Writing Celebration #1

I hope you heard about our first writing celebration yesterday and that your child's collection of writing made it home safely. Remember, two of your child's self-selected best pieces are currently in their special writing binders in the classroom. I will continue to collect a sample or two per month of your child's writing throughout first grade. This special binder will come home in June as a keepsake of an amazing year of writing progress. Prepare to be AMAZED! Here are some photos of our writing celebration in Mrs. Hughes' room.

Make your own digital slideshow

Flynn Theater Field Trip=Success!

We had a wonderful field trip the Flynn Theater Monday morning! The show was a fun combination of actors with masks, puppets, and cartoon animation. Many children said that their favorite part was the dancing squirrels. Ask your child what they enjoyed most about our trip!

Excited students wait for the performance to begin.

It's hard to tell, but we were up in the balcony.

When will the show start?!

They were ready to be excellent audience members!

"Lost" photos

I take photos with my digital camera and my phone. So, sometimes a photo or two gets "lost" in the shuffle. Here are a couple recent photos that I just had to share. :-)

This was a spontaneous  moment after finishing an art project in the classroom. They were SO into this book about science experiments!

Our "Red Word" station in SWR a couple weeks ago was making red words with Wikki Stix. Lots of fun!

Let's Jump!

Last Tuesday, children at UMS helped the "Let's Jump!" effort to break the world record for number of people doing jumping jacks at the same time around the world. They jumped during their outdoor recess time for one full minute. Here's an excerpt from the National Geographic Kids website about the "Let's Jump!" campaign:
Let's Jump!

Breaking News!

Hooray! It's going to be a two-field-trip-week! Our Flynn Theater trip is Monday, and we now have a trip to the Burnham Library planned for Wednesday! 

Thank you to Hannah, the wonderful children's librarian at the Burnham Library, for being so flexible and accommodating! I called her this morning and she was excited to arrange a time for our class and Mrs. Hughes' class to visit. Our visit will take place this Wednesday, October 19th, from 12:00-1:00. We will leave soon after lunch recess ends at 11:45 and will walk to the library. We will walk rain or shine, so please help your child dress for the weather that day.

Currently, Mr. Antonicci's impressive tie collection is on display there, and we've been hoping to go visit to see the ties and to learn more about our wonderful public library. Children will view the tie collection, do a scavenger hunt, listen to Hannah read a story, take a library tour, and receive an application for a library card (which will be sent home that day).

I have not yet shared this information with students, since it was just arranged this morning. Feel free to tell your child! If you would like to join us for the walk and visit, please do! When we return to school, children will go right to P.E. and we'll resume our day. Any and all are welcome, as long as you've completed the volunteer background check information which was sent home in August. Please let me know if you'd like to join us--you can send a note in the green folder OR send me an email: sorensone@csdvt.org. Thanks!

A permission slip for this trip will be sent home MONDAY. Please sign and return it ASAP. Thank you!

Friday Highlights...

Happy weekend! We had a great week, and it was a fantastic Friday! Here are a few photos from our day. Read the captions for more info!

If you were at Open House, you saw your child's writing binder. Yesterday children fixed one thing on their favorite piece of writing, colored it, and added it to the writing binder. We're going to have amazing writing portfolios to take home at the end of 1st grade!

We get to chew gum when we take SWR (spelling) "check ups"! Thank you to those who have sent gum for us. It makes taking a spelling quiz much more fun and it might even help us do better (see below)...

Why do we chew gum during our spelling check-ups?

Here's a snippet from a blog about brain research...

"Research has shown that chewing does indeed increase our ability to concentrate and to retain what we've learned. In fact, studies indicate that, for both kids and adults, mental tasks are completed up to 20% more effectively when we chew gum.

Here's why:  When we chew--whether it's food, gum or just air—we respond by salivating, which releases a surge of insulin. Our body gets ready for a meal. The insulin leads to an increased heart rate and sends glucose and oxygen to our brain.

The result? This blast of brain food helps us learn faster and retain this information longer."

Hmm...maybe we should chew gum during other times of our day, too! We do eat crunchy snacks during math sometimes for the same reason. :-)

Students put their pencils in the air when they are ready to move on to the next word. We are taking our check-ups as a whole group right now, but soon this will likely take place in small groups to better meet everyone's needs.

Jack was SO excited to show his grandparents around our school and classroom. And they shared that they love our blog! It's so exciting to know people are out there (even beyond VT) are checking out what's going on in 1st grade! :-)

More from literacy stations...

I sent an email to all families earlier this week to ensure I have your correct email address and to get some feedback about your blog viewing. The overwhelming response was, "We love the photos!" So, I will try to take as many photos as I can! I know it's nice to get a glimpse into your child's day. When my daycare provider sends/shows us photos of my boys, I absolutely love it! The problem is, I tend to take pictures only during times that I am not actively teaching the whole class or a small group of students--and those times are very limited! So, here are some pictures of literacy stations yesterday and today. I will soon teach small groups during this time, but I am currently ensuring everyone knows the expectations/structure/routines before attempting small group instruction...

Ah, the loft. How could you NOT love it?

Art station has been popular this week. 

Students can add poems/songs to their poetry/song notebooks. This week I taught two songs about pumpkins.

I love our view in autumn. Not a lot of natural light comes in through the windows, but it's such a gorgeous view of the changing trees!

Another October kitty--our current art station project. 

Word study station includes many different things--including this alphabet puzzle.

Reading together--a hilarious book, Mousetache, in our classroom library.

Guidance--Personal Space

Mrs. McCleary's guidance lesson today focused on respecting our own and others' need for personal space. Different situations call for different amounts of personal space--for example, we usually require less personal space in a line than we might when sitting together on the carpet in the classroom. Also, some people generally prefer more space around them than others. Mrs. McCleary read a great book--Personal Space Camp--to help teach about this important concept. Then she used a hula hoop and bubbles as visuals to help get students thinking. The hula hoops shows about how much space we might need when sitting with peers on the rug. She blew bubbles and asked students to think of when you might need a small "bubble space" versus a large "bubble space." We use the terms "personal space" and "bubble space" interchangeably. 

No reading program on Monday!

On Monday, October 17th, there will be no Volunteer Reading Program.  The entire first grade class will be attending a show at the Flynn Theater that morning.  Thank you!

Flynn Theater Trip is Monday!

Our trip the the Flynn Theater to see Sylvester and the Magic Pebble is this coming Monday (October 17th). In order to arrive at the Flynn Theater in time for the show, we will need to board the bus by 8:35 a.m.  Please make sure that your child arrives at school on time.  Thank you!