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!

Blast Off!

Our word of the day today was "love". It was a rule breaker, because the "o" said the sound of "short u". The "e" couldn't do any magic. After recess, we had reading workshop. At game time, we practiced playing stretching solar system words by syllable. Mrs. Myers is still reading with each of us. She's read with many of us several times. After lunch, we worked in our partner solar system groups to read and research about our planets. We conferenced with Mrs. Myers and Mrs. Lauber after we filled out our research journals. After that, Mrs. Myers got our beach ball models of the solar system. We learned that the sun is the center of the solar system. Mrs. Myers helped us order the planets from the closest to the farthest away from the sun. Using the planet balls, we orbited the sun, just the like planets to in the solar system. Orbit means to go around. When each planet orbits, it stays in it's own path, just like a runner does on the track. We drew a model of the solar system with the sun as the center in our Solar System Journals. After our lesson, we started our math lesson for the day. We got into groups of four and designed rockets using paper bags. Next, we took our rockets outside and lined up on the sidewalk. Mrs. Myers blew up a long balloon and put it inside of our rocket bags. We counted down for each group and launched the rockets. Then, we measured how far the rocket flew using a measuring tape. We recorded the data in inches. Tomorrow, we are going to look at the data for each group on a graph. At the end of the day, we watched a Magic School Bus in the Solar System movie. We are having so much fun during space week!

Solar System Week

Our theme this week is solar system. Our word of the day today was "read". You can pronounce it two different way, but they both are verbs that mean to say words in a book. It was a rule follower when you pronounce it in it's present tense form. There were two homonyms - reed, red. It can also be someone's name. Later in the morning, we had reading workshop and Mrs. Myers kept reading with us one at a time. At 11:00, we practiced solar system poems and songs and also played word of the day spelling games. After lunch today, we got into groups for different parts of the solar system. Some of us are planet groups. Each group had a reader, reporter, writer, and illustrator. We watched short DVD about the solar system and the planets. Then, we worked in our groups to record three facts we learned about our own groups' part. Next, we read a fiction story called Poor Pluto. It taught us that Pluto is no longer considered a planet. Then, we did a nonfiction book activity. First, we named the 5 nonfiction story parts (table of contents, caption, heading, glossary, index). Next, we matched the parts to what their job is. Then, we matched the parts of the nonfiction book to our groups. Last, we read part of the book, The Book of Planets. We learned a little bit about Mars and the size of planets. We have to chunk what we want to learn, when we are reading nonfiction, so our brain can focus and remember it. For fun, we read another fiction space story called, The Soccer Mom from Outer Space. Mrs. Chase came for a guest lesson, while Mrs. Myers read with us in the hallway. At the end of the day, we had phys. ed.

Set Sail Pirates

The handwriting winners today were Maddy, Abby, and Elle. Our word of the day today was "Mr." It was not really a word, because it was an abbreviation. We learned other words that are abbreviations, too. We worked on more of our math assessment packet before recess. After recess, we had library and lunch. After lunch, we heard the story, Jolly Mon. It was written by JImmy Buffett and his daughter. We listened to hear the character traits of the Jolly Mon, the main character. We completed a character report with a partner to show describe the Jolly Mon using verbs and adjectives. Next we worked independently on lots of different projects - finishing centers, finishing our pirate treasure hunt stories, doing a pirate rebus, and last reading workshop. Mrs. Myers read with lots of us one at a time. Just before recess, we played the Overboard sound stretching game. After recess, we had another pirate math game. Mrs. Myers had a pirate treasure chest. Inside were coins with math topics on. We worked in teams to answer the questions in telling time, shapes, place value, fractions, and money. It was fun, but Mrs. Myers had to stop the game early, because we weren't showing self-control. Next week, our theme is the solar system. We will try harder to show self control and do our best work ever! Happy birthday to Grace tomorrow!

Treasure Hunting

Our word of the day today was "went". It was a rule follower, because all the words said their own sound. There was a consonant ending blend "nt" in the word. This word was a verb. We added words to the "tent of -ent". Don't confuse this word with "when" or "want". Lots of us worked during morning meeting with Mrs. Bashada on math skills today. After recess, we had music class. After lunch, Mrs. Myers had us brainstorm questions that we could have answered in a nonfiction book about pirates. After we had a list of questions to focus our listening, we read Pirates, Robbers of the Seas and Pirates Don't Take Bathes. Then, we gave the answers for the questions on the list. After that, we had our fourth center for the week. We also worked on our pirate rebus and glossary project. Then, we went to work on writing our pirate treasure hunt stories and maps. We are getting finished. Later in our writing time, Mrs. Blake and Mrs. Minkin came to our classroom to help us write letters to the solders in Iraq. We started our Overboard spelling game, but ran out of time. We will finish our game tomorrow at morning meeting. At the end of the day, we had pirate math! Mrs. Myers made a pirate treasure hunt. We had to find the chest around the room using clues and our north, south, east, and west directions. In each chest, there was money. We had to count the money. Mrs. Myers helped us add up the money for each chest by doing double and triple digit addition. At the end of our treasure hunt, we had found $1,006.59. We were so excited! Too bad the money wasn't real! We would've been rich!

Lots of Pirate Learning

Our word of the day today was "ask". It was a rule follower. It had the "sk" consonant blend at the end. The word ask is a verb. It can be used as a tag during quotation sentences, if you add an -ed ending. After recess, we worked on our reading workshop. For game time, we finished our pirate stretch or read a pirate book with a partner. Mrs. Myers is still reading with boys and girls one at a time. After lunch, we had fun language arts activity. Before the story, Mrs. Myers showed us 14 new pirate vocabulary words. We each got a card and predicted what the pirate vocabulary word meant. Then, Mrs. Myers read the story. We learned what the word meant by using the meaning of the sentences in the story. After the story, we checked and corrected our new vocabulary words to match the parrot to the pirate with the word. After this, we had our third center. In the bonus center, we are reading a pirate rebus story. We are making a glossary of the new vocabulary words in the rebus. At writing time today, we brainstormed a pirate treasure hunt story. We made a plan that will match a treasure map and treasure hunt. We also began making our treasure maps. Our maps must show the places on our treasure hunt, a compass with directions, and a title. We are so excited about this project. Tomorrow, we will write the story. We also worked today on our math assessment packet. At the end of the day, we had art.

More Pirate Fun!

ARRR! We really like being pirates. Our word of the day today was "why". It is a question word. This word has a consonant digraph - wh, and it has a "tricky y" at the end. It is a rule follower, and it belongs in the "cry of -y" word family. We read the words in our word family. After recess, we had reading workshop, and Mrs. Myers began reading with us one at a time. At game time, we played the pirate word stretch game. We practiced spelling pirate words by their syllables. After lunch, we heard the story, Pirate Girl. We listened for the most important event in the story. This is the event that changes the story. After the story, we listed four very important events. We picked one and recorded it. Then, we told why it was the most important event. Next, we visited our second center. We wrote letters back to our pen pals after we finished our center. Mrs. Baker came during centertime today. She wanted to watch Mrs. Myers' centertime. Next, we did a making words activity. We used our letters to make 2, 3, 4, 5, and even 6 letter words. Then, we made the "super-jumbo-bonus word". It was "treasure". We also played the word detective game using the words me made. It was fun! Next, we had music class and recess. When we got back to the classroom, we had a writing dictation test. Mrs. Myers read two sentences, and we had to write and spell the story. Then, we read a fun story called, Ooey Gooey, Pirate Delight. It was about this gross recipe that a pirate made on his ship. Mrs. Myers gave us a recipe to read for fun pirate delight. We can read the recipe at home and make the ooey gooey pirate delight to play with. (It's like slime or gooey play dough). At the end of the day, we began our math assessment packet for the end of the year. We will work on it a little bit at a time, so Mrs. Myers know what we need to practice before the year ends. WOW! It was a very busy pirate day!

Pirate Week!

Our theme this week is PIRATES! We are so excited for our theme. Our word of the day was "bed" It was a rule follower. We read the -ed family on the "sled of -ed". The word bed is a noun. Later in the morning, we had reading workshop. Mrs. Myers had a meeting, so Mrs. Vaughn was here reading with us. When Mrs. Myers came back from the meeting, we read the story, Shiver Me Letters, A Pirate ABC. After lunch and recess, we predicted the author's purpose for the story, Pirates Don't Wear Diapers. Then, we listened to the story. We check our predictions. The main purpose was to entertain us. Then, we heard another story by the same author, How I Became a Pirate. We wondered if the purpose would be the same. After the story, we agreed that the main purpose was to entertain us. It was another silly book, but this book also had a lesson to learn and some new facts for some of us about pirates. We liked both books. Next, we had a center tour. We have four new pirate centers this week. At the library center, we are working in our groups to read a pirate reader's theater. Then, we are rating our reading speed, expression, and fluency with a partner. In the listening center, we are listening to the story, Night Pirates. Then, we are retelling the story elements using the questions - who, what, when, where, and why. In the first games center, we are sorting jewels with pictures on into ending consonant blends treasure chests. In the second games center, we are dressing pirate teachers to match the word families on their faces. They are fun centers this week! After center time, we had a fun math pirate game to practice our double digit addition and subtraction. We made three ships, and we had to add and subtract and then check with our crew, before Mrs. Myers threw us "overboard". For writing time today, we got our pen pal letters . We read them and looked for the questions and connections we would use when we write back tomorrow. At the end of the day, we watched two short pirate movies, based on books - Madeline and the Pirates and Curious George Meets a Pirate. It was a busy day. Mrs. Myers announced the Fabulous Five Handwriters for Wednesday's lunch together - Elle, Madison, Evan, Macy G, and Abby. YAY!

Last Day of Junior Achievement

Our word of the day today was "such". It was a rule follower. It was also an adverb. The word such had a consonant digraph - ch. We worked hard today on our reading fluency and expression using the song and poetry folder. We had fun singing Mother's Day songs. After recess, we had music. Then it was lunch and recess. After recess, we heard the story, Five Minutes Peace. The author's purpose for writing the story was to entertain and teach us a lesson. We learned that if the story has a lesson, it might be the main idea of the story. We wrote the main idea and added supporting details. Supporting details are things that happen in the story. The MUST be in the story. Then, it was center time. We visited our third center of the week. Next, we had writing workshop time. Today we were working on our secret special project. We can't tell you about it! After recess, we had Junior Achievement. It was Mrs. Donner's last day here. We played charades to act out jobs. Then, we went to Mrs. Myers' bank and got paid. Last, we went to the "store" and bought something with our money. It was really fun! At the end, Mrs. Donner gave us each a certificate for finishing the Junior Achievement lessons. At the end of the day, we took the Mother's Day math center tour. Tomorrow, we will visit all four math centers. They look like so much fun! We were so happy to see the sun today!

Cinco de Mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo. We learned all about the Mexican holiday today. Mrs. Myers read the story, Cinco de Mayo. Mrs. Myers also showed us how to make a pinata. We would like to try it out at home! Our theme this week is Mother's Day! Our word of the day today was "even". The word was a rule follower, because the "e" helped the other "e" say his name. The "even" family was not popular. There is a homonym for the meaning of the words. In writing workshop today, we learned how to write three different kinds of poems. The first kind of poem we wrote today was the acrostic poem. It is called a name poem. The second kind of poem we learned today was called the diamante poem. It uses nouns, adjectives, verbs with -ing, and synonyms. The last kind of poem we learned today was the cinquain. It uses nouns, adjectives, verbs, synonyms, and a describing phrase. You will see our poems at the end of the week! After lunch and recess today, we visited our Book Fair. If we brought money from home, we bought our things. We came back to the room and had a few minutes to look through them. The Book Fair is open for families tonight. Then, it was centertime. At the writing center this week, we are writing a poem and drawing a picture to match. In the sentence strips center, we are sorting verbs and adverbs. Then, we are using some of them in a story. In the games center, we are making quotation sentences with the tag in the front and the tag in the back. In the library center, we are reading a Mother's Day book. Then, we are making a venn diagram to compare the mothers in the story to our own mom. We have a special art center project this week, but it's a secret! The rest of the day was spent working on our reading fluency. We are reading poems, songs, and a reader's theater to practice our reading fluency and expression. At the end of the day, we had art! The day just flew by! Thanks to all the parents who donated food for the teacher appreciation lunch today! Mrs. Myers said that it was great!

Good Bye Miss Sementelli

Today was Miss Sementelli's last day at Roundtown! We are so sad to see her go. Our word of the day today was "must'. It was a rule follower. It was an adverb, too. The word "must" is part of the "ust" family. It was pretty popular. After recess, we were so excited to have our number hat parade. We put our hats on and lined up from the smallest number to the largest number. Then, we joined all of the other first grade classes and paraded around the whole school. Back in the classroom, we shared our hat and showed the three ways we made our number. Our hats were great! After lunch and recess, Mrs. Myers read the story, When Ruby Tried to Grow Candy. It was a fantasy story. We sorted the real and fantasy events in the story. Then, we discussed the author's purpose for writing this silly story - mostly to entertain. We also learned a lesson and a few facts about planting. Then, we had make-up center time. We finished our art center flowers. We also worked on a booklet that shows the parts of the plants we eat. We sorted and drew the answers with a partner. Then, we had a concept circle activity. This is where Mrs. Myers gave us four words on plant puppets. One word did not belong. We eliminated it, and named the theme of the rest of the group. Then, we worked in groups to answers tricky questions about each theme. We shared our answers with the class. We learned that medicine comes from plants. That's important! We also learned that plants need space to grow and worms can help their soil! Before recess, we had a celebration for Miss Sementelli! Mrs. Myers made special brownies for us to eat. We made Miss S. a book, and we got to read our page of the book to her. She liked it a lot. She also gave us pencils to thank us for being good students when she was teaching. We will really miss her! At the end of the day, Mrs. Myers announced the handwriting winners for the week. Madison and Dawson were the Most Beautiful Handwriters of the Week. Elizabeth was the Most Improved Handwriter! YAY! We were also excited to see our Junior Dispatch stories were published on the Junior Dispatch website. The link is posted on Mrs. Myers' teacher page, under useful links. Check it out to read our bug point of view stories! Enjoy the video of our parade, too!

A Busy Day

We started our day today with a fun game at morning meeting. We practiced sorting and counting our coins as a class around the circle. The word of the day today was "around". It had three syllables. It is sometimes an adverb or an adjective. The word was a rule breaker, because the "o" said the sound of "short u". Later in the morning, we had library. At lunch, Mrs. Myers are with this week's Fabulous Five - Ian, Dawson, Elle, Madison, and Thomas. After lunch, Mrs. Myers read the story, Dandelion. We predicted the author's purpose for writing the story. We decided that she wrote the story to teach us facts and to share her opinion (she liked dandelions). Then, we read the story, The Tiny Seed. This books was fiction. We had to listen for the things in the story that helped the seed grow and the things in the story that hurt the seed. We recorded our ideas on a paper. Weeds like dandelions hurt flowers. Today we visited our third center. Mrs. Myers gave the art center tour today. We are making a giant paper handprint flower. Then, it was time for our district writing assessment. We had ten minutes to brainstorm and plan our story. Then, we had 30 minutes to write our story. At the end, we had 10 minutes to proofread our story. Mrs. Myers will score the stories, and other teachers in the district will score the stories. We will have a conference in a few weeks to see the things we improved this year and set a goal for next year. After recess, Miss Sementelli had a fun math lesson on money. We had money stations around the room. We had to look at the flower at each station. Each flower had money stamped on the petals. We had to count the money and record the total amount on the center of the flower. Miss Sementelli met with each groups to see how we were doing. We are getting good at counting money! We had a fun day! Look for the special project announcement coming home tonight. Please make sure that you visit our weekly survey before Friday!

Miss Sementelli's Big Day

Today Miss S. taught us for the whole day! We started off morning meeting with a fun game matching homonyms on cards. Our word of the day today was "well". It was a rule follower, because it was almost a CVC word. This word was a homonym - well can be a noun of an adverb. We read the words on the "bell of -ell". Later in the morning, we played a word wall game with Miss S, before we went to music. After lunch and recess today, we read Eats, Shoots, Leaves. Before the story, we practiced putting commas in three sentences on the overhead and read them fluently. Then, we heard the story. It showed the same sentence, but the commas were missing in one of the sentences. The meaning changed for the whole sentence. After the story, we got sentences for the story and found a partner with the matching sentence. We practiced reading both sentences fluently. Then, it was centertime. We visited our second center of the week. Next, we had a science lesson today. Miss S. read us the story Tops and Bottoms. Then, we talked about the parts of a plant that give us vegetables. We learned that plants give us vegetables from it's roots, stem, leaves, fruit, and flower. This is how Bear got tricked in the story. After the lesson, we each got picture card with a vegetable on it. We had to put our card into the correct bowl for where it came from. Next was writing workshop. We read the story, Growing Vegetable Soup. We listened for the verbs in the story and made lists of adverbs that would make the simple story sentences more exciting. We had a huge list of adverbs at the end. Adverbs tell us when, where, how, and how much a verb is happening. We had time to write in our journals. At the end of writing time, Miss S. crowned the Adverb King to Thomas for using 14 adverbs in his story and Adverb Queen to Abby for using 11 adverbs. After last recess, Miss Anderson came for our guidance lesson about dealing with our anger. Ask me the strategies I can use. What is the super secret soup breathing? What is "what's up doc?" These are important for me to use! Enjoy the last day of the heat!!! :)

Plant Week

Our theme this week was plants. Mrs. Myers wasn't here this morning. Mrs. Reeves came in , but Miss Sementelli was our teacher - yay! Our word of the day today was "does". It was a rule breaker, because the "oe" says the sound of "short u" and the "s" says the sound of "z". After recess, we had reading workshop time. Madison and Ryan gave puppet show book commercials. The Grasshopper guided reading group gave a performance of their play, The Ant and the Grasshopper. After lunch, Miss Sementelli read the story, Tops and Bottoms. We listened for the main idea and supporting details. There were two lessons, but the biggest lesson was "you can only reach your goals if you do hard work. Then, we had a new center tour. In the first games center, you are sorting contractions on a flower and matching it to the two leaves with the missing words. At the second games center, we are using homonyms correctly in sentences and matching a flower with a homonym to a sentence stem. In the Smartboard center, we are listening to two plant books on BookFlix. One is fiction. One is nonfiction. After the nonfiction book, we are making a glossary to show the new vocabulary we learned in the story. The last center is the writing center. We are sorting flowers into a short vowel or a long vowel vase. Then, we had to write the words. At writing workshop time, Mrs. Lauber read the story, Muncha, Muncha, Muncha. We were practicing Focused WOW endings. After the story, Mrs. Myers read 12 different endings. We sorted them into baskets for each type of WOW endings - something important, question, sequel, feelings, surprise, quotation. Then, we had to decide which endings were focus to the main idea of the story! At the end of the day, we had art.

Continue to Help the Earth

Today was the last day of our Earth Day theme. We want to remember to work to help the Earth everyday, though. Our word of the day today was "run". It was a rule follower, because it followed the CVC rule. We read the words on the "sun of -un". The word run is a verb. To change the word to past tense, you write ran. After recess, we had our first performance of our Earth Day Reader's Theater. Mrs. Cooley and Mrs. Baker enjoyed the first group's performance. After lunch and recess, Miss Sementelli read the story, The Lorax. We listened to see how the tree were cut down during the story. After the story, we made a chart to show the effects the trees had on the whole Earth. The trees effected the air, the water, and the animals on the planet, especially when they were all cut down. Trees are very important to all of us! We wrote down five ways to help the earth on our own. Then, we had make-up centertime. If we finished early, we worked on reading and writing workshop. Mrs. Myers conferenced with us and typed our bug point of view stories. She is sending many of them to the Junior Dispatch for publishing. Next, we had our second Reader's Theater performance. Mrs. Plymire's class enjoyed group two's performance. We were so excited! Then, it was time for music. After music, Miss S. read the sequel to Michael Recycle called Michael Recycle Meets Litterbug Doug. Finally it was time to release our butterflies. Check out the butterfly blog to see how it went. At the end of the day, we heard a story called, My Class is Going Green, written by a kindergarten class. We brainstormed ways to help the Earth while at school. It was a wild and crazy day. We are so excited for the warm weather weekend! Next week's theme is plants!

The Day After Earth Day

Today we continued to learn about taking care of the Earth. Our word of the day today was "cry". It was a rule follower with a consonant blend and a "crazy y". It is a verb. Later in the morning, we had reading workshop and game time. For the game today, we clapped syllables, stretched sounds, and spelled words about Earth Day. Mrs. Myers read with the Ant and the Grasshoppers, the Bears, and the Desert group. After lunch and recess, we had our writing lesson first. Mrs. Myers had us remember the elements of style to use in our stories. We brainstormed similes, onomatopoeia, strong verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Then, Miss S. read the story, Michael Recycle. After the story, we sorted the elements of style for the story into "recycling bins" on the board. We heard all the elements except for similes in this story. Next, we had center time. We visited our fourth center. At math time today, we practiced measuring. We reviewed "units of measure", jobs that use measurement, and ways we can measure. We forgot that measurement was more than using a ruler. We measured weight, capacity, circumference, and length this year. We also talked about measuring speed. Mrs. Myers spread "Earths" around the room and we worked in pairs to measure them in inches and centimeters. Then, it was movie time. We watched the Lorax by Dr. Suess. We will have a lesson using the book tomorrow. At the end of the day, we did a dress rehearsal of the Earth Day Reader's Theater. It still needs a lot of work. Mrs. Myers reminded us to wear red tomorrow to support the Roundtown team at Battle of the Buildings.

Happy Earth Day!

Today is Earth Day! Earth Day began in 1970 by Gaylord Nelson. We are excited to celebrate our Earth. Our word of the day today was "set". It was a verb. It was also a rule follower, because it followed the CVC pattern. Mrs. Myers had us read the words on the "net of -et". After recess, we had reading workshop time. Mrs. Myers met with the Bear and the Ant and Grasshopper groups at guided reading. We read a Weekly Reader to read with a partner at game time. It was all about Earth Day. Then it was time for lunch and recess. After that, we read our Earth Day Reader's Theater and acted out our parts. We found out that we are performing on Friday for Mrs. Cooley, Mrs. Plymire, and Mrs. Baker. We also began making props for our show. Tomorrow, we will work on reading our parts without a partner. At centertime today, we went to our third center. After we finished our center today, we continued to make our props. We are making posters, costumes, and signs to match our part and scenery. At science time today, we did an exclusion brainstorm. We had to predict what words wouldn't be in the story about Earth Day. We didn't think that bathtub, gluestick, television, and banana would be in the story. Then Mrs. Myers read the story, Just a Gum Wrapper. We heard all of our words from the stories, except gluestick and banana. At writing time today, Mrs. Myers read Abby's bug story. Our lesson today was about focused, WOW endings. We practiced putting focused endings on our stories. At the end of the lesson, we heard Elle's bug story with a focused WOW ending. At the end of the day, we had phys. ed. with Mr. Stiffler. Remember to visit Mrs. Myers' teacher page tonight to fill out the weekly survey tonight. Mrs. Myers needs all the data tomorrow! Mrs. Myers also added a new page to her teacher page. It is called - Our Video Projects. You can view the Earth Day movie we made yesterday at this site! Check it out!!!

Earth Day Sharing

Our word of the day today was "small". It was a rule follower. It was an adjective. We read the words from the "ball of -all". Next, we worked with Mrs. Lauber's class to finish our Earth Day writing projects. Mrs. Myers typed them, so we can share them this afternoon. After recess, we went to library. Then, it was time for lunch and recess. For language arts today, we continued to practice for our Reader's Theater. First, we practiced our part independently. Next, we read with our partner. Then, we read through the whole play together. Some people will make props. Some people will bring props. Next, we had reading workshop time. Mrs. Myers met with the Robot and the Seal groups. We went to our second center of the day. Then, it was time for our special Earth Day performances. We practiced in our groups for sharing our performances. Then, Mrs. Myers made a stage. We shared our poems, songs, and commercials about Earth. You can check out today's performances on the blog and soon they will be on a new link of Mrs. Myers' teacher page. Then, it was recess time. After recess, Mrs. Donner was here for Junior Achievement. She taught us about jobs and why we need to have a job. We made a class book about jobs. It is in the library center. At the end of the day, Mrs. Myers read We Are Extremely Very Good Recyclers. It was a Charlie and Lola book. We ended the day with a chapter in Junie B. Jones!

Earth Week

Our theme this week is Earth Day. Miss Sementelli started our day with an Earth Day game at morning meeting. We had to sort cards into "saving water", "saving trees", and "saving air". Our word of the day today was "three". It was a rule follower, because it had the "th" digraph, and the "ee" vowel pair. Today's word could be an adjective and adverb. We had music at the end of the morning. After lunch, we got the parts to our Earth Day Carol, reader's theater. We each got our own script. We practiced reading our part alone today. We will perform our reader's theater to four classes on Friday. Next, we had a center tour. In the games center, we are making real and nonsense words using a consonant blend and digraph die and matching them to the word families -ay, -ake, -ame, -ar, -ight. In the listening center, we listened to a song from Jack Johnson called the 3R's. We have to make a poster showing what we are learning about the 3R's and then write a nonfiction story about it on the back. In the library center, we read a nonfiction Earth Day book around in a circle. Then, we sorted nonfiction story parts. The last center was the writing center. We are putting missing words into sentence strip facts about Earth Day. Then, we are proofreading the words to see if they are common or proper nouns. We are also proofreading an Earth Day story on the back for capital and lowercase letters. At writing workshop time, we worked with a partner from Mrs. Lauber's class to write a song, commercial, or poem to teach about taking care of the Earth. We will continue to write these fun projects tomorrow. Just before recess, Mrs. Mumme did a money lesson for us on the Smartboard. We have homework to take home and return to Mrs. Myers. At the end of they day, Mrs. Donner came and taught our Junior Achievement lesson about needs and wants. Mrs. Myers read us a story called Save the Earth before we left. It was a fun day.

Good Bye Bugs

Our word of the day today was "form". It was a rule follower, because the "or" was a bossy r sound and "rm" was a consonant blend. The word form is a verb. It was not part of a popular word family. At reading workshop time, we did our bug stretching game. We had to stretch and sounds and the syllables of each bug on the picture card. Then we had to write the word. After the game, we had regular reading time. Mrs. Myers met with the Seal and Robot groups today. After lunch, we met with Mrs. Lauber's class to do a vocabulary match. We had to match a noun to a verb using a partner. The words on the cards were from the story, Waiting for Wings. After we made of vocabulary predictions, we heard the story and listened to see if we made correct vocabulary connections. At the end, we had to correct our noun/verb vocabulary partners to retell the life of a butterfly. Next, we had centers. Today was make-up day. We finished our art center projects, too. They are hanging on our windows. If you had everything finished, you got to make bug "baseball" cards, telling facts about different bugs. We had to read a nonfiction book in the library center to find out the facts for our cards. We were so excited for the next part of the day! It was our writing workshop time. We worked hard to finish and proofread our bug adventures. Mrs. Myers was proud at how we wrote from a bug's point of view. After writing and partner conferencing, we went into the big first grade area and painted our bug using the big paint brushes. Mrs. Myers is going to help us share our stories with you soon! At the end of the day, we had art. Mrs. Myers also announced the Most Beautiful Handwriter of the Week - Evan Eisenhart! The Most Improved Handwriter of the Week was Dawson Bashada. Mrs. Myers wants us to enjoy the great spring weather this weekend. We are also supposed to visit her teacher page for the weekly survey, beginning today, because the survey question for next week is about taking care of the Earth as a family. Please stop by and put in your vote today!

Writing About Bugs

Our word of the day today was "around". It was a rule breaker, because the "a" said the sound of "short u". This word was an adverb. It had two syllables. After recess, we had writing workshop today. We began writing our bug adventures from our point of view. We learned that when you tell a story in the first person point of view, you use the pronoun "I". After lunch, we went to Mrs. Lauber's room and heard the first few pages of the story, Big Bug Surprise. We had to listen and give three character traits of Prunella. Then, we heard the rest of the story and listened to see if we were correct. Next, we went to our fourth center of the week. In the art center, we added the tissue paper to the wings. Next, Mrs. Myers showed us how to write the names of bugs using a letter, syllable, and sound chart. We practiced writing the words together on our wipe-off board. Tomorrow, we will be playing this same game independently. Then, we were off to music class. We were happy to have Mrs. Graves back. At the end of the day, Mrs. Donner came to our classroom. She is our Junior Achievement teacher for five visits. We learned about our families and neighborhoods today. Ask me all about it! We ended the day with bug jokes.

Going Buggy!

It was a funny day, because Mrs. Myers could hardly talk. Her voice sounded very hoarse. It was good Miss Sementelli could read some of our stories. Our word of the day today was "also". It was a rule breaker, because "al" is usually "all" or "ol" and the "o" said his name in "so" without another vowel helping him. The word also is an adverb. In the morning, Grace, Maddy, Macy G, and Anna gave the butterfly blog today. Check it out on the butterfly blog website. After recess, we had reading workshop and guided reading. Miss Sementelli read with some of us. Mrs. Myers met with the Robot group and a new group about Seals. We like learning about nonfiction. At game time, we met with a parter and practiced spelling word wall words. Then, it was time for lunch. Mrs. Myers and Miss Sementeli had lunch with the Fabulous Five Handwriters today. They Fab Five are Grace, Macy B, Evan, and Dawson this week. After lunch, we learned about four kinds of questions that Mrs. Myers can ask us after we read. By knowing the kind of question our teacher asks, it helps us find the answer. We can also ask these questions to ourselves as we read. The easiest kind of question is a "right there" questions. This is a question that you can find the answer "right there" in the story. A question that also uses the story, but is a little harder is called a "think and search" question. A think and search question is one that needs to to look through lots of pages in the book, like comparing and retelling. The hardest kind of question is called "author and me" question. This is a question where you need to think about what the author says and use ideas in your own brain to answer it. The last kind of question is easy. It's called "on my own". This is a question about our favorite part or what we don't like. We will use these questions to help us remember the stories we read. After we learned about each question, we heard the story, Magic School Bus Spins a Web. Then, we heard questions from the story and had to sort them into the question types. Last, we answered a question from each category! Next, it was center time. We visited our third center for the week. Mrs. Myers introduced the art center. We are making stained glass butterflies for our classroom windows. At math time, we had a lesson on probability. Probability is the chance that sometime will happen. Mrs. Myers handed out bags of caterpillar cards to each table. We had to look in our bag and predict the chance of pulling the yellow or green colored caterpillar. We used the vocabulary always, never, likely, unlikely, and sometimes. Then, we closed the bag and pulled the cards. We recorded the data on our caterpillar sheet. At the end, we discussed if our prediction came true, even though we all predicted correctly. That's probability! At the end of the afternoon, we started our writing project - A Bug Adventure from the bug's point of view. We used our writing plan to brainstorm our ideas and character traits. We can't wait to shrink and "become" our bug tomorrow! After last recess, we watched a Magic School Bus Bug Adventure movie. It gave us some new facts about ants and gave us some ideas for our stories tomorrow. Hopefully Mrs. Myers will be able to talk tomorrow!

Bug Week!

This week our theme is bugs. We were excited this week to welcome a new Millersville student to our classroom. She will be here for three weeks and do some teaching. Her name is Miss Sementelli. This morning, we also had a substitute while Mrs. Myers was with the other teachers for training. Mrs. Myers stopped in to work with a few of us during the morning. Our word of the day today was "show". It was a rule follower, because it had a consonant digraph and a diphthong -ow. It was a verb in our sentence today, but it can also be a noun. Later in the morning, we heard the story, Ant's Day Off. We learned that an author writes in different points of view. Today's story was written in the ant's point of view. Point of view is who is telling the story. Then, it was time for lunch and recess. After lunch, we had center time first. In centers this week, we are practicing phrasing, consonant blend, plurals, and character's feelings. When Mrs. Myers came back, we read the story, An Ant's Day Off. Before the read the story, we practiced predicting using only the title, author, cover, and the first two pages of the story. Then, we made three predictions about what would happen next in the story. We had to prove where we got the idea for our prediction in the because part of our worksheet. Next, we had math. In math today, we were practicing our double digit addition and subtraction fact fluency. We had board team races. Table number three won at the end of the game. We had a close contest though! At writing workshop time, we listened to the story, BUZ. It was told from the bug's point of view. After the story, we practiced telling what objects around the room would say if they were talking. We told from the point of view from a desk, a marker, and the map. Next, we made a circle and played bug hot potato. If the music stopped and we were holding the bug, we had to go into the middle and draw a bug card from the pile. Then, we had to say something from the bug's point of view. Others got to share, too. This was practice for our writing story tomorrow. We are going to write an adventure from a bug's point of view. We are going to decided what bug we want to be tonight!

Happy Easter

Our word of the day today was "came". It was rule follower, because it followed the CVCe rule. This word had four letters, three sounds, and one syllable. We read the work family "the flame of -ame". Today's word was a verb. Later in the morning, we had music. After lunch and recess, we did a nonfiction sorting activity. Mrs. Myers gave a card to each of us. We had to find others who had cards that were related to ours. Then we found out that the names of each groups were - domestic bunnies, wild bunnies, and Easter bunnies. We organized our cards for each category. Then, Mrs. Myers read us the story, Rabbit, Rabbits, and More Rabbits, by Gail Gibbons. After the story, we checked our cards in each category and named them with headings. Next, we had computer/writing workshop time. We used the drawing tools with a partner to design an Easter egg. We will be writing about them next week. After writing, we finished our centers for the week. After recess, we gave out our weekly awards. Lots of friends had perfect daily math and daily edit. Nicolas was our neatest handwriter of the week! Annabelle was the most improved handwriter of the week. At the end of the day, we had a math Easter egg hunt. Mrs. Myers hid ten eggs filled with money. We had to find the egg, count the money, and record the answer. At the end of the hunt, we checked our answers together. It was fun practice! We also read most of Mrs. Myers' favorite Easter book, The Country Bunny and the Golden Slippers. Have a happy Easter! We'll see you on Monday. Our theme next week is bugs!

Easter is on its Way!

We had a busy day today in first grade. Our caterpillars are changing. Please check the butterfly blog tonight for an update from Dawson, Ryan, and Catherine. Mrs. Myers changed our desks around, so we were excited to have new seats and groups. We were also excited to get our report cards at the end of the day! We can't wait to share them with you tonight! Our word of the day today was "follow". It was a rule follower. We learned to look at the sounds and syllables in the word today. We will be practicing syllables and sounds a lot over the next few weeks. The word "follow" is a verb. After recess, we had reading workshop. Mrs. Myers met with the bat group and the food festival group. At 11 o'clock, we worked on our phrase reading game. At lunch, we said good-bye to Miss Hartlaub, our Millersville volunteer. Then after recess, we heard the story, The Easter Egg Farm. We listened to see how the main character, Pauline, thinks and feels and what she sees and does. This helps us remember and understand the story. Next we had centers. We visited our third center and most of us painted in the art center today. Then, it was math time. We had so much fun reviewing fractions. Then, Mrs. Myers taught us how to look at fractions of a set. We used baskets of Easter eggs to show fractions of the set by color. Check out the paper tonight. We are going to look for sets of things tonight around the house. Maybe we can make fractions sets at home, too. Then, we had art class early, because Mrs. Mummert's class needed to switch her time. We had recess with the second and third graders. Many of us were excited! Finally it was the end of the day. We got to open our pen pal letters and read them. Then, we started writing back to our pen pals. We were so excited to hear from them! Mrs. Myers said that we will try video conferencing with their class soon, so we can see their classroom! Only one day left in the school week! Hooray!

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Our theme this week is Easter. We had to do the spring dance at morning meeting today, because we want spring weather to return and stay! Our word of the day today is "boy". It was a rule follower, because the "oy" sound is a vowel diphthong. This word was a noun. We know the pronouns he and his can replace the word boy. We wrote some words that belong in the -oy family. We also discussed how "oi" makes the same sound as "oy". After recess, we had reading workshop. Mrs. Myers read with two groups. At 11:00, we got a Scholastic News and took a sound and reading check. If we didn't finish today, we will finish tomorrow. After lunch, we met with Mrs. Lauber's class to hear the story, Easter, by Gail Gibbons. It was nonfiction, but it did not have photographs, a table of contents, an index, or a glossary. It did tell us facts, though. Before the story, we wrote down three facts we already knew about spring. After the story, we wrote down three facts we learned from the story. We shared our facts. Next, we had centertime. In the games center this week, we are sorting and writing consonant digraph sounds. In the writing center, we are choosing a noun picture in a magazine. Then, we are describing it with adjectives, writing a verb that matches the noun, and adding two adverbs. At the end, we write a descriptive sentences and share it with our group while they visualize the sentence. Last, we show them the picture and see if we described it well! At the overhead center, we are sorting nouns, verbs, and adjectives and using them in sentences. The last center is the listening center. We heard the story, The Easter Bunny is Missing. We are mapping the problem, events, and solution as we listen. The art center this week is fun! We are making a crayon resist Easter egg. After centers, we had writing workshop time. Today we were listening to a story with lots of style. We brainstormed that a story has style if you add similes, adjectives, adverbs, onomatopoeia, and strong (show not tell) verbs. During the story, The Great Easter Egg Hunt, we heard all of these, except similes. The strong verbs were the best, though! Then it was time for music. Macy B. got the golden award at music class, because she had such great behavior. After recess, it was math time. It was so much fun today, because we did three estimation activities. First, we estimated Easter eggs in the jar. There were 20. Lots of us estimated correctly. Next, we estimated jelly beans. There were 88 in the jar. This was harder, but we did pretty well, because we knew it had to be between 60 - 100 from comparing before the estimation. The last estimation was Easter Bunny tails (cotton balls). The tails were bigger than the jelly beans, but smaller than the Easter eggs. There were 41 in the jar. Thomas and Mrs. Myers had it perfect. We all did well, because we knew there had to be between 35 - 45 in the jar from our comparing before we estimated. We talked about all the things we estimate each day in real life. We are going to be on the lookout at home for more things we have to estimate in the kitchen or the bathroom. Dawson said that we have to estimate when we are going to run out of toilet paper and Elle said that we have to estimate how much room we have on a line before we write a word, or it might not fit. We also would like to make an estimation jar for our families. It is so much fun! What a day! We were really noisy, but we did learn a lot! Tomorrow, we will try to use our self control all day long!

Wild Weather Day

Today was a wild weather day! We saw storm clouds as think as night, whispy clouds, rain, and even sun today. It was really a perfect way to end our weather theme. Our word of the day today was "same". It was a rule follower, because it followed the CVCe rule. It was also on the "flame of -ame". We read the words from this family. We learned that the word "same" is an adverb. After recess, we worked on videotaping our weather reports. Check out the weather report for each season. We wrote them all by ourselves to show what we learned! We also read a Scholastic News about weather in March and April with a partner. After lunch, Mrs. Myers read the story, Little Cloud. We learned that an adverb is a word that describes a verb. An adverb tells how, how many, when, and where. We learned that adverbs sometimes end with the letters -ly. We also noticed that adverbs usually come after the verb in the sentence, unless the adverb tells "when" and then it usually comes before the verb. After the story, we worked together to find the verbs and adverbs in the story. There were tons. We will be adverb searching in the books we read this weekend! Next, we had project time. We finished our last center, had FUN FRIDAY time, finished our cloud stories and proofread with a partner, and practice reading a rain poem with a partner using fluency and expression. We were so busy!!! After recess, we had phys. ed. Then, we went back to the classroom. Mrs. Myers announced the super handwriter of the week. It was Madison! The most improved handwriter was Ryan! YAY! We will all try hard next week to be a winner. At the end of the day, we had Friday sharing! It was a great day! We hope for super weather this weekend! Next week's theme is Easter!

More Weather Fun!

We started our day with Mrs. Winstel. Mrs. Myers was out for an appointment. Our word of the day today was "any". It was a rule breaker, because the "a" said the sound of "short e". It was a chunk in the word "many". The rest of the morning was library time. After lunch and recess, Mrs. Myers was back. We heard the story, The Rain Came Down. We listened for the most important event in the story. This is the event that changes the characters or action in the story. Then, we had to list reasons why it was so important. We did a good job! Then, we had reading workshop and guided reading. Mrs. Myers read with the Frogs and Toads group. The Robot group read on their own for tomorrow. Next, we visited our last center of the week. We also worked really hard to finish our weather reports for tomorrow's taping. Mrs. Myers conferenced with each group to make sure they had everything ready. She said that our scripts and posters were great! Some of us are bringing in props tomorrow! Don't forget! Then, it was time to learn about weather. We watched a short video clip about winter and fall. We had to record three facts we learned during the video. Then, we wrote and shared questions we still had about the season. At the end of the day, we had so much fun writing on carousel poster for each of the seasons. We rotated around the room in groups each adding new information about the weather and activities for each season. We wrote down all the facts we knew. Tomorrow, we will add these facts to our weather dictionaries. We can't wait to vote on the Fabulous Five Handwriters tomorrow morning. Don't forget to finish your survey tonight for a bean!

A Cloudy April Fool's

Today was April Fool's Day. Mrs. Myers fooled the buyers today, because she told us the cafeteria was broken and wouldn't have any food. We believed her! Miss Hartlaub, our helper, read Arthur's April Fool. Mrs. Myers read us April Foolishness. Our word of the day today was "old". It was a rule breaker, because the "o" said his name without any help. Today's word was an adjective. The -old family was popular. We wrote the words on the "old of gold". We went to music for the rest of the morning. After lunch and recess, Mrs. Myers read the story, It Looked Like Spilt Milk. First, we read the top 100 phrases as fast as we could using expression! Mrs. Myers timed us, and it took 4:37. We practiced reading the story in correct phrases. Then, Mrs. Myers gave us each a page for the book. We practiced adding the phrasing marks the way we wanted to read it. We read it to two friend and Mrs. Myers. Ask me to read the sentences to you tonight with great phrasing and expression. Next, it was time for centers. We visited our third center. After we finished our center for the day, we worked in our groups on our weather forecast reports. Then, it was reading workshop time. Mrs. Myers met with the robot group. Then, it was writing time. First, Mrs. Myers reminded us of the story, It Looked Like Spilt Milk. The clouds in the story all looked like something else. Mrs. Myers gave us blue paper. We folded it in half and Mrs. Myers splattered white paint on it. Then, we folded it and pressed it. When we opened it, we had to decide what our cloud looked like. We wrote about it using adjectives and smiles. Then, we filled out a writing plan. Tomorrow, we will use the plan to write a story. At the end of the day, Miss Anderson came for a guidance lesson. We reviewed solving problems. Check out our guidance paper in our folders tonight! Mrs. Myers was happy that she didn't get fooled all day! Watch out tonight, though!

Nonfiction Weather Day

Our word of the day today was "mean". It was a rule follower, because the "ea" vowel pair said the name of "long e". We saw that there were many words in the -ean and -een family. We even saw a word that looked like -ene. The word "mean" has a homonyn for meaning, but they both look the same. After recess, we had a short reading workshop. Mrs. Myers met with 2 guided reading groups. We finished our bossy r games during game time. After lunch and recess, Mrs. Myers showed us yesterday's book - Sergio and the Hurricane and another fiction book called Hurricanes. Then, she showed us a nonfiction book called Hurricanes! We took a picture walk of the book. Then, we made a list on the chart of all the elements of a nonfiction book. We decided that many nonfiction books have photographs, glossary, index, table of contents, boxes, charts, and captions, and headings. Then, Mrs. Myers read most of the story to us. We learned how to read a nonfiction book using one heading at a time and making sure our brain remembers the new facts for each heading before we read a new heading. Ask me how this is like a tennis or baseball machine throwing too many balls. At the end of the lesson, we had to label the parts of the nonfiction book. Then, it was time for centers. We visited our second center of the week. We also worked in our groups for our weather report project for Friday. Mrs. Myers told us that we need to make sure we proofread our work and follow all parts of the directions. At math time today, we did three math stations for shapes. First we reviewed our 2D and 3D shapes using our Math Dictionaries. Then we visited the stations. At station one, we used green triangle books to see how many would cover each 2D shape. At station two, we sorted 2D shapes by different attributes. At station three, we examined the attributes of 3D shapes. Before recess, Mrs. Myers read a different nonfiction story to us called, What's the Weather. We looked for the table of contents and the headings. At the end of the day, we had art. We also said good-bye to Shaelyn. Today was her last day in our classroom. Mrs. Myers hopes we are better listeners tomorrow, because we are not all listening and thinking!

Weather Week

Our theme this week is weather and seasons. The word of the day today was "too". It was a rule follower, because it had the "boo of -oo" sound. This word has a few popular homonyms - to, too, and two. Later in the meeting, Mrs. Myers had guided reading with three groups, while we had reading workshop and game time. During game time, we practiced our bossy r sound games again, but we had a different envelop from last week. After lunch and recess, Mrs. Myers read the story, Sergio and the Hurricane. We had to decide the author's purpose for writing the story. We actually came up with two good purposes - to tell facts about hurricanes and to teach us a lesson about preparing for hurricanes and not wishing for bad things to happen, just because they seem exciting. Next, we had a center tour and new centers. In the games center, we are sorting raindrops with "hard c" and "soft c" pictures and words on them. In the writing center, we are meteorologists, writing a weather report for the assigned season. In the poetry center, we are reading the poem, Clouds. Then, we are using bendaroos to find the blends, digraphs, -ill family words, and -ow family words in the poem. The last center is the listening center. We are listening to different weather music and visualizing what we think is happening in the song. After we draw the pictures that is in our head, we are writing a story about it! We have a special weather project as the art center this week. We'll find out about it tomorrow! We had music next and after recess, we came back for our weather and seasons lesson of the day. Mrs. Myers gave us a weather journal to use this week. Then, we had to watch a movie about spring and write down three new facts we learned. We did the same thing for summer. Then, we wrote a question for each one about something we still want to learn about spring and summer weather. Mrs. Myers is going to find the answers for us! YAY!

Finally a Spring Day!

Today was the last day of our spring theme. We are glad that today's weather feels like spring! Our word of the day today was "right". It had lots of homonyms for meaning. The word "write" was a homonyn, too. Today's word was a rule breaker, because the "gh" made the "i" say his name. We read the word families on the "light of -ight" and "kite of -ite". After recess, we had guided reading and reading workshop. At 11:00AM, we had phonics game time. We were finishing our bossy r sorts and practicing spelling words with a partner. After lunch, Mrs. Myers read the story, When Will It Be Spring. We listened for the most important event in the story. This is the event that changes the characters or the action in the story. We did a great job finding the most important event in the story today! Next, we had math centers. They are coming home today! After that, we made our video of the field trip. We also did a concept circle activity to show facts and opinions about spring. Check it out in our mail today. We even had time for some journal writing. At the end of the day, we watched a video about animals in the spring. We made connections to the animals we see in spring. We had Friday sharing at the end of the day! It was a great week! Yeah spring!

Spring Learning

Our word of the day today was "line". It was a rule follower, because it followed the CVCe rule. The -ine family was a little popular. After recess, we had reading workshop and guided reading with Mrs. Winstel. She met with the Spider groups and the Shark groups. It was soon time for lunch and recess. After that, Mrs. Myers was back! We heard the story, That's What Happens in Spring. We listed for the author's purpose for writing the story. We learned that author's write to entertains us, to teach us facts, to share their opinions, and to teach us something. Next, it was time for math centers. We practiced counting and stamping money, 2D shapes and fractions, 2D and 3D shape BINGO, and elapsed time on the human clock. Then it was writing workshop time. Mrs. Myers met with group 1. We worked on using words for "went" in our stories. During sharing time, we shared our purpose for writing our stories, because we are authors. At the end of the day, we had phys. ed. Then, we worked on our posters for tomorrow's video sharing about our field trip. We are excited to share with you tomorrow.

Spring is Here (???)

Our theme this week is spring! Spring is officially here, but the weather is a little too chilly! Our word of the day today was "through". It was a tricky one, because the "gh" was silent and the "ou" said the sound of "the boo of oo". It was an adverb. The word "threw" is a homonym. This "threw" is a verb. Later in the morning, we had reading workshop and guided reading groups. Mrs. Myers was so excited to have her group time back! During our game time, we learned the bossy r sort that we will be doing this week in our groups. We will be sorting -or/-ar words and pictures or -er,-ir, -ur words and pictures. After lunch, we started by looking at a list of eight vocabulary words that were focused on spring. We had to independently write a vocabulary chain story using the words in order. We were trying to write facts using the words and show the meaning of the vocabulary words. Then we shared our stories. Mrs. Myers read the story, When Will It Be Spring. We listened to see how the author uses the words in order. We learned that swallow is a verb, but in the story, it is a bird that comes in the spring. After the story, we did a shared writing, using the vocabulary words just like the author. Mrs. Myers also read us an acrostic alphabet story about spring. We learned some new facts from this story, too. We had art class early today. After art, we had writing workshop time. Mrs. Myers was conferencing with a group, while the rest of us wrote in our journals. After recess, we learned about the quarter. We heard the story, The Big Buck Adventure. Then, we shared with Mrs. Myers all the facts we already knew about the quarter. We read the story, Quarter. We added new facts to our list. Then, we went to the bank area. We practiced ordering and counting the coins. Then, we used our real coins to count money all by ourselves. If you did not send a bag of money to school with your child, please do so my tomorrow! Also, please remember to dress up for the disco music era tomorrow, to celebrate in music class!!!

A Busy Half Day!

Today was a busy half day of school. Our word of the day today was "help". It was a rule follower. It is a verb. It was not a popular word family. We practiced a 3D shape game at morning meeting that we really loved. It was like hot potato, but you didn't get out. You had to name the 3D shape you were holding. We had an early lunch and recess. Then, Mrs. Myers read us the story, Clever Tom and the Leprechaun. It was a retelling of an Irish folktale. Before the story, Mrs. Myers listed verbs on the chart. We found that there were three different verbs to tell the same action. After the story, we organized the verbs on a timeline. Then we made our own timeline and added new verbs. At the end of the day, we looked at a map of the world and picked out Ireland. We learned how to use the cardinal directions north, south, east, and west. We also learned the intermediate directions of northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest. Then, we tried out the direction on a map of Ireland by taking our little shamrock man on a tour to visit some of the sites! We were so excited to have our half day!

Money, Money, Money

Our word of the day today was "where". It was a rule breaker, but related to the word, "there". Today's word has a homonym, wear. There were lots of words that sounded like today's word family, but they looked like -air, -are, -ear. Later in the morning, we heard the story, The Luckiest St. Patrick's Day. We listened for pronouns in the story. We learned that a pronoun is a word that replaces a noun. We practiced pronouns on a worksheet. After recess, we had reading workshop and Mrs. Myers read with the last student. We will begin new guided reading groups on Monday. After lunch, we read the story, Leprechaun on the Loose. Near the end of the story, Mrs. Myers stopped and we debated the next event in the story. We had two sides to the story - Should the boy in the story let the trapped leprechaun go and get his gold, or should he keep leprechaun in the trap and clear his name for the bad things the leprechaun had done??? We formed two groups and made a list of all the reasons why our decision was the best. Then, we had our debate. Mrs. Myers picked the winner. It was the "let the leprechaun out" group! We liked debating and would like to have some debates at home. Ask me about it tonight! Then, we had center time. We visited our third center. After centers, we had a math lesson on dimes. We brainstormed everything we already knew about dimes. Then, Mrs. Myers read a story called, Dimes. We touched real dimes. Then, we learned to count dimes, nickels, and pennies. Most of us are doing really well counting money. At the end of the day, we watched a video about St. Patrick's Day and another short video about money. Remember, tomorrow is a half day of school. We dismiss at 12:30PM!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day. We were all wearing green today! HOORAY! We started our day with a great leprechaun hunt. Lucky O'Sullivan, a leprechaun, visited our classroom. He led us on a treasure hunt of clues. We looked all around our classroom for him, and we even had to go see Mrs. Howard. Finally, Ryan discovered the last clue and the treasure! Although we didn't catch Lucky, he left us some golden Irish candy! We were so excited and wound up! Then, it was back to learning. Our word of the day today was "great". It was a rule breaker, because the "ea" vowel pair did not say the correct sound. It said the sound of "long a". We learned that the word "great" was an adjective. It has a homonym - grate, which is a verb. We also learned that the "ate" family looks like -ate, -eight, or -ait. After recess, we had a little more leprechaun trouble. Then, we had reading workshop time. At game time, we did an independent making words activity. We will continue this activity tomorrow. Mrs. Myers is almost finished reading with us one at a time. After lunch and recess, Mrs. Myers had us brainstorm everything we thought we knew about St. Patrick's Day holiday. We knew it was an Irish holiday with leprechauns, and it had something to do with St. Patrick, but most of us didn't know who he was. So, we read the story, Patrick, Patron Saint of Ireland. We learned lots of facts about the life of St. Patrick. After the story, we listed the facts on a giant shamrock. We also learned that St. Patrick's Day is celebrated on the day St. Patrick died over 1,600 years ago. There was nothing about leprechauns in the story!!! We were so surprised. Ask me to share some facts about St. Patrick tonight. Then, it was time for centers. We visited our second center today. After centers, we had math. In math today, we learned about the nickel and the penny. First, we brainstormed a list of what we already knew about the penny. Then, Mrs. Myers read the Penny story. We learned a few more facts and added them to our list. We also looked at five different real pennies to see the attributes . Then, we read the Nickel story and looked at 5 different nickels. Four were old nickels, but one was the new nickel. We saw the changes made to the nickel after 2005. We practiced counting by 1's and 5's. Then, we practiced ordering coins from the "most expensive" to the "least expensive". We counted nickels and pennies in our piggy bank. We can practiced counting pennies and nickels at home, too. In writing workshop, we went to Mrs. Lauber's class. We talked about the word "went" as a boring verb. Next, we got in groups and brainstormed a list of words that could replace "went" . Before recess, each group shared the top 3 from their list. We will continue this activity tomorrow. We ended the day with phys. ed. It was a fun day!

St. Patrick's Day Theme

Our theme this week is St. Patrick's Day and boy are we excited!!! We learned to say hello is Irish. Our word of the day today was "say". It was a rule follower, because it followed the "hay of -ay". We read the words in this popular word family. This word was a verb. Later in the morning, we had library. After lunch and recess, we had a language arts lesson about verb endings. We read the story, The Luckiest Leprechaun. After the story, we sorted verbs by their endings, by each reading a verb from the story and finding our groups - the twins, the share a vowel, and the regular root word and ending group. We recorded our answers on a worksheet. Then, it was time for reading workshop. Mrs. Myers read with some of us one at a time. Then, it was time for our new centers. In the games center, we matched shamrock puzzles with contractions on them. In the games center two, we had to look at the shape on the shamrock and find a word of the day word with the same letter shape. We practiced writing and spelling other word of the day words. In the writing center, we were proofreading a St. Patrick's Day story for spelling, punctation, and capital letters. In the listening center, we are listening to the story, The Leprechaun's Gold. Then, we are putting giant quotation sentences together from the story. We don't have art center this week, because it is only a four day week. In writing workshop today, we learned an Irish poem called a limerick. It is a five line poem with three long lines and two short lines. The long lines rhyme and the short lines rhyme. We did a shared writing activity to write a class limerick. Check out the link tonight! At the end of the day, we had math. We are learning about money, saving, and spending. Mrs. Myers asked us what we already knew about money. We knew a lot. We sang three money songs. We read the story, Alexander, Who Used to be Rich Last Sunday. Then, we added new money labels to our Math Dictionary. We will begin learning about each of the coins tomorrow. We are excited to see if the leprechauns come to visit us tomorrow. We even cleaned our desks, in case they come looking for dirty ones to dump on the floor!

Good Bye Kevin Henkes

Today was a great day! We were a little noisy, but we had a lot of fun learning. We started the day by taking a survey on the laptop computers about our favorite Kevin Henkes' book. At our morning meeting, Mrs. Myers share the results. You can check them out by clicking on the link http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pX3U8NZ0qgv6YRbbp1wnNfw or visit Mrs. Myers' teacher page and select the weekly survey tap. We are going to try to have one survey a week! Our word of the day today was "think". It was a rule follower. We noticed the "th" digraph, the "nk" blend, and the words "in" and "thin". The word think is a noun. There were a lot of words in the -ink family. Later in the morning, we had music class. After lunch and recess, our class divided in half. Some of us went to Mrs. Lauber's room for a Lilly's Big Day retelling lesson with pictures. The rest of us stayed with Mrs. Myers and some of Mrs. Lauber's class came over. We read Lilly's Big Day and did a story retelling, using a retelling frame. We practiced retelling the character's names, the setting when and where, and using important vocabulary from the story! Ask us to retell the story at home! Next, we had reading workshop time. Mrs. Myers read with a few new friends. A lot of us are finished our packets for reading workshop. Remember to ask me all about it when it comes home in my mail. Then, we had writing workshop time. We had journal writing today. Mrs. Myers conferenced with some of us. On Monday, we learned about the new writing workshop rotation we will be doing. We are going to be focusing more on our journals for a while, now that we have learned all the things that good authors do!!! Mrs. Myers will have rotating conferences with us and we will have a publishing table, too. We are excited to share our stories! Before recess, we had center make-up day. After we finished our centers, we worked on our bonus book for Kevin Henkes or continued to write in our journals. We went out a little early for the rest of our February extra recess. At the end of the day, we were so excited to share our 3D shape show and tell object. We went out to the big area and share our object with Mrs. Lauber's class, too. We put our object in the center of the circle. The boys and girls all whispered to their neighbors what 3D shape we had. Then, we counted down "3-2-1" and the boys and girls all said the name of the 3D shape. At the end, we looked at the the spheres, cylinders, cones, rectangular prisms, and cubes side by side. They were all different sizes, but the faces were still the same. So were the other attributes. It was lots of fun! Our theme next week is St. Patrick's Day! Yay!

Lots of Kevin Henkes; Stories

Our word of the day today was "sentence". We thought this word was really long! We also noticed that we could see two chunks in the word sentence- sent and ten. We also knew that the "e" had the job of changing the "c" to say the "s" sound! The word of the day today is a rule follower. Today's word was a noun. This morning we had reading workshop. Mrs. Myers met with a few individual students while we worked at our seats. Mrs. Bashada pulled students into the hallway during the morning to stretch out penguin words. We also worked with a partner during our games time to practice spelling word of the day words. After lunch and recess, we Mrs. Myers read the stories, Julius the Baby of the World and Jessica. After each story, we decided the author's purpose for writing each of the stories. We came up with some great ideas. This is a question we can ask ourselves after reading any story! Next, it was center time. Some of us finished our fourth center, but most of us need tomorrow for make-up day". Instead of writing workshop today, Mrs. Mumme, the math coach, did a telling time Smartboard lesson for us. We practiced telling time to the hour and half hour. We also played some games that we can find on Mrs. Myers' and Mrs. Mumme's teacher pages. After this, we had a math lesson on 3D shapes. We brainstormed all we thought we knew about 3D shapes. Maddy told us that 2D shapes are part of 3D shapes. So, we looked all around the room and found that this was true. We also found that our classroom was full of 3D objects! Next, Mrs. Myers showed us five 3D shapes- the cube, cone, rectangular prism, sphere, and cylinder. We learned that these shapes are also called solid shapes. We also learned that the cube has faces that are squares, the cone has one circle face, the rectangular prism has rectangle faces, and the cylinder has two circle faces. We added some labels to our math dictionary today. We also are bringing home a shape spotters show and tell homework sheet. We have shape homework tonight! We have to find an object to bring to school tomorrow, that is an example of our 3D shape. At the end of the day, we went to art. We were so happy to have Mrs. Myers back today! :) Don't forget your homework for tomorrow!

Kevin Henkes Week

First, I want to apologize for the lack of blog on Friday. After typing the boys and girls message twice, it never posted. Sorry! Our theme this week is Kevin Henkes. He is an author and illustrator. Our word of the day today was "name". It was a rule follower, because it followed the CVCe rule. It was a noun. The -ame family can be written as -ame or -aim. Today we had two Millersville University students in our classroom. Ask us about it! They will be here for the next four weeks. Later in the morning, we had guided reading and reading workshop. At game time, we worked independently at stretching penguin words to match pictures. We will play a game with our group tomorrow, using those words. After lunch and recess, we had a fact sort using facts from Kevin Henke's life. Mrs. Myers hung up questions about Kevin Henkes. Then, she gave us cards that had all the fact answers. We had to predict what question our card answered. Then, we went to Kevin Henkes webiste and read his biography. We checked our answers. We had all "thumbs up"! It was great! We learned so many facts. Then, we had a center tour of our Kevin Henke's centers. In the games center, we are sorting coins into Lilly's purple plastic purses for -or, -ar, and -ur sounds. In the Read the Room center, we are proofreading words Lilly spells wrong from around our classroom. In the listening center, we are listening center, we are listening to the story, LIlly's Purple Plastic Purse. We had to tell three character traits of Lilly and make a character collage of them using magazine pictures. In the writing center, we are sorting the problems and solutions from Kevin Henke's stories. Then, we are writing a solution to a mouse problem of our own. At math time, we did a brainstorm about shapes. We knew lots about them. Then, Mrs. Myers read the story, Where's a Square. Finally, Mrs. Myers gave us each a pipe cleaner to make two dimensional shapes out of. We added labels for each shape in our Math Dictionary. We learned the shapes circle, square, rectangle, triangle, rhombus, trapeziod, hexagon. We also learned the words angle and attribute. We will continue learned about these shapes tomorrow. At the end of the day, we had phys. ed and sharing! We are excited for Kevin Henke's week!

Pizza Party Friday

Lots and Lots of Pizza

Our word of the day today was "our". This word is often mixed up with the word "are". "Our" is a rule follower because the -ou is saying the sound of the ou of ouch. "Our" is also a homonym for the word hour. This is a math word we use when telling time. This morning we had music. After lunch and recess, we had a guest teacher, Mrs. Thomas. She taught us a lesson on reading fluency. We have been talking about fluency with Mrs. Myers in our own classroom. We learned that good readers read fluently. To read fluently we have to read smoothly and watch for punctuation. We also have to obey the reading speed limit. In Mrs. Thomas' lesson, we practiced phrasing. We learned that phrasing is when you group words together and then read the groups of words with pauses. We can show you this at home. You can see some of the activities we tried on Mrs. Thomas' teacher page. Then, on the smartboard, we practiced reading phrases. Mrs. Thomas timed us to see how fluently we could read the phrases. It took us one minute and six seconds. We also learned to visualize phrases as we read them. Then, it was center time. We visited out 3rd center today. Mrs. Myers introduced a fun bonus game to play if we finish centers. It is called roll a pizza. We love this game! Ask us about the game at home! In math today, we learned a lot about fractions. We got labels to put into our math dictionaries. We reviewed the terms numerator (part) and denominator (whole). We worked a lot with part and whole. We heard the story Eating Fractions. We listened to hear the fractions 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4. We also learned that the smaller the numerator, the larger the piece of the fraction. We brainstormed where we can find and use fractions in real life, too. We were amazed with our list! We will continue working on fractions tomorrow. After our last recess, we got our first letter from our pen pals. We wrote letters back to our pen pals. We were so excited to finally write a letter back to them after receiving letters from them. We had a very busy afternoon! At the end of the day, Mrs. Myers read the story, The Princess and the Pizza. It was a great story! We can't wait for our pizza party tomorrow! Don't forget it you are donating a pizza ingredient...we need them first thing tomorrow morning! Mrs. Myers will be looking for the volunteer chefs at 8:45 tomorrow morning! YUM! YUM! :)

Pizza, PIzza, Pizza

Our word of the day today was "thing". It was a rule follower. We wrote lots of word family words on "the ring of -ing". Later in the morning, Mrs. Myers read the story, Gregory the Terrible Eater. We helped Gregory sort healthy and unhealthy foods into bags. We also talked about foods on the food pyramid. We had a short reading workshop and guided reading time. Then it was lunch. After lunch, Mrs. Lauber's class joined us to hear the story, Pizza at Sally's. After the story, we worked with a partner (or two) to retell an event from the story using a picture from the book. We had to write our event on a sentence strip. Next, we put the events in order to retell story. We did a great job. Ask us about the story tonight. Next was centertime. We visited our second pizza center. Then, it was math time. In math today, we learned about fractions. We learned the vocabulary - numerator (part) and denominator (whole) and fraction bar. We also learned that fractions must have EQUAL parts! We practiced drawing and dividing shapes in half today and practiced making fractions using groups of students. We read the story, Give Me Half, about fraction at home. In writing workshop today, we were learning to use strong tag words. We don't want to overuse "said" or "asked". We listened to the story, The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza. We heard the said tag word used too much. After the story, we made posters and replaced the word "said" with a stronger tag word. Check out my poster tonight! We ended the day at art!