Happy October!

Can you believe we have already been in school for a month???  The days are flying by!!!

This week, we worked more with ten frames and addition facts!  We also started switching classrooms for WIN (What I Need) time, tried out our new Daily Five literacy routine, talked about "watermelon" and "seed" stories in Writing, and enjoyed learning about chemical and physical reactions during STEM time on Thursday!  Our lab reports are in Eagle News today-be sure to ask us about our experiment!

Many thanks to our friend Zoe and her family for our butterfly experience!  .

Thank you for returning homework books in the white Reading Folder on Mondays!  The purple homework folder with the homework menu and Reading Incentive calendar are due on the first Monday of the month.  Many people choose to keep the purple folder right inside the white one, which is fine.  Please make sure that your first grader keeps his or her reading books in the white folder when they are not using them.  Thanks!

I hope you have a great weekend!  Next Friday I'll be reading aloud at the Children's Museum of Maine between 4 and 8 PM for Joyful Children's Day (10AM-8PM)-maybe I'll see you there!

Becca

Happy Friday!
It was a whirlwind week with new learning, review of past learning, and our anticipation of the arrival of autumn!
We looked back at short vowel sounds a bit this week, and enjoyed a couple of episodes of "Between the Lions" to help us with that work.  Next week we'll move on to vowel teams and "kite" and "jelly bean" words.  We started to delve into the steps of story writing, and wrote five more Leader Books (one more week and we will all have had a turn to be the leader!)  In Math, we reviewed ten frames and played a fun tens-and-ones game with a giant die:

 

On Thursday, we had our first outdoor safety drill and a fun STEAM (adding Art to our usual STEM) activity.  We learned the parts of a butterfly's life cycle and their body as well-head, thorax, and abdomen.  Then, we created our own butterflies to bring home!  Zoe's family was kind enough to donate a monarch caterpillar to our class, and it formed its chrysalis last weekend-hopefully we can catch it emerging early next week!

 

And, some photos of our STEM day last week:

 

 

 







 



 



Here are some pictures from our first day of first grade!

 

 

 

And, because this blog doesn't already have enough pictures, I thought I would add some photos from Washington, DC that I took last weekend.  I was in work sessions at the National Education Association pretty much the whole time, but did get about two hours to go to the Smithsonian and then I walked to the Lincoln Memorial and other monuments one night.  I thought the kids might like to see some of the things I saw, especially if they've never been to DC, and we were so busy this week that I didn't get to show them (they might recognize a few from "Night at the Museum"):

 

Museum of Natural History                                                 The Hope Diamond

 Made from Legos-Mus. of American History

Capitol and Washington
Monument (above);
 
Vietnam Memorial

Lincoln Memorial
               Rotunda at the Museum. of Natural History



PS-On Friday, October 6th, the Children's Museum of Maine will be hosting a Joyful Children's Day from 10AM-8PM.  I am volunteering there as a read-aloud-er sometime late in the afternoon/early in the evening-maybe I'll see you there!

I hope you all have an awesome weekend!!
Becca





Happy First Friday of First Grade!

Thank you for helping your child choose their Sharing items!  They had fun presenting their special treasures :).

This week we started taking turns being the Leader of the Day!  For our first turn, the class is interviewing each leader and creating a book about him or her.  We have been learning a lot about one another's families, favorites, and talents!

Our Math work this week focused on number sense for 1-120.  First graders should be able to read, write, order, and skip count by 1s, 2s, 5s, and 10s to 120.  Thanks for helping us practice at home!

If our homework and reading folders are back from being laminated, we will start on Monday.  Please read the directions for each (the guidelines are right on the folder).  Thanks!

STEM was really cool this week as we explored prisms and light!  We did another chromatography experiment too.  Next time, we'll be applying what we've learned by doing an experiment with leaves.  This will help us understand why and how leaves change color in the fall.  Special thanks to Mrs. Vance, one of our secretaries, who stopped in and stayed to do the activity with us!  I hope the kids have had fun experimenting at home with their prisms!

 

 

Thank you for returning Eagle News each Monday! :)

Thank you for marking your child's belongings with his or her name, too! :) :)

Everett the Bear had a great time at Wyatt's house last weekend.  Today he is traveling to Gage's house to have some fun for a couple of days!!  I wonder who will earn a visit with Everett next week?

Have a great weekend!  The play that I am in opened last night, but I'm hoping to get outside too in the next couple of days! :)

Becca