Monday News

Hi Parents,
Today we created artwork based on our last math unit (geometry) and learned about the artist Wayne Thiebaud. 

Wayne Thiebaud is famous for his paintings of desserts, especially cakes.

 We noticed that cakes are cylinders and learned how to draw some big delicious cylinders (some with slices cut out!).

This art project finishes our unit on geometry and today we started our unit on doubling numbers by playing several math games.   Games are such a terrific way to reinforce skills.   A great family game to play to work with numbers is yahtzee.  If you are looking for more fun ways to add math into your day, check out this website  

The Leprechaun Traps have started to arrive!   We read a little bit about Ireland today and some stories that are told about leprechauns.   Remember to bring your traps in so we can try to catch the little guys on Thursday.

Next Monday, I will be at 5th grade outdoor education with my son and Mrs. Morissey will be teaching all week.

Monday Update

Today we learned about the artist, Vincent Van Gogh and his beautiful sunflowers.   We created our own sunflowers by mixing colors and using short think brush-strokes with our paintbrushes.

I want to mention again how happy we are to WELCOME our new student, J.D., to the class. He has been such a great addition to our classroom and has made many new friends already!    He is also our class Busy Bee this week!

Math:  Today, your child has taken home a practice test.   They are to work on this tonight so that they can be ready for the assessment Mrs. Morissey will be giving them on Tuesday.

 Read Across America
We have been having lots of fun celebrating Dr. Seuss' Birthday. Building wide, we do a Stop Drop and Read and then participate in a building wide bingo game with book titles.  We also get a chance to guess what story Ms Caddock reads aloud on the intercom.

In class, we have a reading goal of 10 Dr. Seuss books per child this week which will equal 200 books read in our class in one week! We made some very cute "thing 1 and thing 2" characters which will display our favorite book read. 

Science:   We are learning all about matter.  Ask your child to tell you about what they know about solids, liquids, and gasses.

Update on Jacob:  We think about our classmate Jacob all the time and hope for his speedy return to class. Here is the link you can visit to leave comments and let Jacob's family know you are thinking of them.   http://www.jacobschaub.com/

This week, Mrs. Morissey will get a chance to visit another classroom in the district to see how they run their reading program.   Mrs. Morissey and I are excited to get even more ideas to help all our first grade readers grow in their reading skills and in their love of reading.  While Mrs. Morissey is visiting that classroom on Thursay, the 8th, I will be teaching our class.  

100th Day and Dr. Seuss

 Here we all are at age 100.   I'd say we turn out to be a lovely bunch.    We celebrated our 100th day of school last week   We even did some 100 seconds and 100 centimeter math problems with our 3rd grade buddies.

Today we welcomed a new student to our class.  Welcome J.D.!  

We also read The Lorax as an intro to our celebration of Dr. Seuss's Birthday.   

We continue to work on our geometry unit.   Today we worked on creating congruent figures.

Have a wonderful week.

Monday Update

Dear Parents,

Tomorrow morning is our Valentine's Day Party!  All the students are extremely excited for this.   Here's a glimpse of the Valentine holders they made today.

Each student took home a list of everyone's name from our class so they can make their Valentines.

We have begun learning about geometry....today we sorted geometric shapes based on number of sides and corners.

Here is a look at what we have been working on in writing.   Students are welcome to bring any writing they do at home into school and I will give them a chance to share their work.  We had fun learning about Nelah's trip today.

Here are some frist grade writers:
Noah:

 Mandy:

 Franziska

Monday Update

Dear Parents,
Today we worked with warm and cool colors to make our 'cold hands, warm heart' project.

 We also shared our 'heart maps' and did some wonderful writing from our hearts.  It isn't too late to turn in heart maps.  Please make sure to get these in so we can keep them in our writing journals for writing time.

 We have been spending a lot of time working on what writing time looks like and what makes good writing.  Here is an example of one of the things we are learning in class:

Our Valentine's Party is first thing Tuesday the 14th, at 9AM.   Noah and Cam's mom are planning a fun pancake breakfast.   Here is our class list, in case you need it for creating Valentines.  We will be creating mailboxes on Monday, the 14th.

Valentines' Day Class List
AYZLYN
CAMERON                                    
CHRISTIAN                   
DAVID                          
ELENA                
ELLA                    
FRANZISKA                   
GRANT                    
HENRY                    
JACOB                    
JACQULEAN                   
 KELLIE               
 MADELYN                        
 MANDY                    
NELAH                    

 NIMA 
NOAH                    
ROAN                                                             
THEO     
ZOE