Happy Thanksgiving!

Today was the last day of school before Thanksgiving! Our word of the day today was "her". It was a rule follower. It was also a pronoun to take the place of a girls name. After our morning routine, we had a dress rehearsal performance of the ABC's of Thanksgiving Reader's Theater. We performed for Mrs. Lauber's class. We videotaped the performance. Right now, the video is having technical difficulties. (It's stuck inside the camera!!!). If we get it fixed, I'll upload the performance! After recess, we had a fun math lesson. We learned a new word - probability. Probability is the chance that something will happen. We made a probability line and organized events into "always" happens, "sometimes" happens, and "never" happens. Then, we divided into groups of three. Each group had a bag of turkeys, either yellow or orange, or both. We had to pull the turkey out of the bag nine times. Each time, we colored our data on a turkey. At the end, we made a prediction about what color turkeys were in our bag. Then, we looked. Most of us were correct! That's probability! Last, we wrote a sentence using the new vocabulary words on the back of our paper. Then, it was time for lunch and recess. After recess, we read the story, The First Thanksgiving. We talked about the Indians at the first Thanksgiving. Massasoit, the leader, was invited by the Pilgrims, but he brought along 90 other Indians to the feast. Then, we came back to the chart we made on the first day of the unit. We looked at the things we thought we knew when we started the unit. Most of them were correct. Then, we looked at the questions that we wanted to learn. We answered most of them from the facts that we learned in the past two weeks. Last, we made a circle an each shared a new fact we learned during the unit. Mrs. Myers was amazed at the interesting facts we remembered. Just before music class, we played a game called Overboard. We all got on a pretend boat. We had to spell a word - letter by letter. If you missed a letter, you were thrown "overboard". We did let you back on the ship, after you practiced writing the word on your wipe-off board. It was a great day! We can't wait for our vacation! See you all at conferences. Mrs. Myers will be out on Monday for a personal day. No blog until Tuesday! Happy Thanksgiving!

Feast Day

Our word of the day today was "some". It was a homonym for the math word "sum". It was a rule breaker, because the "o" said the sound of "short u". The -um family was very popular. We made a long list of words. In math today, we practiced growing patterns. We made three Indian growing patterns on our vests to wear to the feast. We used symbols, just the Indians. Check them at home tonight. See if you can tell the name of each pattern. After lunch and recess, we read the story, The First Thanksgiving. Mrs. Myers wrote a list of Thanksgiving words on the easel. We had to tell her which two words did not belong. We weren't sure how the words were related. After the story, she told us the most of the words were nouns. A noun is a word that names a person, a place, or a thing. We found the two verbs on the list and crossed them off. We looked for other nouns in our word of the day sentence. Then, we sang a new song about nouns. We added it to our song and poetry folder. Last, we did a paper where we sorted nouns into person, place, or thing. Then, we had reading workshop. After that, we practiced a dress rehearsal of our reader's theater for tomorrow's performance. At movie time, we watched a movie about Thanksgiving and Plimoth Plantation. We learned a few new facts. At the end of the day, we put on out pattern headbands, our necklaces, and our vests. We went to share our cranberry bread with first grade at our feast. We sang some of the songs and poems from our folder. We ate cranberry bread, trail mix, popcorn, and apple cider. It was so yummy fun! We were so thankful for our feast. A special thanks to Mrs. Welty and Mrs. Carlisle for setting up and helping with the feast. Thanks to all who donated paper products!

A Cranberry Day

Our word of the day today was "them". It was a rule follower. We noticed that it looked almost like the word them. It was a pronoun. It takes the place of a group of people. In math today, we practiced making and naming repeating patterns. After some practice, we went to two different pattern stations. At the first pattern station, we made Indian necklaces using beans with an AABC pattern. At the second stations, we made Indian headbands using feathers with an ABCCD pattern. We will wear both at our Thanksgiving Feast on Monday. After lunch and recess, we read the story, Cranberry Thanksgiving. It is an old story, but we loved it, because the author tricked us! After the story, we retold the story on a story map. Then, we had center make-up time, and we practiced our Reader's Theater. For Fun Friday, we played word family tic tac toe. After that, it was time to cook! We were so excited to have our cooking show. Mrs. Donner, Mrs. Kurland, and Mrs. Welty came to help us good. We were divided into six teams. Each team made their own cranberry bread. Before we cooked, we had to order the events of the recipe. Then, we put our teams in order, using these events. Next, we wrote our "grab the reader" beginning for the story - How to Make Cranberry Bread. Then, we began mixing and cooking. Next, we counted to 75 as the stirrers stirred the mix. Last, the parent helpers poured the mix into bowls. They are taking it home to cook for our feast on Monday. We want to give them a big THANK YOU!!! They even did the dishes! At the end of the day, we had phys. ed. and sharing! Please open the video attached to today's blog, if you want to view our cooking show! ENJOY!

Our Quilt of Learning

Our word of the day today was "many". It was a rule breaker, because the "a" said the sound of short e. It was an adjective. We hung the "many penny" from the ceiling to help us remember this rule breaker word. After library, lunch, and recess, we had another lesson about the pilgrims. We used the Smartboard to learn new facts. We compared the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians in how they dressed, their houses, their chores, their schooling, what games they played, and the foods they eat. We also learned all about the first winter that the Pilgrims lived in Plimoth. We learned that the Pilgrims were sick and weak as they had to build one large building to live in. In December, two people died. In January, eight people died. In February, 17 people died. In March, 13 people died. It was very sad for the Pilgrims. In March, the weather began to change. The Pilgrims met the Wampanoag Indians who helped them plant and hunt. We will continue our journey tomorrow. Then, we had reading workshop and Mrs. Myers read with some friends. At writing workshop time, we made a quilt telling all the facts we learned about the pilgrims, indians, and the Mayflower. Check it out when you visit for conferences. At the end of the day, we had center time. We also got our parts for the reader's theater called the ABC's of the First Thanksgiving. We will perform in next Tuesday. Look for a podcast.

Turkey Day

Our word of the day today was "these". It was a rule breaker, because the "s" said the sound of "z". It had a CVCe pattern, though, so we used our magic "e" wand to show how it changed the first vowel. We practiced more turkey songs today. We have so many songs to sing at our first grade feast on Monday. After music, lunch, and recess, we practiced sorting facts and opinions about turkeys. We listened to a statement and decided with claps if it was a fact statement or an opinion statement and added the facts and opinion feathers to our fact and opinion turkeys. Then, we went into the hallway and used the Smartboard and took a quiz with Mrs. Lauber's class about turkey and Thanksgiving facts. We knew 13 answers out of 20. We know lots of facts about turkeys. We learned some new facts and turkeys, too. We learned that Benjamin Franklin tried to change our national bird to the turkey. Abraham Lincoln tried to change the date of Thanksgiving. We learned that Minnesoda produces the most turkeys. We learned that Israel eats the most turkeys each year. Then, we had reading workshop and centers. Mrs. Myers is still reading with us one at a time. At writing workshop today, we learned to write a poem called a cinquain. We had to choose a focus related to Thanksgiving. Then, we listed adjectives, nouns, verbs, and synonyms for our poem. We will take the poems home tomorrow for you to read. At the end of the day, we had a guidance lesson. Miss Anderson taught us about the green circle. We will share all about it at home with our HOME work.

The Long Jouney

Our word of the day today was "so". It was a rule breaker with a twist. The "o" said his name, with out another vowel helper, but we see this happen in other words like... no, go, ho. This word is a homonym for the word "sew". It is also an adverb. After our morning routine, we had lots of Mayflower learning. First, we used the Smartboard to hear about the Speedwell. It broke down because it had a leak. It was from Holland, but met the Mayflower in England. They tried for a month to fix it, but they couldn't. Then, we saw the names of all the pilgrims who sailed on the Mayflower. Some had funny names like wrestling, love, oceanus, remember. They were named after things they liked to do or virtues. After recess, we continued to use the Smartboard. We saw the different parts of the Mayflower and look a interactive trip across the Altlantic Ocean using the internet. We got to touch and press things on the Smartboard to see and hear new facts. At lunch, we really enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinner. We had to cancel "eat lunch with the teacher" because it was the holiday meal. We will use our passes tomorrow. After lunch, we learned about the laws the pilgrims made when they landed in Massachusetts. It was called the Mayflower Compact. Only the men could sign it. The girls were mad. Kids couldn't sign it either. That wasn't fair. We also learned that the pilgrims weren't trying to land in Massachusetts. They were trying to sail to Virginia. After the pilgrims landed, they still had to stay on the Mayflower, because they had to build a place to live. Then, we took a break from the Mayflower and had our own centers and reading workshop. Mrs. Myers is reading with us one at a time. Then, it was writing workshop time. Mrs. Myers shared stories from last week. We heard the content of Annabelle's, Ryan's, and Ian's stories. We practiced that good content means - characters, setting, problem, and solution, lots of events, and adjectives! Then, we wrote in our journals. Last, she shared Madison's story. She taught us how to use commas in a series of names and how to tag our quotations. WOW! We will hear more stories tomorrow. At the end of the day, we had art class.

Parent Visitation Day

We were so excited to have all of the parents and grandparents in our classroom today! It was great to show you all of the different things you have been hearing about all year. We hope you enjoyed your visit. If you have any questions about what you saw, please let me know!

Our word of the day today was "then". It was a rule follower, and a word on the pen of -en. We read the whole word family aloud. We also learned that this word is not a homonym, but it has a cousin who looks almost like it AND sometimes sounds like it, too. It is the word "than". We learned that "then" tells something is happening next. The word "than" compares two things. Soon, it was time for math. We were excited to collect data using an art project. It was a turkey glyph. First, we filled out the data sheet. Next, we visited the stations of the art center. Last, we made a pictograph on the carpet and told true math statements about it. We will make another pictograph with different data on our turkey tomorrow. Look for it in the hallway at conferences! After lunch and recess, we read the story, Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving. We retold the story on a GO map. Many of the parents were there to help us. Then, we practiced telling the "when, who, where" of the green triangle on our GO map. Then, we went to see our second grade computer buddies. We practiced typing using the typing game. We are really doing a great job of keeping our hands on the home keys. Then, we taught our second grade buddy a fact about a turkey. We typed the fact and changed the font and size. We will use these facts to make a class book! After that, we came back to our classroom for making words. We used the letters to make three letter words in the -ow, -ay, and -ar families. Then, we had the super-jumbo-bonus word. It was Mayflower. Madison had the word first! Then, we went to music class. At the end of the day, we played our making words detective game. Then, we had a new center tour. In the games centers, we are sorting the question and telling sentences onto different turkeys and then practicing writing question sentences. In the other games center, we are finding the missing short vowel sounds. In the magnetic letters, we are making short vowel words from pictures. In the sentence strips center, we are sorting Thanksgiving words into alphabetical order to the third letter. We don't have an art center this week. We will be working on neatness in our centers and proofreading for extra beans!

On the Mayflower

Our word of the day today was "about". It was a rule breaker, because the "a" says the sound of "short u". We saw the vowel dipthong "ou" from yesterday's word "out". In math centers, we visited our last two centers. When we finished, we visited "Addition Alley" to play addition flashcards with a partner. After lunch and recess, we read the story, The Great Turkey Rescue. It was the sequel to the story in the listening center. After the story, we used picture cards of the events and sequenced them in order. Then, we retold the story together. After the activity, we headed to Mrs. Lauber's room to hear the last story in the series about the turkeys. It was called, The Silly Turkey Party. Then, it was time to board the Mayflower. We learned three facts about the Mayflower. First, it is 90 feet longs. We walked ninety feet in the hallway and decided that it was bigger than our classroom, but not as big as our hallway. It was be very crowded on the Mayflower. We also learned that the captain's name was Christopher Jones. The Mayflower held 90 passengers. On Tuesday we will really see what the journey was like. Next, we had our center time. We finished any leftover work from the week. We also finished our turkey art center. For FUN FRIDAY, Mrs. Myers had Thanksgiving word family tic tac toe or word family board game. It was fun. Finally it was writing time. We were excited to finish our turkey stories. They turned out really good. Please read them when you visit next week. After we wrote, we filled out a story checklist. We proofread and met with our story partner. They heard our story and decided if we were finished or not. We can't wait to write our next big story! At the end of the day, we watched a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. We hope is stops raining soon!

Packing for the Big Journey

Our word of the day today was "out". It was rule follower. We practiced a new dipthong, the "ou" sound. We hung the "ou" of ouch in our classroom to help us with this tricky sound. Today's word was an adverb. In the morning, we started our pilgrim lesson by learned where the pilgrims lived. They lived in England, where the king made they workship at Church of England. The pilgrim did not like this, so they decided to move to Holland. In Holland, they did like that they had to act Dutch. So, they decided to be like Columbus and sail across the Atlantic Ocean, to find religious freedom in a new world. We had to pack an imaginary suitcase for our trip. We made a big circle and shared our suitcase items. We listed them on a chart. Then, Mrs. Myers broke the bad news that each family could only take a small box for all of their belongings. We had to cross off many of the items we didn't NEED! They were called our WANTS. We also learned that the pilgrims had no electric for wII, DS, or TV. They didn't have iPods either. We made a new list of things we would need to take to survive with Target, a grocery store, or even a house. Then, we got on two boats, the Mayflower and the Speedwell. The Speedwell was a bigger, nicer boat, so most of us chose to get on that boat. Soon, the Speedwell broke down. We all had to get off the board and wait. Then we found out that the Speedwell would not be able to sail. We all crowded onto the small Mayflower. Tomorrow we set said again. At math time, we had math centers. We practiced ordering numbers, comparing numbers, problem solving using reasoning, and making a bar graph and true math statements. It was fun! At the end of the day, we had writing workshop. We used our GO Map organizers to write the story called, My Turkey Ran Away. We had to put a grab the reader beginning with a partner. We also learned to "pinky check" our sentences. Ask me what that means tonight. Finally, we ended the day with phys. ed. Mr. Stiffler said that we are one of the best first grade classes! YEAH!

From Kids to Pilgrims

Our word of the day today was "up". It was a rule follower. The word "up' belongs in the -up family. It wasn't popular, but we find the word "up" as a chunk in lots of words. The word up is a describing word. It describes a verb, so it is called an adverb. At lunch, ten friends joined Mrs. Myers for lunch in the classroom. They used the 50 point pass from doing their Rah! Rah! homework. We had so much fun eating and laughing together. We listened to loud music, too! After lunch, we did our pilgrim unit with Mrs. Lauber's class. In the big area, we brainstormed what we knew about the first Thanksgiving and our Thanksgiving. We brainstormed about the foods eaten, the activities, and who was involved. Then, we came back to our classroom and made a venn diagram of the information on the board. We made our own venn diagrams, too. To help us with our facts, we read the story, Thanksgiving Is... Check them out! Then, we played a new game called DYNAMITE. We practiced our word family words from the clothesline in our classroom. We pulled a word out of the DYNAMITE can. If we could read the word, we stayed in the game, unless we pulled the DYNAMITE card! Elizabeth was our winner today! Then, it time for writing workshop. We reviewed what good content means. We focused on adjectives today. First, Mrs. Myers read the story, Plump and Perky Turkey. We listened for the adjectives in the story. Then, we looked at a photograph of a turkey and helped Mrs. Myers record adjectives to describe her turkey. Then, we worked in groups with our own picture of a turkey to describe using adjectives. Last, we typed our adjective sentence with a partner. We will use our sentences for a game on Friday. At the end of the day, we had our second center of the week. Mrs. Myers introduced the the art center. We are making a handprint and footprint turkey. Mrs. Myers will not be here tomorrow! NO BLOG!

Thanksgiving Theme

Our theme this week is Thanksgiving. Our word of the day today was "will". It was a rule follower. It was homonyn, too. It was from a very popular word family, the hill of -ill. We listed lots of words on our hill for our clothesline. At math time, we learned about new kind of graph called a pie graph. We collected data about our favorite kind of pie. First we tallied our data. Then, we used string to make a human pie graph. Then, while we worked on a pie graph paper, Mrs. Myers showed our data on the television using a pie graph and bar graph. We learned that a pie graph does not show as many details as a bar graph. After lunch and recess, we met with Mrs. Lauber's class. We brainstormed everything we thought we knew about the pilgrims, indians, and the first thanksgiving. We discussed who were the pilgrims, where did they come from, how was their ride on the Mayflower, why did they move. Then, we met with a group and decided one thing we would like to learn about the pilgrims, the indians, and the first thanksgiving. We recorded both of these on a KWL chart. Then, we had reading workshop time. Finally it was time for our new Thanksgiving centers. In the sentence strips center, we are matching contractions to the two words that make the contraction. In the listening center, we heard the story, The Great Turkey Race. We recorded the story elements. We had to listen for two problems and write the solution to each problem. In the writing center, we wrote a silly story about a turkey at the mall. We had to use ten of the word of day words that Mrs. Myers picked. In the games center, we were "dressing" a turkey with feathers to match the short vowel that is missing. We had a short a turkey, a short i turkey, a short o turkey, and a short u turkey. Tomorrow, the art center will open. After centers, we had our writing workshop time. Mrs. Myers helped us understand what the word content means. It was tricky. She brought along a stuffed turkey named Mr. Gobbles to show us how "stuffing" our stories with events, adjectives, and details makes the story "meatier". If we just include the characters, setting, problem, and solution, we have a skeleton story, just like Mr. Bones in the art center two weeks ago. We worked hard to add "meat" to our stories . We will work on content all week! At the end of the day, we had art! Tomorrow, we will arrive to school as a pilgrim!

Silly Mr. Munsch

Today we read more silly Mr. Munsch! Our word of the day today was "their". It was a homonyn with the "there" we learned last week. It was a rule breaker with a twist. We were a little confused by the "ei" in the middle, because he said the "long a" sound. We noticed that the same letters say the long a sound in the word "eight", so it must be almost a rule! Today's "their" is a pronoun meaning two or more people. After morning meeting, we read the story, Kiss Me, I'm Perfect. It was so silly. Before we heard the story, Mrs. Myers showed us a list of words that we would hear in the story. We noticed that were verbs with the -ed ending. After the story, Mrs. Myers helped us read the words again from the chart. We listened with a partner to see if the -ed ending sounded like a "d" or a "t". This is important, because we need to know how to spell words that end in -ed and read the words, too. After lunch and recess, we had a math lesson with Mrs. Lauber's class. We collected data about our favorite Robert Munsch book. We had to tally each person's favorite book. Then, we looked at the data to see which book was the winner. Boo was the most popular Robert Munsch book. The reason why we collected our data together, was to get a bigger sample size. Our data was more accurate. After math, it was centertime. Today we went to our fourth center. We continued to paint our favorite Robert Munsch book in the art center. At writing workshop time, we read the book, Mmmm Cookies. We looked for the Robert Munsch style. We wrote in our journals using Robert Munsch style, too. After writing time, all of the first graders went to Mr. Seibel for a lesson on responsibility. The first grade teachers had a meeting together. Finally it was movie time. We watched the movie, A Paperbag Princess by Robert Munsch. We loved this story when we heard it earlier in the week. It was great! Just a reminder... tomorrow is an early dismissal day at 12:30PM.

Lots and Lots of Munsch

Today Mrs. Myers shared that she found out that Robert Munsch is not writing right now. He had a stroke in August and he home recovering. We will send him get well wishes. We started our day listening to him read the story, We Share Everything. It was funny. Our word of the day today was "how". It was a rule follower, because we learned the "ow" diphthong rule. We added words to the "cow of -ow. IT was a popular word family . We learned that -ou also says the same sound. In math today, we did data collection using Robert Munsch books. We looked at the books in groups and tallied to see if the main character was a boy or a girl. Then, we graphed our results on a bar graph. We learned that Robert Munsch uses both characters about half of the time. It was close - 18 boy books to 16 girl books, but we didn't look at ALL the books he has written. After lunch, we had another Munsch. It was called I Have to Go. Before the story, Mrs. Myers showed us a bunch of words from the story, We talked about how we thought they were related, but no one realized that they were all compound words. After the story, we learned that a compound word is when you take one word and you take another word and you squish them. Then you get a new word. We played a game where we each a card with word. We had to find our partner to make a compound word. Then, we had to decide if our compound word made sense when the two words were combined (ex. sun + glasses = glasses you wear in the sun). It was fun. We are going to be on the look out for compound words in our stories we read! As a treat, Mrs. Myers read another Robert Munsch book to us. It was called I'm So Embarrassed. We talked about our own embarrassing stories! At writing workshop time, we add to our list of Robert Munsch's writing style. We noticed that he also uses onomatopoeia in his stories! Then, Mrs. Myers read the story, Make-up Mess. We got busy writing our own stories with Robert Munsch style. At the end of writing time, Mrs. Myers read Thomas' story. It was not finished, but it sounded just like a Robert Munsch book. It was called Crazy Abigail. It had a funny problem, repeating events and words, and onomatopoeias. He will finish the story soon! Mrs. Myers also shared Guy's story. It had a great beginning and used a Robert Munsch story as an idea! At the end of the day, we had phys. ed. What a great day!

Robert Munsch Author Study

Our theme this week is the author, Robert Munsch. We are learning lots by reading his books. Our word of the day was "do". It was a homonym for the word "dew". It was rule breaker, because the "o" said the sound of "oo". Also in the morning, we did a class election. We went down to the voting booth in the lobby. We had 12 boys and girls vote for McCain. We had 6 boys and girls vote for Obama. In all of Roundtown, 57% voted for McCain and 43% voted for Obama. It looks like McCain has won at Roundtown. We'll see the results of our country tomorrow. After library, lunch, and recess, we had a guest lesson by Mrs. Thomas, the reading specialist at Roundtown. She read us the story, Hazel's Best Mom. We listened for story connections. After the story, we sorted the connections by little and big. A big connection is a connection that helps us understand the story. A little connection is a connection to a name or small event in the story. After Mrs. Thomas left, we heard the story, The Paperbag Princess. We practiced retelling the story using props. Please check the paperbag in the mail today. I will retell the story to you tonight. We can visit Mrs. Myers' teacher page to hear Robert Munsch read the story, too. In writing workshop today, we listened to the story, Yellow, Red, and Purple. It was so funny. We listed the elements of Robert Munsch's writing style. He has surprise endings, repeating events and words, and funny problems. Then we tried to write with Robert Munsch's style. We will keep trying all week! At the end of the day, we had centers. This week's writing center is about writing a letter to Robert Munsch. We are going to send our letters to him! In the sentence strip center, we are highlighting contractions in Robert Munsch's story, We Share Everything. Then, we are sorting the contraction into two words. In the "Read the Room " center, we are proofreading words that Mrs. Myers has spelled wrong that are in our classroom. In the listening center, we are listening to the story, Alligator Baby and sorting the story elements - character, setting, problem, and solution. We are excited for the art center tomorrow - painting!!! GO VOTE!