Bakery Fun!

What a beautiful week! This week was filled with so many wonderful learning experiences! Our caterpillars are ALL in their chrysalises now, and we eagerly await their arrival as butterflies. In our insect unit, students are making connections in nature--we found some caterpillars and inchworms on the playground, and were able to catch a couple of pictures.

Mural we made to celebrate our year with the fifth
grade book buddies!

It was one of our last meetings with our fifth grade book buddies! We created an amazing mural to put by the gym.

We wrapped up our money unit with a fun bakery on Friday afternoon. Each student was given $0.35, and they chose how to spend it on a cookie, frosting, and three different kinds of toppings. The kids had lots of fun, and had the chance for real-world experience in counting out coins and bringing in coins to trade in (i.e. a dime for one nickel and five pennies).

Finally, the students got to make notes for Kristen; since Kristen may not be back to school by the end of this school year, the students decorated their hand outlines as way to "wave" to her. They decorated one side and wrote a note on the other side. We are excited to have her back again soon!

Making our "wave"s for Kristen

Bakery fun!

Metamorphosis in May

Movement in measurement!

What a full, crazy week! In addition to my being out two days due to sickness, the kids had the first of our last few sessions with our fifth grade book buddies this year. Needless to say, they've had practice in flexibility this week! With their book buddies, they each traced their hands and decorated the outline with something unique about themselves. We will finish our project next week; I can't wait to get a picture up so everyone can see how amazing it will turn out!

With book buddies

We also had our music concert this week, and I heard it was fun, successful, and everyone loved it! Congrats to the kids for doing a super job!

In math, we got movement incorporated with measurement. The kids got to do a fun activity where they and a partner used "connector cubes" to measure different objects around the classroom. Next week, we'll zip ahead to time! We will also continue to work on money.

Butterfly "stained glass" art project

Finally, the students are excited by how quickly the caterpillars grew. They are HUGE now, and heading up toward the top of their habitat, which the students know means that they are soon moving to the chrysalis stage in their life. We are excited to see what they'll look like after this weekend, and hopefully there will be pictures to go along. Our mealworms are all either in the pupa stage or have emerged as fully adult darkling beetles. Our milkweed nymphs grow bigger each day. It's been a great week and we can't wait to see what next week will bring!

Making hand designs with 5th grade book buddies!

We like to Move it, Move it!

Another full week in first grade! Students made observations about our milkweed bugs, which have hatched since last week, and have moved into the larvae/nymph stage of their life cycle. It was exciting to see the changes! 

Milkweed bug observations!

 We learned about a lot of different things in writing as well. Students used organizers to help them retell a story using the important parts--Character, setting, events, problem, and solution. They used this knowledge to start book reports, which they will hopefully get to share with the class next week. The kids are so creative with their illustrations and descriptions! I'm excited to see what their reports look like when they're finished. We learned, also, about invitation and card writing (hopefully you all received your hand-delivered formal invitation to the First and Third Grade concert this coming Thursday!).

Retelling stories

We're trying to mix things up and keep things active as the year winds down, and in reading we did this by creating a "word hunt". Students had to find the 12 words around the room that contained the letter "y", since that was one of our phonics focuses for the week. They enjoyed the challenge! Thankfully the weather has been wonderful this week, and we've gotten plenty of time to go outside and enjoy it! Here's to another beautiful weekend, and we'll see you next week!

Creating invitations

Word hunt fun!

....bring May Flowers!

What a week full of scientific observation, using our five senses to write about springtime, and finishing up our Rocket Math for the year! Students are rapidly gaining progress in our math curriculum as well; they seem to have a solid understanding of using different strategies for subtraction as well as addition. I am proud of them all!

Highlights from this week include learning about how to retell the most important parts of a story, and observing the meal worms one more time. Finally, students were able to create habitats for our milkweed bugs, which we received in the egg stage of their life cycle. The students are excited for them to hatch so we can watch them go through the rest of their life cycle. This coming week, we receive our caterpillars! With all the rain we had last week, we are also welcoming sunshine and warm weather with open arms!

April showers....

We had a busy week in first grade! The first graders got to be scientists and make observations about our mealworms, which are just now moving into the larvae stage of their life cycle. In addition to the excitement in science this week, students got to create a watercolor butterfly art project. Our butterflies are now cheering up the classroom in the midst of a rainy week!

This Friday, we focused largely on Earth Day. Students learned about different ways we can care for our environment and do our part to help the Earth. Students came up with wonderful ideas: carpooling, don't litter, conserve energy, and recycle. Ask them for other ideas we also discussed! We made a project which is now displayed on the door so we can show the school what we've learned! Overall, it was another colorful, learning-filled week. Until next time!

Spring is here!

Even though we had another week of some snow and cold weather, inside the classroom, spring was in full bloom. We learned about acrostic poems, and each student created their own acrostic about the season of spring. We also spent time learning about mosaics. The kids really enjoyed creating their own mosaics, and using their new knowledge about cold and warm colors on the color wheel to decorate their mosaics. Looking forward to warmer temperatures this coming week, and even more excitement: author Kate DiCamillo's visit, and starting our science unit on butterflies! Spring is here!

Mosaics

Mosaics

Finished with poem and mosaic

We've begun some literature circles, too!

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Playing Connect 4 during indoor recess

We've made it to April! This week was pretty rainy, so we had a few indoor recess days. But we made the best of it! Students got to play games, work on writing books, draw and create new things. We had fun learning songs about greater than, less than, in math, and finally got to see the results of what sugar does to our teeth if we don't brush them! Students are reading up to 20 minutes for Read-to-Self time, which is a new record for our class. I am so impressed by how they are growing in their reading! We talked about what "setting" means in a story, and students wrote out the different settings they read about in their stories during Read-to-Self time. In writing, we started learning how to respond to writing prompts. Students wrote about their favorite season in the year, and we talked about how we can describe a season using our five senses. The students came up with some amazing connections.

Favorite Season: Summer

Another Summer writing piece

Read-to-Self time!

Finally, we had a blast dressing up for Hawaiian Day, and the kids are very excited for Family Fun Night! Have a wonderful weekend, and I hope everyone gets to enjoy the sunshine!