Checking in...

The chicks are the BIG news in first grade, but here are some other things that have been happening...

We've learned LOTS of new red words this year! Since we're nearing the end of first grade, this is great time to review how to spell them and to practice writing them neatly! SWR BINGO was a fun way to do this!

One day we wrote the words and got our BINGO boards ready...

The next day we played BINGO! Everyone earned a prize. I just ran out of time to hand them out...oops! Tomorrow!

The class worked hard to earn their "marble jar reward" for good behavior on our tree chart. The class voted to have popsicles and play outside. It was not good weather for that, so we ate popcorn and Emily's birthday cupcakes and watched a Magic School Bus movie about the journey of a chick inside the egg. Very appropriate for our current science unit, and FUN too!

I have been incorporating some free choice during our math station time. Pattern blocks have been popular all year!

Amazing art!

I am always so impressed with the high-quality artwork students do in Mrs. Derry's art class. They do not always take home their finished products right away. In fact, student artwork is normally collected throughout the year to be sent home in a special portfolio. This will be coming soon! Last Wednesday, when I went to pick up the students at the art room, they were lined up at the door with these cute birds made from Model Magic. I loved them so much--they are so bright and cheerful! Since the birds had to stay the night at UMS to dry more thoroughly, I took a picture. I hope they made it home safe and sound!

St. Michael's College Observatory

Thank you to the many families who were able to make it our evening trip to the St. Michael's College Observatory. Although we had to visit during daylight (as our winter trip had to be cancelled due to large amounts of snow!), we were still able to see high-tech telescopes and go into the dome of the observatory to view the moon. We (re-)learned that it was a waxing gibbous moon that evening--it had been a while since we wrapped up our unit on the night sky. :-) Some lucky students were able to see craters on the moon! 

Field Trip Updates

I hope everyone received the note sent home on Monday about the many events and activities happening between now and the end of the school year. It's a fun, busy time!

If you misplaced the note, please let me know and I will send another copy. Most of the events are listed on the left-hand sidebar on this blog. Here are a couple quick updates/reminders:

TOMORROW (Wednesday, May 11th), is our trip to the St. Michael's College Observatory! Our class is scheduled for 7:00-7:15 and there are other first grade classes scheduled before and after us. If you plan to attend, please note that you must be with your child at all times while in the observatory. Thank you, and I hope to see you there!

Thursday, June 2nd is our bike ride field trip! Thank you to everyone who has sent in the permission slip. I am happy to say that we have plenty of volunteers to make this happen. For those who offered to volunteer, please consider yourself "in." Between our class and Mrs. Hughes' class, your help is needed! We will also take you up on your offer to help transport bikes (if you indicated you could). THANK YOU!!!! It is possible we may need to change our route due to flooding in the neighborhood across from Airport Park, which is on our route, but as of now, our plan is still to start and end our ride at Airport Park. I will let you know if anything changes.

An egg-cellent greeting and Happy Mother's Day (belated)!

Hello! We're busy as always in Room 6, and I have not been great at remembering to take out my camera to snap some photos. I did manage to remember a few times last week, though! Your children were SO sweet and careful about making their Mother's Day flowers. I hope they made it home to you in good shape and weren't too crushed. :-) They were bright and cheerful in our room! Happy belated Mother's Day, moms! Your children sure do have nice things to say about you! Also, THANK YOU to all those who helped to honor Teacher Appreciation Week last week. I hope everyone's having a great week and enjoying the sunny weather!

Many of our Morning Meeting greetings and activities have been chick/egg related, since we are all VERY excited about the chick eggs in our room. Today was Day 13 of 21 days of incubation. In the greeting shown above, students had to find someone with a matching sum for a math fact. One part of the egg had a math fact, the other halves had sums. A fun way to practice math facts! Students greeted one another once they found the other half of their egg. 

The math fact egg greeting--these girls found a match!

The photos below were taken at the very end of the day--I was planning to post this ON Mother's Day. I got too busy. :-) And, while I didn't capture THE photo--the one where everyone is looking and smiling--they turned out pretty cute. It was hard to chose which to include...and some children are not visible in some but are visible in others. Enjoy, and Happy Mother's Day! (Don't worry, dads, we'll remember you too!) :-)

Tidbits...

Here are a few snapshots from this week...enjoy!

Students enjoyed exploring new science stations on Tuesday. These students got silly for the photo, but they were great scientists when we discussed the properties of liquids! See if your child remembers what the word viscous means. :-How about transparent?

This photo turned out fuzzy, but we played a game called "Guess My Property" this week. Students chose two objects with at least one property (characteristic) in common, put them under our document camera, and then students took turns guessing the mystery property. Words used included rigid, flexible, flat, colored, pointed, etc. We are getting good at using these scientific terms!

Silly sentences were a choice at our Word Work station during literacy stations this week. These boys were very proud of the LONG sentence they created! :-)

We are practicing fractions using many different games and activities. 

Students are learning lots about chicks before they hatch, and we're also doing some art projects just for fun! 

Jason Chin visits UMS!

What a privilege to have a famous author visit UMS! Jason Chin, author of Redwoods (a Red Clover award nominee!), shared great information about the redwoods and how he wrote/illustrated his book. Our very own Samantha was the lucky student selected to be the human subject of the impromptu illustration done by Mr. Chin. The finished product hangs in the UMS library! 

Mr. Chin shared a great slideshow!

Samantha was a very cooperative model for the drawing! Look at that smile!

I wish I could draw like that!

Mrs. Gooney Bird

Today, our class shared a fun song called "Mrs. Gooney Bird" at our last school-wide meeting of the school year. This song was a perfect way to share our enthusiasm about hatching chicks! It's a song with motions to go with it. Ask your child to sing it for you! :-)

First we demonstrated by singing the whole song in front of the school.

Then everyone stood up and we sang the song together! Fun!

Science Update

We have been busy scientists over the past few months, and the last six weeks of school will be no exception! We were not able to finish our Solids and Liquids unit before vacation, so we will continue to study this topic over the next week or so. And, as you know, we are in the process of hatching chicks and learning about the chicken life cycle. So, we have science on the brain! :-) Since the chicks take about 21 days to develop and hatch after being set in the incubator, we have plenty of time to learn about what's going on inside the egg AND to explore solids and liquids. Here are some photos of recent activities...

Chick Life Cycle...

Each day we have three "egg turners." This simulates how a mother hen turns her eggs. We are very quick about this, but also very gentle!

Solids and Liquids...

We spent time last week discussing the properties of solid objects. Students were great at using words like rigid, flexible, pointed, and smooth to describe objects.

 

Students rotated through four science stations related to solids and liquids. The "sink or float" experiment was popular. Students made predictions and tested to see which solids would float in a liquid (water). We had some surprises! 

At one station, students could choose to do a solid/liquid/gas sort or explore books about this science topic.

After learning about the properties of solids, students used a variety of solid materials to build structures.

 

Exploring science books.

Eager scientists!

Working together to sort pictures.

We have talented builders in our class!