Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

What's your favorite Dr. Seuss book?!

Dr. Seuss' birthday (March 2nd) is such a perfect time for first graders. At this time in the year, the kids can read many of his engaging stories. We have a huge collection in our room, so everyone has been reading Dr. Seuss books all week. The rhymes, the imaginative characters, and the silliness combine to make them a favorite of kids. Our administrators also got in on the fun - we had Mr. Reilly read The Cat in the Hat to us! 

One of our read-alouds this week was Bartholomew and the Oobleck, one of Dr. Seuss' longer stories. You can imagine the gasps of surprise when they saw our own bowl of oobleck made before school! Everyone had fun immersing their hands in the unique substance - it looks wet, but breaks apart dry, it oozes and slimes, and yet can look like a solid too. Everyone had fun creating their own Dr. Seuss character to tuck into a pocket after our read -aloud of There's A Wocket in My Pocket. Our thanks extended to Olivia who gave everyone a Dr. Seuss eraser on Dr. Seuss day!

Thanks for reading to us Mr. Reilly!

Just cornstarch, warm water, and food coloring

Oooh - oobleck!

I'm not so sure about this...

Dive in!

Look at it ooze!

Is it wet, or is it dry?

Fun!

We wrapped up our Arctic and Antarctica focus this week with little penguins to take home. The kids have learned so much about the animals, birds, and sea animals that live in these two habitats. They have also learned the impact that these unique habitats and weather have on the animals, especially on the special features needed to  help them survive.

Little penguin friends

Penguins on their way home

Our new science unit of living and non- living things, and plants and animals has begun. We had a nice selection of plants to 

One even has a habitat to live in!

    observe with magnifying glasses, looking for similarities and       differences between them. We learned the parts of a plant that all plants had in common and then looked at differences in stems, leaves, roots, flowers/fruits, and seeds. We are also learning how each part of the plant helps it survive as a living thing. Madison even ate her snack-time peach right down to the pit so we could see the seed that the fruit held! We followed up by planting some flower seeds of our own to observe in the coming weeks.

Carefully measuring soil for planting!

    

I can see these roots!

Who is going straight for the cactus?!

The cactus is definitely tempting!

We are quite observant!

The spelling words and phonics this week focused on long vowel sounds when two vowels are together in a word. We watched a Youtube video, "When 2 Vowels Go A Walking, the First One Does the Talking!". We acted out our own words too - vowel team kids linked arms to go walking and then met between a first and last letter for the class to read.

Our visors are the vowel team!

Can you read our word?

This vowel team word begins with a blend

 Math has everyone feeling like the 'big kids' as we learned to solve double digit addition problems in a vertical format. To help remember to add numbers in the ones place first before adding the tens, we chanted, "The one thing to remember, is start with the ones!" Using rods and cubes with ten frames, we practiced 'regrouping' when adding 2 digit numbers. 



Our computer center this week was math oriented too. It provided a review of greater than and less than and addition with two digit numbers, all in a video game format on Starfall.

Math game anyone?!

Congratulations to our two winners in the Jump For Heart Physical Ed. activity on Phys. Ed. day! Everyone came back sweaty and thirsty, but had a blast.

We got to wear the red capes!

We wished a Happy Birthday to Ethan this week who celebrates his birthday this weekend!

I guess the groundhog was right about winter hanging around for 6 more weeks. Never-the-less, spring has got to be making an appearance soon, so hope you have a nice weekend!
Mrs. Dagley