Thank You!

Wow! What a way to make a teacher feel so loved!! I can't thank you all enough for one of the most thoughtful gifts I have ever received as a teacher. The pot is adorable and the sweet thank you each of your kids wrote to me completely melted my heart. I really have the best class. :) Thank you from the bottom of my heart- I am truly lucky to have the most amazing, caring families!

Planetarium Visit Rescheduled

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to let you know that our Planetarium visit was rescheduled for Tuesday May 13th. Mrs. Morgan and I found out there is a meeting we need to attend that morning. We didn't feel comfortable sending the students with a substitute so we decided to reschedule for the week after. We will still leave school at 9:45 and get back in time for recess and lunch. I was out today because I caught the dreaded "strep bug" that is going around, but I will let the kids know tomorrow. I am checking with Mr. Spencer to see if new permissions slips need to go home and will let you know as soon as I find out. Thanks for understanding!

Belated Earth Day... and a Little News :)

Since we couldn't squeeze everything in before vacation on top of all we needed to get done in our usual day, we have spent the beginning of this week doing some belated Earth Day learning. We have integrated this social studies unit into our reading and writing. We have been researching ways to take care of earth to keep it clean and healthy. We have also been learning about the 3Rs- reduce, reuse and recycle! Here is a picture of a class chart we created and have been adding to as we read and learn more. Did you know that old plastic bottles can be reused to make t-shirts?

Today we read an article and completed a graphic organizer. We used this information to make reduce, reuse, recycle mobiles to showcase what we have learned!

Also, as I'm sure your little one has already shared with you- the exciting news is true! Over vacation I became happily engaged. :) Thank you to everyone for your sweet emails and congratulations! 

Calling all volunteers!

In May, we do a big science writing and research unit all about insects, followed by a study about animals in the rainforest. As part of our study, the students create different animals and insects out of paper and write facts about them. These get displayed in the hallway on a giant paper grass, tree and sky scene. Click the insect tab on the right to see the one from last year! If anyone would be interested in coming in to help hang some of the paper, I would love the help! Please send me a quick email over the next few days. Timing can be flexible. :)

Chicks, Eggs, and Oviparous Animals

Learning about oviparous animals is always a favorite unit! The kids really enjoy discovering all the different animals that are oviparous. An oviparous animal is one that lays eggs. To start, I had everyone make predictions about various animals and whether or not they lay eggs. 

We read some nonfiction books to learn more about what kinds of animals are oviparous. This helped us determine if our predictions we're correct!

Ask your first grader to tell you what are the only two mammals that lay eggs. :)

As we were reading and talking about what we read, everyone worked to generate their own lists of oviparous animals. The students used the lists they created to make oviparous animals books. We wrote about and illustrated pictures of different animals that lay eggs.

As a fun activity to end our week, we each dyed an egg. We completed an interactive writing piece about how to dye an egg and the students used their class work to each write their own how-to book. It was an eggcellent week! :)

Weather

Right before vacation, we finished up our unit on weather. We began by writing about our schema, or what we already knew about weather. We copied one thing on a post-it to add to the class schema chart.

 We spent several days learned about wind, rain, tornadoes, clouds, the water cycle, and so much more! The students collected information in their weather books. We read several fiction books about weather and practiced various comprehension strategies. We also worked on weather vocabulary books and learned about how to read a thermometer. 

Book Fair Tuesday

I hope everyone enjoyed this beautiful weekend weather. Spring is finally here!

I just wanted to send a quick reminder that our class will be visiting the book fair Tuesday afternoon. If you would like to send your child in with money to purchase books, please put the money or check in a sealed envelope with your child's name printed on the front.

Reminder: The book fair can be overwhelming for us because there is so much to look at and we only have a certain amount of time allotted. Like last time, I would encourage you to look through the flyer with your child and discuss which books they would like to purchase. Jotting down the titles on the envelope or even cutting out the pictures of the books/pasting them to the envelope would be very helpful! This way, I can help them get the books they want quickly. It also ensures your child is choosing books that you have approved and don't already have. Thanks so much!