What have the 1M O.W.L.S Been Up To?

Happy New Year! I hope that everyone enjoyed their winter break and had fun celebrating the holidays.We had a great first day back. The children made resolutions. Stop by and take a peek at their resolutions on our bulletin board.

We have finished publishing our books. Our Publishing Party will be on Thursday, January 19th at 8:30 a.m. An invitation will be sent home this week. The children worked so hard on their books and are so excited to share them with you.

The Lower School Winter Concert was wonderful! The children did such a fabulous job! Their singing warms the heart!

                                          

        














We also had a great time at our Winter Party! Thanks so much to our fabulous class moms who made this such a special day for the children! The children entered into a winter wonderland complete with a dusting of snow! They played winter bingo, made an adorable penguin pail, watched a winter movie, ate yummy treats and had lunch. They even got to wrap each other up into snow people! They had sooooo much fun!!!!

A snowy welcome into our class party!

Bingo!

Let's make a snowgirl!

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 Look at some of our snowpeople!

We used two fun Apps this week. One was Puppet Pals. You create a story using your own voice and you choose your characters and setting. The children had fun creating and listening to their classmate's stories. We also used a REALLY fun Ap called Don't Let the Pigeon Drive this Ap. It is based on the book Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Williams. They create silly versions of this funny story by using their own voice and making choices. They had a blast!!

Shake the IPad to get the pigeon to do silly stuff!

Enjoy the rest of the winter break!







                                                   

What have the 1M O.W.L.S Been Up To?

I hope that everyone is enjoying our winter break and had fun celebrating the holidays! The Lower School Winter Concert was wonderful! The children did such a fabulous job. It warmed my heart to hear them sing!
Here are a few photos...

What Have the 1M Owls Been Up To?

Thank you so much to our fabulous class parents and parent volunteers for making the Thanksgiving Feast so special for the children. The children and I truly appreciated it. I am so thankful to be able to work with such wonderful children and their parents.

Reading

In Reading we finished up our short vowels unit. We worked on short vowel word families and we played some fun games(one example was Squish!) with nonsense words to reinforce the short vowel sounds. We also worked on l and r blends. We started the long a sound this week and learned all about Bossy E!We have been working on retelling a story using the 5 W's, asking questions, and identifying character traits. The children have been working on these skills in Literacy Centers, Independently, and in Guided Reading Groups. We have also been having a blast learning how to read with expression.We learned that good readers make their reading sound like talk. We learned to use punctuation cues, proper pacing, and quotation marks to help us read with expression. We also learned to use changes in print(bold, italics, etc.) to help us read with expression.

In Math, we have been working on fact families, adding three numbers, doubles and doubles plus one, and using function machines. We also played some fun games to reinforce these concepts.

In Science, we did a fun experiment with the wind using bubbles. We wanted to see which direction our bubbles would go if we blew bubbles in a few different places... Ask your child all about it!

In an area with three walls surrounding us...

Here we are under an awning at the LS entrance.

On an open path

In Science we have been discussing how people and animals get ready for the winter.  We focused on migration this week and learned about different animals that migrate. We read an interesting book about reindeer and wrote our own reindeer fact books. We also made reindeer glyphs. This week we will learn about animals that hibernate.

We have been learning about different holidays that are celebrated in December. This week we did a fun activity with 1J. We mixed up both classes and Mrs. Jacobson read the children a Hannukah story and taught the children to play the dreidel game and I read the story An Early American Christmas and we made wreaths. Then we flip flopped! It was fun.

Mrs. Howard and Mrs. Carberry collaborated and did a wonderful project with the first grade. They listened to the Eric Carle book The Artist who Painted a Blue Horse and then they created artwork in the style of Eric Carle and recited a line about their artwork in Spanish. Check out Mrs. Howard's and Mrs. Carberry's blogs to see more pictures and a video.

 The authors and illustrators in Class 1M have been busy publishing our first books! We will have a Publishing Party in January. Stay tuned!

Publishing

Hard at work writing

Here are a few reminders for the week...
** Our Holiday Party will be on Wednesday, 12/14 in B6 from 11 to 2. All parents are welcome to attend.
** Friday, 12/16 is the Lower School Winter Concert. Please have your child come dressed up in their Holiday attire. The concert starts at 11:00 a.m. and dismissal will be after the concert at 12:00.

What have the 1M O.W.L.S Been Up To?

Thanks to our wonderful class moms and volunteers we had a spooktacular Halloween party! The children had a blast painting pumpkins, making cute frames, playing games, eating treats, and marching in the parade. Here are a few pictures...

Reading

In Reading we are finishing up the short e sound and beginning the short u sound. The children have been blending sounds and creating words and word families too. We worked on the l blends and the ck sound. We worked on the ick, ack, eck, and ock word families as well as short e word families.We also continued to work on chunking up the words and stretching out the words to help us read. We learned that good readers ask questions and make predictions while they are reading. We used Post Its and recorded questions that popped in our heads as we read our Independent Reading books. We also worked on identifying character traits. We read some wonderful books with some very memorable characters. Here is a list of a few of the children's favorites...
1. Koala Lou by Mem Fox
2. Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox
3. Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman
4. The Art Lesson by Tomie Depaola
5. Little Nino's Pizzeria by Karen Barbour

We have been reading many books written by Mem Fox. We created character webs for the main characters in her books. The children have also been working on these skills in their guided reading groups and literacy centers.

Authors at Work

We have started the Writing Process! We used our idea boards during the Pre-Writing Stage and we came up with our story topics. Then we learned how writers hook the readers with an interesting lead sentence. The children wrote their lead sentence and then we began our First Drafts or Sloppy Copies of our stories. The children wrote their beginning, which included a problem, and then we began to write the middles of our stories. We learned how to use Time Cue words to show that time is passing and we have started to use more adjectives to "jazz up" our pieces. We will move onto the endings next and then writing an interesting closing sentence. Here are some examples of our Lead sentences...

* In March something special happened... My brother was born!

* It was my second to last day of vacation but there was a problem... There were too many people at the gate.

* I was waiting and waiting for this day to come.

* I couldn't wait to get a cat but what kind would I pick?

* I was soooo excited to meet my baby sister but there was a problem.

* I could not wait to go to my dance recital. I was sooooo excited!

* I was getting out of bed and I felt sooo excited because today was the day of the trip.

* I really wanted a dog.

* There were two soccer teams but no game.

* One day I was playing football but something happened...

* March 8th was such an exciting day and I was so happy but Oh No!

Stay tuned for information about our Publishing Party in December...

We also worked on writing friendly letters and handwriting. We wrote thank you letters to the community workers from our trip to Warren.




Science
In Science we have been learning all about weather and the different kinds of weather. We made thermometers and learned about temperature. We did a fun experiment with thermometers. Ask your child all about it! We learned about the sun and how the sun makes day and night and the seasons. We used a flashlight and a globe to show that the earth is always spinning and how the sun makes day and night.

Math

In Math, we worked on counting up and counting back to add and subtract numbers to 18. We worked on identifying Even and Odd numbers and reviewed skip counting. We also learned how addition and subtraction are related and worked on fact families. We learned how to use key words in word problems to help us choose the correct operation to solve the problem. We played Go Fish for Sums of 10 and Even and Odd Roll. We also worked on our timed Fact Packs.

Thanksgiving Feast
Every year the First Grade has a special Thanksgiving Feast in the Oakwood Room. This year it will be on Tuesday, 11/22 from 11 to 12 in the Oakwood Room. There will be a sign-up sheet for both classes on Mrs. Jacobson's door. You can sign up for foods, refreshments,paper goods and /or volunteer to help set up, heat up, and serve the food to the children. The children enjoy having this special Thanksgiving Feast with their classmates.

What have the 1M O.W.L.S Been Up To?

We have had a very busy past few weeks in Class 1M!The children are all doing such wonderful work!

We have been learning about different types of communities and community workers. We have been reading many different books about people that work in our communities and books about places in our communities. We learned that community workers provide us with goods and services. On Thursday we went on a class trip to the Warren Township Municipal Building. We got to meet some very important community workers up close. The trip was organized by Mr. Heiss. The children were able to go to the police station and learn about what police officers do, dispatchers, and even a SWAT team member. We were fingerprinted and even went to jail!

Then we met with Firefighter Burns and we learned all about fire safety. We learned to stay low and go, go, go.

We learned to Stop, Drop, Roll, and Smoosh.

We learned a lot from the firefighters. Ask your child to tell you all about it!

We also met the judge and he talked to us about his job. Everyone got to bang the gavel and say, "Order in the court!" We had such a fantastic time. Thanks so much to Ms. Tamm and Mrs. Payami for chaperoning on our trip.

Technology
This week we used the IPads to do a fun activity in Social Studies. We were learning about different places in our communities and we decided to make a map of the Lower School. First the children came up with a list of rooms/offices that first graders use in the Lower School. Then Each child picked a different classroom/office and went to that room and sketched the main things in that room. We went back to our room and then we used the Doodlebuddy Ap and created a picture of that room for our map of the LS. After everyone was finished we used the IPads and put them together in the correct order to make an IPad map of the LS! It was so much fun!

We also used the IPads to write number stories in Math and practice our addition and subtraction facts.

Reading

We have been working on the short i and o sounds and the different word families for each sound. We have also been working on using chunks to help us decode unfamiliar words. We worked on making predictions and sequencing stories. We learned that all stories have a beginning, middle, and end. We read Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak and then together we drew/wrote what happened in the story and made a large retelling chart. Then we identified the beginning, middle, and end of the story and we saw that the middle is the longest part of the story! We worked on these skills in our reading groups and in our literacy centers. In our centers we worked on listening to a story and sequencing the events, stamp a short i and o word family, string a sight word,Roll a Word, and sequencing.

In Math, we have been working on addition and subtraction to 12. We learned the concepts of addition and subtraction. We learned how to use counters, draw pictures, and use a number line to add and subtract.We woked on horizontal and vertical addition and turn around facts. We also read and wrote our own number stories. We wrote Fall number stories and played Go Fish for sums of ten and we also played Domino Top It.

In Science we began our unit on Weather. we made a KWL chart about weather. We learned about what weather is and the different types of weather. We talked about how forcasters make predictions and we have started to graph the daily weather. This week we will learn about temperature and the sun and do some fun experiments!

Writing

We have been working on letter and number formation, using capitals and punctuation,and proper spacing.

After reading many different versions of There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly, the children wrote their own versions of the popular rhyme. First each child thought of a theme for their story. Then they made a list of six things that the old lady swallowed in size order. Then they had to think of a repeating pattern that rhymed(ex: I don't know why she swallowed a shell, Perhaps she'll tell!). Then they wrote their own version and created their very own old lady and props to retell their story. They did a spectacular job! On Friday we shared our stories and they were all wonderful! The stories and projects are hanging on the bulletin board in front of our classroom. Stop by and read the stories. They are adorable!

First Grade is Fun!

Fall is here! We have been talking about the wonderful changes that fall brings. We learned all about apples! We learned about the legend of Johnny Appleseed, the parts of an apple, how an apple tree grows, and we even had an apple taste test! We did a science experiment to see if all apples have the same amount of seeds. Ask your child for the results! Then we ended our apple unit by making homemade applesauce. It was a lot of fun! We learned some fun songs and poems about apples and we read some wonderful stories about apples.

Reading

In Reading we continued to work on the strategies that good readers use. Please see the link on the sidebar with some helpful strategies that good readers use. We worked on finding a little word in a big word to help us read and we worked on chunking out the words. We used little word wands and word windows to help us look for chunks and words in words. We also worked on making predictions. We read This is My House, Country Mouse and City Mouse, and Country Kid and City. These stories were a perfect addition since our theme in Social Studies is Communities! The children continued to work in Literacy Centers. We also worked on sight words. They are doing such a fabulous job!

Phonics/Word Work

In Phonics we are working on the short i sound. We did word sorts, created short i words with letter cards, and worked on the short i sound in various stations during Literacy Centers. We also worked on making words by actually being the letters! See below!

Math
We have been busy reading, using, and creating graphs in Class 1M! We learned about different types of graphs and why we use graphs. We learned how to make a tally chart and then use the information to create a graph. The children were paired up and given a tally chart with a survey question. They surveyed their classmates and then used the information to create a graph. We also worked on using a graph to answer questions. We used magazine photos to create our own graphs. They did an exceptional job and had a lot of fun too.

Ipad Fun!
This week we began our unit on Communities. We learned what a community is and that there are different types of communities. We used Ipads to look at different photographs of various communities and then we played a game where the children had to guess which type of community it was and then we talked about their responses. They had fun!

We also used the Ipads to practice our sight words and play some fun math games. On Friday we took pictures of ourselves making applesauce. Then the children wrote about the steps we took to make the applesauce. Each child typed a step on the Ipad. We compiled their work and created a slideshow.

I happened to take a peek in the keyboarding lab and I saw Mrs. Caldwell and our class using the keyboards and doing a wonderful job!