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.

More Leprechaun Traps

 

Here are some more of our wonderful leprechaun traps that were left out on Thursday in hopes of catching some goodies (or maybe even a leprechaun or two)

 

The following picture is a little blurry.... maybe the leprechaun didn't want to be seen?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!