Monday Update

Thank you so much to all the dads (and the grandfather and moms!) who were able to make our special Father's Day event this morning.   Your children were so proud of their powerpoints and loved sharing their work with you.

It is very hard to believe we only have 4 1/2 days left of 1st grade.  This has been a wonderful year for Mrs. Morissey and I... we feel blessed by all the terrific parents and parent volunteeers and above all by our hard-working and well-behaved class.   It has been an absolute joy to teach this group.

We are continuing to learn as much as we can before first grade is over!   

In math we will be busy practicing telling time.  Today we estimated the activities that would take about a minute, about an hour, and about a day.    Later this week we will work on calendars and make a summer calendar for the months of July and August for students to take home.

Your children are also very motivated writers. We read a book called "Library Mouse" that inspired all of us to write, write, write! Today after writing time was over, several students asked me if they could write during their lunch! Talk about music to a teacher's ears.

  

We will have our Beach Read In this Friday from 9:15-9:45.   Students make bring beach wear and some of their favorite books!     We will also be having our first grade party on that day.

We started an art project today (giant ice cream cones) that we will be adding the finishing touches to tomorrow.  Here are some pictures of them in progress.

Monday Update

First graders are getting ready for all the fun activities we have in-store for the month of June.

Here is a picture of us making sharpie tie-dye shirts with sharpies and rubbing alcohol.   Thank you so much for Mr. and Mrs. Adam for buying the shirts and helping out with this.  Thank you also to Mrs. Mantooth for assisting as well.

It was a beautiful sunny day and we worked outside.

I will take the shirts home to put them in the dryer and set the colors.   Students will get them back on Field Day so that they can wear them that day and then take them home.

We are ending the year with a math unit on telling time. Speaking of which, time is flying by this month.   Here's a glimpse of what is going on.....

Ask your child about the grass and wheat they are growing.  We made another scientific observation today.

We are also busy getting ready for the Father's Day Event next Monday from 9:30-10:30.

If you are in the building, you will see a lot of Mrs. Morissey and I. In addition to my Mondays, I am teaching our class this Thursday and next Thursday.   I will also be teaching Tues., the 19th in the morning.

Friday the 15th is a big day... in addition to Field Day, se hope to see all of our wonderful volunteers for the volunteer latte cart on Friday the 15th.    Our class is making something special for our volunteers as well! 

Happy June!

 Our field trip is tomorrow!   Let's hope the sun is shining.
Thank you to our chaperones who will meet in the classroom to go over the details.
 ...Mrs. Mueller, Mrs. Dimitriou, Mr. Fornia, Mr. Adam, Mrs. Reed, Ms. Griffin, Mrs. Pinski, Mrs. Gupta, Ms. Kaminishi, Ms. Tran, Mrs. Thomsen.

We will be putting the kids on the bus along with the teachers.   

Parents can follow the bus, carpool, or meet us at the beach. We'll re-hook you up with your groups there.
Looking forward to a WET and wonderful day at the beach!

Thank you to the parents meeting us at the beach:  Ms. Santana, Ms. Darab, and Mrs. Wasdin.

Wow!  We are so lucky and thankful to have so many volunteers!!!

Students should have boots for wading in the wet sand and the water.  Bring jackets in case of rain.

We plan on arriving at 10AM and having our snack right away.
At 11:15 we will have lunch.
We will load the bus at 1pm.

Inspired by our trip tomorrow, we created chalk pastel beachscapes and added a starfish or other sea-life to our picture.

We continue to watch our grass and wheat seed grow!   We are keeping a science notebook and making great observations.   Here is what we noticed:

"My grass is half brown.  The top part is green and the bottom part is half dark brown"  (Christian)

"It is growing.  The grass is green"   (Kellie)

"I observed that my grass is 8 inches tall"   (Noah)

"I noticed that my wheat had a lot of white roots"   (Henry)

"My grass grew 8 inches"  (Azylyn)

"My wheat seed is growing a stem"  (Zoe)

We are also getting to be experts with money!   Today we practiced making a dollar in a variety of ways.

Things to Remember:

Sandburg BBQ this Friday

Volunteer "Thanks - a- latte" on June 15th

Father's Day event June 18th

1st grade End of year party on June 22

This is the week of lasts. . . last home work packet, last spelling test. . . last book shopping. . . last week of regular volunteer jobs, unless you'd like to still come in at your regular time and volunteer in any way that is needed as we pack and prepare for the end of our school year!

Have a wonderful week!

1st Grade Science

We have been learning so much about science in 1st grade!

 Plants:  Today we read a book called, Tops and Bottoms, and learned how some plants have edible roots while others have edible leaves, stems, or flowers.

In art, we painted our own diagram of plants above and below ground.

We also started our unit on grasses.   We planted some seeds, came up with questions, and made some predictions about our seeds.

Animals:   Here are some samples of our nonfictions writing about animals:

by Mandy

Students are also learning about their marine animals in anticipation of our field trip on June 5th.

Thank you for turning in permission slips, money, and chaperone forms.

Math:  Morissey Market continues to be a big success and it is fun to see the 1st graders counting money, making trades, and saving up to buy things.   Today we also made a  June calendar.

Upcoming Events: 

King County Library System visits our school to tell about their summer reading program next Monday, June 4th.   

The all school BBQ is Friday, June 8th.

Father's Day, Beach Trip, and Baseball Reading

 Today we looked at the blueprints for our new school and created our own blue 'prints' by printing with cardboard on blue paper.

 Our plants continue to grow!   We continue to learn so much about plants.

The Baseball All Star reading event was a HUGE success! The kids were very motivated and it shows by the number of total "runs" turned in! Miss Agnew and Mrs. Morissey will be planning a baseball celebration this Thursday for both classes to enjoy!

Save the Date for our Father's Day Celebration:   

Monday, June 18th from 9:30-10:30.

Your children will be showing you some presentations and the last of their artwork for the year.

Today we started working on a special goodbye for our wonderful secretary, Kate.   Her last day is next Thursday, May 31st.

We are beginning our BEACH AND TIDE POOL UNIT.   Students will study a tide pool animal and create a final product to show what they learned.   A beach ranger will come and teach our class about tide pool animals on Thursday, May 31st.   We will also be going on a field trip to the Edmonds Beach for low tide on Tuesday, June 5th.    Information about all these fun events will be sent home ths week.

Hi Parents,
Today we glazed our cups.  Here they are.....

 Our plants continue to grow......

 

Next Monday is our Mother's Day Tea.   We will be presenting our art and some powerpoint presentations we have been working on.    The tea starts at 2:30.  We hope all the moms (or other special people) can be there.

In math, we are continuing to work on comparing numbers.... our class seems to grasp this concept very well.  

Our wonderful art docents have been busy with some beautiful projects (including another wonderful clay piece!)

Book reports are displayed in our room; what a great group of projects!   I will try to snap a picture of them for next week's update.

Have a wonderful week.

 

April 30th

Dear Parents,
Today we learned all about the American artist, Mary Cassatt, and how she is famous for her paintings that show the love between a mother and child. We made our own portraits of ourselves loving our moms. What a gorgeous group of moms!

We are excited about our mother's day celebration on Monday, May 14th from 2:30 - 3:30 in our room.   We have lots of art work that will be going home as well as some presentations for our special moms.  We hope to see you there.  If you can't come, any special adult is welcome to come and join in the fun that afternoon.

Here are our plants... growing like crazy.  We are having fun watching them grow.

In math, we are working on comparing and ordering numbers to 100.   Today we were treated to a math lesson by Mrs. Pingeon while I gave her class the mother's day art lesson too.

We finished our first inning of reading baseball.  Our teams scored lots of runs!  Today your child is bringing home a sheet to fill out for the 2nd inning which ends next Monday.

Your child is bringing home a letter about lice today.   In case you haven't heard, lice really don't like tea tree oil and it is a natural non-toxic substance to put in your child's hair.  You can buy a small bottle at Trader Joe's and it will last a long time.  I put a few drops into my daughter's detangler and spray her hair every morning just as a preventative for lice.   You can put drops in your shampoo too.

Monday Update

Today students learned about the artist, Claude Monet, and his impressionist style of painting.  We looked at his Japanese Bridge paintings and noticed how he used different colors depending on the season.

Today your child is bringing home some information about a fun reading program we are starting.

The weather is getting nicer and the school year is winding up…so we felt this was a great time to do something fun to encourage our fabulous 1^st grade readers to keep reading this spring!!! It is baseball season, so we thought it’d be fun to have a little baseball themed reading competition!

For the next month we will be ‘competing’ against teams from Miss Agnew's class to see who can read the most minutes! Our competition will be 4 weeks (or innings) long. At the end of each week, we will count up the runs, add those to our ‘scoreboard’ and then the teams will be matched up with a new opponent. The weeks will be Monday-Monday, so on the 30^th, 4^th, 7^th and 21^st points will be tallied & a new inning will begin! You will keep track of your 1^st grader’s reading on score cards, that can be turned in anytime. 30 minutes of reading AT HOME will count for 1 run (point). The kids can count minutes read alone, or with a parent. To ensure fairness, we are asking that parents monitor the reading and sign the scorecards before the kids turn them in. There will be a reading celebration at the end for all students who earn at least 15 points for their team. We will be enforcing good sportsmanship and positivity throughout the process!

 Play Ball!

 

Monday Update

Dear Parents,

Today we were thrilled to welcome Jacob back into the classroom!   It was so nice to have him back and everyone was excited to see him.    We are hoping that Jacob will be feeling good enough to return to school for the rest of the school year.  For those of you who are new to our classroom, Jacob was diagnosed with cancer in February of 2011.  His leukemia is in remission, and he is doing very well.   With his return, we want to remind you about how important it is that we keep all germs, colds, viruses away from him.    Jacob's parents will be sending a letter via email with more specific information about this.

This morning, we learned all about how ceramic is made and where clay comes from.  We also learned how to create a cup using the pinch pot method.   Our clay cups are drying and then we will fire them in the kiln.   After that we will glaze them.    Here they are all ready to dry.

In math we are working on tens and ones (46 equals 4 tens and 6 ones).   Everyone is picking up this concept very quickly. 

We are also conducting our Morissey Market and learning about money.   Every Friday, students get to take part in being a clerk, banker, or buyer at the market.    They are earning money and keeping it in their desk-top banks.

We are going to be beginning our next science unit on plants.    We will even grow our own plants in the classroom!

Earth Day is next Sunday!   Today we read about why it is important to recycle plastic.   

Mother's Day Tea:  Monday, May 14th  from 2:30-3:30
We will be having a special tea to celebrate all the moms in our room.   In addition to collecting all your child's artwork, we have some other special presentations planned.     We hope everyone can make it.

Happy April

Welcome back from Spring Break!

We are extending a warm welcome to our new student who started school with us today, Kylee.  We had a great time getting to know her and showing her how things go in first grade.

Taproot Theatre returned to put on a performance about dealing with bullying.  Students learned the 3 "R's" for dealing with bullies:  Recognize, Refuse, Report.

We started the morning by reading about the Cajun artist George Rodrigues and his paintings of Blue Dog.  

We then created our own dogs in his style:

Have a great week!

Monday Update

Today we looked at Pablo Picasso's painting, Mains aux Fleurs (Hands with Flowers)

and created our own hands with flowers.

On Mondays, students write in their writing journals.  Today we were inspired by some of the great books we read and tried some of the techniques real authors use in their writing.

Students are working hard on their nonfiction writing about arctic animals.   Their dioramas look beautiful.

You may also be interested in the following program about arctic seasons and animals:
Frozen Planet : Discovery Channel

dsc.discovery.com/tv/frozen-planet/Cached

Continuing Sundays at 8PM e/p, Frozen Planet, a Discovery Channel/BBC co-production from the makers of Planet Earth, provides the ultimate portrait of our Arctic seasons and animals that live there.