Beanie Baby Strategies

Throughout the year, we have been focusing on learning the answer to the question, "What do readers do when they come to a word they do not know?"  We have been using beanie babies as mnemonics to help us answer this question.  For example, the beanie baby named, "Eagle Eye" helps us remember to "Look at the picture."  "Lips the Fish" helps us "Get our mouth ready." 

This is the bulletin board that is close to the table that we sit around when we receive small group reading instruction.  It helps us remember how to read.  We are finished learning all seven strategies that were taught to us by the beanie babies. 

Mushrooms and Math

I put this quarter on top of a mushroom that I found growing near my home when I was taking a walk recently.    We will be using this picture to support our learning about measuring in math.  (Even during vacation, I am still thinking about school!)

Conferences - Thank you!

Thank you to all of the parents who came to conferences earlier today and yesterday.  Academically, we talked about our current persuasive writer's workshop unit of study, where your child is in the reading process, and what is happening with our Everyday Math program.  We also discussed second grade placement and your child's areas of social strengths and needs.  It was a pleasure to speak with parents who obviously care so much about their children. 

Moving forward, it is hard to believe that the fourth quarter has begun!  The first grade team is planning field trips to close out the year and more information will be coming home soon.  Thank you for all of your support.

Three!

Thank you to the families who supported the last DonorsChoose project!

     We had another project filled by DonorsChoose this week.  It was a double match Friends and Family week, meaning that all donations that were given to the project were matched by the DonorsChoose Board of Directors as long as donors used the code word that I sent home to families.   I wrote for another iPad.   The project was filled in five days!  We should have our iPad in one or two weeks.

    We brainstormed a list of chores that students could do at home and parents gave an "allowance" of their choice for these chores.  Students proudly brought their donations in all week.  Snow shoveling was especially popular.   I made a visual display of our progress and we colored the visual display in every day.  Donations collected ranged anywhere from $1.00 to $41.00, but all donations were added together daily so there was no feel of competition among the first graders, and no one knew who gave more or less.  It was a wonderful lesson on working together towards a common goal.

    This was our third iPad earned through grant writing this school year; the first was earned through another DonorsChoose grant and the second was awarded a couple of weeks ago by the Regional School Unit One Educational Foundation.   Thank you to the Selection Committee for choosing to award us an iPad!  My first graders are learning not only academic skills, but also how to integrate technology into their school lives. 

Storyboarding

We made story boards this past week in school based upon Eric Carle's book, Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me.  They will go home next week after we have more practice retelling in school. 

Snow People Projects

We read this poem and then made some snow people.  Special thanks to my daughter, Katie, who is home from Wheaton college.  She volunteered to help as did trusty Mrs. Johnstone.  As part of our expository writing unit, we wrote the directions for how to make coffee filter snow people after they were finished.  (The "snowballs" are made of tie dyed coffee filters.)   We used craft items for the snow people accessories. 

Bright, Jolly Snowman

(author unknown)

If snow came down in colors, 

how splendid it would be

to make bright, jolly snowmen

for everyone to see!

Wendy Jung also helped this week by putting up this bulletin board which displayed additional How-To writing that our class created.  The title is "How To Make A Snow Person," and we actually went outside and followed our own directions.  We checked to see how clear they were and we gave ourselves a thumbs up.    Finally, we compared and contrasted the directions for the two kinds of snow people that we made. 

These are the first three directions we wrote.  There were fourteen total!

 

We are using the iPad from Donorschoose!

Here are some pictures of some of the first graders using the iPad.  They were so engaged in what they were doing that most of them didn't know I was taking the pictures.