We are made for First Grade!!!

This is a long blog but worth the read!!!

As we near the end of the first theme:Myself, Others, & A Caring Community, we have spent the last five weeks exploring friendship, similarities, differences, and family.  We have only one week left in this theme.  Students have recognized that all of us are alike and all of us are different.  However, those differences don’t keep us from becoming friends or functioning in our families or classroom.

Since we have a two hour block for our integrated studies.  In our various centers we have covered many things.   Our integrated language time has been full of good information.  Our guided reading groups started a week ago.  As a class we have discussed what great readers do...make predictions, make connections, ask questions, visualize in their head and infer and make good guesses.  We have been reading in pairs, to ourselves and to the teacher. 


There was real enthusiasm about the stories this week.  Mrs. Waller read the big book "Fireflies, Fireflies, Light My Way" By Jonathan London.  The children loved making predictions and discussing the beginning, middle and end of the story.  These discussions are invaluable for all of us.  Mrs. Waller and Miss Fate have been observing the students reading.  They amaze us every day with their incredible reading abilities.

With Mrs. Goodrich (who was subbing for Mrs. Waller one day this week)... had the children making words by moving around certain letters.  They enjoyed having her come in and teach them again.  Mrs. Goodrich could not believe how well they have adjusted to first grade.

Miss Fate has been continuing to guide the children in their grammar books.  We are continuing to practice writing good sentences and we are moving around the words to make the word order correct.  Miss Fate introduced vowels and consonants.  The children took a story and wrote V=vowel or C=consonant above each letter and word in the text of the story.  We followed up with this the next day by playing a game of "Go Monster" aka "Go Fish" but with consonants, pictures and words on the cards.  We also played Sight Word Bingo to help us read some important high frequency words.  They had a great time and won lots of stickers.

With Miss Heifner this week the children made some beautiful Family Trees with paint, their arms, their hands and finger tips.  Ask them how much they loved getting their arm and hand painted.  Who needs brushes anyway? Come and see the finished product when you are at school they are hanging in the back of our room.  The children also followed up on rhyming by playing rhyming "Jingo" aka "Bingo" with rhyming words with Miss Heifner.  Miss Heifner guided the children in a Math Assessment reviewing counting, grouping, skip counting, numeration, tracing numbers, sequencing numerals and more. 

Science has been exciting...thanks to Chomper who is in his/her chrysalis. The butterfly should appear soon. Stay tuned. We are excited and will be sure to post pictures of this event.

Hands on Science this week: Ms. Lorfing and Mrs. Waller did an experiment with shadows and light.  The children used their bodies to trace their shadows outside to see where the sun moves.  Then they traced them again later in the day.  They discussed the earth's axis and how it spins.  Ask your child about it for more details.

learning about the earth & its axis

demonstration time

looking at our shadows

Final Results

Tracing our bodies outside

The children found out their 7th Grade buddies today and they have a list of them in their backpacks.  We will meet them next week and sit with them in chapel next Friday!

Some independent centers this week....The children built their own community or community helper out of clay.  It was so much fun!!  The children made get well cards for Mrs. Barnes and she even happened to stop by that day to observe.  Miss Fate had to tell her to leave so she wouldn't see or ruin their surprise.  Mrs. Barnes appreciated their thoughtful cards and she came back by when they were finished to thank them.  Each child gave her a big hug!  We hope her thumb heals soon and our thoughts and prayers are with her at this time.  The children enjoyed matching up the pattern blocks and math manipulatives on the pattern cards.  They love anything hands on!  We reviewed color words and rhyming by playing a memory game with a partner.  They have this rhyming concept down!

 
In Social Studies, we started presenting our family collages. We have had so much fun learning all about your families. Thank you so much for all of the hard work you put into those they look fabulous.  They continue to decorate our room and we will finish presenting the rest next week.  We will need all of them by Monday.

We finished sharing our How I Got My Name reports. It was so interesting to learn about the names of their classmates. They are hanging above their cubbies ready for you to read.

Mrs. Waller kept the children have been busy creating Venn diagrams.  The children were working with their friends to find out how their families are similar and/or different from our own. This was a great lesson to get to know one another better.

Miss Heifner taught them what a KWL chart was and they brainstormed all about firefighters.  They then continued with a hero activity see below....in the pics.

Math--Patterns, Shapes, Skip Counting, Evens & Odds…Oh My!

The last two weeks have been great for our math-minded students. We spent time deepening our knowledge about patterns, shapes, pattern blocks, addition, pairs and even & odd numbers.

With Miss Fate this week the children skip counted by 2's, 5's and 10's to the bounce of a ball.  They also played pass the paper game where they were grouped by tables.  One person had to start the paper for example: 2, then pass the paper fast to the next person who writes 4 all the way around the table back and forth to 100.  It was cool yet cooperative game!  They also learned a song about even and odds to the tune "BINGO" we are still working on it.  It goes like this....There was a farmer who had a dog & EVEN was his namo ....0,2,4,6,8 then we do it again with ODDS.

Mrs. Waller this week did two centers and two groups with Math.  One group of 11 had to string beads on a pipe cleaner and use the beads to help them add up the tricky addition problems and then convert their answer down on paper.  The other group of 11 had to pick a domino off of a paper plate and write the equation down add it up and find the answer.  The groups worked great!  The children are doing two centers where they learn all about shapes.  They are being introduced to the basic shapes.  They did a scavenger hunt around the commons to search for certain shapes.  Then, the children cut out their own shapes and made a bug creature out of the shapes. 

Miss Heifner gave the children a special brown paper bag with a secret code on the front.  Each bag was filled with unifix cubes that matched the code colors.  The children had to shake their bags and draw 2 unifix cubes out of the bag.  They had to put them together and then add the secret code equation up.  For example if red was 5 and blue was 3 they would add 5+3=8 on their paper.  Then they would take them apart and put them back in their bag, shake it and do it again. 

TNT--(Try New Things) The Firefighters came and brought a pumper truck along with them.  They talked to the kids about how to behave when they are in a situation where they need a firefighters assistance.  Also, about the importance of calling 911.  They should stay on the phone until they tell you to hang up. You know the saying, "children say the funniest things?"  Our favorite question today was...."If you are a firefighter can you still get married and have kids?" says an anonymous child   The firemen said we had the best group of kids because they didn't tell them stories they asked them questions the entire time.

Y-O-G-A

We had a special treat this week....Mrs. Zavagnin taught our children Yoga!  It was a great experience.  The kids divided up into two groups and they each had their own mat.  The kids weren't the only ones that loved it so were the teachers!!

Mrs. Z teaching them some breathing techniques

Mrs. Z teaching them Yoga

The children are doing so well in computer lab which makes Friday mornings so exciting.
This week with Miss Fate the Internet was down so we used our backup plan Kidspiration.  We used pictures and words to tell about important people and places where we live.  Then, we put symbols into four categories: home, neighborhood, town and state or country.  They will come home today.

Check out all our fun pictures below...

Domino equations

Bead addition equations

Whisper Buddies

Go Monster!

Pattern Blocks

Stop, Drop & Roll

Touring the Truck

I give this TNT a two thumbs up!

Miss Fate said the helmet was heavy!

Cracking the cube code!

Sight Word Bingo/Rhyming Jingo

Stoplight Status: 5 great days in a row where everyone stayed on GREEN! YaY!! We earned an extra recess today!

Keeping up with our Calendar... 

September 26th- Online Scholastic Book Orders are due!!!  *Family Collages are due!!! (We will present the rest in Social Studies this week)

September 30th- Noon Dismissal & Celebration of Names Party(kids only)

Friday October 7^th – 8:30 AM Pet Blessing. The Pet Blessing will take place on the upper field and this event also serves as our all school chapel on this day. All students participate in this event. Toddler, Preschool and Prekindergarten students are allowed to bring a favorite stuffed animal. Kindergarten – second grade students are allowed to bring an actual pet, with their parents assistance of course. Everyone is welcome to bring a photo of their pets. All pets will be blessed by Chaplain Nolan on this special day!

October 11th ---1st Grade Field Trip @9:15am to Carolyn's Country Cousin's Pumpkin Patch returning around 12:45ish.

Extra thought---If you are looking for a movie to rent this weekend we recommend.... Waiting For Superman --A film documentary about the educational failures, success, and hopes of schools, families, & communities all across our country.

Thank you to all of our parent volunteers that have helped us out in the classroom. We really appreciate your hard work and help!!!

Thanks for all your positive feedback! Your children bring a smile to our face each and every day!!!

~Miss Fate, Mrs. Waller & Miss Heifner~