Blast off to the moon!

Our Phases of the Moon project!

Learning about our closest neighbor in space has been very engaging. We've learned that the moon's phases follow a pattern much like seasons and night and day do. This weekend could be the perfect time to look skyward and see which phase the moon is in and how bright it looks from the sun's light reflecting on it. We have read about the features of the moon - very little gravity, no wind, water, air, or sound, and its composition- rocks, craters, and dust. We also watched videos of the Apollo 11 exciting first flight with Neil Armstrong's famous quote: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." The kids also liked, "The Eagle has landed!" 

Reading about the moon!

Highlighting important info in our reading

Reading and discussing facts about the moon

 We each have a booklet of short readings about the moon that we are reading with a buddy, discussing, and then choosing which information to highlight. Its a great comprehension activity, and it is so exciting that their reading skills are up to the task- so much growth in first grade!

Next week we will learn about the sun, and then wrap up with stars and constellations.

Our fairy tale literature genre continues to captivate. This week we read Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood. The kids were involved in a final project of working in groups to create a poster for a fairy tale that we have read. Each poster included the features of fairy tales and illustrations that the kids worked together to plan and create. Presenting them was lots of fun - they are now on display in the hall!

Making our fairy tale poster

Decision making for the layout

We are naming the characters and illustrating

Shall we place this paper here?

Recording and illustrating

The presentations involved each team member presenting a part of their poster and explaining what they chose to include.

Rumpelstiltskin presented!

Young Arthur displayed

Puss In Boots team

Jack and the Beanstalk group

Tom Thumb presenters

Snow White partners

Congratulations to great collaboration - everyone worked together so well and made decisions about their posters as a group!

Our final fairy tale riders went off to get the letters from fairy tale characters this week:

We are off to race like the wind!

Ready to ride!

Solo knight

Our final Reader's Theater Plays were also presented. We even had our Guidance teacher take the part of Baby Bear in Goldilocks and the Three Bears!

Queen of the Forest

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

A two person skit from Cinderella

 Phonics work has been focused on decoding longer words by dividing the word into parts and separating between two consonants. We also introduced homophones - words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings. We read two texts with these fun play on words and chose a pair of words to illustrate.

Our homophone illustrations

Two fun texts

We concluded our math topic on fractions by taking a look at symmetry when learning about equal parts. They made symmetrical bear faces and had fun with a game during math called Symmetrics.

Symmetry

Coins are our next focus so break out the pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters at home!

We wished a double birthday to Hayden and Harrison this week who have a birthday today. Happy birthday twins!

Thank you for returning the Distance Learning packet - this took the place of the no school day on Election Day in May. 


Field Day is this coming Friday, May 31 - I sent home a note as  reminder to come with a water bottle, sunscreen (applied or brought), and sneakers for all the field events. Yellow is our class color. I have 3 yellow T-shirts to give anyone who doesn't have that color at home.

Celebration of Learning is on May 5th. The gym is open from 3:00 to 6:00 to view displays from each grade. First graders have an optional opportunity to sing a few songs they have learned in Music. If they choose to participate, they should meet in the downstairs library at 6:00 and will go on stage at 6:15. A note from the music teacher went home Friday.

This is such a busy time of year with lots of spring events, recitals and sports, and a busy learning time in school and yet... the pull of summer is calling everyone, as I saw when trying to take 'serious' photos for their cover of writing for Celebration of Learning!

It's good to laugh!

Have a safe and wonderful Memorial Day weekend as we remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country, and as we also enjoy some family time, cookouts, and outdoor fun!

Mrs. Dagley

Ready to perform!

Performing Puss In Boots

Bring out the costumes and let the plays begin! The kids have been practicing several Fairy Tale plays this week, and two groups performed theirs. Our classmate audience is always so attentive, and the children performing are practicing fluency and expression to bring the stories to life!

Little Red Cap Reader's Theater

Practicing for our play

The next few plays will be performed next week. Speaking of dressing up, we have been 'riding' horses and a unicorn to get letters written by fairy tale characters. It is always fun to guess which character wrote the letter and to ride by imaginary dragons and ogres!

Off for the mystery letter

No ogre can stop us!

We ride through any peril

Fairy tale letters await!

Here are a few friends reading fairy tale stories together:

Exciting adventures!

Beautiful illustrations!

 Best of all, we decorated out tissue box castles this week, and you would never know they were once a lowly tissue box! Adding the battlements, drawbridge, windows, and moat made them something to be very proud of!

Hard at work decorating

Transforming our boxes!

Adding the final touches!

Tada!

Wow- amazing!

Love it!

Look at our castles!

 In science we have continued learning about how the sun, our rotation, and our orbit around the sun affects day and night, and seasons. We identified changes in weather, animal behavior, and plants within each new season, and saw how this pattern of seasons is determined by the earth's orbit on its axis around the sun. Here are posters we made with each season represented.

What's your favorite season?

Winter, spring, summer, fall

 Next week we will move on to learning 
about a close neighbor in space- our moon!
We have many texts about the moon and about the solar system
and have set them up in a corner of our room. We have also 
made mini astronauts with photos of each child as a decoration
when we have the celebration of Learning in June.

All ready to decorate with!

Our Earth and Space area

 Thank you for returning the Long Distance Packets - everyone did such a great job. Keep checking out the night sky for glimpses of the moon, since we will be learning about the phases of the moon next. A few kids, and myself as well, saw the moon in daylight around supper time, so it doesn't always mean a late night viewing!

Our poems in writing have been so much fun. We have tried out rhyming poems, poems based on a favorite color, simile poems, and poems that give clues to a topic. This collection will be at the Celebration of Learning to view.

Fairy tales and folktales we read this week included The Ugly Duckling, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Tom Thumb, and The Three Little Pigs. 
We read The Trues Story of the Three Little Pigs as a humorous look at the same story but told from the point of view of the wolf. A fun compare and contrast activity.

Our homework packets have come to an end, but I will be sending home the sight word spelling assessment that we will take in early June to brush up on spelling some of these tricky words. We are aiming for 90% spelled correctly. Meanwhile we will sing the songs for the words in school to help remember them.

Have a nice weekend,
Mrs. Dagley

Happy Mother's Day!

Tiny Mother's Day purse cards

Children love to give gifts and Mother's Day is the perfect chance to show their love. They made little cards that look like a purse and especially loved the pearl handles! They also brought home a marigold pot with colored tissue paper to give. I told them it was fine to give it early because the flower was in a ziploc bag and needed air, but if you haven't seen it yet you may have to check.  I overheard someone say they were going to hide it under their bed until Sunday...not sure the flower will survive that!

Ready to go!

Place it carefully in the pot!

Just a bit more soil

Gently, gently

She's going to like thi 

Decorating the cards

The perfect card!

 Fairy tales continue to entrance as we sing fairy tale poems, 
read fairy tale books, learn about life in castle times, and begin 
practice for Reader's Theater fairy tales. This week we read
Thumbelina, Jack and the Beanstalk, Robin Hood, Sleeping Beauty,
and King Midas and the Golden Touch. 

Our read -alouds this week!

Watercolor paints made an appearance again as we painted and then labeled a castle. We learned the parts of a castle: moat, battlements, arrow loops, dungeon, portcullis, and castle keep.

We love painting!

It will look great!

Artists at work

On Friday we got out more paints to begin making our castles from tissue boxes. We have added towers and painted the boxes for the first step. They will dry over the weekend and then we will add all the paper features of doors, windows, drawbridges,  and battlements. 

We are off for the letter!

The 'horses' and this time around a 'unicorn' were back for riding as the kids rode off to get a mystery fairy tale letter to read to the class. Then the guessing begins of which fairy tale character the letter is 

Preparing to ride past dragons!

       from!

 During our language arts centers this week, 
we listened to a folktale (usually stories
based on animals such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Three Billy Goats Gruff...), searched around the room for r-controlled words to sort, and highlighted sight words and spelling patterns within words. Our spelling center even used tiny Cinderella glass slippers and swans from The Ugly Duckling to guess the missing word in a fairy tale riddle, and spell it!

Finding words with 'Bossy R' 

Computer center

Spelling center 

In math we continue to identify attributes of 2-D and 3-D shapes and compose and decompose shapes using a combination of smaller shapes. 
Social studies focused on maps - learning about a map key, reading Me on the Map to see our place in the world from neighborhood to town to country to continents to world! We used graph paper to draw maps and are working on a map booklet in school. 

Our painted & labeled castles

There will be no school Tuesday for students (Professional Development day) but it might be a good chance to work on the Distance Learning packet. 

Have a wonderful Mother's Day,
Mrs. Dagley