The Great Pumpkin Switch

Tomorrow we are going to read The Great Pumpkin Switch by Megan McDonald.  It's not often that I find a book that ties into my current curriculum as well as this book does.  The Great Pumpkin Switch is a story within a story told by the author's grandfather in the late 1920's, just before the Great Depression.  The grandfather tells a story from his childhood, the time that he and his friend do not listen to his mom's directions.  As a result, his sister's huge pumpkin rolls down 34 steps and goes, "Splat."  Their sister is growing the pumpkin to win a "badge" for what would be considered Girl Scouts in our time.  They decide to buy a pumpkin from the local pumpkin merchant and switch it.  But, they have to pay 20 pennies for it.   How do they pull this all off? 

Here are the many strands that tie this book to our curriculum:

-The boys are making apple butter by stirring it with a huge spoon when the book begins.  We are going to taste apple butter at snack tomorrow.  We have just finished a unit on apples. 

-The boys throw pennies into the apple butter, "so the apple butter won't stick to the bottom," like the  mom recommends.  We have just started learning about pennies.

-Today we are starting a unit on pumpkins and the book teaches about what pumpkins need to grow big.

-In Writer's Workshop, we are writing Small Moment Stories and specifically focusing on how good stories have problems with resolutions; well, there was a huge problem in The Great Pumpkin Switch.

Unfortunately, The Great Pumpkin Switch is no longer in print!  Bummer. . .

Food Drive

We are having a food drive at Dike Newell School.   The food drive has just begun and will end the Friday of parent teacher conferences, October 27.   Please send in any non-perishables to school with your child or you may drop anything off when you come for conferences.  We will be using the donations for counting and graphing activities in math in our classroom. 

We Made Apple Crisp Today. . .

And it was very tasty.

Here is the recipe:

We used Honey Crisp and Cortland apples for our apple crisp.  The pulp of the Honey Crisp is yellow and the Cortland pulp is white. 

Then, we put the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, butter, and oatmeal mixture on the top:

Next, Linda and Judy put the apple crisp in the oven in the school cafeteria.  Here they are:

We took it out and it smelled great!  Here it is:

Then, we all ate it with vanilla ice cream:

And, there was just a bit leftover:

It was delicious!

Raz-Kids Up And Running

Dear families,

Yesterday I sent home laminated log in directions for your child's page in Raz-kids.  I have just gone on line and viewed the report that the program will generate so that I can find out who is reading on line.  I am very impressed with the number of children who have spent time reading at their level over the past 24 hours!   A very special thank you to the parents and grandparents who have monitored their child and given them the opportunity to try out this program.  

Rocky Ridge Orchard Visit Today

We visited Rocky Ridge Orchard today.  We had a wonderful morning at the orchard.  We each learned an apple song and picked an apple.  We went on a scavenger hunt, watched a machine peel, core, and slice apples, read some apple stories, and picked out three pumpkins for our classroom.

These are the pumpkins we picked out and brought back to school:

This is an antique red car that we all liked:

This is the machine that cut, cored, and peeled the apples:

These are the two bags of apples that we are going to make applesauce out of next week:

This is Mr. Sprague.  He owns the orchard.  He helped Mrs. Sprague serve the apple crisp that we tasted.

This is Mrs. Sprague.  She took us into the orchard and taught us how to pick an apple.

These are pictures from inside the store where you can buy donuts, apple cider, apples, and home made bread.

Thank you to everyone who sent in donations so that we could buy some apples and pumpkins for the classroom.    Special thank yous to Mrs. Bryant, Mrs. Johnstone, and Mrs. Dever.  We had a wonderful day!

Thank You To Mr. Trippi!

Dear families,

Mr. Trippi delivered cubbies to our classroom last week.  He and his students made them in his carpentry class at the Bath Regional Vocational Center.  We now have a space to put our backpacks!  Thank you to Mr. Trippi and all of your students for all of your hard work.  

Field Trip On Thursday, October 6

Dear families,
Next Thursday, October 6, all of the students in first grade will be going on a field trip to Rocky Ridge Orchard in Bowdoin.  We will leave at 9:00 a.m. and return at 11:30 a.m.  We have a planned set of activities that are tied to our district mandated first grade unit on products that move through a process from "Beginning to End."  For example, milk from a cow turned into butter or cheese or wheat grown on a farm being used to bake bread.  At Rocky Ridge we will support this curriculum by studying apples moving through the process "From Apple to Apple Crisp."

Please check the weather and dress your child accordingly.  We are also asking for a $1.00 donation per child to cover the cost of a sample of apples and pumpkins to be purchased and returned to the classroom.   There will be no rain date.

Thank you in advance for volunteering to Linda Dever, Sherry Bryant, and Donna Johnstone.