Happy Friday!

Hello! We had quite the interesting week! We had a little unexpected lesson in how it's important to be flexible...after taking our recently planted seedlings outside for some natural sunlight, we returned later that afternoon to find them blown all over the Wet Lands :( The students handled it all very well, and we hope to try planting again sometime soon in the upcoming weeks. Our science time will now be occupied with our recently arrived "organisms," including guppies, snails, and various marsh plants. Hopefully these won't blow away!! :)


The girls and boys have been doing a GREAT job with the more challenging spelling lists! Thank you for all your help at home! Our next list, digraph "th", is now available on http://www.spellingcity.com/ if you wish to start practicing over the weekend.


The students have begun their rough drafts of their "How to" projects. I'm really excited to see the final projects - we have everything from "How To Draw a Cube" to "How to Make Oobleck" - it's going to be great! This coming week we should be able to finish the writing portion of the assignment and hopefully start learning how to use the PhotoStory Program with Mrs. Cicerone.



To coordinate with the "how to" writing assignment, I am going to be putting various "how to" craft and drawing books in the art center for the students to use. If you have any craft books that you would like to share, or any old craft supplies that you would like to donate that would be most greatly appreciated! The craft supplies could be anything like scraps of tissue paper or wrapping paper, fabric scraps, water color paints, wall paper scraps, old crayons, paint brushes, sponges, etc. Thank you!!



We are finishing up division this coming week, and will be focusing more on some problem solving strategies. Thank you for your support at home with subject - I know it can be challenging! We've done a lot with using manipulatives (cubes are what we use in class, Cheerios, Legos, paper clips, anything along these lines works just as well at home!), drawing pictures, and using fact families. The students have really embraced the challenge of this - WAY TO GO KIDDOS!!



Finally, I think we have all been going through a bit of Spring Fever lately! We are all very excited about Spring - warm weather, spring sports, school being over soon, etc. Our behavior has been a little off because of it. I've been trying to be consistent with the language of "You know the good choices you need make, you need to choose to do them." We've also been reveiwing the good choices we need to make in the cafeteria, in the hallway, in specials, at recess, etc. If you could please continue conversations like these at home, I would really appreciate it. Thank you very much!



I hope everyone has a great weekend - enjoy the WONDERFUL weather!!

Welcome Back!

Welcome back! We've had another eventful week in first grade!

We planted our seeds! Thank you very much for the generous seed donations! Each student was able to plant 11 plants - pumpkin, squash, peas, mustard, grass, blankets of snow, royal blankets, columbines, daisies, tomatoes, and carrots. We took the plants outside today to expose them to some natural sunlight and water them. We were also able to spend some time in the Great Heron Wetlands - which look FABULOUS in full bloom! Some of the students observed frogs, toads - even a snake in the water! We also saw daffodils, forsythia, and hyacinth.

Division has been great! The students have been using manipulatives to help solve problems they were given in class. We discussed about what items could be used at home, and we came up with: paper clips, Cheerios, pennies, pieces of paper (cut into small pieces), Legos, toothpicks, straws and dried pasta. Another strategy the students have used to solve division is "inverse operations" which in this case, is multiplication! The students used what they knew about fact families from addition and subtraction and applied it to fact families with multiplication and division. Great job kiddos!

This week in writing we have been practicing writing ordered steps. Students were assigned index cards with simple tasks written on them. For example, brushing your teeth, making a PBJ, braiding hair, eating a banana, and so on. The students were able to use what they knew about the writing process to create a rough draft of the steps, and then transfer their draft onto sentence strips for their final copies. They're almost finished - looking good!!!

I've been hearing great feedback from the students about Frindle! I thought it was a great book, and the plot of the story coincides VERY well with our Language Arts curriculum! I hope you have been able to enjoy the book along with your child - it's a great story!

The "ch" word list was challenging, but a lot of fun! The students did really well with the various sounds of "ch" as well as with the spelling of some pretty complicated words. We have another batch of 30 for next week as well! The "SSSSHHH!!!" list is now available on SpellingCity.com - enjoy!

I hope everyone has a great weekend! Enjoy the WONDERFUL weather!

Spring has SPRUNG!!

Well, we made it! I hope everyone has a great spring break!

When we return on Tuesday, April 14th we will be bridging from multiplication strategies to division strategies. The students have been doing a FANTASTIC job with multiplication, so I'm really excited to see what they can accomplish with division.

We are going to be starting our Organisms unit in science when we return as well! This is when those egg cartons you saved for us will come in handy! Also, if anyone has any flower/herb/vegetable seeds that they don't plan on using this year, we'd really appreciate it if you could send them in! Thank you! We will be starting with the life cycle of plants, and then moving on to the life cycle guppies!

Our next spelling pattern will be the "ch" consonant digraph. Digraphs are a combination of multiple letters that result in one sound, such as "ch" "ph" "wh" "th". The word list is available on Spelling City - there are 30 WORDS on this list. The purpose of this is to provide examples of the three primary sounds of "ch" - as we've learned - the English language is FULL of crazy exceptions!! For example, there's "ch" as in "chair," "ch" (sounding like "k") as in "chorus," and "ch" (sounding like "sh") as in "chic". We also have some more advanced words which we will be exploring more for vocabulary development purposes.

We are also going to be starting our "how to" writing. We will be taking a look at different examples of this type of writing next week, as well as taking a look at the different steps of this specific writing process. We will be beginning our individual "how to" projects the following week. I look forward to having Mrs. Cicerone (UES's technology specialist) show us how to use the PhotoStory program - it should be lots of fun!

Additionally, we will be starting to read the short novel, Frindle, by Andrew Clements. This will be an excellent story to follow along with our growing focus on vocabulary! Be on the lookout for questions in your child's Reading Response Journal.

With our constant efforts to try and keep the germs away, we have run out of cleaning wipes. I plan to go to Costco over break to pick up some to add to the supply, but if you could send a container in as well that would be most helpful!

Also, with our spring weather being so wacky, and our indoor climate being equally as wacky, please send in a light jacket, sweater, or sweatshirt for your child to keep here. Please have your child's name in the garment somewhere in case it should wander off. Thank you!

Finally, thank you all so very much for your help, support and communication! I hope you and your families have a wonderful spring break! Enjoy!

:) KP