End of the Year Post

I can't believe I am writing the very last post of the year! This year has just flown by! I want to thank you all for the end of the year gifts and notes. Most importantly I want to thank you for sharing your children with me this year. They have grown in confidence and independence and are all so ready for 2nd grade (even though I am not quite ready to let them go!!) I am so proud of them and so grateful for you and all of the support you have shown throughout this year. I truly hope you have a restful, memorable, and enjoyable summer vacation!!

Here are just a few pictures of our end of the year gatherings. Enjoy!

Open House

Creature Feature (with siblings)

Ice Cream Social

And Finally....our End of the Year Class Picnic!

Thank you again! Have a fun summer! And please keep in touch!

Flag Day and Wonder Project

Thank you so much to everyone that helped make today so special. The children felt so proud singing America the Beautiful and sharing their hard work and classroom routines with you. I have included links to our Wonder Project on American Symbols as well as a short video from the Flag Day concert. Enjoy!

Flag Day Song

https://drive.google.com/a/email.medfield.net/file/d/0B5tavqFlGIcSLUJSRXhrQlJDTWc/view?usp=sharing_eid



Wonder Project

https://voice.adobe.com/a/oZ6Yj

Summer Reading Review

What a fun filled week at Memorial! Between Field Day and getting ready for our Open House it was hard to focus long enough to get anything done...but we sure did! We wrapped up our final writing unit this week. The children learned all about opinion writing. We started by writing about our collections from home and choosing our "best in show." Next we learned how to review a topic and persuade our reader of our opinions. Children reviewed restaurants, games, movies, and so much more! Finally, to close out the unit children chose a favorite book to review and recommend.

They have grown so much as writers this year! They are independent with their topics, excited to share all they know, and this time around convincing with their persuasive voice!! They got to share their reviews in small groups. At the end, we put together a summer reading list, first grade reviewed and approved! Enjoy!


Sharing Book Reviews 

Our Class suggested summer reading list:

Vehicles-Hayden
The Stray Dog-Lindsay
Pokemon Chapter Book-Brayden
I Broke My Trunk-Ava K.
The Notebook of Doom-Kendall, Lily
The Case of the Race Against Time-Adam
Biscuit-Rebecca
My Father's Dragon-Mitchill
Junie B. Jones-Megan
The Adventures of Captain Underpants- Henry, Charlie
Dinosaurs Love Underpants-William
Emmett's Guide to Being Awesome-Tess
The Yeti Files-Brendan, Louie, Emily
The Kingdom of Fantasy-Colin
The Long Haul-Corinne
The Official (LEGO) Movie Handbook-Joseph
Fly Guy-Tyler
Flat Stanley-Ava M.

American Symbols Wonder Project

I love this time of year...for so many reasons; warmer weather, longer days, American symbols! If  you are wondering how that last one fits in, read on!

This time of year (with Memorial Day, Flag Day, and Fourth of July around the corner) we start to learn about our country and the symbols that represent our freedom, democracy, and our nation. The children learn songs that they will perform during our Flag Day show and we get to partner up with Mrs. Groden in the library to work on a research project that we call the First Grade Wonder Project! Our Wonder Project helps us research, write, and share all we have learned about the American Symbols!

This is a very hands on project. Children work in groups of 2. They pick a symbol and use an online research tool called  Pebble Go and library resources to learn about a symbol. They take notes, write a short paragraph, draw a picture and share their learning using an I Pad slide show app.

Here is a sneak peak at our hard work so far!

Researchers Hard at Work:

Taking Notes and Writing Sentences:

Working on Pictures:

We are so excited to share our finished project with you at our Flag Day Open House!! Stay tuned!

Stony Brook

We had a WONDERFUL day of  learning at Stony Brook Wildlife Sanctuary! The weather was perfect and the children were beyond excited to get out and experience the natural habitats that are found all around us. We took a nature walk and looked for all sorts of living things. We learned all about the forest, pond, and meadow habitat and the organisms that live in and around each of those habitats. Each group had a Stony Brook guide that lead us through each habitat and taught us about the specific animals that call each habitat home!

Pond
This was a favorite spot! We walked along the boardwalk and looked for turtles, frogs, and fish. We learned about snapping turtles and discovered they eat lots of things like berries, insects, and even other turtles!

Meadow
The first thing we noticed here were the family of geese pecking for food. We made sure not to bother them as we walked through the field. We learned  about coyotes and foxes and that some of the things they eat are rabbits, worms, and snakes. We saw some nesting birds, a beehive, and even few garder snakes!

Forest
There was a LOT of forest to explore at Stony Brook. We learned about the different trees and how to tell how old a tree is. We looked for half eaten pine cones and little caterpillars. We searched for pill bugs and learned that pill bugs eat rotting wood and other rotting insects.

The children had a great time on this field trip! Thank you so much for the parent chaperones that helped make the day even more enjoyable. Stony Brook has so many great things to offer including summer camps and family programs. If you haven't been yet, or maybe you haven't visited in awhile, you should check it out!

What's in a Book?

Welcome back! I hope you all had a wonderful, relaxing, memorable time during your April vacation. We were lucky enough to take a family road trip this year to Myrtle Beach. We had a blast! Lots of beach time and plenty of sun. We were hoping to bring some of it back with us :)

Now onto the happenings here at school. We had a really productive week back. Throughout the year first graders continue to learn, model, and apply all kinds of reading strategies. When we read the key is understanding what we are reading. Some ways we can show our understanding include summarizing, analyzing, inferring, and even critiquing. We use these skills orally during and after read alouds, in small groups during guided reading, and independently in our reader's response journals.

Here are a few ways we are demonstrating and applying our reading comprehension skills...

Author's Purpose

This is a big one! Children learn that motivating every story, article, or text they encounter is the author's purpose. Is the author trying to persuade us, are they trying to inform us, or are they trying to entertain us? We use the acronym PIE to give children the vocabulary they need to distinguish why an author is writing a piece. It's also a great connection to the writing we have done. During small moments our purpose was to entertain. During our nonfiction unit our purpose was to inform. Now in our opinion writing unit our purpose is to persuade! It's magical when they start to recognize the reading/writing connection!

Character Traits

We continue to work on character traits throughout the year. Children learn to make connections between characters based on similar traits. We make predictions about how a main character might act based upon their character traits. We look for evidence in the books we hear and read to support our opinions about character.

After reading a book, this group is creating a list of character traits to describe

the main character.

Looking for evidence to support his thinking!

Inference

Children can think about what motivates a character, how a character is feeling, and interpret actions by inferring. We can use the words and illustrations to interpret meaning. By inferring children can also gain a deeper understanding of cause and effect. 

This group is using illustration from a text to gain a better understanding of how the character's
feeling are changing throughout the story.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a sneak peak at how we learn. You can practice all of these strategies at home too! The key is to get your child talking about stories, connecting to characters, and ultimately gaining a deeper understanding of story elements!! 

Visiting Author David Biedrycki

April showers bring May flowers! At Memorial school April brings a whole lot more! This week we had an exciting visit from Medfield's very own David Biedrycki! Mr. Biedrycki is a famed children's author and illustrator. We got to meet him, learn about his writing process, and see first hand how he illustrates digitally.

Check out our pictures AND his website!

Meeting Author David Biedrycki

Mr. Biedrycki showed us some of the books he's authored and illustrated. You may have heard of a few of these!  

We learned how he keeps a notebook under his bed so that he can write down all of his story book ideas as they come to him, even the ones he dreams about! We also learned that he does a lot of research when he's getting ready to write. He researched beetles for all of his Ace Lacewing books, bears for his book Bear Alert, and ocean animals for Dory Story!

We even got a digital sneak peak at one of his newer books called Bear Alert. You can get a copy at Park Street Books!

Anyone recognize this terrified diner?

This author's visit was so much fun! A big thank you to CSA, Mrs. Groden, and of course David Biedrycki for making this possible!!!