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