We just wrapped up our science unit on Matter and the kids did a great job! I was blown away by the depth of the questions that this group of budding scientists asked on the first few days of the unit, and I had a lot of fun tweaking my lesson plans and coming up with ways to extend our learning based on their interests. I have never had a class of first graders express such a fascination with molecules -- wow! We spent 2 weeks learning about the properties of solids, liquids, and gases and exploring how matter changes between the different states.
Be sure to ask your son or daughter about our ice cube investigation, putting the mentos in the diet coke (!!!), and making root beer floats with our 3rd grade buddies. All of our special activities revealed something new for us to learn about matter!
Apple Day was a huge success in the Frog Room! After bringing in apple donations for over a week, our class was more than ready to start exploring, investigating, cooking, and eating on Monday! We spent our day learning all of the same subjects that we normally do (shh...don't tell the kids!), but we just added an apple emphasis! It was a fantastic, fall-themed day; check out our photo gallery below!
Just a quick note to let you know that our Apple Day celebration will be on Monday, October 7.
Thank you so much for all of your generous donations of apples and apple treats -- I will post a full re-cap and pictures after the special day!
We all had a great time on our first field trip! We had absolutely perfect weather for our walk to the Howard Miller Library and the kids were such troopers -- it's a long walk!
When we got to the library, Miss Jessica, the children's librarian, gave us a tour and showed us how the library system works. Then we went upstairs and she read us a story and let us decorate bookmarks to take back to school.
Finally, Miss Jessica talked to us about how to choose "just right books" and she showed us where to find them in the library. We have been practicing this skill a lot within our classroom library, so it was nice to have a refresher and practice picking out books in the big library.
This is the chart that we made for our classroom -- it helps us remember how to find books that are good for us to read:
After spending some time curled up with just right books in the library, it was time to say goodbye and head to Captain Sundae! We enjoyed the sunshine, the company, and the ice cream (!) before walking back to New Groningen to finish our school day.
A HUGE thank you to Mrs. Lencioni, Mrs. Stevens, and Mr. Emmons for coming with us on our first field trip!
As [hopefully] you've heard, we have been busy studying magnets during science. On our first day of this unit, we all had a blast exploring different types of magnets and finding out which things in our classroom are magnetic. The kids were wonderful, respectful, and responsible scientists during this time and they discovered quite a bit during their explorations!
Enjoy the pictures, and the song, below!
This was one of our poems/songs of the week. The kids did a great job using it to practice improving their content area vocabulary and their fluency in reading.
Enjoy!
Our first three weeks of Mystery Readers have been wonderful!
First, we had Mrs. Poll - our principal! Mrs. Poll read the story Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon and we talked about believing in yourself. She also brought a delicious snack for us to enjoy afterwards. Thanks, Mrs. Poll!
Our second Mystery Reader was Mrs. VanderZwaag, Morgan's mom. She read a number story about fish and brought in a yummy fish snack! Thanks, Mrs. VanderZwaag!
Our third mystery reader was our superintendent, Mr. DeKuiper. He read the book One and talked about how to stand up for yourself and others. He brought rolls of Smarties for each of the kids and talked about how it's "cool to be smart!" Thanks, Mr. DeKuiper!
We all love having Mystery Readers on Friday mornings!
If you haven't had a chance to sign up yet, please email me. We would love to welcome you into our classroom!
In math, we are learning what to do when we see an addition sign and a subtraction sign. We created the following chants to help us remember!
First, here's our addition chant:
Second, here is our subtraction chant:
What a wonderful group of mathematicians!
Just a reminder that tomorrow (Friday) is school picture day! If you want to order pictures for your child, please return the packet and payment to school in his/her folder tomorrow.
Smile BIG!
Do you have an hour each week that you would be willing to use helping our class?
I am looking for a parent volunteer who could come in regularly to help with office work: making copies, stapling packets, binding class books, filing student work, etc. It's not the most glamorous job, but it is necessary, and certainly much appreciated!Please send me an email if you are able to help! Thanks so much!
Today we read the book Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes.
In it, a little girl is teased because her name is so different from the other children's. It was amazing for me to watch the expressions on the students faces as Chrysanthemum "bloomed" or "wilted" with each comment that was made about her name; these first graders are so sensitive!
After the story, I had the class form a circle and I showed them the red heart that I had cut out of butcher paper. I asked the students to share examples of things that other people could say or do (like making fun of a name) that would "crumple" our heart, just like Chrysanthemum's. As the kids listed things like "you can't play with me because you're too tall," or "you can't be my friend because I already have a best friend," we passed the heart and everyone got a chance to crumple it a little more. By the time the heart made its way around the circle, it was unrecognizable.
Next, I used an example from the story about how other students' words helped Chrysanthemum "bloom." Again, I asked the kids around the circle to share examples -- but this time they were saying things that could "smooth" the heart. As your kiddos listed things like, "I like your shirt today," and "if you don't have anyone to play with on recess, you can meet me by the swings!" -- I felt my OWN teacher heart bloom! How precious! By the time the heart made its way around the circle this time, it was almost completely smoothed out. At the end of this lesson, we observed that even though the nice comments smoothed out the crumpled heart, the wrinkles did not completely fade. One student was even able to verbalize that sometimes just one mean comment lasts longer than a bunch of nice comments -- WOW!
In order to remind us of this experience, we decided that we should keep the big red heart somewhere in our classroom. But before we hung it up, we knew that we had to do something to fix it! Before the lesson was over, I handed each student a bandaid and gave them the chance to write their name on it if they wanted to commit to helping heal "crumpled" hearts. All 26 kiddos took the opportunity to do this and it was an incredibly moving experience.
Once our big heart was healed, the kids each completed a worksheet that they can take home as a reminder of today's lesson and how we have all promised to help heal crumpled hearts. This paper would be a great thing to hang on the fridge as a constant reminder and source of motivation for your first grader.
Way to go, Frog Room!
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