Here Comes Johnny!

Johnny Appleseed Poetry

It's the time of year for crisp apples, apple picking, and apple pie. This week we read about the man from MA who planted apple seeds and orchards across PA, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois back in the late 1700s and early 1800s - Johnny Appleseed! We looked at our map, learned about his outdoor life and his generosity with new settlers, and generated a list of character traits that described him. Of course we needed some real apples in the room, so during writing time we used our senses of sight, touch, and smell to write about the various apples on the desks. 

Little Red House with a Star Inside

We also listened to the oral story of a little red house with a star inside, and cut one in half ourselves to see if there really was a star. Reading several books about his life (born John Chapman) helped us understand his passion for planting apple orchards and giving to the settlers. 

Lots of good reads for this Folk Hero

We have concluded Unit 1 in math and had the chance to use a story problem procedure called Three Reads to go through the steps of thinking about what the story is about, what the question is asking, what information is provided, and finally showing our strategies for solving with cubes, ten frames, or number bonds. We have some terrific math students! 

Our 3 Read template to write with

Using cubes to show our strategy

Spin, add, and color the sum

 Math stations this week was very interactive and helped reinforce the math skills and strategies we have been working with. They also provided an opportunity to focus on handwriting of numbers.

Using ten frames and writing numbers

Using our best number writing!

Number lines and addition

 We began our Social Studies lessons this week on Rights and Responsibilities of citizens. We made a class rules list (Be honest and fair, be kind, be a good listener...) and learned about the Golden Rule of treating others the way we want to be treated. Everyone took home their first Studies Weekly social studies magazine as well. Next week we will learn about good sportsmanship and ways we cooperate as a community.

Our class loves small group collaboration, so our daily language arts centers are really enjoyed.

If You Give a Dog A Donut listening center

Everyone loved Go Fish for rhymes!

Pocket chart sorting

Highlighting sight words in Poetry

Reading a Starfall story

 Reading in a reading group, reading independently, and reading with buddies are three ways we enjoy books. Here are a few partner readers:

Elephant and Piggy stories

Grab a good book

I didn't realize we had puzzlemania kids in here until I took out some of our floor puzzles! Wow, they worked so well together in completing the puzzles and were very excited about the finished puzzles. Our rain forest puzzle is most challenging so will be a multi day project.

Dinosaurs

Pet animals

Castles

The Bald Eagle

Wild animals

We welcomed a parent to our classroom this week to read a story about a boy with Down Syndrome and learned about all the things we have in common with children who have Down Syndrome, and also about the differences we might see. Thanks for stopping by!

Music specialist with giant xylophones!

A good read!

Music class was so exciting as we had the chance to use xylophones. The kids shared the instruments nicely and made some awesome music!

Our class has a subscription to Mystery Doug online. He is a scientist who answers questions that kids around the county ask from their classrooms. His videos are informative and very engaging. Lots of interesting nuggets and facts!

A Mystery Doug Episode

 We are stressing expression in reading, and what better way to practice than with a little play? Everyone has the same play this first time called Jump In, which features three animals (cat, horse, fox). The kids are in groups of three to do play practice so they can read their parts in front of the class next week. Lots of excitement about this!

Cori, Evan, and Matt lost a tooth this week, and Sofia has one 'hanging by a thread' so I know she will be next!


Fall has officially arrived - have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs. Dagley

We are all writers!

Our paper puppy reading response activity

Everyone likes a good book, and as readers we are practicing comprehension strategies to get the most out of each story. After reading The Last Puppy, we reflected on the title and how the last puppy became the first puppy at the end of the story. We had a terrific examples of identifying problems and solutions as we read Curious George Goes Hiking and Apple Trouble, and we made good inferences on why the main character changed his actions after reading The Great Kapok Tree. 

He is happy in the end!

Beautiful illustrations in this book!

We are creating a nice collection of writing work that we will send home next week. Besides keeping in mind using lower case letters, spaces, and letter formation, we are also writing lists, facts about favorite rain forest animals, riddles (Guess My Animal). We are using our senses for descriptive writing too. We read My Five Senses by Aliki and When You Go Walking, and then took the suggestions and headed out doors to the courtyard. This was the perfect place to use our own senses as we explored the sights and sounds ! We then wrote about what we discovered. We heard and saw a helicopter above us and smelled and touched colorful flowers, smooth rocks, and shiny leaves. We noted the 2 bird houses out there as well, and found seeds ready to fall from Black Eyed Susan flowers.

Some little seeds here

Do I like this smell?

I found some bright red berries!

Is that an ant on that stem?!

Special rocks! 

A couple of bumble bees in there...

Our Sound Energy science unit has come to a close. We will focus on social studies themes next and then come back to science for Light Energy. Our final experiment with sound focused on pitch. We had varying levels of water in small glass bottles and tapped each to find the highest and lowest pitch.

Tap, tap, tap

A little time to create is always a hit with first graders. We made rain forest tropical birds to hang in the classroom. Lots of color and variety and a good chance to use those fine motor skills.

Adding some color to the room!

Love the streamer tails

Fun to make!

Using our How To Draw booklets

Who says senses are best outdoors? After reading and watching a couple of videos about all the animals and foods rain forests provide, we decided to appreciate some of the foods ourselves. We used 4 senses (not taste!) and had a blast smelling cocoa, chocolate, lemons & oranges, vanilla, pepper (!), cinnamon, coffee, and tea. There were definite favorites, but pepper wasn't one of them!

Vanilla was a favorite

Our scent experts!

Looks like we found the pepper!

Coffee and tea - I like that smell!

Another pepper reaction!

Chocolate!

How about ginger?

Cocoa is a winner

Cinnamon sticks!

 Math work building equations, number bonds, and working with the number line has been extra fun when explored with partners.

Solving a story problem using 3 colors of cubes

Language arts centers this week have included isolating sounds within words, sorting words by word endings, syllables and rhymes, and sight word hunts within poems. One friend demonstrated the word sort for us, others demonstrated clapping out syllables, and everyone worked together comleting centers. 

Let's clap it out!

How many syllables?

Where's that sound?

Show us how to sort endings

Which vowel sound?

Sight words in the Rain Forest poem

 We also began a peer collaboration activity called PALS (Peer 

Finding sight words in poems

Assisted Learning Strategies) for phonics. Partners team up and point to letters asking 'What Sound?' and their partner responds. Every time they come to a star, they offer a word of encouragement such as, "Fantastic!" or "Amazing!". They love that part! They switch roles and repeat. The sequence eventually will move on to words, blending, decoding, and reading paragraphs. It's a fun way to practice and learn! 

Using PALS together

We're pals!

 Isn't it fun to share what we find? These kids thought so! As they read their independent reading books, our current sight words were discovered within them, pictures held meaning, and facts came to life. 

Look what I noticed!

 We had another chance to sing Happy Birthday this week. This time we wished Nataly a special day! Congratulations also to Nathaniel on becoming a new big brother to a baby sister. Ivy lost a tooth, and there are many other friends sure to lose one soon too if I go by the wiggling action I see! 

A note about library books. Now that we are taking them home from Library specialist, your child can return them whenever they are finished with them. I have a box in the room to hold them until library day. That makes it easier than having to remember to return it on library day (which is Monday). 
The Phys. Ed. teacher is also reminding to bring a water bottle on Wednesdays, because the kids are very active and very thirsty! They can bring them down to the gym with them on Wednesdays.


Even though a reminder was sent home about Open House and the Ice Cream Social, it looks like the date has been postponed.  Due to the construction in the school entrance road, the new date is