Mystery Reader #4 and Big Friends!

Last week we had our fourth Mystery Reader and he is quite important! We were visited by our very own superintendant, Dr. Maestas!! The students worked had at inferring who it could be and we did have some guesses that it might be him. The bike clue helped because they remembered his Dreamride this summer! The students were excited to have Dr. Maestas read a fun Halloween story to them and asked some questions about his job like "Do you put cameras in all the classrooms?" and "What do you do for your job as superintendant?". Dr. Maestas said he is working on something great and will come back this year to deliver a present to our class. We can't wait! Thank you, Dr. Maestas!


We also had our Big Friends visit us this same day to help us put together our spider hats to end our spider mini unit! The kids had a blast working on measuring how many cubes long one spider leg is and creating their spider hats. Here are a few pictures.

Survey!

For a short time I am taking a little poll. It's on the right hand side of this page. Please answer the question for me. Thank you!!

Spiders!

This week the students were so engaged in their spider learning! Students recorded their schema first using clipboards and then we added to our anchor chart.

We also learned about fact vs. opinion this week and applied it to our spider unit. Students then had to write their own fact and opinion about the creepy creature. We also did a quick directed drawing activity that turned out adorable.


Ask your children what they can tell you about spiders!

Bats and Boats

Hi everyone!
I hope you all had a nice weekend. I saw some of you at the Halloween Haunt as I was trying to wrangle my little Elvis running wild through the gym.
Last week we studied bats and the children were very interested in this animal! We started off by activating our prior knowledge and adding our schema to our bat anchor chart. We read several nonfiction books, labeled bats, wrote bat facts on bat caves and made little bats to hang from them, compared and contrasted birds and bats and much more.



On Friday we had our third mystery reader - his name is Jimmy Parker and he is a ferry captain that drives the ferry into Boston. The children were right on with their inferences based on the clues he gave us (smart thinkers!!) and were thrilled to see him in his uniform after library class. Jimmy read a cute story "Sheep on a Ship" and then answered many questions about his job and the boat that he drives. The students wanted to know what happens if Jimmy doesn't want to drive the boat, what happens if his first mate doesn't want to either, if he went through any storms on the ferry, if people can eat on the ferry, if people sleep there, and more. And then several more extra questions about things like his shoes. And his watch....and his hair, and so on. :) Thank you Jimmy! We had fun!






Students have started working with "Math Tubs". This is something I will do every Friday so that I can work with students individually or in small groups on various skills in Math. Math Tubs have different games or activities that cover many different concepts from money, patterns, counting, greater than/less than, number line work, and more. They will also change out throughout the school year. On Fridays the students will move through two Math Tub stations. However, Math Tubs will also be available as students finish up independent work during regular Math time.


In Reading we are moving nicely through our unit "Readers Use Strategies to Figure Out Words". I am so impressed with their hard work, their ability to build on their reading stamina and their application of these strategies we learned. Here is an anchor chart that covers some of our basic strategies for tricky words.
Lastly... I am asking again if anyone is willing to be my classroom ROOM MOTHER!? Any takers? I promise it won't be too complicated. We have Halloween coming up and I'd love to have a mini celebration with a few goodies but I need some help.
Thank you!

Room Mother?

We are going to go batty in the classroom this week as our theme is bats! During science time and during our theme time we will read nonfiction and fiction books about bats, write down our learning, make bats to hang in the halls and more. Today we discussed our bat schema. Lots of kiddos thought bats could be birds so we focused on that today. We will also compare and contrast bats and birds this week.

Happy Belated to both Julia and Patrick this month!!!

Next week we will begin reading log homework! I am in the process of getting the book packets ready.

Don't forget that Wednesday is a half day!

I am looking for a parent to be our "room mother". This parent will help to organize classroom events (contacting parents to supply goodies and necessities for different events and activities in the classroom). Please consider this role. If you are interested send me an email (jmorgan@plymouth.k12.ma.us). Thank you!

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programming For...

Fire Safety! Today we skipped our reading workshop and literacy center/guided reading time (the kids were instantly letting me know we did not do this) to do a little fire safety learning. We read a nonfiction book about fire fighters and then did a writing activity where the kids thanked fire fighters for protecting and saving lives. We paired our writing with an adorable fireman art project (can't take the credit for how cute these are, I found it online). Also, our mystery reader came in and it was a fire fighter! Madison's dad was our mystery reader this week and he came in full gear to read a cute story about Spot the fire house dog. He also showed some of his equipment and the kids were so excited. Thank you Mr. Bell, for coming in to talk about fire safety and read to us!

Pumpkin Learning!

This week we took some time to learn about pumpkins! We started the week by thinking about our schema and created an anchor chart. The students told me what they already knew and we added it to the chart. I read a nonfiction book by Gail Gibbons and then we discussed our new learning. We also compared and contrasted apples and pumpkins with a partner and then came together as a class to share what we came up with. Students made their own pumpkin and labeled the parts of the outside. We also sequenced the growth from seed to pumpkin with a cute little sequencing activity. We read several pumpkin stories and of course our weekly poem was about pumpkins as well!

Mystery Reader!

We had our first Mystery Reader today = = = Ms. Hager! The last clue helped some of the kids to think it was her. "My last name starts like happy." The kids love this and I can't wait to continue it throughout the year! If I sent a form home for you, please fill it out so I can get back to you with your date. :)

Our cute scarecrows are filling up the hallway. The students learned about adjectives and wrote about their scarecrow making sure to include them.

Class Picture Day Correction

Hello! In my September newsletter I had let you know that our class was getting pictures taken on Thursday the 13th. However, our day is Wednesday the 12th instead. You should have received a notice today in the OWL Binders. It is still first thing in the morning, which is a good thing! Having first graders get pictures taken after lunch or even snack time is usually not the best idea. :)

In Reading Workshop we are in a new unit: Readers Use Strategies to Figure Out Words. We learned that readers, just like athletes, must warm up before reading. We can get our minds ready to read by focusing on the details on the cover page to think about what the book could be about. I modeled this in class and then the kiddos were off and running to practice this with partners. They had to read the title and think about it while focusing on the pictures. A simple task, yet very important! Today we worked on another way to get our minds ready to read - picture walks. Again, I modeled this and then they were sent off to practice. I am impressed!


In Science we continued to work on our apple tree activities and began learning about living and nonliving things.





This week we will also learn about adjectives and do a fun scarecrow art/writing project for our hallways. Happy October!