Sharing Our All About Books

 Children researched using both online resources as well as books from our library. They worked very hard learning about their fascinating animals and are now teaching each other what they have learned.

Animal Research

We have been working very hard researching our animals! We are using both online resources and books to find our information. We are incorporating many non fiction text features into our reports such as headings, bold print, pictures and captions, table of contents, and a glossary. We were introduced to a graphic organizer using the computer called "kidspiration". This tool helps us to organize our information and also make an outline of our information to put into our final reports.

Thank you for coming out to see our first and second grade performance of "People Who make a Difference". The children were fabulous! Our study of people who make a difference continues as we learn about famous and not so famous people who have helped make the world a better place. We have learned about Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Jackie Robinson, George Washington, Mahatma Ghandi, William Kamkwamba (a young man who helped his village in Milawi by building the first windmill to produce electricity and pump water during a severe drought), and Betty June Skelton (who became known as the "First Lady of Firsts" and set astonishing records in aviation and auto racing!). We are talking about the different ways people can make a difference and are brainstorming a list of things that we can do to help make a difference too! So far, the children thought of planting more flowers and trees in the community, taking weekly walks to pick up neighborhood trash, and help restaurant owners make food! We will continue to brainstorm ideas and then vote on an idea to pursue.

Mark your Calendars! April 3rd at 6pm in the Gym is our first and second grade performance of 
"People Who Make a Difference"!

Color, Shape, and Number Patterns: Patterns and Functions 

In our current math unit, students make, describe, and extend repeating patterns. As they analyze these patterns and identify the unit of the pattern that repeats, they build an understanding of what makes patterns predictable. They have been using this information to determine what comes next or what comes several steps ahead in a repeating pattern. 

Most recently, we are constructing, describing, and extending number sequences with a constant increase
generated by various problem contexts with activities such as "The Penny Jar" and "Staircases". 

My Last Full Week:(

This was supposed to be posted on Monday but somehow it stayed in draft form...so here it is!!

We have been so lucky to have amazing weather for our x-country skiing adventures!  Some of us are attempting new "tricks" such as learning how to cross our skis and fall over, how to zoom down a hill a little faster than our legs are ready for, and how to enjoy being outside on beautiful days!

Hills and Spills...

Follow The Leader

Hills and Spills continued...

Learning about Sound:) Vibrations are everywhere!  Watch out world, we are developing some amazing instruments.

Here is what we KNOW and WHAT WE WANT TO KNOW, at the end of this week we will fill out what we have learned.

Our Valentine's Day bags


More of the creation stations...

This week will unfortunately be my last full week here at Thatcher Brook Primary School.  Ms. Amy and I will have two transition days after our school vacation.

This week we will be wrapping up our exploration of sound.  Students have been experimenting with different objects varying the volume and pitch of their instruments by making a variety of modifications.  Ask your student how sound is made, or what they have noticed about sound when making different types of instruments.  

In Fundations we are learning about blends and digraph blends.  Ask your student what a blend is.  A blend contains two or more consonants but they each make their own sound, such as /s/ and /l/ in the word slip.  a digraph contains two consonants and makes only one sound such as /sh/, /ch/, /ck/, /th/, and /wh/.  Try to brainstorm words together that contain a digraphs and blends.  The word PINK contains the blend NK, BENCH contains the digraph CH, etc.

In Investigations we are diving into telling time.  So many students are very excited about this adventure because it provides them with a sense of independence when they can tell time all by themselves.  We are learning whole hours and 1/2 hours on analog clocks.  Many students have been asking to be challenged to the minute, so we have been slowly introducing how many parts the clock is broken down into.  Ask your student to see if he/she can tell you the time next time you need to know it.  

Our author study this week has been focused on any author who writes about our theme, sound.  We have been reading non-fiction and fiction texts to make many new discoveries about sound.  

In Writer's Workshop we are continuing to polish our skills of opinion writing.  One student asked, "Miss Livingston, are you teaching us how to argue?"  My answer was, "I'm teaching you how to gather evidence and support your answers, sometimes in your life this may be defined as arguing."  It was so great to see the connection made!        

Thank you very much for all of your support inside and outside of this classroom!

100 Days Smarter!!!

We made it to day 100!  We are all now 100 days of school smarter!  We only have 80 more days of first grade.  We celebrated the 100th day of school by creating a list of things we want to do by the time we reach 100 years old.  We also created a self portrait of what we think we will look like in 93 years...They were very interesting, most students said they will not have grey hair and they will not be wearing glasses.

Some of the responses included, "I will go to another country, I will be a hockey coach, I will build a house, etc"  They were so creative!!

We also managed to get outside to continue with our x-country skiing adventures.  We have been so lucky to have amazing sunny conditions.  

Here we are exploring!

We are focusing on character traits and made our own school of fish just like the character Swimmy did in the book, Swimmy by Leo Lionni.  Look at all of the character traits we discovered Swimmy had!

This week we will be continuing to learn about glued sounds.  The glued sounds ing, ong, ung, ank, all, unk, ink, and ang.  Our current trick words this week will be too, very, also, some, and come.  While your student is reading at home see how many of these words you can find together. Another game you can play together is to create an ongoing list of words that have our current glued sounds in them.  You can continue to add to the words as you discover them throughout your day!

During Reader's Workshop we will be finishing up investigating character traits and looking for evidence.  Supporting our answers is something we are learning throughout our day.  We are regularly asking, "How can I support my answer?" or "What is my reason?"  Our author of the week will be Tomie DePaola, he is known for his books Strega Nona and Tony's Bread.

During Math we will be learning about fractions and time.  We will begin to learn about telling time to the hour and dividing shapes in halves and fourths.  Making snowflakes out of paper can be a great tool to reinforce fractions.  There are so many different ways to make a snowflake!

Writer's workshop has been taking place throughout the day and we have been doing an amazing job at growing our abilities with opinion writing.  It's amazing the evidence students have been finding to support their decisions.  

Students brought home a reminder about our Valentine's Day celebration on Friday, February 14th.  If you would like to send in something please return the form so we can make sure we have enough for everyone.  

Our theme will be changing this week and we will begin learning about sound.  Students will understand that sound is a form of energy that travels in waves, that sound waves travel through different mediums, and that sound waves travel in a given direction until an outside force or object gets in the way.     

Thank you for your continued support in building the learning bridge from school to home.