So many fun things this week! We have been playing in the snow, reading stories with snow, and even turned ourselves into snowboys and snowgirls! We have lots have energy so we have been mixing it up in class and having fun! Mrs. McCarthy even taught the class a game that she she used to play in 1st grade called 7 UP. Boy did it bring back memories! Please help us everyone prepared for outside. As you can see from the photo below, snow gear is so important. This includes: coats, snow pants, snow boots, hats, and gloves. Students who do not have these items are unable to go on the snow and have to remain on the black top.
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This week we continued to work hard! One of the highlights from our week was learning about balance in science. We practiced balancing with our bodies by pretending we were tight-rope walking. We discussed why putting out both arms is important when trying to balance. Some students then tried to balance on a board that was on top of a cylinder (with supervision of course!). We then used this idea to help us balance a crawfish made out of tag board. Students tried and balance the crawfish without any materials, and then were given two wooden clips. We discovered that when weight was added to both sides of the crawfish it could balance on its tip! These photos include our short Thanksgiving week too! We are so grateful to have had both parents and visitors come read and play games with us. Thank you to all families who brought in a game to share as well! It was super fun! Last week we completed our first Small Moment Stories. Students worked super hard to brainstorm, and later create and illustrate these stories. In math we were focused on learning all about doubles! We even watched a story called "Two of Everything" by Lily Toy Hong to help us understand what a double is. We ended the week by creating snowflakes out of various materials. We then discussed the science behind snowflakes, and why the saying "no two snowflakes are alike" is true. We learned how factors such as: the temperature, how much water is in the air, and the kind of path in which the snowflake travels, can all effect the shape of the snowflake. This week we shifted our focus to giving thanks! We started a class bulletin board with pictures and words that describe what we are thankful for. We began reading books about Thanksgiving and learned why giving thanks was so important to the Pilgrims. Of course this weeks' top highlight was our Pajama Friday! Students loved wearing their pajamas to school, and had fun during our Drop Everything and Create time. Thank you to those of you that sent in recyclables! This week was a very special week! With the long weekend ahead of us, we wanted to learn all about Veterans Day. We read a book about Veterans, read a poem about Veterans, and discussed how to write a letter. We learned that letters start with Dear, and typically close with: From, Your Friend, or Love. We created a class brainstorm bubble about what we could say to our Veterans, and used the information in our bubble to write letters. On Thursday, we even got to meet a Veteran at Loker! Coincidentally, the 4th grade was having a special class visit from a Veteran. We spotted him on our way back from library (my heart was happy to hear the whole class jump with excitement to tell me, " Look Mrs. McCarthy...a Veteran!"). We were able to hear a little about where he has served and will be serving. These letters, along with thank you pictures and the class photo below, were sent to the Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Hospital in Bedford. It was an active week in first grade! Students (and teachers) and enjoyed seeing each other's costumes and had fun telling the class which character they were. We reviewed the life cycle of a pumpkin, and finally had a chance to count all of our pumpkin seeds! Boy, there sure were a lot of them! We were all pleasantly surprised to find out that the medium sized pumpkin had the most seeds! We practiced our ALICE safety drill and discussed important rules to keep all students safe. This week we celebrated our Pumpkin Morning! Thank you so much to all the volunteers who came out and helped us have a successful and fun-filled event! Students were actively engaged in various math based activities throughout the entire morning. We began our day by reading part of the book "How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin." Afterwards we took a class poll and voted on which pumpkin would have the most seeds (large, medium, or small). Students then recorded their own estimates to determine how many seeds were in each pumpkin. Each student made an estimate before seeing the seeds, and after seeing the seeds inside each pumpkin. Next week we will count the seeds and compare our estimates with the actual number of seeds! Later in the day we read the book "From Seed to Pumpkin" to learn how pumpkins grow! We discussed the life cycle of a pumpkin, and learned that pumpkins need three important things to help them grow. Ask your child if the can remember what these three things are! This week we settled into our first full week of RTI groups for reading. Students are doing a great job working in their independent book bags and practicing their sight words. We also continue to work on building numbers and writing the corresponding number sentence. One activity we played was a game called "snap it." In this math game students work with a partner to determine parts of a number. For example: Student A holds a stack of unifix cubes in front of them (the stack can be anywhere from 5-10 cubes) and student B identifies the number of cubes. Student A then puts the stack of cubes behind their back and snaps off some cubes and shows student B the new stack. Student B then must identify how many cubes student A snapped off. This is a great game to do at home. Instead of snapping cubes you can hide objects under a container! Cover all objects with the container and sneak some objects out. Have your child determine how many objects are still hidden under the container! Lastly this week finally harvested our vegetables from our first grade garden! Students picked tomatoes, weighed tomatoes, and measured tomatoes! We had beautiful weather for the event! This week was a fun filled week! Thank you to those of you who were able to make it to our Multi-Cultural Potluck Dinner! It was so nice to see so many faces and taste such delicious food from all over the world! This week we had lots of fun working with number stories and math game practice. Students have been working hard to keep our classroom noise level at student learning level by practicing their 6-inch voice. Each day, three "Decibella Awardees" are chosen for their participation in keeping our classroom at a just right volume. We even earned classroom points towards a class choice which was kickball on Friday (check out the photo of the class lined up at the back fence)! I was so impressed with how many kids were able to maintain a "I CAN, I WILL, I'll TRY" attitude towards trying something new.
This week we continued to work hard to make sure that we can work cooperatively and quietly. We practiced working with our "6 inch voices." Also, students have enjoyed taking a leadership role during our phonics instruction! During this time, students have a chance to volunteer to come in front of the class and lead our letter chants. Students also review previous letter sounds with the whole class. I am very impressed with how respectful all students are during this time! They are mini professionals! |