Week of November 16-20, 2009

We had a fun week incorporating Thanksgiving themes into our curriculum. During Writer's Workshop we wrote about things that we are thankful for on feathers and added them to our turkey in the classroom. We realized we have lots to be thankful for! In math, we practiced addition and subtraction skills using a turkey, a pilgrim family and the Mayflower that use a color code for the answers. Of course, we are reading lots of Thanksgiving stories. During Reader's Workshop we are also using a collection of Mercer Mayer stories to help us understand how authors use problems and solutions to make their stories interesting. During our study of the past, we looked at how our clothes and toys have changed over time. We are enjoying My First Little House Books based on Laura Ingalls Wilder's series to learn about lifestyles during pioneer times. The Book Fair was also a big highlight of the week!

No Interruptions Please!

We have been working together as a class to not interrupt each other while someone else is talking, including the teacher! Many of our first graders will interrupt me when I am talking to another child or talk to someone else while I am talking to the group. It is disruptive and is getting in the way of our teaching and learning. It would be most helpful to me if you could practice this with your child at home, perhaps at the dinner table or other times when you are in conversation with other people and your child is present. This is an important life skill that your children are capable of learning and it takes practice and consistency. I am sure that if we work together on this, we will solve this problem quickly.

Writing Partners

In Writer's Workshop, we worked with partners to help us review and edit a story. We discovered that is really helpful to read a story aloud to a friend and hear questions and comments to help us make our stories better. We also helped each other check correct spelling of words that are on our word wall and remember to begin our sentences with capital letters and to include correct punctuation.

Save the Turkeys!

Thanks to our 1st and 5th graders, a few lucky turkeys will not be the main course for Thanksgiving dinner! Students worked together to devise clever disguises for their turkeys so they wouldn't be caught and cooked. Some of our turkeys were disguised as hippies, rock stars, hunters and space aliens. Our turkeys have much to be thankful for!

Toys from the Past: Ms. Miknis

To enhance our study of the past and present, Ms. Miknis, our Gifted and Talented Resource teacher, came to our class to help us think about how toys have changed over time. She showed us pictures of toys that children used to play with and we realized some of those toys are still around today like jacks and pick-up sticks. We recorded our observations about the toys by noting something we liked, didn't like and what surprised us. Ms. Miknis will visit us throughout the year and, as she says, "encourage us to think about things in different ways."

Week of November 9 - 13, 2009

We started two new units this week. In social studies we are talking about how people's lives were different in the past compared to how they are in the present. Ms. Blaine in the library helped kick off our unit last week by reading a story about a one-room school house. We also learned that at one point in our history everyone wore hats. The timelines that we sent for homework last week helped us understand the difference between past and present. We are using the Little House on the Prairie children's stories to learn about life "back then." Ask your child how Laura celebrated her birthday and how our birthday celebrations are the same as and different from hers. This week we will learn about clothing, transportation and toys from the past. In this week's homework, we are asking that your child interview a primary resource from the past, preferably a grandparent or someone from that generation. These will be due back the Monday after Thanksgiving. We are hoping this will give you plenty of time as well as access to older relatives during the holiday. In math we started Unit 2: Shapes and Patterns. (See below.) Remember to visit pearsonsuccess.net to get an idea of what we are doing and to support your child's learning in math.

H1N1 Vaccination

The H1N1 vaccination was available to our class on Thursday. This was a very big event in the lives of our children-- whether they got the vaccination or not! It gave us a chance to review ways to keep ourselves healthy (wash hands regularly and cover your cough) and to comfort and encourage each other as the anticipation grew. It went very smoothly and once it was over we were back to normal very quickly. Many thanks to all the parents who helped out in the classroom and the clinic that day.