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!