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!