2/21-2/25

This week we began unit 4 of Reading Street. We read Mama’s Birthday Present, about a little boy trying to plan the perfect surprise party for his Mama. The characters in the story are Hispanic, so we were able to broaden our horizons while learning about another culture. We read about buenuellos, cascarones, and piñatas. On Friday afternoon we enjoyed American buenuellos (doughnut holes) and a fruit drink. We even had two moms who hollowed out eggs for us to make cascarones, but we had such a talkative week, that I am saving the cascarones as a treat for next week (hopefully, if we’re a bit less talkative). J

In grammar we studies adjectives, words that describe nouns. To find the adjective in the sentence, I taught the class to ask ‘what kind?’ We then practiced writing adjectives. I drew a blank on my whiteboard and then a noun after it. Each student had to write an adjective on his/her board to describe my noun. I then gave each student a paper folded into thirds. In each section, the students wrote an adjective and a noun. Then they illustrated each section of the paper.

In math we learned about solid figures: cones, spheres, pyramids, cylinders, rectangular prisms, and cubes. We used pattern blocks to make neat creations! On Thursday, each student brought a mystery solid from home to share with the class. While we shared our mystery solids, we enjoyed a sphere of ice cream on top of a cone! What a yummy treat!

On Friday we enjoyed another guest reader as part of our OWLsome Readers program! A pizza dough tosser visited from Tortora’s. Each student was treated to dough to play with. After we heard a story about the world champion pizza dough tossers, some students even got to toss pizza dough in front of all of the first graders!

On Friday afternoon, we enjoyed math stations. At my table students had a t-chart with the headings time and money. I laid a clock card and a money card above each side of the t-chart. Students wrote the time and counted and wrote the amount of money on the money card. I am not sure how many students commented that it was the most fun game ever! Ha! They are easily entertained.

2/14-2/18

Our Valentine’s Day party was full of fun: crafts, BINGO, ice cream, and lots of treats from our classmates (not to mention all of the yummy treats for Mrs. Clark).

We spent the week reviewing our unit 3 Reading Street concepts and took our big unit test. Parents, you may go online to pearsonsuccess.net to view your child’s test results.

In math we began studying plane shapes. We learned about polygons, which are closed plane shapes with straight sides. We also made polygons on our geoboards. We learned about symmetry and folded paper to make a symmetrical figure. We then practiced sliding, turning, and flipping the figure.

For unit time we read books by Ezra Jack Keats and completed many follow up writings and illustrations. These will be on display at next week’s PTA Open House Meeting, but I will be keeping them for your child’s portfolio.

On Friday, we enjoyed the best guest reader ever: Mr. Curt Cleary. What made him so great you may ask???? Well, he brought a REAL LIVE OWL, named Rachel. We loved seeing Rachel’s big eyes and serious look. But, most of all, we enjoyed when Rachel tried to fly away from Mr. Cleary and to us!!!

2/7-2/11

The week was full of surprises!

On Monday, Clifford the Big Red Dog visited our classroom! We just had to hug him and have our picture made with him! What fun we had at the book fair!

Then we showcased our dance moves in the classroom.

We read Where are My Animal Friends? all week. We took turns playing the characters of the story and enjoyed listening to some of the funny voices our friends used when acting out the characters.

We worked together at centers.

Thursday brought another surprise--no school!!! This sent Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Jones into a tail spin to prepare for the next morning, but we pulled together and made things work out!

Friday morning was our biggest surprise of the week! We were treated to our first annual OWLsome Readers Kick-Off Rally and Parade! Our sweet 1st graders were dressed as darling owls as they performed "Reading is a Hoot!" Then they were surprised by some very special guests who came to GSES to cheer their reading efforts. We paraded through the school and then enjoyed a wonderful story read by our guest reader Mr. Topper Birney!

We capped off Friday afternoon by making our cute Valentine bags.

It was truly a week of wonderful surprises!

1/24-1/28

We finally had a full week of school--almost. There was the uneventful two and a half hour delay. At least we got a little extra sleep.

This week we celebrated the 100th Day of School!!! Can you believe your children have been 1st graders for 100 days? It seems as though the school year is just slipping by.

We began the 100th day with a special breakfast of 100 pieces of cereal. Then we took a class picture with our really amazing hats that had 100 items on them. We completed a graph telling what we wish we had 100 of, and we sang a song about the 100th Day of School. Later in the day we made little words from 'one hundred days.' We also counted how many times we could write our name in 100 seconds, and we exhausted ourselves by doing jumping jacks for 100 seconds!

I'm looking forward to our remaining 80 days!

1/18-1/21

After being out of school for ten unexpected days, our class returned to school VERY excited! I think we all had cabin fever by this time. I hope everyone had fun in the snow, but by day four I was definitely ready to see it melt!

Our story for the week was Jan's New Home. We made many connections to this story, as so many of us have moved to new homes ourselves. We discussed how some changes are fun and easy, while other changes are scary and sad. Then we made a graph telling what changes and what doesn't change when we move.

Student work: Ruby and Jan's house

In phonics we learned about the /or/ sound, as in corn and fork. We also learned that when a word ends in s, x, ch, or sh, we add -es to make it plural (if the base word is a noun) or present tense (if the base word is a verb). I know that sounds confusing, but the class really understood it!

Our Helper Chart

In math we counted money. We even counted quarters (but only with pennies).

We also made snowflakes to decorate our window. We made really big snowflakes so we could easily cut the lines we drew.

In science we are learning about the states of matter: solids, liquids, and gases. We played "Mystery Bags." There were five bags, each containing a different item. Students reached into each bag and guessed what was in the bag and wrote their guess on their whiteboard. A few students got all of their guesses correct. We will continue to learn about the states of matter next week.

1/10-1/14

SNOW WEEK!!!!!!!

1/4-1/7

What a joy to enter our brand new classroom! We are truly blessed to have such a nice school to call our second home!

Much of the first week at GSES was spent learning our way around the school. On the first day back we took a tour of the school, even walking upstairs. The students 'oohed' and 'ahhed' the whole time, and they have continuously told me how nice our classroom is! They are learning their way around the school now. Lunch is so much quieter, and after we clean up, two students have the privilege of cleaning our tables! There are only two classes in the gym together for PE, so the students are getting more physical activity!

After acclimating ourselves to our new surroundings, it was time to learn! We learned about verbs and chose the correct verb to fit in a sentence.

This week we read Ruby in Her Own Time, about a little duck who leanred to do things in her own time. The class talked about how we all learn to do things in our own time, and we even made a chart!

In math we practiced telling time, and the class is really getting good at it!

We learned about penguins. Ask your child what (s)he remembers. We made cute penguins that are hanging in the hallway, but I forgot to take a picture of them.

On our first day back to school, we went outside to the front of the school and made a sketch of our new school building. Then we went inside to color the pictures. I put all of the sketches in a class book hanging outside of our classroom.