Reader's Theater Fun!

Performing Jump In!

What fun to dress in characters from a mini play and have a 'play practice' followed by a performance! This week everyone received the same play for our kick off of Reader's Theater, and this first play had differentiated reading levels so everyone could participate. Practicing for the play is a wonderful chance to re-read for fluency and expression. They all appreciated the audience applause when they completed their performance. We will have more groups perform next week.

We've practiced!

Practicing for the performance!

We enjoyed our read-alouds this week as we practiced predicting, reflecting on the title choice, identifying problem/solution, and thinking about a character's motivation. After reading The Last Puppy, we learned how he became the first puppy at the end. Curious George Goes Hiking and Apple Trouble were good examples of problems solved. 

Lots of connections to this book as well

 

Our folding paper puppies from The Last Puppy

Appreciating the Rain Forest

Reading The Great Kapok Tree brought to life the beautiful animals and plants the rain forests provide. The beautiful illustrations and the persuasive words of each animal to the sleeping man convinced him to save the tree for their home.

We learned about the many foods that originated in the rain forest and of course had a blast giving each the sniff test! Vanilla, cocoa, and cinnamon were favorites... pepper not so much!

Mmm ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon

Sour lemon, sweet oranges

Cocoa is the best!

Oh that pepper!!

Can I smell the vanilla again?

 In social studies we learned another national Symbol- The Star Spangled Banner. Learning how Francis Scott Key was inspired to write the verse after witnessing the attack on Fort McHenry (war of 1812) was very exciting. As he stood at the rail on a tall masted ship in the harbor, he watched anxiously through the perilous night until the dawns early light to see if our flag was still there. The kids illustrated the battle in their social studies book afterward.

Completed illustrations

Our own Francis Scott Key!

Exciting illustrations

Completing a USA puzzle

In writing this week, we practiced using our senses in order to describe apples. Each table had a couple of actual apples to look at, touch, and smell which made it more realistic. The kids had a wonderful time writing clues for a secret animal. The last clue was a rhyming one. They read their sentences aloud and called on friends to guess. 

Guess my animal!

I have great clues!

You might not guess mine!

You guessed it!

Language arts centers this week had us identifying where a sound was heard within a word (beginning, middle, or end) using cute puppy cut outs and a dog bone, sorting words at the pocket chart, and reading a starfall story on the computer.

Reading The Big Hit

Where's that sound?

Where is /g/ in rug?

Moon Game in listening center

We practice high frequency words every day with songs that help us remember the irregularly spelled ones. It was also fun to work in partners to practice them as well.

How many words do you know?!

 The Peaceful Place remains a favorite as does Show & Tell. We've had photos, cars, dolls, toys, and this week 2 guitar players!!

All to myself!

Future stars!

 In science we are moving on to Light Energy. We've identified sources of natural and artificial light and experimented with shadows inside, observing the results of blocking the light with an object. Next week we will be heading outdoors for some light and shadow activities - hope we get some sun!

shadow puppets

Topic 2 in math introduces subtraction. Linus the Minus was our visual for the subtraction symbol. They are learning that when subtracting, we always subtract from the whole. 

We sang Happy Birthday to Alivia this week - birthday smiles all around on her special day! Joey lost a tooth - just keeping that tooth fairy on her toes!

Have a wonderful weekend,
Mrs. Dagley

Off to a great start!

It's amazing how quickly the kids have adjusted to their new classroom. They are learning routines, making new friends, and working nicely together in small groups. Our library theme of the rain forest has captured their imaginations as you can see by all the books and pictures they are holding in the photo. They love when the maps of the world and country are pulled down, and they find the animals of the rain forest fascinating!

Small group math is up and running with the kids rotating between three math activities. This allows teacher directed work, independent work, and collaborative, hands-on math activities. 

Dot markers to represent numbers

Introducing the addition sign

Independent desk math

Partner math game

Teacher group

Hard at work

Small group

Math bags when done early

Let's try vibrating the rulers on the mailboxes1

 In science we are learning the vocabulary words of vibration and volume when referring to sound waves and intensity of sound. The kids had a great time making vibrations with wooden rulers. Darby asked the question of what would happen if we used a different material or a different surface for our experiment, so we found out! We used plastic rulers and they all set out around the room to test the vibrations when used on different surfaces.

I see the vibration!

Next week we will learn about pitch and look forward to more experiments with sound.

In writing, we have begun by seeing text examples of illustrations with written labels. We have illustrated our own papers and written labels for the information. 

Labeling our own illustrations

Labeling poison dart frogs

Colorfully labeled frogs

 Read-Alouds this week introduced a few series: The Fred and Ted series,  If You Give A Mouse A Cookie and the other circular patterned books in that series, and The Alphabet Mystery. Everyone loved reading There's A Monster Under The Bed and following it up by putting a monster sticker under a paper lift the flap bed. Writing character traits for Fred and Ted and using class dictionaries to learn about ABC order after reading The Alphabet                                                             Mystery, was lots of fun. 

Fred & Ted character traits

 We introduced our 'Peaceful Place' nook this week which is just a cozy nook to have a few minutes to themselves in extra time. 

Just chillin'!

Peaceful Place relaxing!

 We have some very talented puzzle makers in class, and working on the puzzles has given the kids a great chance to work as a team and to share in their success when completed.

Animal pets puzzle

The rain Forest

Team work!

 Learning about American Symbols is a Social Study standard, and this week we learned about flags being symbols of countries all around the world. We learned that our flag has 50 stars for 50 states and 13 stripes for the first 13 colonies. We marched around to 'You're A Grand Old Flag', counted the stars and stripes on our giant flag, and wrote a sentence in our social studies booklet.

Flag fun

Let's count the stars

Writing a fact about the flag

Making a popsicle stick flag

 Spending time focusing on phonics and letter sounds is a daily activity. Here we are practicing!

Leading vowel practice

Do you know this sound?

Sing the sounds with me!

Everyone ready?

 It still felt like summer this week and we love watching our sunflower plant continue to bloom!

Nice shirt!

So pretty!

The Tooth Fairy continues to have a busy start to first grade. This week, Aarnav, James, and Emerson all lost teeth - great chance to sing our tooth song 3 times!

Thank you everyone for coming to Open House. It was wonderful seeing everyone and watching how excited the kids were to show off their room and their projects. 

Next week we have an early release on Wednesday. The first (optional) book order will go home and will be due on Friday if you choose to                                                       participate. 

Nice and cool outside - enjoy the weekend! 

Our Morpho Butterflies

Mrs. Dagley