Much ado about Monday!

Wow, Monday was exciting! We started searching for examples of nonfiction text features, had origami Monday with first graders, and painted our caterpillars, as they are about to pupate!

We are working on identifying different non fiction text features in Time for Kids. We will be searching for different features in books to learn what information we can get from them.

Origami Monday is back! Today we had our first origami Monday with the first graders. They came down and learned how to make some really cool origami bugs! If you have any square paper at home, ask your student to show you how to make a bug.

Finally we are working with our caterpillars, making paintings of them, and getting them in a tank to pupate! We will keep the blog updated as to status of our pupation. We have suffered some casualties, but have six healthy looking 'pillars in our tank!

 

Another great week!

This was another fantastic week of learning in our class! We have continued observing and working with our caterpillars, begun working with 1,000 books, created some believable characters to use for writing, and started book groups!

Ur caterpillars are amazing, they are growing, eating and producing frass! Quite soon our larva will be ready to pupate, when this happens we will begin investigating the life cycle of monarchs. As our release date for monarchs approaches I will keep you posted, and although it is difficult to forecast a release date, I will let you know so you cab try to attend if you wish!

 

Spike!

Wayne!

In math, we are working on practicing with place value. To do this we are working with 1,000 books. We have been using these books to fid different numbers, as well as practice multiplication. Ask your student which 100's chart 687 is on. We have also been being mindful to read numbers correctly, that is to say we have been focussing on the difference between, six hundred and eighty even, and, six hundred eighty seven, a very subtle difference to be sure, but terribly important for the understanding of place value.

During literacy we also started book groups, and worked on creating believable characters for our writing. We are focussing on writing about character's external and internal features. That is to say, features we can observe and how the character feels about things. We also are working in new book groups. I these groups we will be working on learning different features in nonfiction text, and identifying what we can learn from these different features.

 

 

As always, have a safe and restful weekend, and if you need ti communicate with me my email address is dwillard@u32.org, or you can call me at school at extension 318.

 

Dave

 

A word from the kitchen

Just a reminder students need to bring a snack from home or have money on their account to purchase snack items.  If your student qualifies for lunch assistance they get a full breakfast and lunch (no charge at all this year) but if they bring in lunch and want just a milk they need to pay .50 or have money on their account to pay for milks. Also, we ask that students who bring home lunch, bring in their own utensils to cut down our plastic costs. 

Thank you all !

  

 Susan

Monarchs and more!

What a fantastic week. We have started rearing monarchs, continued creating pieces of writing, and jumped into the world if arrays in math.

We had a very exciting day in Wednesday...that was the day that our monarch caterpillars arrived! We have been working hard to keep them safe, fed, and clean. We will be watching these animals develop alongside an investigation of life cycles. Soon enough these caterpillars will become chrysalis', and eventually they will emerge as butterflies. These grainy photographs are of some students 'pillars.

During literacy time we have been working on creating our own pieces of writing, as well as working on "the great writers project." Our own pieces are based on experiences that we have had in our lives, and focussed on times when we felt strong emotions. We are using these experiences to write personal narratives as well as to create original works of fiction! The great writers project is an undertaking that allows students to create their own copy of some if our favorite books! Students have chosen books that they e joy reading and are working to recreate the words and illustrations from the original.

 

 

In math, we have been working with arrays. Arrays are squares or rectangles that we can use to represent multiplication expressions. For each rectangle or square, the external dimensions are the expression. For example: a rectangle that is four tile long and two tiles wide represents the expression 4 x 2.

What expression is represented by this array?

As always, have a great weekend, and if you need to check with me please feel free to email (dwillard@u32.org) or call me at school at 223-7936 x 318.

 

Our tree of expectations!

 

Untitled

 

First Blog of the year

Hey all, this is our first blog post of the year! This will be a place to get information about our class, as well as information about our school, and some photos!

So many of you have returned our school forms, and thank you for that!

We had a fantastic first week of school. We have already begun a bit of work, as well as building our community! We have been practicing classroom routines, school wide routines and so much more. This year, as we begin our year we are also create our own classroom norms. Our norms for this year have focussed on our feelings. We will be working to ensure that everyone in our class can have the feelings that they like to have. There will be a photo of these norms embedded in this blog!

We have also begun P.B.I.S. in our school. This is a system to support all of the positive behavior that we see in our school so often. The tenets of this system are: Safe, Responsible, Respectful. Throughout the year you will hear about the celebrations we are having to celebrate the positivity within our school.

As this is our first post it will be brief, and I will be adding blog posts during the week...that is to say that this blog will be updated on Fridays as well as throughout the week!

If for any reason during the year you would like to contact me about anything please do! The easiest mode for me is email, and my address is: dwillard@u32.org. If the phone is better for you my room phone number is: 223-7936 x 318. Also this information will be coming home today in hard-copy form, and if you would rather my communications always come home in hard-copy please let me know so I can arrange it!

Thanks,

Dave