End of the Year Post

Dear First Grade Families,

It has been an absolute honor teaching your children this year! I have watched them all grow in countless ways. They have learned from each other, gained independence in all areas, and become part of an incredible classroom community. I will miss them all, but know that they will be moving on to great things at Wheelock and beyond! I am so proud of each and ever member of this class and want to especially thank you all for your continued support throughout the year!!

We have had a few very fun filled weeks with Flag Day, open house, family picnic, our ice-cream party, and field day to name just a few! I hope you enjoy reading about all of these special days in your child's Memory Book. For now, please enjoy some pictures from our last few family events!

Open House/Flag Day

Family Picnic

I wish you all a wonderful summer filled with family, fun, and memories! And don't forget to keep in touch! I am always happy to receive letters, emails, and visits from my from my former first graders!

Spotlight on April

I hope everyone had a lovely spring break! Before the break things were busy as usual around here. We had another great science day with parent volunteers, started a unit on persuasive writing during writer's workshop, and learned about money. Here are few highlights from our month!


Special Events
We had an exciting visit from Curious Creatures. We learned all about different animals and their habitats. We even got to touch all of them! The chinchilla was a huge hit!

Science

We wrapped up our unit on organisms and habitats by having a science afternoon. Thanks to the parents that came in to help us with our observations. We got to look closely at our guppies, snails, millipedes, and pill bugs. Now all of our organisms are thriving in our terrarium and aquarium habitats. Our next unit will be a social studies unit on maps and globes. We'll begin by reading the book Me on the Map and make our own Me on the Map inspired by the read aloud.

Math

The last few weeks we have been learning about coins and coin values. We learned how to use tools like a ten frame and a hundreds chart to help us add coin values and find equivalent values. We also got to learn about coins from other countries! Thank you to the many first graders that shared coin collections from home. While focusing on coins we continued our work with place value. We practiced using efficient strategies for adding double digit numbers such as a model, a hundreds board, and an open number line.

Writer's Workshop

We are completely engaged in our new writing unit; Persuasive writing. We began our unit by writing an opinion about our favorite object from a collection from home. We started to learn different ways to convince our reader, such as stating your opinion, giving a reason, and then giving more reasons. We will continue this kind of writing giving children the chance to write about some of their favorite things while working hard to convince their audience.

We have so much more ahead of us so check back in in May!

March Madness

March has been a whirlwind of a month! We started the month off celebrating Read Across America. We worked hard on our information writing and had an Author's Celebration. In math we worked hard on understanding Place Value and used models to show our thinking. We also started to learn about habitats, plants, and animals during science. Here are just a few highlights from our last month!

Read Across America
The week was filled with lots of fun activities to help us celebrate a love of Dr. Seuss and a love of reading!

Our Kick off Assembly

Principle Vaughn as our community reader

                                     

Showing our LOVE of reading during Read to Self

Math

During math we learned all about place value. We practiced building, reading, and writing numbers into the hundreds. We practiced modeling 2 and 3 digit numbers with place value blocks and place value mats. We practiced conservation of number by building numbers the "hardest" and then the "smartest" way. We learned how to use tools such as place value blocks, the hundreds chart, a double tens frame, and mental math to begin to add, subtract, and make trades to deepen our understanding of place value.

Using Place Value tools to build and record 2 digit numbers:

Finding different ways to represent a value by building the first letter of our name:

Science

We began our new science unit by planting seeds and observing how our seeds changed as they grew. We also learned about habitats and made a classroom terrarium and a classroom aquarium that will be home to some organisms in our very near future. We even had a visit from Stony Brook and learned about some of the habitats we'll soon be visiting during our May field trip to Stony Brook Wildlife Sanctuary.

Observing our changing plants:

Learning about habitats with Ms. Marla from Stony Brook

Writer's Workshop

We worked so hard on our teaching books during this writing unit. Students grew so much as writers of informational books. They practiced adding important information, answering questions, and editing their pieces. They sustained the writing process by adding chapters to their stories and filling their books with interesting information, important details, and fun facts! We celebrated their hard work with an Author Celebration!

Learning from each other by sharing our Writing

Hope you enjoyed seeing some of our learning from March! Check back again soon!

Reader's Theater Highlights

We had a special Friday with 2 reader's theaters! That means 2 groups of readers got to show off their hard work. We practiced reading these scripts daily to improve our fluency and boy did it show! Both groups did a great job with their rate, phrasing, and expression. Hope you enjoy!

The Three Little Pigs 

Read by: Jackson, Liam, Maddie, and Sammie

The three Billy Goats Gruff  

Read by: Isabella, Fiona, Gracie, and Eddie

Once our groups had shown off their super reading we had a great discussion comparing both tales. We noticed similarities in structure and story elements. We compared characters and endings and found that both stories followed a similar pattern. Overall it was a very thoughtful think aloud!