Last Day of First Grade!

Today was the last day of first grade! We started our day with a band assembly. We heard lots of great songs played by the sixth grade band at Sinking Springs. We learned about the different families of instruments. Mrs. Graves had the third graders play music from recycled instruments they made. We also had our last town meeting at Roundtown for the year. When we came back to our classroom, we had our own morning meeting. We did the snowball greeting, where we each wrote our name, with a good-bye message. We threw the snowballs into the middle of the circle. Then we found a snowball, shared the message, and hugged good-morning to the friend who threw it! After recess, Mrs. Myers helped us made a time capsule. Mrs. Myers is going to keep is for us until just before we graduate in 2020! We had to write down some of our favorite things. We also had to write a letter to ourselves for when we graduate. Then it was lunchtime. After lunch, Mrs. Myers read us the story, The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark. Before we read, we made a book to book connection to the story, The Three Little Pigs. Then, we predicted what would happen to the first, second, and third first, using what we already knew from the pig story. When we read the story, we predicted correctly! YAY! Next was our movie time. We watched an Arthur at Camp and Arthur at the Beach. Finally, it was time for recess again. After last recess, We got our pen pal letters. Our pen pals didn't have a webcam, so we never got to do our video conference. We were sad, but we were happy to read our last letter. Mom and Dad, ask me if I would like to keep writing to my pen pal. Mrs. Myers will send them my address, if you give her permission through an email to jmyers9@cysd.k12.pa.us. You have to tell her before Monday morning! At the very end of the day, we had a classroom award ceremony. We were celebrating all of the proud accomplishments that we had in first grade. Mrs. Myers awarded each of us a special award to show the area we were most celebrate at! Have a great summer! We will all miss each other! YAY! We are second graders now!

Our Last Tuesday and Wednesdays Together

Today will be a combined blog. We have been so busy with special projects that we didn't have time to blog yesterday. Our word of the day yesterday was "every". It was a rule breaker, because the first "e" said it's short sound. This word was an adjective and an adverb. Later in the morning, Mrs. Mumme came and did a lesson to review shapes and logic. It was fun. We had music and then we went to lunch. After recess, we read four beach stories - Lottie's New Beach Towel, Atlantic, My Mermaid Sister, and Curious George Goes to the Beach. We had to decide which book was our favorite and make a book poster. On the back of the poster, we had to write four reasons why we liked this book the best. For the rest of the day, we worked with Mrs. Lauber's class. First we brainstormed a list of the themes, special events, and field trips we had in first grade. Next, we got a partner from Mrs. Lauber's class and we picked one or two ideas to write about, to share in a book for next year's first graders. After that, we conferenced with Mrs. Myers and began to type our ideas in a speech bubble. We illustrated our pictures.

Today our word of the day was "friend". It was rule breaker, because the "i" did not belong. Mrs. Myers told us that to remember the crazy spelling, you need to remember to put yourself (i) in the middle of the word, because it takes you and someone else to have a friend. Later in the morning, we had library. We had a great summer birthday lunch party. Thank you to all the parents who donated items for our party today. Mrs. Myers ordered cheese and sausage pizza from Papa Johns as her part of the birthday treat! I was so much fun! After lunch, we an exclusion brainstorm activity for the nonfiction book, Seashore. Then, we checked the table of contents, index, and the glossary for the words we thought would and would not be in the book. There were lots of words in the book that we thought were silly, made-up words - like dogfish!! Next, we went to Mrs. Weikert's room and listened to the animal reports that her students made on the computer. We will see our buddies one last time on Friday! Next, we came back to our room and brainstormed a list of the skills we learned this year. Then, we wrote about these skills on our portfolios. At the end of the day, we filled our portfolios. Mrs. Myers read to us the goals we set on the first day of school and we all met them!! YAY! We also saw our handwriting samples from the beginning of the year and compared them to the writing sample we wrote today! WOW! It was a fun day looking at all of the learning we accomplished this year in first grade. Remember, tomorrow is Camp School No More. Bring a towel and sunscreen and wear sneakers!

The Last Monday of First Grade

Today was our last Monday together. Our word of the day today was "baby". It was a rule follower, but the "y" had two jobs - it was tricky and magic. The word "baby" is a noun. After recess, we started a big friendship project called a compliment book. We each had to write a compliment quotation for each person in our class. We had to choose a tag word, too. Mrs. Myers typed the compliments over lunch. In the afternoon, we cut and glued the compliments on each person's book page. We had to find them in alphabetical order. Mrs. Myers made copies of our book. Check it out tonight in our mail. We are excited to read our compliments tonight. They will make up feel proud and happy! It felt good to know that our friends will all feel happy and proud, too, just from the things we said! After lunch, we looked at the book, Mermaid Dreams. First, we predicted all we knew about the main character, just be looking at the title and the cover of the book. We shared our ideas with a partner. Then, Mrs. Myers read the book. At the end, we check our predictions and recorded them. We had to prove our true predictions by using the words and pictures in the book. We all thought that Meriam, the main character, was a mermaid, but we didn't find out until the last page of the book. Later in the afternoon, Mrs. Myers read the book, Figgity Fish. Then, we played a game using the words from the story. We had three teams - boat one, boat two, and boat three. Mrs. Myers gave us a word. We she told us the number of letters in the word. Then, we had 30 seconds to write the word secretly. When she sounded the boat horn, we had 10 seconds to share with the other people on our boat. Then, we had to send one person from our boat, up to share the answer. If our team was correct, we got one point. If our team was wrong, we had to throw one person off the boat and into the shark water. Soon, the sharks were a team, too. At the end of the game, we had two bonus rounds where we had to spell the words by ourselves without sharing, and each correct person on the team earn one point. In the end, the shark team won! It was so much fun! We are getting better at spelling and stretching words with more than one syllable. Before recess, we had time to share our publishing center book with one or two friends, now that we are done illustrating. We will be sharing our books with our second grade computer buddies on Wednesday. Then we can take the books home! Hooray! We ended the day at art! We're happy and sad that this was our last Monday together!

Ice Cream Week!

We are so excited for ice cream week! We were hungry for ice cream all day! Our word of the day today was "bear". It was a rule breaker, because the "ea" vowel pair said the sound of "long a". The word "bare" is the homonyn for "bear". The family was so popular, but you could write the words as -ear, -are, -air, and -ere. A bear is a noun. Later in the morning, we had our last library. We are not taking books home anymore! After lunch, Mrs. Myers showed us the book, From Milk to Ice Cream. It was a nonfiction book. Using the table of contents and title, we had to write down three questions that we thought would be answered in the story. After we shared our questions, Mrs. Myers read the story. We sparkled our fingers if we heard the answer to our question. At the end, we talked about other ways ice cream can be made. Next, we had ice cream centers. In the overhead center, we are reading and following written directions to take a car around a map on the overhead. We also had to practice using our cardinal and ordinal directions. In the magnetic letters center, we practiced making words in the -eam family. Then, we answered riddles from the family. In the poetry center, we read an ice cream poem. We looked for vowel pairs, consonant digraphs, and beginning and ending consonant blends. The last center was the writing center. In the writing center, we wrote a letter to our favorite ice cream shop in York. Mrs. Myers is going to send the letters and hopefully we will get a letter back! Next we had writing workshop time. We are proofreading and publishing our favorite first grade story. We will be making a real book to take home and share using the writing we did in our journals all year. At the end of the day, we had math. We started by reviewing fractions using our Math Dictionary. Then, we practiced fractions of a set of ice cream cones. We worked independently at stations around the room to look at the set and record the fraction of the set for each flavor. Then, we made our own sets on wipe-off boards with a partner. It was a busy day!

Blast Off!

Our word of the day today was "home". It was a rule follower, because it followed the CVCe rule. There were not many words in this word family. The word "home" was a noun. Later in the morning, we had music. After lunch and recess, Mrs. Myers read us two astronaut stories. We learned lots of new facts. A favorite fact is when the astronauts go to the bathroom they have to strap themselves down. After we shared facts, we made astronauts of our own to hang in the hallway solar system. We wrote about the things we would do and see if we were astronauts in the astronaut's belly. Next, we presented our solar system reports. The other boys and girls were listeners in the audience. We had to record one fact for each report we heard. Please check out the movie of our solar system reports in the Video Projects section of Mrs. Myers' teacher page. After the reports, we finished our Solar System journals. Please look at them this weekend. At the end of the day, Ms. Anderson came for our last guidance lesson. Then, we watched a quick movie about the moon to end our weekend. We learned so much this week and had so much fun. Be sure to read our space shape poems that are in our mail today! Our theme next week is ice cream!

Planet Day

OUr word of the day today was "mother". It was a rule breaker, because the "o" said the sound of "short u". It had two syllables. It was a noun. After recess, we began painting our planets in our groups. We had to tell Mrs. Myers the colors we needed make our planet look real. After we finished, we made a solar system on the wall in the hall and we each added some stars. Then it was lunchtime. After lunch and recess, we got back into our groups and began typing our planet reports. We had to write a "grab the reader" beginning, add fact sentences in our own words, and finish with a WOW ending. Mrs. Myers was so proud of how we knew how to type and use the computers independently, write a research report, and follow directions carefully. We must almost be second graders!!! A big thank you to Macy Gale's mom for helping us type today! Next, we had math. We were listening to space story problems. We used our plan - listen, highlight the numbers, labels, and words that tell us to add or subtract, and write an equation. Last, we checked our problems. Just before recess, we had a solar system with Mrs. Lauber's class about orbit and rotation. We made a giant solar system in the classroom. We sang the orbit song and got to act out the jobs of the moon, the earth, and the sun. The earth rotates once a day every day. That gives us night and day. The moon orbits the earth once a month. The earth orbits the sun once every year. At the end of the day, we practiced reading our reports in groups. We had art, too. We are so excited to see our Solar System in the hallway. We can't wait to share our reports tomorrow!

The Sun

Our word of the day today was "got". It was a verb. It was a rule breaker, because it was a consonant, vowel, consonant word. We read the rules on the "pot of -ot". Later in the morning, we had reading workshop and Mrs. Myers read with more students. We played the syllable stretch game and worked in groups to read phrase cards fluently. After lunch, we learned about the sun. We watched a short DVD about the sun and Mrs. Myers read us a book called The Sun. We learned that the sun gives us life on Earth, because it gives us light, heat, and energy. We are excited to look around our houses for solar powered things. We also learned that the Earth is tilted and it rotates around every day. This is why we have day and night. The Earth orbits around the sun once each year. This is why we have seasons. After our language arts time, we had writing workshop time. We learned about a new kind of poem called a shape poem. First, we picked a focus from the list - planets, the sun, starts, astronauts. Then, we made a list of words to describe our focus. It could be nouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs. Then, we turned our list into sentences. Tomorrow, we will write our sentences in the shape of our focus. We are excite to try out this new type of poetry. Next, we had music class. At the end of the day, we got together with Mrs. Lauber's class to look at our data from the rocket launch. Mrs. Myers made a bar graph to show the data. We worked to groups to share and write true math statements that used the words "greater than, less than, more than, fewer than". We had three groups that had the same measurement. We are excited for more solar system fun tomorrow!