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!

"March"-ing forward :)

We hit the ground running after Spring Break, by starting a new math unit, a new reading unit, and two weeks' worth of exploring handwriting. We are feeling like we're back in the groove of school now, and ready for the fun of spring! Highlights from this week were participating in handwriting stations on Thursday (thank you to parent volunteers! Not possible without you!), and finishing off our health teeth unit by starting an experiment.

Thank you to everyone who made playdough!
The kids loved it!

Shaving Cream was the favorite station of many!

We put eggs (not hard-boiled) into six different beverages: Sprite, Coke, Gatorade, V8 Juice, water, and Grape Juice. The students wrote down their predictions for which beverage they thought would be the least healthy for their teeth, and which would be the most healthy. Most students thought that water would be the most healthy/would cause the least damage to the egg shell (a representation of our tooth enamel), but there were varying opinions as to which beverage will be the most detrimental to the egg shells. We made observations the first day, when the eggs were first submerged in the different liquids, and then the day after as well. Next week, we will make final observations on what a week's worth of sugar and no teeth-brushing would do to our tooth enamel.

Our six different beverages.

Scientific observations.

Finally, these first graders are becoming complete place value experts! I encourage you, whenever you come across numbers with your student, to ask them which digit is in the ones, tens, or hundreds place value. Ask them how many tens a number has. How many ones. I am thrilled with how well they are doing! Have a great long weekend everyone!

Practicing letter formation with beads!

Making our names with pipe cleaners.

Dr. Seuss Week

Happy First Week of March! What a week we had! There was a lot of excitement this week, with Spring Break approaching, and a week full of fun Dr. Seuss activities. The students heard various Dr. Seuss books read aloud to them this week, and on Thursday, they voted on their class-wide favorite. Horton Hears A Who! was the resounding winner, followed by Fox in Socks as a strong second. In addition, we got to create our own Dr. Seuss-like characters, using our imaginations to write stories about our characters. Students came up with all sorts of characters, and wonderful stories and were able to share those stories during Wednesday's morning meeting time. Our 'capstone' project this week was making Thing 1 and Thing 2 from The Cat in the Hat, and writing stories of what we would do if those energetic Things came into our houses! Here are some snapshots of our work this week, and I hope you all have a wonderful and restful Spring Break!

Thing 1 and Thing 2 fun!

Writing our Seuss stories!

Adding the crazy Thing 1 and Thing 2 hair!

Our 100th Day of School!

Adding book title names to our "100 Books Read"

Wow! We can hardly believe that we've made it to the 100th day of first grade! We had a crazy and fun day of all things 100-related: we had a visit from the Queen of 10's and the Princess of 5's, built forts with 100 cups, made structures with 100 marshmallows, and created certificates of completing 100 days of first grade. Friday was Mismatch Day, and we had lots of first graders and students coming to school wearing all sorts of mismatched clothes--boots with shoes, tights with shorts, and stripes with polka dots to name a few combinations. We had tons of fun this week; I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

Marshmallow Structures

The Award for Tallest Fort Built goes to....

The fortress

Reading, reading, reading towards those 100 books....

Future Engineers of America

Friday: Mismatch Day

100 Days Smarter....and Sillier?

Febrrrrrrruary!

Working on different kinds of penguins

Wow! January came and went, and now we are already in the middle of February! We've been able to do a LOT so far this month! Students have become expert observers of liquids, gases, and solids in science, they have become expert equation-solvers in math, and experts on bones in our health classes.

February is "I Love to Read" month, and in writing, we've been working on "All About" books for penguins and polar bears. We should finish up with them next week and have a celebration. The kids are excited for parents and guardians to see the finished products at conferences in early March.

Here are some pictures from our classroom activities during the past few weeks; enjoy!

Learning about where our bones are in our bodies!

Science!