Zoo Week

Our theme this week is zoo. We are excited to visit Zoo America on Thursday. To begin our day, we handprinted our t-shirts to look like an alligator, a lion, and a snake. We are going to wear our zoo shirts on Thursday for the field trip. We really want to thank Mrs. Bashada, Mrs. Donnor, Mrs. Guadagnino, Mrs. Kurland for helping us paint our shirts. They will come home tomorrow when they are dry! Our word of the day today was "from". It was rule breaker, because the "o" said the sound of "short u". It had a popular word family -um, but it didn't look like the word "from". We had library and lunch and recess. Then, we had a mixed up afternoon. Mrs. Myers was observed by new first grade teachers and reading specialist in the district, so we changed our afternoon routine. We started with writing workshop. Today we practiced for the district writing assessment. We wrote a story about a time with our friends. Mrs. Myers is going to score the story in the areas of focus, content, organization, and proofreading. You can score up to four points for each area. On Wednesday, we will have the real district writing assessment. Then, we heard our afternoon story. We read the story My School's a Zoo. It was funny! We compared the school in the story to our own school on a venn diagram. A venn diagram is two circles that connect in the center. The center shows things that are the same. The outside of the circles show things that are different. Then, it was time for reading workshop and guided reading. This is were we had all of our visitors observing. It was crazy with all those people watching. At the end of the day we went to centers. We have zoo centers this week. At the games centers, we are matching circus cars to animals using the mixed up word of the day words. At the magnetic letters, we are practicing the -ay, -ar, and -ig word families on trains. Then we are using the words in three sentences. In the writing center, we pick a story pop for each area - characters, setting, and problem. Then we write a story. In the sentence strips center, we are putting animals in alphabetical order. It was a busy, but fun day! Tomorrow we will learn about the animals we will see at the zoo.

Apple Party Day

Sorry for the late blog. We were having technical difficulties. We had a end to our apple theme today. Our word of the day was "this". It was a rule follower. We are really practicing using our reading strategies each morning to guess the word of the day. Ask me to tell you the strategies in order. We DON'T start with sound it out when we get stuck on a word. We'll show you what we do instead. Today was Johnny Appleseed's birthday. We celebrated by making a class book of facts about John Chapman's life. We read the story Johnny Appleseed and each share a fact for the book. After recess, we had a math lesson about addition. We learned the symbols of the plus sign and the equals sign. We learned the answer to an adding problem in called the sum. We each had an apple addition mat. We used cubes on the mat to add sums to ten. Then we did an adding paper. After lunch, Mrs. Lauber read the story, Apple Pie 4th of July. We practiced retelling it on a GO map. Then, we retold it in a group. When we were finished, we had reading workshop time. This is one of our favorite parts of the day. Then it was time for the APPLE TASTING PARTY! Mrs. Welty helped Mrs. Myers set up while we had centertime. We had an apple juice/apple cider tasting station. We had a red, yellow, and green apple tasting station. We visited Mrs. Welty to get the rest of our apple food. We had apple pie, apple crisp, apples with caramel dip, crackers with apple butter, apple muffins, apple bread, and candy apples. WOW! It was all so yummy. We tried a sample of each food. We tallied our favorite kind of apple and graphed it on a pictograph. We also tallied the apple drink we liked best. Apple cider won by a landslide. Last, we made a classbook about each of our favorite apple foods. We had so many different things that we liked best, but we all liked at least on thing from the party! YEAH! Thank you to all the parents who donated items for our party. Without you, this great experience wouldn't have been possible! At the end of the day, we went to art class. We ended the day with a story from Elle. Have a great weekend! I will be out of the classroom with a personal day on Monday, so there will be no blog. Check bag on Tuesday!

Apple Facts

Our word of the day today was "be". It was a rule breaker, because the "e" is saying the his name without another vowel's help. We found out that this is a very popular word family, but it looks different (e, ee, ea, ey). After our morning routine, we read the story Apples, by Gail Gibbins, It was nonfiction. We learned the parts of the apple and some true facts about apples. We labeled the parts of the apple before recess. After recess, we had a math lesson on odd and even numbers. We made a chart of the odd and even numbers. We learned to always look at the ones column of a number to see if it's odd or even. We used cubes and ice cube trays with a partner to check odd and even numbers. We did a paper with big number! After lunch, we had another nonfiction lesson. Before the story, we did "concept circle". This is when you look at groups of four words and picked the word that didn't belong. They all were related to apples in some way. Then, we read the story An Apple a Day. It was nonfiction. It had a table of contents and an index. After the story, Mrs. Myers gave us a card to read with a partner. We had to put the card under the correct heading to show its apple relationship. (apple uses, parts of an apple, apples in the spring, apples in the summer, apples in the fall) After our lesson, we had reading workshop and guided reading. We are doing very well at both of these. Mrs. Myers is very proud of us! Before music, we played a game called Apple-O. It was apple BINGO with word wall words and number words. Abby, Dawson, and Annabelle all won a game. At the end of the day we had our fourth center. Tomorrow is make-up day and FUN FRIDAY! What a busy day! We also learned letters Dd and Ww for handwriting practice tomorrow morning. Don't forget your apple foods for tomorrow's apple tasting party.

Apple Adventures

Our word of the day today was "at". It was rule follower. This word makes a very popular word family. We read the words from the word family on the "cat of -at". At math today, we worked with Mrs. Lauber's classroom on repeating patterns. Mrs. Myers and Mrs. Lauber divided us into groups of 5 kids. We had a bag of four different colors of apples. Our job was to make as many different repeating patterns as possible and record their name on our wipe-off board. At the end of the lesson, we all came back together and shared the patterns. Each group make between 7 and 11 different patterns and the list was so long when we shared that we couldn't write them all down. We all really liked exploring patterns today. After lunch, we read the story, Pepo and Lolo. We retold the story on a GO map. We practiced using the words when, who, where, first, next, then, next, then, and last to retelling the beginning, middle, and end of the story. We even retold with a partner. Please ask me about the story. It is one of Mrs. Myers' favorites! Then, it was time for reading workshop. We finished some new activities. Mrs. Myers started our guided reading groups today. Some of us are switching to Mrs. Lauber's class for reading. Each week will be different. After we read a story with Mrs. Myers, we will get to take it home and share it with you. Please check my orange folder to see if I have a book to share tonight. We had centertime. It was our third day of centers. At the art center, we glued the mosiac pieces to our apple project. Before recess, we had writing workshop time. We learned how authors add adjectives to their stories to make it more stylish. An adjective is a describing word. It describes a person, place, or thing. We were writing with adjectives in the writing center this week, and we didn't even know it. We read a poem abouit apples and found the adjectives in it. We will try to write using adjectives tomorrow in our writing journal. We ended the day with a movie about Johnny Appleseed. We will learn more about him on Friday, when we celebrate his birthday.

A Busy Day

We started the day with a substitute. Her name was Mrs. Bell. Mrs. Myers was working with the other first grade teachers on reading with students from all the classrooms. Our word of the day today was "I". It was a rule breaker, because it was all alone. You must always write the "I" as a capital letter, when he must be a tall, capital letter. The word I is a pronoun. It takes the place of ourselves in a sentence. In math today, we practiced repeating patterns. We used cubes to make patterns with a partner. Then, we made patterns by ourselves and recorded them on our worksheet. After lunch and recess, we read the story, The Apple Pie Tree. It was actually a nonfiction story. We learned how apples grow by season. After the story, we retold the story using the words first, next, then, and last. We had another day of reading workshop. Then, it was time for centers. In the art center this week, we are making an apple project. Today, we traced the apple shape, cut it out, and put our name on the back. Finally it was time workshop. We heard the rest of the story, Down the Road. We listened for onomatopoeia in the story. An onomatopoeia was a word that sounds like a sound. We had a special signal to show Mrs. Myers we heard an onomatopoeia. Ask me to see the signal tonight. After writing, we had recess and phys. ed. It was a great day. We almost earned bonus blocks. Maybe tomorrow!

Apple Week

Our theme this week is apples. Our word of the day today was "they". It was a rule breaker, because the "ey" said the sound of "ay". We listed other "ay" words on the Hay of -ay. It was very popular. The word they is a pronoun. It takes the place of two or more people. Then we had library and lunch. After recess, Mrs. Myers read Rain Makes Applesauce. It was very silly. We listened for verbs in the story. Then, we made a classbook using our own silly verb sentences. Then, it was reading workshop time. We learned how to use the new activity packet for our books. Guided reading starts tomorrow. In writing workshop, Mrs. Myers shared the story, Down the Road. We listened to how the author described the setting with details, so we could make a picture in our heads. Dawson and Lille also gave us settings to make pictures in our heads. Then, we wrote in our journals. We tried to revise the settings from our first story. We learned the "carrot" mark for adding new details. We shared Grace, Elle, and Madison's stories. We will continue tomorrow. After recess, we had a new center tour. We have apple centers this week. This week, we will visit games center, writing center, overhead center, and magnetic letters. In the games center, we are sorting cards by beginning letter sounds. We record the letter with the picture on our paper. In the writing center, we are writing true facts to describe the apples Mrs. Myers has on the table. She is going to use our description to tell which apple we were describing - apple 1 or apple 2. At the overhead center, we are coloring short a and long a pictures by a code. We are writing and adding a magic "e" to the long vowel words. We used MRs. Myers' "magic e wand". In the magnetic letter center, we are using the letters, a, b, s, t, r to make two letter words, three letter words, and four letter words. We packed up after a great day! More apples tomorrow. Mrs. Myers has a substitute tomorrow morning. She will be at school, but she is working with other teachers. In our mail tonight, please sign and return the field trip form.

Good-Bye Pigs

We began our day with an assembly to learn about the Constitution of the United States. We learned many important facts about the Constitution, and we talked about our own Constitution at Roundtown when we are Roundtown PROUD. Our word of the day today was "his". It was a pronoun that replaced a boy's name. It was a rule breaker, because the "s" said the sound of "z". It was not a popular word family. After music, lunch, and recess, we came back to the classroom. Mrs. Myers read the story, Oink. It was about two pigs who were happy, but their neighbors were not. We learned how to retell the story using a GO map organizer. We sorted the story into beginning, middle, and end. We sorted the story elements into characters, setting (when and where), problem, events, and solution. After the parts were sorted, we retold the story using the words - first, next, then, next, then, last. After our lesson, we listened to the story, Pigs, by Robert Munsch. He is an author that we will study in October. The story was so funny and had a surprise ending. After the story, we brainstormed words that would belong on the "pig of -ig". Mrs. Myers recorded the word, and we sang them in a song. It was a popular word family. Then, we had reading workshop time. Mrs. Myers gave us a new folder to keep our reading log in. We also got our reading workshop activity packet, but Mrs. Myers is going to tell us about it on Monday. Finally, it was time for our writing workshop project. We met with Mrs. Lauber's class and made groups of three students. Then, we looked at the facts we wrote yesterday about pigs. As a group, we picked the fact that we thought was the most interesting. Then, we used the laptop computers to type and print our sentence. We learned how to type capital letters, use the space bar, and use return to move down in our document. We illustrated our typed fact when we were finished. Mrs. Myers is going to hang our pig facts in the hallway with our pig art projects, and she is going to make a class book with our facts for our classroom. Then, we went out to recess. When we got back, we had centertime. If we finished all four learning centers, we got to finish our FUN FRIDAY choices. We had so much fun! It was a very busy day! We can't wait to share the sign language, Spanish, French, and Italian word for the word pig with you. Have a great weekend!

Pigs, Pigs, Pigs

We started our day learning to say hello in French - Bonjoir. We also learned the french word for pig - cochon. Our word of the day today was "with". It was a rule follower. The "th" was a consonant digraph. It was not a popular word family. After our morning calendar, we went to Mrs. Lauber's room and Mrs. Myers read the story, Life on a Pig Farm. We made a list of facts we learned about pigs. We also learned about the parts of a nonfiction story. We saw the table of contents, captions, glossary, and an index. After recess, it was time for math. We visited two more math centers. Mrs. Myers met with another group. Please check my mail today, to see my math center recording sheet. We went to lunch and recess. After lunch, Mrs. Myers read the story, My Lucky Day. We predicted from the cover wether fox or piglet would have a lucky day. At the end of the story, we found out that piglet had the luckier day. After the story, we retold the story using the event cards. We worked in pairs to organize ourselves in order. Then we retold it. We learned that we must use a character's names when we retell. Then, it was centertime. We finished our fourth center. We also worked on the ears in the art center. After centers, we had reading workshop time. We read and logged our books. At writing workshop time, we listened to the story, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, by Gail GIbbons. It was nonfiction, but it looked a little different. It didn't have a table of contents or photographs. It had lots of facts though. After the story, we recorded two facts to save for a project tomorrow using the laptop computers. We are all excited. We learned that writers write for different reasons. This time, we are writing to teach YOU something new about pigs! At the end of the day, we had art. We worked on our pinwheels for peace. Sunday is International Peace Day!

PIggy Math Centers

We started our day by writing in our journals. We are continuing to add our problem and solution. We partner read our stories so far. We really had fun singing our pig songs in the song and poetry folder. We can't wait until you hear them on Friday! Our word of the day today was "as". It was a rule breaker, because the "s" said the sound of "z", just like in "was" and "is". The word "as" can be used to write similes like the pig was as pink as cotton candy. It was not a popular word famliy. In math today, we had four math centers. We practiced stamping and dotting pigs, we ordered pigs using ordinal numbers and dressed for a race, we sorted by attribute with Mrs. Myers, and we practiced writing our numbers 0 -9 correctly. We went to two centers today. We will finish with two centers tomorrow. After lunch, we read the story, PIgsty. We retold the story using pictures of the events. We had eight pictures today. We learned to use the words "next" and "then" over and over again. Ask me to retell the story to you tonight! In handwriting today, we practiced letter Ss. We will finish our letter Ss writing and pictures for morning work tomorrow. Today, we learned about reading workshop. It is a time where we enjoy reading by ourselves. We learned to log our books each time we read something new. Next week, we will do a book project for each five books we read. We went to music and recess. Then, we had centers. We added a new step to our pig. We made the pig's legs and hooves. We can't work on our pig, until we finish our learning center for the day. We are just growing and growing as first graders.

P-I-G-G-Y

We had more pig fun today! Our word of the day today "are". We learned that this word is a rule breaker, because it has a decoration "e". It also has a bossy r sound, but that follows the rules. This word was very popular. We listed the words on "star of are" to hang on our clothesline. The star of "ar" does not have the decoration e. In math today, we had a fun lesson. We were practicing ordinal numbers. It is a different way to count. We first practiced on our calendar. Then, we had pig races in our classroom. We froze the pigs during the race, and we counted what place they were in. (first, second, third) Then, we used the pigs to do more ordinal counting after the race and colored our own pigs after listening to Mrs. Myers' direction. After lunch and recess, Mrs. Myers read a story called Princess Pigsty. It was a funny story. After the story, we worked in groups to retelling the story. Then, we shared our part of the retelling. Last, we drew our retelling and shared it with a partner. We practiced using first, next, then, last. We had centertime next. Mrs. Myers opened the art center today. We will be making a pig this week. Today we were tracing and body and the nose on pink. We also read pig books in the library center. It was then time for writing workshop. We brainstormed and drew a problem for our story. We also thinking about the solution for tomorrow. At the end of the day, we watched a reading rainbow video about pigs. It was great. Tonight we have Open House. We will take you on a scavenger hunt to learn about first grade. Mrs. Myers can't wait to see you tonight!

Pig Week

Our theme this week is pigs. It is a funny theme. The word of the day today was "on". It was a rule follower. It was not popular, but some words do rhyme with it, but they look different. In math today, we had a fun lesson. We sorted by attributes. First Mrs. Myers used students to brainstorm attributes. Then, we sorted shape blocks by size, shape, thickness, and color. Last, we worked in groups to sort bags of pigs by different attributes. We sorted by size, shape, and color. Some groups even found out that you can sort by more than one attribute. After lunch, Mrs. Myers read the story Pig in a Wig. It was funny. We practiced retelling the story using pictures. We used the words, first, next, then, and last to retell the story. Please ask me to retell the story to you tonight. After that, we had new centers about pigs. In the games centers, we sorted pigs onto mud puddles by word family. In the listening center, we heard the story, The Three Little Pigs. We wrote and drew one thing that was the same and one thing that was different from the regular version of the story. In sentence strips centers, we made sentences by adding a setting (when and where) and a verb. In the magnetic letter center, we looked at pictures on pigs and used the magnetic letters to add the beginning and ending sound to the word. Finally, it was writing time, Mrs. Lauber read the story, "Eat!" cried Little Pig. We listened for sound words. They are called onomatopeoia. They add style to a story. Onomatopoeia are words like WOOSH, THUD, and SPLASH. We made a list to use in our own stories. We ended the day with phy. ed. A special event in our classroom today was a new student. Elizabeth Towne joined our first grade classroom. We now have 19 boys and girls.

Tasty Watermelon

Today was the last day of our watermelon theme. We learned how to sign and speak the word watermelon is Spanish (la sandia). We can tell a sign language sentence about watermelon, too. Our word of the day today was "for". It was a rule follower, but we learned a new rule. We learned that "R" is bossy to vowels when the vowel is right before the vowel. We hung the "door of or" in our classroom to remind us. We learned that the word for is a homonym for the word "four". We had library, lunch, and recess. After that, Mrs. Myers read Icy Watermelon. It was a spanish book about a family from Mexico. Then, we had our watermelon tasting party. Before we ate the watermelon, we tallied the how many friends liked watermelon. There were 17 friends. Then we ate the watermelon and sang our watermelon songs with Mrs. Lauber's class. After we ate our watermelon. We took a new tally. Only one person changed their mind. We had sixteen friend like the watermelon. We wrote a class book about our watermelon. In writing workshop today, we reviewed characters and setting. Then, Mrs. Myers wrote a story with our help using her "draw a story" picture. We put the setting and the characters in her story. Then, we wrote our own story beginnings. Dawson, Nick, and Madison shared their great beginnings. In centers today, we finished our packets. We painted the rest of our art watermelon project. Then, we had FUN FRIDAY choices. We love Friday center time. We have lots of choices if we followed the directions all week. Look in our mail for this weeks completed center packet. YEAH! It's a weekend! Next week's theme is pigs!

Down By The Bay

Our word of the day today was "he". It was a pronoun. It was a rule breaker and a rule follower, because the "e" said his long sound all by himself. We found out that this word is actually very popular, but many of the other words in the word family look different. We had quick math today, because he had a morning music special. In math, we used our estimation books. We estimated how many watermelon jellybeans were in the jar. We learned to compare 10 as our something we know. There were 37 jellybeans in the jar. After music, lunch, and recess, we finally came back to the classroom. Mrs. Myers read the story Down By The Bay. We sang along as she read. Then, we listened for the rhyming words in the story. We made a list and saw that many words look alike but some rhymes do not look the same. Then, we made a Down By The Bay art project. It was a watermelon. Inside the watermelon, we wrote a Down By the Bay verse with our own rhyme. Then, we added a pop-up character and drew the setting, when and where. Then, it was time for writing workshop. We brainstormed a list of characters we could add to our first story. Tomorrow morning, we will draw characters in our journals. In handwriting, we practiced the letter Ll. It was easy! At centertime, we finished our fourth round of centers. Then, Mrs. Myers introduced the new art center step. We traced and cut a watermelon shape on red paper. We had a good day, but we need to practice listening to directions the first time Mrs. Myers gives them. Don't forget, our scrapbook page is due tomorrow!!!

Weighty Watermelon

Today was a great day! Our word of the day today was "was". It was a rule breaker, because the "a" said the sound of "short u" and the "s" said the sound of "z". To help us remember this word, we hung the "buzz of was" from the ceiling. After word of the day, we had a great math time. We went to Mrs. Lauber's room to estimate the weight of our watermelon. We learned that when you estimate, you compare something you know to something you don't know. We used a scale to find out that Mrs. Lauber's watermelon weighed 12 pounds. Our watermelon was smaller, so we could make a "smart guess." We all made estimates. Then, we weighed our watermelon on the scale. It was seven pounds. We had six friends who were only one pound away from estimating correctly! We recorded our estimation on a paper to share with you. We went to lunch and recess. After lunch, Mrs. Myers read us the story Chestnut Cove. It was a watermelon story. After the story, we learned how to retell a story. We used the words first, next, then, and last. Please ask me to retell the story to you tonight. I have a paper in my folder that will help me remember! We had centertime. After our learning center, we went to the art center. Today, we decorated the hands of our watermelon project. We had writing workshop. Mrs. Myers got out the book, Aunt Isabel Tells a Good One. We listed the parts of a good fiction story. (character, setting - when, where, problem, and solution) Then, we brainstorm a list of settings to keep in our classroom. We made a list of "when" and "where". Tomorrow morning, we will draw our first settings in our Writing Workshop Journals. In our mail today, please check for the application for a library card. It is a special program with the York County Library System for first graders. Win PRIZES!!!! What a great day ! We earned bonus blocks!

The Short, Rainy Day!

Today was a short day in first grade. We had an early dismissal. Our word of the day was "that". It was a rule follower. It was popular, so we listed the word family on the "cat of -at". We had so many words on our cat. After our morning routine, we went to recess, lunch, and recess again. Then after lunch, we came back to the classroom. We had centertime. We all finished our second center today. Mrs. Myers opened the art center. We can only visit it after we finish our learning center for the day. Today's job in the art center was to draw our face on a piece of paper and cut it out. We will keep it in our green center folder until tomorrow. Then, we will do the next step in our watermelon art project. We hope to have a great afternoon off!

Watermelon Week!

Our theme this week is watermelon. We are so excited to have a juicy, fun theme! We learned that the word watermelon is a compound word. That means it has two words that come together to make a new word. The word of the day today was "it". It was a rule follower. This word is a pronoun. It takes the place of a thing in a sentence. The word "it" is very popular. We listed all of the "it" family words on "the kit of it". After recess, we had math time. Today we estimated the circumference of our classroom watermelon. Circumference is how big around something is. First, we cut yarn to show our estimate. Then, Mrs. Myers measured the circumference with a tape measure. It was 22 inches around. Last, we compared estimates and measured to see if we were "too long", "too short", or "just right". Macy B. and Nicolas were just right!! Yeah! Matthew and Macy G. were almost right! We used inches to measure the circumference. After lunch, we heard the story The Enormous Watermelon . It used characters from nursery rhymes. We did a lot of predicting of the characters who would help Old Mother Hubbard in the story. We made a story map of the parts of a fiction story - characters, setting, problem, and solution. After the story, we sequenced the stories characters. Then it was time for new centers. This week for our watermelon centers, we can visit the writing center and write an ending to a story starter. In games center, we are playing color/color word memory. At the sentence strips center, we are matching capital and lowercase letters out of order. In the listening center, we are listening to the story The Enormous Carrot and drawing the story parts in our center packet. In writing workshop today, we heard a story called Aunt Isabel Tells a Good One. We learned that good authors put characters and a setting (when and where) in their stories. We learned that exciting stories have a villian, problem, and solution. We will be authors beginning tomorrow! We stayed on the five all day! YEAH! We learned bonus blocks.

Friday Fun!

Yeah! It's Friday. We had a great day today. Our word of the day today was "you". We practiced our reading strategies when we tried to skip the word and make a guess in our word of the day sentence. It was a rule breaker, because the "ou" said the sound of "oo". Today, we had an assembly in the morning. It was about the PTO Fundraiser. Please look in our mail today for our fundraiser packets. We want to help to the school and earn prizes! In math today, we practiced sorting numbers. We looked to see if they had curves, what side they faced, if they were open or closed. We used real magnetic numbers on trays in groups. It was fun! After lunch, Mrs. Myers read the story, Alphabet Rescue. It was written by the same author as Alphabet Mystery. After the story, we practiced writing our lowercase letters on an alphabet tree. We are getting better. Lots of us earned beans for this activity. Mrs. Myers read with some of us while we worked. Then is was time for writing workshop. We read the story, Ogres, Ogres, Ogres. It was an alphabet book full strong, powerful verbs. The author did a few tricks - alliteration and a alphabet chain with the last word on each page. We looked at a list of verbs and decided who was strong. Then we made a strong verb book for our classroom library. At the end of the day, we finished our last center of the week. They are coming home in our mail today. Please be sure to look at the second page to see how we did in school this week! Happy Weekend!

More Alphabet Adventures

Today was a good day. Our word of the day today was "is". It was a rule breaker, because the "s" said the sound of letter "z". We can remember the word by the "wiz of is." In math today, we read the story, Chicka Chicka 1,2,3. Then we practiced counting to 100 around our circle. Last, we had a scavenger hunt to find sets of numbers around the classroom. We will finish this tomorrow. We learned the words numeral and number. Then it was time to get our pictures taken. Even Mrs. Myers got her picture taken, too. Then we had library and lunch. After lunch, we heard the story, Alphabet Mystery. It was good. Letter x was missing. Then Mrs. Myers got out magnetic letters for the capital letters. We sorted the letters into groups by curves, bellies, up and down lines, and slant lines. Check out this paper in our mail tonight. After that, we played a game. Mrs. Myers gave us a riddle. We wrote the answer from "the hand of and" or "the pin of in". Then it was writing time. Mrs. Lauber's class joined us. We read the story Potluck. It was an alphabet eating book. We listened for the verb in each sentence of the story. Then, we danced to the Verb Song. We learned that some verbs are more powerful. They are called STRONG VERBS. We took the word "went". That is a wimpy verb. We replaced it with words like drove, raced, skipped, and tiptoed. At handwriting today, we practiced letter Bb. We ended the day with centers. We are getting better each day with the routine.

More Alphabet Fun!

Today was another busy day in the classroom. We are learning all of the new routines in Mrs. Myers' classroom. Our word of the day today was "in". It was a rule follower. It was popular. We wrote the word family on the "pin of in". During word of the day, Mrs. Myers taught us about reading strategies. This is what we do when we get stuck on a word in a story, the first thing we do, is look at the picture and think what makes sense. After recess, we went to music. Then it was lunchtime. After lunch, we heard the story, The Letters are Lost. It was an alphabet story. After the story, we had a scavenger hunt for words that begin with certain letter sounds (M, S, B). We drew what we saw and labeled our picture. For homework, we can finish the back of the letter hunt at our house. If you bring it back finished, you earn a bean from Mrs. Myers. In handwriting today, we practiced capital and lowercase letter Tt. We will finish this letter for morning work tomorrow in our handwriting book. In writing today, we learned about verbs. Verbs are action words. We heard the story, Animal Action, and we acted out verbs. We listened to two verb songs, too. We had center time at the end of the day. We learned about "Fun Friday" during centertime. We also learned that our centers go in the green bin. We also learned to color our center work paper when we finish a center each day. Mrs. Myers will leave us a message about it the next day. We had a good day in first grade!

Alphabet Week

Today was the first day of Alphabet Week in our classroom. It will be a fun theme. Our word of the day today was "to". It was a rule breaker, because we didn't see the boo of "oo" at the end of it. The word "to" is a homonym for the words "two" and "too". We call todays' "to" the "going to". After lunch today we heard a new story called Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. After we heard the story, we made an alphabet tree and matched capital and lowercase letters on it. Mrs. Myers read with some of the boys and girls. Then, we read the story, The War Between the Vowels and the Consonants. We learned a new song called The Vowel Song. Then it was center time. We had four centers. We visit one each day. We have listening center, games center, sentence strips, and writing center. At the listening center, we are hearing Chicka Chicka Boom Boom again, but we get to draw and write a new ending. In the games center, we are putting the alphabet train in order and matching the capital and lowercase letters. In the sentence strips center, we are putting our classmate's names in alphabetical order. At the writing center, we are cutting out pictures for beginning letter sounds and writing the name of the picture in Kid Writing. Look for my center packet at the end of the week! We ended the day with art class. Don't forget to look in our bookbag for yellow folder tonight to see our new book and log it for points. We also learned how to tell the "blog story" at the end of the day. This is to reinforce the skills we learn each day and practice our retelling skills. Check us out everyday! We had a great day! We all stayed on the green light and we earned BONUS block in our class recess jar. YEAH!