Snowpeople, Snowpeople, Snowpeople!

We've really had our share of snow in new england already this year so we celebrated by making these painted snowpeople as gifts for our families.  They came out wonderful!  They are painted on wooden blocks that I received for free from Ruth's Reusable Resources a few years ago and have held onto until just the right time.  All of the materials used for decorating were leftovers from other projects so the gifts were easy to put together .

So so cute!

Donorschoose pictures!

Our Donorschoose books arrived last week!   I am using them for many different lessons. For example, the Pig, Pigs, Piggie book is perfect for teaching first graders to look through a word because words can have different endings. The Owl Diaries books are wonderful for teaching children the diary genre, and I included the entire Mercy Watson series because our class set was torn and tattered from the loving use of previous classes of first graders.

In our classroom, we read all day long. Children come to school and read in our class library while they wait for their friends to arrive. They are in the library if they finish their snack early, and they always have a book in hand when they wait for buses at the end of the day. These times are in addition to their regularly scheduled daily literacy block, so they read, read, read all day long.

Thank you to all of the families who donated!  You have helped your child, sixteen first graders in this year's class, and future classes of first graders learn to read!

I Have a Project Posted on DonorsChoose.org

Thank you for visiting my blog to access our Donorschoose.org project!

As I noted in my newsletter, matches will be doubled on Wednesday, October 18 and Thursday, October 19.  All donations are welcome, no matter how large or small.  Here is the link that will take you directly to my project:

https://www.donorschoose.org/project/books-we-gotta-have-em-so-we-can-read/2853336/

Thank you!  I will let you know when the project is filled!

Update:  As of 10/20/17, our project is half funded!
               10/21/17, $149 more needed!
               10/25/17  Project is funded!  Thank you to everyone for your support!

Perfect Weather at the Maine Wildlife Park!

We had a wonderful day at the Maine Wildlife Park today.  I am always happy when every student in my class makes it to these special field trips and all seventeen were here today!   Thank you to all of the wonderful parents who rearranged their busy schedules to help me ensure that every first grader had a memorable day at the wildlife park.

Here are some pictures of my students enjoying their day.

Here are some pictures of the animals we saw at the park:

These were not in an enclosure but had made themselves right at home. 

Look carefully and you will see two peacocks from the bird sanctuary.

A beaver.  We will study beavers in depth during our science unit on how animals prepare for winter.

The moose was having a rest during our stay.

This is a flying squirrel.  Their habitat was very interesting.  There were buttons that visitors to MWP could press to shine the lights on the squirrels.  Here is one filling up with nuts.

He was taking a long, long nap.

The black bear meandered over to near where I was standing and practically posed for this picture!

The fox was taking a big drink while we visited. . .

. . .and then he left his watering hole to give us a really strong stare.

Two turtles sunning themselves on a log.

He was watching all of the visitors very carefully. 

A turtle wandering around the bank of the pond.

This was taken just after feeding time so he was just settling in for a nap.

This is the MWP's famous albino raccoon.

Two skunks shuffling around their enclosure looking for food. 

A turtle sunning itself on a log.  There won't be too more days like this before winter!

This is the second beaver in the enclosure.  He was foraging for food.

            Another picture of the albino raccoon. 

Thank you to everyone who helped make this trip possible for the first graders at Dike-Newell!

Open House

Every year we have an Open House a couple of weeks after school starts.  Here are some pictures of my room before the families arrived for Open House.

All of my students signed a letter to their families welcoming them to the Open House.

This is the bulletin board outside my room. There was a picture of each student.  The writing below the picture tells a bit about each student.  Parents returned a form that gave me information about their child's reading habits, and they also returned a form that told me how their child received their name.  I also interviewed each child.  From these data sources, I was able to write a short bibliography about each child.

This is Knuffle Bunny, a character in books by the same name, asking parents to sign up to volunteer.

Here are Elephant and Piggy, also Mo Willems characters, supervising the papers that each student used to give their parents a tour of the classroom.

Here is a long shot of some of the books we've read.

In this photo, you can see one of the class books we've made this year about our names.

Here is Clifford, The Big Red Dog, and the Pigeon,  showing off our Everyday Math in school journals.

We also have a Handwriting curriculum that Curious George showed off. 

 Fifteen families came to visit our Open House.  I have seventeen students, so 15/17 is a great turn out!  Thank you to all of the families who took time to come and visit. 

Maine Teachers Hall of Fame Sponsored by Unum

On Friday, June 23, I will be inducted into the Maine Teachers Hall of Fame.  I was nominated by my adult son, Greg.  The Hall of Fame inducts nine Maine teachers every year; three from the grade span of kindergarten through fourth grade; three from fifth through eighth, and three from ninth through twelve.  Part of my award is throwing out the first pitch at a Portland Sea Dog's baseball game, which I will do on Friday night, June 23. 

In addition to tickets to the game for six people, unlimited stops at the picnic area for barbeque with all of the fixings, a personalized Sea Dogs jersey, and a Sea Dogs hat, we also received a check for $500.00.  Thank you, especially, to Steve Alpren from Unum who was the liaison person between the Hall of Famers and Unum.

If you are a student alumni's family, feel free to come to the game!

We each received a jersey with our year of induction and last name.

Throwing out the first pitch along with the other members of the Class of 2017.    

Math Stations

First graders love to work in stations.  Here are pictures of some of our most recent work. 

In this station students have to fill polygons with a specified number of shapes. 

For example, this shape was filled with two squares and 7 triangles. 

In this station students complete picture frame puzzles with polygons. 

Students find the sum of two dice, write the number sentence, and then put the corresponding number of pennies on the tens and ones mat.

Students create three dimensional shapes with these materials.