Ciao!
For the past 3 days, the chef's in Miss Leslie's 1st grade class have been busy preparing for the cooking of  garden tomato sauce. They originally got the idea of making tomato sauce from the abundance of tomatoes we have in our school yard. It would only make sense to  make something that required many tomatoes! On Wednesday, we went out and spent some time in our beautiful school garden harvesting the tomatoes. We compared what ripe tomatoes looked like compared to rotten tomatoes, and talked about why it was healthy to harvest vegetables straight from your own garden. Incorporating math into this scenario, the children thought of different number stories they could tell using the tomatoes and we had a "story share" on the logs. With the small cherry tomatoes, the children demonstrated what skip counting looked like (2 tomatoes, 4 tomatoes, etc...) On Thursday, the children learned the importance of washing hands before cooking, washing vegetables before we eat/cook with them, and what the term "blanching" meant. After the children washed the tomatoes, they put an "x" on it, and dropped it in a slow cooker filled with hot water. Would the tomatoes sink or would they float? The children used their schema from what they learned from COSI day of last year to investigate this question.  Shortly after, the children learned to gently peel off the skin of the tomatoes. They were comparing this cooking skill to brain surgery. Everyone participated, even the children who are not fond of tomatoes!

Above: J'Lyn, Isabella, Melania and Michael eagerly harvest tomatoes from the school garden.

Picture on Left: Evelyn and Kaydence just can't get over how juicy the tomatoes were!
Picture on Right: Sophia blanching her tomato. 

On Friday,  we added the onion, garlic and herbs, creating a delicious aroma throughout the classroom, and making us very hungry! Thank you to J'Lyn's mom for taking time out of her busy schedule to help us with the cooking. Her impressive garden knowledge made the day run smoother. Grazie!

 In math, the children have been exploring all the different ways we use numbers each day. The children discussed different reasons on why we need to be able to "read" and write numbers correctly:
Claire- Speedometers
Aaliyah- Clocks
Kaydence- Microwaves
Alexis- Money
Sophia- The calendar
It was interesting to hear all the different possibilities that the children came up with. We learned about the different parts of our phone numbers (area code, prefix, etc...) and noticed different number patterns found within a number grid. Math Daily 5 is really teaching the children independence, cooperation, and peer-to-peer checking, guiding, and praising.

Your child has been introduced to the accuracy strategy of cross checking. It is important to slow readers down when they come to a word they don’t know and teach them to apply the strategy of cross checking so they are able to fix the meaning and not just skip the word. Cross checking requires a person to constantly think and monitor meaning. It is a strategy for ensuring the words and pictures read make sense and match the letters on a page. To make your child aware of using this strategy, give him or her a piece of paper and tell him to make a tally mark each time he uses the cross checking strategy at home.

** FYI: Danimals Smoothie is giving away $30 000 to 5 schools for a playground makeover! Participants need to collect the codes that are found on the inside of the package, and then register that code under our school name at RallyForRecess.com. Our school has been registered but has not yet been validated, so I will let you know as soon as you can start registering the codes! For now, if you could start a collection of the Danimals Smoothie packages, you can register the codes as soon as our school is validated.

 

 With many thoughts always,

Miss Leslie

                                    

Happy Friday!

Teaching students voracious reading is one strategy I really have loved teaching and find very valuable. This strategy fits under Fluency and Expanding Vocabulary on the CAFE menu. I consider myself a voracious reader as an adult, and I love to guide these students towards their own love for reading.

Reading, reading, and more reading will help students gain word knowledge for their daily lives and for their writing. As a teacher, it is important for me to help my students learn at a young age the importance of reading. Voracious reading involves having many options for students to read, giving reading time every single day, reading to students every day, and modeling what it means to be a voracious reader. If I can surround students with my own love for reading, then hopefully this will help develop their own love for reading.

You will be aware of the strategies I introduce each week so that you can help your child at home with their reading as well. Knowing that you love to read and you love to help them read will help these children because the voracious readers we hope for!

In math, the children have been busy getting ready for their unit 1 progress check! It was a big today for all of them, because for some, it was their first time taking a formal test. We have been learning about counting by 2's and 5's, using tally marks to represent numbers and data, naming numbers that come before and after a given number, and counting forward and backwards on a number line to solve number stories and number line problems.

The children are well on their way making a model of what a desired habitat would look like for a frog. The children are learning that all living things have basic needs in order to survive, and that living things get the energy they require to respond, grow, and reproduce from their environment. Here are a very pictures of the children planning and creating their models:

Picture on left: Aaliyah matches her design of a tadpole to a picture she found in a book.
Picture on right: J'Lyn putting her discovery post-it note on the wonder/discovery board! She discovered the different predators of a frog.

21st Century Skills: Something that I have really been trying to embed into the children's way of life is their ability of self-direction, having them set goals related to their learning and planning for the achievement of those goals. It is really important for children at this age to have something to reach for, whether it be as simple as remembering to put their name on their papers or putting punctuation at the end of sentences. This was important to me in kindergarten, and the children are beginning to become aware of the importance as well. Just ask them what their goals are in school and they will be able to tell you. Goal-setting would be great to talk about in the car or sitting in the waiting room at the doctor's. Setting goals and being aware of what it takes to achieve those goals is not just for adults. Even our little ones can benefit from the confidence-boost that comes from setting a goal, working towards it, and achieving it.

Quotes of the week: Kaydence telling me that she would "break into her piggy bank" to help pay for the new house her parents are trying to design, and Jordan saying "I don't want you to have to do all the work, Miss Leslie!" as he washed play-doh tools without even being asked.

Here is a video for you to enjoy. It is a video of all the first graders in gym class with Mrs. Graves. They are our "dynamic dribblers!"

Hello Everyone!

What a great week it was in first grade! Our math objectives for the week were learning about the features of a calendar as well the routine of tracking the weather everyday. We spend time together as class practicing the basics of a calendar as well as recording the weather on the Smart Board. Temperature and the thermometer will be introduced to them next week. If anyone has an extra outside thermometer hidden deep in their garage, we would love to borrow it  and put it outside our window! The students are slowly starting to understand how we put our math materials away in the correct bins. I stress to them everyday how important it is to put materials and tools we use away in the correct places so that we can find it easily next time we go to use them.

Frogs, frogs, frogs! The children have really been diving head first into various resources to find more about frogs. This interest came about when we were out in the garden and we saw a frog hopping around.  The students have been learning through both non-fiction and fiction books, Ipads, and the laptops. The Ipads are their favorites, but they get really excited when I get new frog books at the library for them to explore with! With this project, the main objective, among others, is for them to understand that all living things have basic needs to survive. What are the basic needs of a frog? What are the basics needs of humans? Are they the same or different? They are interested in comparing the needs of different animals and plants. The children are learning to communicate with one another to share information and research that they find.

On Tuesday, we spent some time out in the garden thinking about what recipes we could come up with using the vegetables from all the gardens. Thought I would share a few:

• Kaydence: Vegetable soup
• Michael: Spaghetti with tomato sauce (making sure I was aware that we would need to buy the spaghetti at the store)
• Isabella A: A salad
• Melania: Pumpkin seeds

We sure did get a plethora of ideas! The children decided they were going to make spaghetti sauce because we have so many tomatoes in the garden. Our chefs will be making this on Friday, September 21st.

Also, today we had our first Chinese class! Wow... I still can't get over how engaged the student's were. They were asking Jing, the Chinese teacher, so many thoughtful and serious questions. I just had to sit back and enjoy! The students today learned how to say hello, eyes, nose, and mouth in chinese. Next week, they will be learning their Chinese names.


Thank you to Mrs. Neel for donating 4 amazing "I wonder why..." books to our school library! I just know the children will be so excited for these!

Starting Monday, I will be sending home reading folders for your child to work on throughout the week. The children will choose one good-fit book, as well as the guided reading book they will be working on in class with myself and a small group. The purpose of the reading folders is for your child to build fluency by reading the same book numerous times, as well as for you to sit and listen to your child read at their independent reading level.  Just like last year, there will be a log included that has different suggestions on ways you can enhance this reading time. The directions will be in the folder, so be on the lookout!

Have a terrific week! Looking forward to next week!

Hello to All!

Welcome to the First Grade! I would like to apologize for not having the blog updated on Friday. I am sure your child told you but I got engaged on Friday! Better yet, my fiance' proposed to me at school! We left right after school, and though I put up a fight, he just wouldn't let me stay to upload the blog ;)

The proposal was so special. Earlier that day, Mrs. Graves told me that we would be having a guest speaker come to the school and read each class a book at 2:15. Completely clueless, I settled the children down and we talked about how to behave when a guest speaker enters the classroom. To much of my surprise, in comes my boyfriend at the time, Anthony, with a bouquet of flowers for me and 2 boxes of cupcakes for the children. Still clueless, we had a great time enjoying our special time with Anthony. He is a banker, so all the children were interested that he worked with money and numbers, just like them! He then asked Andrew to hold the video camera and record what was about to happen. Sure enough, Anthony walked over to me, got down on one knee, and asked me to marry him.

The children's reactions were priceless, it made it that much more special. Jordan and Alexis were covering their eyes laughing, and Marlo was clapping over her head. They thought I had just gotten married, but then I explained to them what happened. I then asked them if they wanted Anthony or Miss Leslie to read them a book, and they shouted "Anthony!!" They acted like he was a movie star. It was such a fun celebration. I will upload the video of the proposal on the blog later tonight, for the camera is at my home. Anthony sure does know me well to know to propose to me in front of some of the most people in my life. The day was perfect.

Back to the First Grade though...

The children came back to school and did not put their curiosity to waste. Within the first 3 days, the students were digging deep in books and laptops learning about frogs and butterflies. We found a frog out in the garden and they became instantly attached. They wanted to keep him, but they had to do research first on the habitat we needed to provide for the frog as well as how to care for a pet. We will see if their interest in frogs continues. Butterflies became an interest because Bella Ake and her family brought in caterpillars in their chrysalis for us to observe.

Sophia wondered: "How did caterpillars make their cocoons
Melania wondering: "How does it get out of it's cocoon?"
Kaydence wondered: "How does it get all of its pretty colors?"

Watching the butterflies come out of their cocoons was so amazing to watch! The children loved every minute of it. Did you know that if the cocoons are disturbed in any way, they start to shake? I learned that fact with the children. We researched what the butterflies needed to eat, and after a couple of days, we let the butterflies free near our garden.

We have been learning the basics of the scientific process, such as what it means to observe, predict, communicate, and experiment. We conducted an experiment on Friday to help with our prediction skills. Remember, a prediction is not a guess! It is an educated guess based on previous knowledge and experiences.

Below pictures: 
Right: Sophia and Alexis predicting what color yellow and orange make.
Left: The children watching the butterfly as it hatched from its cocoon!

The students and I have been talking a lot about the purpose of a calendar, the days of the week, and the 12 months. It is a bit of a struggle for them, because many of them get confused with the calendar vocabulary (difference between months, years, days, etc...) Why not show your child a calendar that you use at home? This could reinforce the idea that learning extends beyond the classroom. We also have been talking a lot about the skills you need to be successful at working independently as well as with a partner.

As far as our literacy block, the children have started Daily 5, and have been introduced to read to self and Work on Writing. They also have a block of time set called Writer's Workshop, where they pick a topic of their chose and free-write independently, using the writing skills introduced to them previously. Writing Workshop is one of our favorite times of the day!

Please let me remind you that their will be an online homework assignment for the children to complete every Wednesday. The homework assignment can be found on the blog, and will tell you and your child what to do.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments so far. My door is always open for you!
Above Pictures:
Left: Alexis, Kaydence, Claire, Sophia and Michael working hard on their nature portraits.
Right: Healthy habits are incorporated into the curriculum daily. This chart emphasizes what "sometimes" foods are and what "always" foods are. The children love to evaluate their snacks and lunches for the day, and are taught to always eat their "always" foods first!