Field Day

Here are some pictures from Field Day!

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Week 34 in Review

Greetings from room 119! We had another great week and though it is nearing the end of the school year, we continue to get compliments for our good behavior and kindness. This week, Mrs. Balnave caught us doing a great job in the library and wrote us a PBS ticket!
We had fun singing and wishing Grace a very Happy Unbirthday this week! Her birthday is this summer so we won't be in school to celebrate the actual day. If your child has a summer birthday that you would like to celebrate, please just let Mrs. D. know your plans and if you intend on bringing in a snack.

We had more than just a birthday celebration this week, we also celebrated our principal (Mr. Furca)'s retirement. We did a few things for him. Individually we made him post cards that started with the phrase, "Congratulations Mr. Furca, Now you can..." We ended the sentence with things we thought we would do when we retire like, "Go to Hollywood to be in a movie", "Go feed Panda Bears in China" and "Go to Arizona and swim in a pool" (among other things). With our fifth grade buddies, we made big banners with well wishes!

This was the last week that Mrs. D. will send "Take Home Books" and homework with us. We will continue to "Book Shop" in the classroom up to the last week of school. We love choosing "just right" books for our book boxes. Our book boxes will be coming home soon, too. They held up great this year. Mrs. D. bought them from IKEA (in case you are interested in getting more for us or for you teachers out there who read this). They were very sturdy and fun to decorate!

In Reading, most of us continue to work in the two areas of fluency and comprehension. Those of us working on comprehension have also been finding interesting words in our books and sharing them with the class. We have been using some of those interesting words in our writing, too (you will probably see some interesting 'precise' words used often on our new writing website at www.doranswonderfulwriters.blogspot.com

Being a writer herself, Mrs. Doran is so impressed with how much we love to write and though she already gives us 30 minutes to write independently (that does not include a mini lesson before or share time after), we always ask for more. Before we begin writing, we talk with a buddy nearby about what we are going to write about. They sometimes ask us questions about our topic so we have an even better idea of what our readers want to learn.

We also are getting much better at editing our writing and many of us are paying closer attention to details. We are more mindful of capitals and periods and also of spelling. We use our Word Wall and our spelling dictionaries (that will go home with us at the end of the school year) as resources to find words we want to spell.

In math we are doing a lot of review of all that we have learned this year. One way we reviewed was through a project. Mrs. D. gave us each a flower pattern. On the inside of the pattern we wrote a number and on each petal we wrote a way to get to that number (for example if the center number was 15, we could write 10+5 or one dime plus one nickel). Though these were just a fancier version of "Name Collection Boxes" from our math journals, we loved it. The flowers turned out great and Mrs. D. has already hung them in the hall. The second grade teachers were impressed by all our work!

The big thing that happened in our class in science this week is that our caterpillars started spinning chrysalises. Did you know that butterflies spin a chrysalis while moths spin cocoons? (Famous author Eric Carle of "The Hungry Caterpillar" didn't know that...) The caterpillars climbed to the top of the habitat to spin their chrysalis. Sadly, you see here that one of them fell when we knocked their habitat.

As a result, Mrs. D. only was able to move two chrysalises to the new habitat. The other caterpillar (which we thought was dead, but then moved), we gave to Mrs. Tisdall's class since their caterpillars had not yet spun chrysalises.

When the butterflies emerge in their new habitat, they will have sticks to perch on and sugar water to drink. Unfortunately again some of us hit the habitat and spilled the sugar water. Mrs. D. didn't have any more sugar at school so gave them water and is crossing her fingers they don't emerge until we come back and she can fix the water again.

When we do come back to school, we will celebrate Field Day. Our wonderful PTA buys us shirts each year. Each grade level gets a different colored shirt. If you are coming to school to watch us, just look for the light blue shirts. Mrs. D. will of course have her camera ready to snap pictures. Don't forget to get that sunscreen on us before school as it is going to be sunny and HOT! Also, you may want to send us with extra socks because Mr. Olack has a lot of water events planned!

Update!

Attention Family and Friends of students in room 119!

I have wanted to display some of my students writing in a way in which you could leave an encouraging comment and see the progress that has been made this year. Unfortunately learning a new curriculum, teaching and keep up with my own family needs has left me little time to figure that out. Earlier this week, I decided that I could accomplish my goal of showcasing student writing by creating another blog and linking it to here. Please go and check out the writing of students in our class and leave them encouraging comments. Your students may also comment on each other's writing. I have already left a comment for each student so they can go and read them. I will be emailed every time a comment is left so if something is not appropriate I will remove it.

I hope that you enjoy this new way of displaying your favorite first grader's writing (though I apologize for starting this so late). You can find the new blog at: http://doranswonderfulwriters.blogspot.com/

Also, a note is coming home today with the Field Day schedule. On Tuesday, please make sure that you child is dressed appropriately. This means:

*Comfortable clothes, socks and tennis shoes, a hat to shield from the sun and SUNSCREEN! You will need to apply this at home as I am unable to here at school.

I would also suggest putting a towel and change of socks (at least) in your child's backpack. There are MANY water events! Running in wet socks can be uncomfortable for some students.

Your child will be given a free shirt from PTA (shown above) on Tuesday to change into. It is a Loon Lake tradition that students sign shirts on Field Day. You may send in a sharpie marker if you would like with your child but they will need to be responsible for it. I have had students lose their markers in the past and I will not take responsibility for keeping track of all of the markers. Therefore, we will sign shirts in our classroom only and if a marker is lost, it is lost.

If you have any questions, please email me and I will do my best to answer them (or ask Mr. Olack). It is one of the best days of the year for elementary students! I will have my camera ready and share the pictures I take here for you on Tuesday.

This blog will be updated with this week's review later in the weekend. May is a busy time for us teachers!

Have a wonderful holiday weekend!

Mrs. Doran

Week 33 in Review

Greetings from room 119! Another week flew by while we were busy learning and getting things done before the end of the school year! Mrs. D. again forgot to take pictures of anything "Social Studies" related that we did this week, but she did take a video of a song that we learned and has posted it below for your viewing pleasure. Those of you who are now receiving these updates via email, you will need to click on the link to take you to the actual blog to view the video.
This week we celebrated Trent's "Unbirthday" with treats and singing. For those of us with summer birthdays (like Trent), we can still celebrate! Just let Mrs. D. know your plans prior to sending in a treat. Speaking of summer, it will be here before you know it and if you are interested in a summer work/suggestions packet, be sure to let Mrs. D. know (if you haven't already). Also, the last book order of the year is due next Wednesday so don't forget to order. It is VERY evident in the fall which children do not read over the summer so be sure to continue to spend time reading each day.

Science continues to be a highlight each day as we learn more about liquids and solids. We took a look at how the same amount of liquid would look different in different sized containers and how liquid looks when we tip the bottle containing it (with tops on of course). We learned that no matter how we turned the bottle the liquid stayed straight (or parallel) to the ground.

We also learned that solids come in many different sizes and that they do not change their shapes like liquids do. Mrs. Doran gave us a solid mixture with five different solids and we had to separate them. We used different sized screens to 'sift' the solids. Half of our class worked in pairs while the other half made fun pictures with solids (more pictures in the slide show).

Many of us have been bugging Mrs. D. to teach us how to make "Cootie Catchers". She didn't quite know how to justify that until Friday. The lesson helped us with following directions, staying on task and it also helped us review science! Parents have probably seen by now that these little guys help us review some of our science vocabulary. Needless to say we LOVED reviewing what we learned and Mrs. D. may have to use this technique in the future!

In math, we finished up Unit 9 and took a test (Mrs. D. did help us on some of the questions because they were the same problems she taught her third graders last year and many of us were very confused without a little guidance). Ms. Carter (one of Mrs. D's former first graders turned college student and future teacher) has been helping out many days a week. Here she is helping a group of students review telling time by playing a bingo game and using small clocks.

Another of Mrs. D's former students turned college student, Ms. Rosevear, also came in to see if education is something she may be interested in pursuing. After a day of observing, she too helped a small group review subtraction facts. She did a great job and we hope we didn't scare her away from being a teacher. She had fun but got to see a bit of the work that goes on behind the scenes... (and contrary to some public belief, it is a lot of work!)

In Reader's Workshop Mrs. D. continues to work on fluency with most of us. She does this by having us practice "just right" text. This is something that we should be doing at home each night with the take-home books and from timing us, she can tell you that the take-home books are taking many of us less than ten minutes to read, so please practice! With others students, she is working on higher level questioning, making connections in text and understanding an author's meaning for writing something. We love sharing things that we find during Reader's Workshop!

Another thing we love is WRITING! We asked Mrs. Doran if we could have a "Write-in" where we did nothing but write all day... She liked the idea and is certainly thinking about it! Our Writer's Workshops have been super quiet and you hear a lot of pencils scratching! We are using about 5 minutes to sketch our ideas and then writing for over 20 minutes at times! We then take the last five minutes to re-read our writing and make changes we find (capitals, spelling, periods, words) before sharing them to the group.

We still remember the familiar phrase we learned early in the year, "When you're done, you've just begun." Some of us are going back to old pieces to add on and even erased some of our earlier pieces to change or make them better (though Mrs. D. has asked us not to- there is so much growth displayed in our Writer's Notebooks as you will soon see!). We don't like Writer's Workshop to end which makes Mrs. D. so happy since she LOVES writing herself. Soon our portfolios will be coming home and you will see some of the many pieces that we've worked on over the year!

Now that we have sunny days again, Mileage Club is back on Fridays at recess. Trent and Grace earned a charm for running five miles! Way to go!! It is getting hot out there but that doesn't stop us from running around and keeping our hearts smart!

We were very excited to have a Mystery Reader this Friday (especially since we didn't have one last week). Steven thought his dad was coming in but Mrs. D. tricked him and told him that he would be coming in next week some time. Mrs. D's trick worked but by the time Mrs. D. read the last clue, "This person is the coach of the Ray's baseball team." we all knew that it was Steven's dad! He did a great job reading the old favorite, "Green Eggs and Ham" and we also got to see Steven's mom! Remember, if you haven't had an opportunity to read yet, and you'd like to, please contact Mrs. Doran!

Oh Scarcity, Oh Scarcity,

We can't have all the things we want.

Oh Scarcity, Oh Scarcity,

We cannot have it all.

We really want a lot of stuff.

But sometimes there's just not enough.

Oh Scarcity, Oh Scarcity,

We cannot have it all

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Spirit Day Reminder

I apologize for not sending the following message home in the Everyday Folders. Hopefully most of you will get this message via email (if you signed up) or have it marked on your calendar already.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Popcorn Sales

$1.00 a box

Spirit Wear Day

**For a Special Treat**

Anyone who wears their spirit wear of STRIPES

will receive a small treat

Week 32 in Review

Greetings from room 119! It is hard to believe that we have only one month left of first grade! We sure have grown a lot this year. Keep an eye out soon for a list of summer activities that Mrs. Doran will be sending home in our Everyday Folders for those interested.
Many of us started the week with a special assembly which starred Ella's dad. Not all of us attended the assembly because it was a special reward for those of us who did "No Screens" week! Mrs. Doran was really proud of our accomplishments and thinks regular days of "No Screens" is great for families, so turn off those TVs and spend some quality time together!

One way to spend quality time with us is to listen to us read to you. Mrs. D. cannot stress enough how important it is for us to read to you each night (even if it is just for 10 minutes). Reading to you helps us improve our fluency and gives us added practice using strategies we have learned to solve unknown words. Those of us who read regularly at home have taken off as readers in the classroom. It is not too late to start a new tradition of reading each night before bed! It is a great way to wind down the day and enjoy time together.

In writing this week, Mrs. D. really went back to the basics with us. Many of us have been getting lazy with our writing- spelling words from our "wall words" wrong, forgetting periods and using capitals in the wrong way. Each day this week we ended Writers' Workshop a few minutes early. Mrs. Doran had us read our writing out loud to ourselves to see if it made sense and make any corrections needed. This helped many of us edit and revise our writing prior to sharing it. Mrs. D. is hoping that we will pause and reread and correct our writing often as we write.

We also went back and focused on forming letters the correct way. Mrs. D. had a video from our handwriting program that she played and we used our finger to correctly trace the way we should make the letters. Even when we practiced, some of us still formed our letters incorrectly. If you see us forming our letters incorrectly please have us write them again the correct way. Practice makes permanent. If we continue to form letters the wrong way, it will be very difficult for us to learn cursive writing at the end of second grade. We will continue to practice handwriting in our class.

We did a lot of work with fractions and it really helped us when we used fraction strips to help us solve the problems in our math journals. We did most of our work together this week because so much of the content was new. Drawing pictures and working with manipulatives really helps us understand math and visualize what a problem is asking us.

We got some new insects this week in science. These caterpillars are busy eating. We did not observe these guys out of their current habitat. We will be learning more about them in the upcoming weeks and watching them change- stay tuned!

Speaking of changing, our milkweed bugs (which began as tiny eggs that we could barely see), are really growing. We have some milkweed bugs in both of the habitats that we created and we love coming into school each day and checking them out. They have grown so much since we first observed them as tiny eggs.

Technically we are done learning about insects (even though we are still learning about them), and we have begun learning about solids and liquids. We started by exploring different "Solids" that Mrs. Doran gave us. During free exploration time with these solids we came up with different "Properties" that we could use to describe solids. We learned that the properties of solids could be different depending on which solid we were looking at- some solids could bend, while others could not- some we could see through while others we could not . We decided that one thing that all of the solids had in common was that we could hold them in our hand and they would keep their same shape.

Liquids on the other hand, would NOT keep their same shape if we poured them in our hand (though Mrs. D. wouldn't let us try this- so instead we just observed different liquids in bottles). Like our time with solids, we spent time exploring liquids. We learned that when you could see through a solid or liquid (like water) it was called "Transparent." Liquids that you could see through but may be colored or cloudy were "Transclucent" and when you could not see light through something it was called "Opaque."

We also noticed that some liquids seemed "gooey" and moved more slowly when we turned the bottles upside down. We learned how fast liquid moved could be described as how "viscous" it is. Something that is very viscous (like honey) moves very slowly while something with a low viscosity (like water) moved very fast. We will continue to use these new big science words because if you don't use it, you lose it! We did not have a Mystery Reader this week but we did meet a lot of Mystery People at the 5th Grade Wax Museum at our school (Mrs. D. had difficulties putting the pictures in a slideshow below, so will try to add one later in the week). Mrs. D. also forgot to take any pictures related to what we did in Social Studies this week, but hopefully the parents saw what we are learning about from the books we made that were sent home. She'll post more about Social Studies on next week's blog. Have a great week!

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Week 31 in Review

Greetings from room 119 and a very thankful teacher! This week was Staff Appreciation Week at our school and we went above and beyond showing our love for Mrs. D. this week. Mrs. D. has saved heartfelt letters over the years from students and parents but this ranks as a top week for her! She still can't stop telling people about it!

On Monday we surprised her by bringing her an apple! (She LOVES apples!!)

The next day we brought her erasers! She was so excited because most of our pencils have no erasers on them and we've been sharing some big erasers she bought for our tables. We amazing first graders do a lot of writing (and erasing).
Then we brought her a flower and together they made the most beautiful and fragrant bouquet! She kept it at school all week and then took it home on Friday so she could enjoy it with her family!
Speaking of family, we didn't forget to include the rest of the Dorans in the celebration! We brought in fixings for a wonderful lasagna dinner for the Dorans- from salad, homemade bread, vegetables, fruit and even yummy desserts! WOW! (And the hungry Dorans say THANK YOU!! Life can get quite busy with two teachers and four kids at home- it was such a treat not to cook!)
And finally we brought in some of the sweetest cards that really made Mrs. D's heart sing and showered her with even more gifts! Though Mrs. D. is a writer (and a talker)- words couldn't even begin to adequately thank you for making her week so incredible- but they will have to do... THANK YOU!
Of course we did have a week full of learning too! One of the things we learned in Reader's Workshop this week was that some authors will put important messages in their books that they want us to learn. Mrs. D. read a lot of books to us (like Big Al) in which we tried to find the big meaning in the story. We did great with this! When we were sharing, one student made a connection in his book. He shared that the author was trying to show that people who are different can still be friends! Mrs. D. had a sub on Tuesday of this week so she could test us in reading and many of us did a great job answering these higher level questions- perhaps because all the time we have spent practicing this!
In math this week, we did a lot of work with number grids and even learned a fun game to practice counting up by 10s and 1s using a hundreds chart. Games like these are a lot of fun but they also help us build skills that will help us in other areas of math like counting money (dimes and pennies). We liked this game so much that many of us would play it right away when we got to school before the bell rang! Ask us about it!

We had a special visitor this week! One of Mrs. D's former first graders came back to visit us! Miss Carter is home from college (where she is studying to be a teacher) and will be coming to watch Mrs. D. teach and perhaps work a little with us. Another college student (and former Loon Lake first grader) is also home from college and hoping to come in to spend a day with us to see if education is something she'd like to go into. Mrs. D. can't help but look at our class and wonder if some of us will come back one day to help when we are in college (she certainly hopes so). Time certainly does fly!

Because Mrs. D. had a busy weekend (and a case of strep) and didn't get to updating this site until Sunday, she can write about our top secret writing project. All week we worked on books for our wonderful moms! We wrote the "Top 10 Reasons I Love My Mom" books. We brainstormed specific ideas with Mrs. D. (For example we may write, "I love my mom because she taught me... or she reads me..."). We did an absolutely wonderful job on the books and were so excited to give them to our moms that some of you may have gotten yours prior to your big holiday!

We have had a lot of students getting their PBS tickets pulled on the news. When you get a ticket pulled, you have the option of sharing a PBS story with our entire school on the news. Mrs. D. was not able to see the newscast (she was at the hospital with her baby- he's OK), but she left her camera with Ms. Smith to take a picture of Ella who shared her PBS story. She did a great job!

We ended our week as always with a Mystery Reader. Ella's dad came in to read us a story but when he opened the book, all the words fell out! Though he is a great magician, he couldn't get the words back in the book (we didn't have a lot of time). Instead, we looked at the pictures and were able to tell the story without any words at all. We did a great job and were a wonderful audience! Thankfully at the end of the book we did have time for a few magic tricks (pictures are in the slide show below). Remember that if you have not been a Mystery Reader yet, but would like to be, just let Mrs. D. know!

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Happy Mother's Day to some amazing moms! Thank you for sharing your children with me! I hope you had a great day!

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