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!