Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello Everyone! 

Here are some highlights from our last few weeks! I hope you enjoy learning about what we’ve been up to!

Progress Reports & Conferences

The children have worked so hard over the last trimester. I am so proud of the growth they are making. Thank you for your continued support and help at home! It was so wonderful to see all of you at conferences. Thank you for coming in and meeting with me!  

Literacy

During reader’s workshop lessons the children have been working on the following skills:

-Identifying the elements of fiction: Characters, Setting, Problem, and Solution

-Identifying Character Traits

-Comparing Fantasy and Realistic Fiction stories

-Making connections

-Identifying the lesson of the story

 

 

Working on building our reading Stamina!

 

 

Writing

In writing, the children wrote a piece about what they are thankful for this Thanksgiving. Each child wrote about three things they are thankful for and why. They glued their writing to a turkey that they created using construction paper. I hope you enjoyed viewing their writing out in the hallway during conferences. 

The children also wrote a story titled, How To Catch A Turkey. They came up with lots of creative ways to catch a turkey. In their story they had to use the transition words, first, next, and last. Their stories are hanging up in the classroom. Along with the tie-dye turkeys they created. I hope you got a chance to glance at them at conferences.

Math

In math, the children have been working with plane and solid shapes. 

They have:

-identified plane shapes using attribute blocks

-identified solid shapes (spheres, rectangular prisms, cubes, cylinders, cones, and pyramids)

-counted the number of sides and corners on plane and solid shapes

-identified which shapes can roll, slide, or stack (or any combination of the 3)

-they also hunted for plane and solid shapes in and around our classroom

 

 

Social Studies

Over the last few weeks the children have been researching Pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians. They recorded all of their information on graphic organizers. At the end of last week, the children used all of their graphic organizers to create a book titled, The Wampanoags, Pilgrims, and Me. Each child wrote down the facts they learned over the last couple weeks about the Pilgrims and Wampanoag. After, they illustrated their book to give the reader additional information. They are very excited to share their book with you over Thanksgiving break!

 

First Grade Musical

The children did a great job on their first grade musical. I am so proud of how hard they worked! They were so excited to share it with all of you last Wednesday night. Thank you for attending the performance and watching your stars shine! Enjoy the photos below.

 

 

Art Appreciation

Last Friday, Mrs. Teich came in and the children had their 2nd Art Appreciation presentation. They learned about two pieces of art by Pierre Auguste Renoir: Two Sisters and A Girl with a Watering Can. The children learned about Renoir’s life and his painting techniques. They discussed the two paintings in detail, noting color combinations and texture. Then the children used paint and different materials to create a painting of their own. They worked with creating different textures using the varying materials. The children enjoyed painting. Thank you, Mrs Teich!

 

 

 

Star Students

Thank you to our past two star students, Jacob and Daniella. We enjoyed learning more about each of you!

Royal Reader

A special thank you to Jacob’s Mom and Daniella’s Mom who joined us the last two week as our Royal Readers. The children loved listening to the stories that you read. 

 

Happy Birthday

A very happy birthday to Liliana! We hope you enjoyed your special day!

Notes:

-Holiday Book Order! If you would like to place an order for books from the Scholastic book order, they will be due Friday, Dec. 1st by 3:30pm! It is a great time to order some wonderful books for the holidays! I will send home some scholastic magazines and a letter on Monday, November 27th. Feel free to shop ahead of time by clicking on the scholastic link on the right side of this blog post! Please email me if your order includes any gifts. I will email you when the order arrives and set up a time for you to pick up your order secretly!

-There is no school Wednesday, November 22 - Friday, November 24. School will resume on Monday, November 27.

Happy Thanksgiving! 

I hope you have a wonderful time with your family and friends! I am thankful that I get to work with your children each and every day!

Cosmic Capers, Super Sentence Heroes, and Nov. Reminders

Hi Everyone! Enjoy some fun photos and a few reminders!

Cosmic Capers

On Thursday morning, Scientist Victoria joined us from High Touch High Tech. She taught the class all about our Solar System. The children learned about the location of the planets, the sun, moon phases, and rotations & revolutions. They also engaged in an activity to see how far they could jump if they were on the moon. But that’s not all, each child got a turn to feel what it’s like to be on the moon through the use of a “zero gravity” simulation. To conclude the field trip, the children went outside and watched a rocket blast off. They were so excited! 

Click Here For All The Cosmic Capers Photos

Super Sentence Heroes

On Friday, the children turned into super sentence heroes! Each child created their own super sentence hero mask. Using their graphic organizers from earlier in the week, they chose one telling, asking, and exciting sentence to glue onto their mask. The children had a lot of fun with this activity and enjoyed sharing their sentences with one another. 

Click this link to view all the fun photos!

Star Students

Thank you to our past two star students, Zoe and Mackinzie. We enjoyed learning more about each of you!

Royal Readers

A special thank you to Zoe’s Mom and Mackinzie’s Grammy who joined us the last two weeks as our Royal Readers. The children loved listening to the stories that you all read. 

Happy Birthday

A very Happy Birthday to Miranda, Zoe, and Cameron! We hope that you each enjoyed celebrating your special day!

A Few Reminders:

-As the weather continues to get colder, please be sure your child comes to school with appropriate outdoor gear. We do go outside for recess every day, unless it is raining or the wind chill is too cold. Please be sure that jackets, gloves, and hats are labeled with your child’s name. You would not believe how many black pairs of gloves there are! Labeling their gear allows me to match lost items with the correct children!

-The first grade musical is quickly approaching! It will be held on Wednesday, November 15th, with two performances, one at 2:45pm and an evening one at 7pm. Please be on the lookout for an email from Mr. Deptula with additional information.

-Progress Reports will come home on Friday, November 17.

-Conferences are coming up, Monday Nov. 20 and Tuesday Nov. 21 (Please note there is no school the entire week of Nov. 20). Please be sure you have gotten your scheduled date and time for conferences. The form came home in your child’s red take home folder about a week ago. If that paper has "disappeared" please be sure to email me and I will let you know your scheduled date and time! 

Halloween Fun!

The children had a wonderful fun filled Halloween afternoon on Tuesday! The children kicked off the Halloween festivities with a parade around the Dryden neighborhood. Thank you to everyone for coming out! After the parade and a short recess, we headed back to our classroom for our Halloween party. The children enjoyed rotating through 4 stations: Making Torn Paper Creatures (Ghosts, Bats, Cats, Candy Corns, and Pumpkins), Spider Ring Toss, Roll a Monster, and Bowling for Ghosts. Thank you to everyone who sent in supplies for our party: crafts, goodie bags, decorations, and games. A very big thank you to our four party volunteers, Mrs. Affatati, Mrs. Maupin, Mrs. Carroll, and Mr. Brunet. A special thank you to Mrs. Barbieri for your incredible job planning and coordinating everything for our party. The children had a great time! We hope you enjoy all the photos in the link below!

Click Here for Halloween Day Photos

Pumpkin Math & Pumpkin Decorating

Pumpkin Math

This morning, the children became pumpkin investigators as they used their pumpkin to complete a pumpkin math packet. The investigators began by estimating the height, weight, measurement, and number of lines on their pumpkin. Then using their investigative tools they found out the correct height, weight, measurement, and number of lines on their pumpkin. We even did an experiment to see if pumpkins sink or float. What do you think the answer was? Ask your child!

Click the link below to see all our Pumpkin Math fun!

Pumpkin Math

Pumpkin Decorating

This afternoon, the children loved having a family member or volunteer come in to help them decorate their pumpkin. What a sight it was to see the children and volunteers hard at work creating so many different characters and animals out of their pumpkins. Thank you to everyone for coming and making this an enjoyable event for the children. The pumpkins looked fantastic! Thank you also to all of you who helped clean up the classroom after pumpkin decorating, I appreciate all your help! Enjoy all the photos from our fun filled decorating event! I hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as the children and I did!

Click below for all our Pumpkin Decorating Photos

Pumpkin Decorating Photos

You Can Be Kind By... Videos

Durning our LMC time last Thursday the children listened to the book, Eddie the Bully, by Henry Cole. After, the children drew a picture of a way they could be kind to someone. Then, using the app Spark Video, the children created a group video teaching Eddie ways that he could be kind. Please click on the links below to view our class videos. #kindnessmatters!

Thanks Mrs. O'Kelly for the wonderful lesson!

Liliana, Maddie, & Sophia 

Cayley, Benjamin, Miranda, & Daniella

Cameron, Charlie T, Charlie F, & Mackinzie

Nathan, Ben, Jacob, & Henry

Miko, Ryelan, Ellie, & Zoe

October 2017

Hello Everyone! Sorry for the delay in making the first blog post of the year. Read below to learn some tidbits about 1-1’s learning adventures. Remember to follow us on twitter @mrsmjohnson11 to get daily photos and tidbits of what we are up to in class. If you don’t want to follow us on twitter, just view our twitter feed along the right side of this blog! 

Meet our wonderful class!

Click on the link below to view all our first day photos!

1st Day Photos

Literacy

During readers workshop over the last two weeks the readers have been hard at work. They have been practicing building their reading stamina and applying the skills and strategies we have learned during our whole group lessons.

Our lessons have focused on:

-“Just Right Books” (Ask your child how to pick a Just Right Book and how to identify books that are Too Easy or Too Hard).

-Digging into Genres (Identifying components and features of Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction)

-Retelling 

-Building Stamina

-Stop, Think, Write (The children worked on stopping, thinking and writing down notes about what they are reading). We call them “Stop and Jots.” The children use sketches, think marks, and sentences to share their thinking.

-Do you have a Balanced Reading Diet?

Guided Reading

Over the last several weeks, the children have learned about their independent activities for guided reading time. We refer to this time as Daily 5 time. These activities allow every child to be independently engaged in meaningful literacy tasks during our guided reading time. These research-based tasks are ones that will have the biggest effect on each child's reading and writing achievement, as well as help encourage children who love to read and write. The children receive explicit whole group instruction and then are given independent practice time to read and write independently while I provide focused, intense instruction to individuals and small groups of children.

The children are engaged in the following independent activities:

-Read to Self - The children have the opportunity to read books of their choice that they have chosen as “just right books.” They keep these books in their book bins and change them out frequently.

-Work on Writing - The children receive a journal prompt and then decide how they want to respond. The children will think, draw, label, and write to respond to the prompt. They will keep their journal writings in their writing binder.

-Read to Someone - The children have the opportunity to read to a buddy and work on building their fluency.

-Listen to Reading - The children will listen and respond to many wonderful books throughout the school year. 

-Word Work -In word work, the children learned about rainbow words, spelling code, and write 3x. These are some of the ways the children will practice their word wall words in class. The children also have an opportunity to go to the word work table where they work with different manipulatives, sorts, and games to practice the spelling words or spelling pattern of the week.

Guided Reading Groups: 

During the last few weeks, we started our guided reading groups. During guided reading time, the other children work on independent Daily 5 work while I meet with small guided reading groups. Your child will bring a green book bag home at least one night a week. In their book bag you will find a book they have been working on in class. Please have your child read the book to you and send it back to school the next day. If your child brings home an organizer to go along with their book, have them share that with you as well. You may also find word rings or a word work activity in your child’s green book bag. Please have your child practice reading their words on their ring and complete the word work activity. These also get returned the next day in the green bag. 

Your child may also bring home a sight word sticker book. Have them practice the words that they have not earned stickers for yet. This is a way for the children to develop automaticity of sight words they will find frequently in the texts they are reading. They will move on to the next sight word sticker book when they have earned stickers for every word in their current book. I will assess them weekly on the words they have been practicing. Your child will only place stickers in their book when meeting with me.

During curriculum night, I gave you handouts on reading with your child and a reading strategies bookmark. These will be helpful if you are looking for ways to help your child with reading or ideas for questions. If you have misplaced your copies please let me know - I can make you a new set!

Writing

We started out next writing unit titled, Narratives. The children will use one of the photos that you sent in to write a small moment story. They will use the transition words: first, next, then, and last. Thank you to all of you for helping your child select their 3 photos. I can’t wait to begin the writing process this week!

Math

This past week, we started Unit 4 in math. The children are working on using various methods to solve subtraction problems. They are working with their tens frames, snap cubes, counters, drawing pictures, number line (counting on and counting back), just to name a few. The children have learned that they can use different methods and arrive at the same answer. They are also writing subtraction number sentences to go along with the problems they are solving. 

Science: Sun, Moon, and Stars 

Last week, the children started a Personalized Learning project. They chose their favorite science topic from our unit, Watching the Sky. Then, they generated a list of questions on their topic. Over the next two weeks, they will work with a partner to research and create a project to show their learning. Along the way they will stop to get peer feedback and edit their project. The children will finish their projects and then have a chance to share them with the class. This has been a wonderful experience for the children so far and I really look forward to watching them enjoy owning their learning!

Art Appreciation

Last week, Mrs. Marino came in and the children had their 1st Art Appreciation presentation. They learned about a detailed African Mask. They discussed the mask in detail, noting colors, materials used, and texture. Then the children got to create their own mask. Thank you, Mrs. Marino!

Star Students

Thank you to our first three star students: Miranda, Liliana, and Charlie T. We really enjoyed learning more about each of you!

Royal Readers

We have been lucky enough to have some fabulous Royal Readers over the last 3 weeks. Thank you to Mrs. Walter and Mrs. Torok. The children loved listening to the wonderful books you all read. We look forward to more Royal Readers as the year continues. 

Birthdays 

Happy Birthday to all our fall birthdays so far. Happy Birthday to Maddie, Charlie T, Daniella, and Henry!

Halloween Notes

Tuesday, October 31st is the Halloween Parade. It will start at about 1:30. We will parade out the front doors and head north on Dryden to Fairview, west on Fairview to Bristol, south on Bristol to Rockwell, east on Rockwell to Lincoln, returning to the school playground area.Following the parade, the students will have a brief recess period, then return to our classroom for some fun activities. For more information on Halloween lunch procedures and costume questions read this weeks Dolphin Splash. A letter came home last week in backpack mail asking you if your child will be having home lunch on Halloween. Please fill out the note and return it by this Monday, October 23rd. Thank you!

Note:

-Remember our Pumpkin Decorating day is this Tuesday, October 24th at 1:15. If you are the adult coming to our pumpkin carving day please plan to come in one day this week to have your diver’s license scanned (if you have not volunteered at Dryden before). Everyone must have their license scanned before they can come to our classroom. Stopping by earlier this week will keep you from waiting in a long line the day of pumpkin decorating. I look forward to seeing all our parent/ family volunteers. Please remember to bring your decorating materials!!