Ready for Memorial Day

Our USA flag fans are ready for a hot Memorial Day weekend

This week found everyone exploring 3-D blocks, manipulating them to make other shapes, and counting the flat surfaces and vertices to differentiate their properties. We had some very artistic drawings in 3-D of real life objects and ended the week with taking the Geometry test. Next week we will work with symmetry and fractions.

What imagination!

Drawing objects to look dimensional was impressive!

 In science we continued to learn about the earth's rotation being the reason for the regularly occurring pattern of day and night. We made a sun, earth, and moon to show how the moon revolves around the earth, and the earth revolves around the sun. 

Look at our models!

Using the paper punch was the best part!

We went on to learn about the pattern of the seasons, how the earth's tilt as it revolves around the sun determines the season in different parts of the world. We explored the changes in weather, plant life, and animal behavior that correspond with each season and created some informative posters showing what we learned.

Let me tell you about the seasons!

Winter, spring, summer, fall

I love the confidence that the kids are showing in class as they volunteer to perform, sing, or share their skills. Here we have 3 girls who asked to sing the song in our Puff the Magic Dragon book. They did a lovely job! We had 2 friends read the conversational script in the I'll Read To You, You Read To Me collection. We have another group ready to perform a Reader's Theater play on Tuesday. Everyone will have a chance to do a play in the next couple of weeks. It is so exciting that everyone is off and reading!

Our singing performers!

Good practicing!

In the ABC word work center this week, the kids were amazed at the castle they made entirely out of sight words. What a great way to practice these tricky words while following the tracing lines of a castle beneath their paper.

A castle of words

Fun flair tip markers to use too

Speaking of words, we may be sending home some of the words on the 150 first grade high frequency list. Homework packets have officially ended, but working on these tricky words will be a great help as will take-home reading pages that include answering questions on short paragraphs.

We have a lot of end of year dates coming up. The first is Field Day on Friday, June 8th. 
Our class T-shirt color is yellow, and I will be sending home a note detailing what items they may wish to have on that day (water, sunscreen, etc.). The evening of June 14th is the Celebration of learning which will include displays of children's work from all the grades. There is an optional opportunity for first graders to sing a couple of the songs they have learned in music, in the cafeteria that evening. More information will come from Ms. McGrath, the music teacher.

Wishing safe travels, fun family time, and especially remembering those who gave their lives in service for our country on this Memorial Day.

                                   See you Tuesday,

Have a nice weekend!

Mrs. Dagley

A castle of dreams

Ta-Da! A castle to be proud of!

Who could imagine that the lowly tissue box could be so wonderfully transformed into a beautiful castle? The kids enjoyed every moment of this project as they painted one day and decorated the next. Adding a portcullis, drawbridge, battlements, moats, and towers brought the castles to life. It was loads of fun and tied in nicely to our fairy tale genre.

Our completed castles

  

All the finishing touches!

Now to get it home on the bus....

Painting was the first step

Pass the gray please...

Camouflage that tissue box!

The painting day was carefully organized with explicit directions not to walk around with the paint loaded paint brushes! I apologize if anyone got paint on their clothes - we were very careful, and I think it is washable paint, but I did spy one white shirt that attracted a fair amount of paint...

The following day we added the paper decorations and details to our castles:

Last steps

How do you like it so far?!

Fairy tale texts we read this week included King Midas and the Golden Touch, and Sleeping Beauty. We also read The Ugly Duckling, and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs (as told from the point of view of the wolf).


Our fairy tale riders for mystery letters finished up our letter collection this week. 

Dodging dragon danger!

No ogre will stop us!

Several friends took their time practicing and performing a conversational play between fairy tale characters. All that extra practice makes for some great reading expression!

We can guess the fairy tale author!

Ready to present!

You'll love our story!

We are excited to perform!

 On Thursday it was a National Day for Outdoor Classrooms, so we headed out for a couple of activities ourselves. One was a snack time while listening to a read aloud. The other was making a map of our playground. Everyone found a spot to make their map from and took it very seriously!

Future architects!

A shady place for drawing maps

A cozy nook for drawing

Full concentration!

Getting it just right!

Drawing in the details

Drawing buddies!

A bench is a good spot too

You will love this map!

Let's not forget outdoor snack and story!

Learning about Day & Night in science gave us the opportunity to use a flashlight for the sun, a globe, and a 'spinner' to observe how the earth's rotation follows the pattern of night and day when it faces the sun or faces away from the sun.

I'll be the sun, you rotate the earth!

I'll be the earth spinner!

Our Jack and the Beanstalk plants have started growing as you can see. Hopefully they will all take off soon.

Almost through the castle

In writing we continue to compose poems. This week we tried our hands at rhyming poetry - a bit of a challenge, but once started, everyone came up with some nice rhythm and rhyme poems.

I'm a poet, and I know it!

Let's help each other rhyme

 This week we had to rearrange our schedule for 3 days to accommodate the older grades with MCAS testing. There were a few long afternoons, and by Friday afternoon we were more than ready to rest and take in a short fairy tale movie!

Taking a break

Have a wonderful weekend,
Mrs. Dagley

Happy Mother's Day!

Planting our Mother's Day flowers!

Children love to give, and what better opportunity than Mother's Day to plant pretty flowers and make a little card shaped like a purse with a 'pearl' handle for the special mothers and grandmothers in their lives. Seeing the care and love they put into their projects is heartwarming!

Just the right amount of soil.

Planting with care.

             

Choosing a gem for the cards

Making a Mother's Day 'purse' card

They loved choosing a gem to close the purse card, using fine tip markers to decorate them with, and any excuse to use the paper punches is always welcome!

The gardening gloves were a nice touch!

For you, mom!

Having the soil available gave us another excuse to plant - this time we planted bean seeds after reading Jack and the Beanstalk. We will send these home once they have started to climb through the paper castels we mounted on popsicle sticks in the pots. I showed the class a photo a boy from a previous class sent of his beanstalk that he took home and planted in the ground. It was a big, luxurious vine, higher than his front door and had beans growing on it ready to pick. So you never know what these little seeds might do!

Will these be magic beans?

Cover them with soil.

Just a bit more soil...

Here is the castle the vine will grow through!

Speaking of fairy tales, we also read Young Lancelot (King Arthur's famous knight), Thumbelina, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. We are identifying the features of fairy tales after reading each one and even wrote an opinion page on Jack's actions of taking the giant's harp, gold, and hen.

A collaborative project everyone was involved in was making posters based on one of the fairy tales we have read, discussing and writing the characters, magic, and special features, and then decorating a poster with all the information and headings. This was followed by presenting the posters to the class. The kids loved this activity and had a real flair for presenting too! 

Working on Snow White and Rose Red.

A Young Arthur poster

Decorating for Beauty and the Beast

Ready to present!

We will tell you all about it!

Let the presentation begin!

How do you like it?

Rapunzel poster ready to go!

Proud of our Jack and the Beanstalk

 Our fairy tale riders continue to retrieve a letter from a mystery fairy tale character each day, despite the dangers of ogres, dragons, or trolls along the way! They have a great track record of guessing the mystery author!

Off for the mail!

Nothing will slow us down!

Ready to ride!

Who will be the mystery author?

During our poetry writing this week an enticing display of nature items was available to draw inspiration from. The kids chose from seashells, crystals and rocks, a snakeskin, bird nest, a porcupine quill, and arrowhead, sea glass, and more. They used their five senses to create a descriptive sensory poem and drew matching illustrations as a final touch. Another poetry activity was writing a poem using repetition. The word 'Because' was used throughout to describe something they liked or loved. Poetry writing stretches the imagination and is lots of fun besides!

Our nature display for poetry

We've branched out into all kinds of reading experiences. Some of the kids are buddy reading with the same book (we have several copies of some of the series), some are partnering up for a shared reading in the We Both Read series, which includes two different levels of reading on each page, and some are practicing to present a mini conversational retelling of a fairy tale (an I'll Read to You, You Read to Me series). Next week we will bring out the Reader's Theater fairy tale plays. 

We are reading The Ugly Duckling

I'll Read to You, You Read to Me 

Mini fairy tales are more fun with a partner!

My turn to read this page!

We Both Read book 

 A few last pictures here show two friends singing at our poetry chart and a few friends showing off their castle picture from centers.

Castle drawing experts

Ready to be teachers!

We wished a Happy Birthday to Cameron this week. He was very excited to pass out a birthday prize of 'squishies' to everyone ( a couple made it into the above photos!). 

We finished up our math topic on graphing and tallying and will begin one on geometric shapes next week. 

We are all looking forward to making our tissue box castles next week too!


Have a wonderful weekend,
Mrs. Dagley