip down in place of it. They would then have earned five points. The object was to get tic-tac-toe three in a row on the hundreds board and when they did they received two points for each chip on the board. They loved this competitive yet skillful game and especially loved keeping their point score. Later in the week, Miss Fate played Subtraction War with the kids in a nice friendly little competition out in the commons. Davis made it the farthest around the world with his subtraction facts.

Mrs. Waller had the children create human equations. Two students pulled a number out of a bag, the students would move into the right order for a subtraction equation (84 would come before 51), the students would then write the equation down, and solve the equation either in their heads or using the hundred board. The students completed this equation activity in an independent center Wednesday morning. Thursday, Mrs. Waller revisited Moutain Math as a way to review a variety of skills (addition, missing addends, greater than/less than/equal to, counting coins, expanded form, place value, etc....) before the end of the year. They had fun with this review and loved grading their own papers.

In Social Studies the students have been exploring more and more about poetry.

Monday we talked about what the students knew about poetry and discussed the fact that not all poems rhyme. We discussed the numerous peotic devices and how poets use them to convey rich meaning in few words. They have written Acrostic poems and have started a poetry journal. We have also been secretly hard at work on a special projects for Mother's Day! Our lips are sealed!

In TNT on Wednesday the students got to make Gingerbread Man cookies from dough. Mrs. Goodrich provided them with all the supplies, dough and baked them. Then, the children decorated them with icing and yummy candies. We know it goes along with fairy tales but we couldn't fit it into our busy day Friday so we had to do it this week.

We went and visited Second Grade on Thursday. The second graders told us so much about what to expectnext year. The first graders asked questions and the second graders answered them. After this question/answer session, the students were paired up with a buddy who showed them around the room. WHAT FUN!

IN Hands on Science on Friday we got nice and dirty as we planted a butterfly garden. Come check it out!

A special thanks to all the parents and children for our beautiful flowers and gifts for Teacher Appreciation Week. One of the great things about being a teacher at St. Paul's is constantly knowing how much the parents and students appreciate us, as teachers. Your support proves this to us every day!......& once again to the Brisch family for bringing pizza last Friday!