Week of March 8 - 12, 2010

This week in Writer's and Reader's Workshops we did research on our Famous American and recorded it in a variety of ways. First we wrote about their early life and why they are famous on paper. We made a hat to reflect our American's life and accomplishments and we wrote facts and adjectives about them on a belt (a sentence strip). In the computer lab we used KidPix to write and draw about them. By now, your children are experts on their Famous American! In Math Workshop we had lots of practice counting by 2s,4s, 5s and 10s using story problems. For example, one problem asked how many legs two horses, two people and one dog have. These types of problems are laying the foundation for higher level addition and multiplication. Other highlights of the week include Potato Olympics with our 5th-grade buddies on Tuesday and the Rats! performance on Wednesday.

Rats!

It was very exciting on Wednesday to see the performance of our very own classmates in Rats! They did such a great job singing and dancing. It was a lot of extra work to go to practices after school and on the weekends. We are so proud of our kittens and mice!

Pennies for Patients

We raised over $200 for Pennies for Patients! Many thanks to all the parents who supported this important project. Not only will it benefit children with cancer, but it also gave our first graders real-life practice in counting coins.

Week of March 1 - 5, 2010

This week was another week for celebrations! We celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday on Tuesday and the 100th Day of School on Thursday. In Writer's Workshop we have been researching our famous Americans and recording important facts about them. We also went to the computer lab to find pictures of our American with the help of Ms. Blaine, our librarian. In Reader's Workshop we have been reading non-fiction books and have expanded our collection to include biographies. We skipped up to Unit 8 in Math Workshop where we have been getting lots of practice skip counting by 2s, 4s and 5s. We are looking forward to seeing some of our first graders in the "Rats" performance next week!

100th Day of School!

Thursday was our 100th day of school and we had great fun with hundreds of things! We drew portraits of what we thought we would look like when we are one hundred years old and then crumpled up the paper to add wrinkles. We wrote about what we would do with $100.00 and we built things with 100 manipulatives such as pop cubes, legos and Lincoln logs. With our 100th day of school we realized we are over halfway through the school year.

Pennies for Patients

We have collected over $100.00 for our Pennies for Patients program. It is great practice counting the money and the children are thrilled to be raising money for such a great cause. Some of the children who brought 100 pennies for the 100th Day of School donated their pennies to the cause.

Hearts for ASPAN

All of the first graders made hearts for people who receive a meal from ASPAN (Arlington Street People's Assistance Network). An area church prepares sandwiches and delivers them once a month and we've partnered with them to send a special message along with the meal. We brainstormed messages together and then added them to the hearts along with a drawing. Some of the messages included, "stay warm," "never give up", "be brave", "you are loved", "you are important" and "keep trying." Their messages will be delivered this Wednesday and we hope to do this the second Wednesday of every month for the rest of the year.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

We celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday on throughout the day on Tuesday. We wrote book reports on one of his books and made "Cat in the Hat" hats and put our word study words on them. We also read Dr. Seuss books with our 5th grade buddies. At the end of the day, the entire school participated in "Read Across America" by going out in the hall and reading books. It was especially fun to do that with our buddies and our very own Cat in the Hat!