Our Open House is scheduled for October 9th from 6:00-7:00pm. We are so excited to show you our classroom and our work!
Monday, September 30, 2013
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Friday, September 20, 2013
Our Walk to Thatcher Brook
We joined Mrs. Emler's second grade class for a walk over to Thatcher Brook to discover what kind of habitat surrounds a river. With clipboards in hand, we collected data based on our observations. We made many interesting discoveries and had many questions about river life.
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Exploring a Sunflower
As natural scientists, we looked very closely at a sunflower and discovered lots of interesting things- little hairs on the seeds and stem, little bugs, hundreds of seeds, and silky petals!
As artists, we painted our beautiful sunflower!
Friday, September 6, 2013
And We're off!
What a bunch of hard working first graders! We officially began our Writer's Workshop this week. This is our last activity of our day and it is a wonderful way to end our day, sharing and writing stories. We are currently working on narrative stories- writing about “small moments” that we want to share. Our focus is on telling the story in sequence with a beginning, middle and ending. We work on using transition words such as “and”, “then”, and “when”. We are learning to plan our story, tell our story, and finally write our story. We are also reading and discussing many stories written by Kevin Henkes, a new favorite author of ours!
During Math, we are focusing on Counting and Quantity. Children are focused on developing strategies for accurately counting a set of objects by ones. We are working in our Math Activity books and also exploring the characteristics of cubes, pattern blocks and geoblocks.
During our Literacy time, we are learning how to choose a “Just Right Book”. This is a book that is interesting to read and a book where we can read most of the words. For children to read independently and practice reading, they need a variety of books at their direct disposal. In our classroom, each child has their own book box, complete with three to eight Just Right Books. The most important thing to do to become a better reader is to read Just Right Books.
Our theme time sometimes consists of science, social stories or literacy projects. This week we participated in another experiment “Mixing Colors”. We focused on Inquiry- asking questions and finding answers! Our color mixing experiment was very cool as children explored the ideas of liquid, oils and colors!
The Color Mixing Experiment
Weekly News is going home for the first time. Children are writing a sentence or two about our week at school. Please read your child's news and respond with a sentence or two- you can write directly in their journals.
Writer's Workshop
During Math, we are focusing on Counting and Quantity. Children are focused on developing strategies for accurately counting a set of objects by ones. We are working in our Math Activity books and also exploring the characteristics of cubes, pattern blocks and geoblocks.
What we noticed!
Preparing or Book Boxes
Weekly News is going home for the first time. Children are writing a sentence or two about our week at school. Please read your child's news and respond with a sentence or two- you can write directly in their journals.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Our First Week:
What a start to our school year! So many new things to learn- our class routines, expectations, activities, games, greetings, closing circle, new friends, new teacher...and we still had time for slime!! One of my favorite curriculum areas to teach is Science- children are natural scientists- they are always asking questions! We talked about what a scientist is and does; we agreed that scientists ask a lot of questions and they wonder “why” alot- then they set up experiments and try to find answers to their questions. That is just what first graders did this past week. We learned about “inquiry”- asking questions and finding answers. We talked about finding information from books and also finding out information by using our observation skills. We participated in two experiments to practice this new concept of inquiry- “The Bubble-Raisin Experiment” and “Silly Slime”!
Our Literacy time has focused on two main stories- Chrysanthemum and Wemberly Worried, both by Kevin Henkes. We talked about what a “character” is in a story and what character traits are- we compared characters and described how the characters felt in each of the stories by making “character webs”. We made name necklaces that are hanging on our front door as well as name mosaics for our class name bulletin board.
During Math, we have been busy exploring a variety of materials we will use in our Investigations program. We played a name comparison game, which focused on the concepts of more than, less than and equality. We also learned three new strategy games; Three in a Row, Quartet, and Tapatan.
Silly Slime!!
What a start to our school year! So many new things to learn- our class routines, expectations, activities, games, greetings, closing circle, new friends, new teacher...and we still had time for slime!! One of my favorite curriculum areas to teach is Science- children are natural scientists- they are always asking questions! We talked about what a scientist is and does; we agreed that scientists ask a lot of questions and they wonder “why” alot- then they set up experiments and try to find answers to their questions. That is just what first graders did this past week. We learned about “inquiry”- asking questions and finding answers. We talked about finding information from books and also finding out information by using our observation skills. We participated in two experiments to practice this new concept of inquiry- “The Bubble-Raisin Experiment” and “Silly Slime”!
Our Literacy time has focused on two main stories- Chrysanthemum and Wemberly Worried, both by Kevin Henkes. We talked about what a “character” is in a story and what character traits are- we compared characters and described how the characters felt in each of the stories by making “character webs”. We made name necklaces that are hanging on our front door as well as name mosaics for our class name bulletin board.
During Math, we have been busy exploring a variety of materials we will use in our Investigations program. We played a name comparison game, which focused on the concepts of more than, less than and equality. We also learned three new strategy games; Three in a Row, Quartet, and Tapatan.
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