Once Upon A Time

Fairy Tale books we read!

Who doesn't love reading about a world of giants, trolls, witches, and dragons with the fearsome magic they use, especially when you know the hero will always have the victory and everything will end 'Happily Ever After'?! Fairytales bring us to a land far away and long ago and share features of special numbers, royalty, magic, good vs. bad, and of course that happy ending. We have been identifying these features as we read, Puss In Boots, Rose Red & Snow White, Young Arthur, Young Lancelot, Rumpelstiltskin, Rapunzel, and Beauty and the Beast. We've also read non fiction books about castles and have had fun in our library area full of castles, knights, and fairies.

Let's play!

Our library display

We all have the same fairy tale book!

So many exciting books!

 Along with reading Fairy Tales, we are also reading some Folktales and Fables such as The Little Red Hen, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Tortoise and the Hare, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
 These stories feature talking animals, or they tell a lesson or have a moral to the story. 
                               

Buddy reading The Ugly Duckling

We have moved on to Geometry in math and are identifying and naming features of plane and solid shapes. We are using pattern blocks to combine them in ways to make a shape such as a hexagon, and we will be learning the vocabulary of sides, vertex, face, and surface as we work with the shapes.

The Museum of Science came to first grade this week with their program on stars!

We saw stars and constellations inside!

Using binoculars

Making observations

 Everyone went inside the inflatable 'star lab' and looked up in wonder as we sat in the dark and identified constellations, and some planets. Hope everyone gets some cloud free nights to take a look at the stars in Tyngsboro. You might spot Orion's Belt or the Big Dipper, maybe even the North Star!

This tied in nicely with our current science theme of Earth & Space. We have been the 'earth' rotating around the 'sun' (my desk lamp) to see how our rotation results in day and night. 

It seems all our subjects have begun a new topic, and social studies has also moved on to learning about maps, cardinal directions, map keys, and our place in the world.

This turquoise rock is pretty cool!

Writing has entered a new genre as well - Poetry! This is a whole new way of thinking from the Informational writing we just completed. We have been using our senses to describe items, and looking at things through a different, imaginative lens. Take a look at our nature display that we are using to write poems about.

Snake skin, arrowheads, gems, shells, bird nests...

These are Shape Poems

For a little free time fun, the puzzlemania group has struck!

Some of our experts!

The Distance Learning packet will go home on Tuesday, May 7 and will be due by May 17. This is a variety of activities designed to provide reading, writing, social studies, science, and math practice to make up for the missed day of school on the professional development day of May 14, when school is closed for students. See the school website for more information. The kids will enjoy their packet all based on an Earth &  Space theme.

We still need some rectangular tissue boxes as we plan on making the castles at the end of next week. Thanks!

Have a nice weekend,
Valerie

Birds of a feather flock together

Colorful birds!

Birds have wings, beaks, make nests, and most fly, but what makes a bird unique to all other creatures? Feathers! We had so much fun this week learning about the incredible variety among birds, their specific features that help them survive in their varied habitats or features (beak types) that are just right for the type of food they eat. We did research using posters, texts, and fact cards and completed a bird report as our final non fiction writing. We also put together a bird booklet with some of the information we learned.

Taking notes from posters

Notes from our completed chart

Labeled birds

Bluebird, chickadee, cardinal, or gold finch?

Gathering notes from bird

I'll take that fact!

Everyone chose a bird from our local area to research. The choices were Goldfinch, Cardinal, Chickadee, or Bluebird. They worked together and independently to gather information and organize it into topics. Our Informational writing collection will be coming home soon along with this report.

Partner reading about or bird

We work great together!

Your turn to read!

Wow! The ids gave all this info they read about!

Everyone enjoyed their first crossword puzzle too - of course themed about birds! 

Let's get this clue!

Crossword fun!

 Since the older grades were taking MCAS tests, first grade switched our specialist time to the morning so they could still have theirs in the afternoon. That meant a very long afternoon, so we took out the paints, got creative, and made a hall display inspired by the paintings of Eric Carl!

Painting fun!

Artistic work!

Nice designs!

What a display!

As we collect, sort, and graph data in math, we learned that we could also organize data using tally marks. To remember that the fifth tally is made diagonally across the group of four, we have a poem and popsicle stick tally kids: 

Our tally poem and visuals

 But what really sent the message home was acting out the tally poem with our own friends being the tally marks. Bursts of laughter and a good workout of my arm muscles made this activity a blast!

We caught the 5th one before she fell!

Hold on tight, tallies!

Kind of fun being tally # 5!

 As we finish up graphing, tallying, and analyzing the results, we will move into geometry next. 2-D plane shapes and 3-D solids here we come!

Here is a little word work fun identifying spelling patterns and writing new words, all in cute plastic chicks:

Which spelling pattern does this chick hold?!

Have a wonderful weekend and see if you can spot a bird we learned about or hear a familiar bird song!

Mrs. Dagley

What's In An Egg?

Frogs everywhere!

Through poems, non fiction and fiction texts, writing, and science activities, we have been discovering all the creatures that lay eggs! Reptiles, insects, fish, amphibians, and birds all lay eggs of all colors and sizes. This week we looked at the life cycle of a lady bug, and then spent a while on the life cycle of a frog from tadpole to adult frog. It's cool that we can hear frogs every night at home now too! The kids completed a Frog booklet this week and read and shared information and pictures they found in our large frog book collection. We also enjoyed reading Chickens Aren't the Only Ones with the follow up response page listing animals that lay eggs. 

The Ladybug life cycle!

Our Frog booklet

Sharing about Hummingbirds

Reading group sharing about Snake facts

We paired up or formed groups to read about various ways animal parents take care of their young when we read Animal Parents. 

Science reading buddies!

                                                                        

Partner reading in science

                                             Our informational writing genre
integrates very well with the science 
themes of Animals and their Offspring. Many kids have written 
about creatures in the animal kingdom. Other information topics have included rock climbing,  places to visit (Maine, Florida, Cape Cod), restaurants, knights, planets, storms, and Nail Salons!  

When we return from vacation, we will touch on the life cycle of butterflies and then wrap up with a mini unit on birds.

Taking turns reading Animal Parents

    Our final science unit will be Earth & Space.






 

A beautiful read-aloud!

One of our favorite read-alouds this week was The Velveteen Rabbit, a story from another era that stirs imagination and emotions with its rich vocabulary and sweet desire for a little rabbit to become Real through the love of the little boy. Bringing in a life-like straw rabbit in a wicker cage, from home added to the story fun!

The Velveteen Rabbit!

We enjoyed a Reader's Theater skit this week as well. We will be performing many more when we begin our Fairy Tale reading genre after vacation. This one was The Little Red Hen.

Performing The Little Red Hen

Great job on the Telling Time math test - next we will organize data with graphs and tally marks, and terrific job on the spelling tests! All those /ight/ words needed a chant, movements, and poses to perfect the spelling which we were all successful in doing!

Well it is time to gear up for the final stretch of first grade - lots of new units and learning ahead!

Have a wonderful, restful, and fun vacation!

Mrs. Dagley

Hickory Dickory Dock

What time is it?!

The clocks have made an appearance and we are off and running telling time to the hour and to the half hour.  We have been using mini analog clocks and writing the time digitally as well. We will work with reading a schedule and naming the times that activities occur. Now that everyone has clocks on the mind, continued practice at home will be fun! It is surprising how many clocks are in our homes - on the oven or microwave, t.v., computers, bedside alarms, cars... 

Mini clocks to tell time

In phonics we have focused on /ed/ endings and on using commas in a series of words in a sentence. Here is a word work center sorting correct and incorrect placement of commas.

Commas in a list

The last of our Pony Express riders collected the mail. We will be winding up our western theme and moving into a fairy tale reading genre next. 

Pony riders!

Cuddly horse for Show and Tell

 We continued to learn the features and structures of various animals in science this week. One group read aloud a book which gave information on mammals, fish, birds, and reptiles. We explored animal life cycles and took a closer look at the metamorphosis that occurs in the frog life cycle as they hatch, swim in water as tadpoles, grow legs and lungs, and move to land. 

It's a frog's life!

We like reading non fiction to the class!

The class is so excited about the reading they are doing! Everyone is motivated and pushing themselves to read challenging stories. Take a look at some of these choices:

Wow, can we read!

As we continue with non fiction writing, we had fun searching through our big collection of non fiction texts to check off our own scavenger hunt list of N.F. features. We found Table of Contents, headings, labels, fact boxes, maps, photos, bold print, and more. The kids loved choosing topics such as planets, dinosaurs, storms, rock climbing, horseback riding, etc to write about too.

Scavenger hunt for features of Non fiction text

Next week we visit the Book Fair on Thursday at 9:15. Most books are $4-5, with hardbacks and larger books being more. It's a great display in the hallway outside the office.

Well I survived April Fool's Day with all the jokes and surprises, but now it really does feel like springtime in April. Have a wonderful weekend in the sun!
Mrs. Dagley