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.