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!