Stories All Around Us

In first grade today we started thinking about topics for stories that we could write.  Our first writing unit is on writing personal narratives, which we will be calling "small moments".  We began this unit by reading a wonderful book called Ralph Writes a Story.  It's about a boy who thinks he has absolutely nothing to write about, because, in his opinion, nothing interesting ever happens to him.  He eventually realizes that he does, in fact, have lots of things to write about, as stories are happening around him all the time, every day!  After listening to this fun story, first graders started brainstorming ideas of their own that they could possibly write about during this unit.  

Farms with Miss Virginia

First graders had their first lesson farm lesson with a special guest visitor this afternoon, Miss Virginia! The focus of today's lesson was on dairy farms, namely cows. We learned many neat facts about dairy cows, and got to make some butter, too!  Miss Virginia will be coming into our rooms for a total of five visits in the next month or so to share her wealth of knowledge on this topic.  Miss Virginia is able to provide these lessons to us through a grant-funded program from the New England Dairy & Food Council.  

Singing and Making Butter with Miss Virginia

To begin our first lesson with Miss Virginia, and to get us thinking about farms, first graders joined in to sing an old favorite:  Old McDonald!

As we were learning about cows today, what better treat to make than homemade butter?!  After passing a jar filled with cream all the way around our circle while singing a special "shake it" song, we had delicious butter!

Parent/Teacher Conferences

    

Today in your child's folder you will find a notice (on blue paper) about Parent/Teacher conferences.

Please fill these out and return to me by Friday 9/29.  I will send home your conference time early next week.

If you need another copy of this form, please let me know!

I am looking forward to meeting with all of you to discuss your child's progress!

Water Bottles Week Of 9/25!!

Please send your child to school with a water bottle that they can refill throughout the day during these extremely warm days!

"Read to Someone"

First graders learned all about how to, and why it is important and helpful to do "read to someone" during part of their reading workshop time. One of the most important rules is to sit "EEKK" which stands for "elbow to elbow and knee to knee".  Oh, and the other most important rule is to use a tiny whisper voice!  

Our UVM Student

On Tuesday mornings and a full day on Thursdays our class welcomes in UVM student, Emily Evenson, who is studying elementary education.  It has been wonderful to have Ms Evenson join our
class, for not only is she doing a lot of learning, she is able to offer us a lot of support as well!  Last week students learned about the social cognition concept of "Body in the Grpup" as Ms Evenson read a book to them and led a discussion.  Ms Evenson will be with us through December. 

Reading Workshop

As we get farther into the year, we continue to work toward setting up what will become our regular routines.  At the end of this week we were ready to try doing some stations during our reading workshop. Students rotated through "Read to Self", "Read to Someone", "Word Work", and "Listening Center". 

Rooster's Off to See the World

Wow!  Do we have some amazing mathematical thinkers in this class!!  On Friday first graders listened to Eric Carle's story, Rooster's off to See the World, and were challenged to figure out how many animals in all were traveling together. They could use pictures, numbers, and/or words to show their thinking.  Not only did they successfully solve this problem, they did so in a variety of ways!  It was great to share their different ideas with the whole class.  

Sharing students' ideas: