Week 31

It was an eventful week in room 112...

Our week started and ended with performances! On Monday, the Mt. Tabor jazz band came to Stephenson to perform. It was a great performance that had all of the kiddos tapping their feet to some jazz classics. The week ended with the Missoula Children's Theater performance of Hansel and Gretel. It is amazing to see the quality performances after just one week of practice!

While we should celebrate and take care of the Earth everyday, we celebrated Earth day on Wednesday by reading one of my all time favorites, The Lorax, and cleaning up the Stephenson playground and walkways. The first graders truly took the Lorax's words to heart "unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it's not."

We had our fabulous Artist in Residency, Lisa, come in this week. She will be coming again next week to finish teaching the first graders about glass art and helping them create their own!

A HUGE thank you to Lisa Barsotti (Paige's mom) for teaching Jr. Achievement! Her first lesson focused on family and community, and encouraged the first graders to think about all of the similarities and differences in families. They came up with many thoughtful responses. We have a pretty great room 112 family :)

Reminders:
4/28 -- Artist in Residency
4/30 -- Ms.Soulas & Ms.Pawol at training all day

Here are some photos from the week:

Week 30

Here are some highlights from the week...

We had our third art literacy lesson this week! The first graders learned about form and function and studied different kinds of glass art. They got to make their own Chihuly inspired "shrinky-dink" creations!

For our responsible pet ownership unit, we discussed the difference between pet wants and needs and sorted pet supplies based on wants vs. needs. The first graders constructed great arguments to support their sorting!

The weather got nice towards the end of the week, just in time for buddies! The first and fourth graders read together in the library and then played with each other outside. Both me and Mr. Graham are beyond impressed by how well they all work and play together!


Reminders:

4/21 -- Artist in Residency @ 9:15 - 10:15
4/23 -- Artist in Residency @ 9:15 - 10:15
4/24 -- Missoula Performance

Some photos from the week...

Week 29

It was another busy week in Room 112...

In literacy this week we had a reader's theater! Each first grader was given a role in our reader's theater "Flowers in January." This helped us practice our reading fluency (making our reading sound like talking). The first graders practiced using punctuation to enhance their reading and put on some great reading performances. Some of the kiddos were even practicing their parts at recess!

This month, the first grade classes get the main hallway bulletin board real estate! For the bulletin board project we read one of my favorite stories, "Something Beautiful." The author describes "something beautiful" as something that makes your heart happy, so we took a trip around the school to find our "something beautiful" at Stephenson. Their beautiful work is on display on the bulletin boards!

As we finish up our penguin studies, the first graders have been creating penguin posters with information about their favorite penguin that we have studied. Go first grade ecologists!


Reminders:

4/14 -- Art Literacy @ 8:15 - 9:15
4/15 -- Late Arrival @10am
4/17 -- Report cards go home

Week 28

It was a great first week back in room 112!

In math, we are finishing up our penguin unit. The penguin experts have studied and compared different types of penguins and even created their own 3-D penguins!

This week we started our new writing unit -- All About (expert topics). With no research required, All-About books give the first graders a chance to explore their own expertise and share as an author. We are going to continue working on our sentence structure (writing complete sentences), and also including non-fiction text features (table of contents, glossary). 

We have continued to build our reading fluency (reading accurately and with expression), and the first graders have been practicing individually and reading books to the class and each other to showcase their fluent reading :)

Reminders:

4/10 -- No school - Teacher Planning