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!