Friday Letter June 12, 2015 - Last one

Happy last Friday of the school year! Thank you to everyone who volunteered their time & money to help make this a successful school year! We do still need help packing up classrooms, so if you are available to help, please let me know.  Progress reports will be sent home electronically on June 18.

Here is a re-cap of our last full week:

Reading: Students have been adding examples of nonfiction text conventions to their nonfiction books.  After, students read their “just right” books. Next week, we will be cleaning out our reading bins.

Math: Students have been working on their doubles facts and playing fun games.

Writing:  I read the story, Good News Bad News.  Students had to create their own good news/bad news story using only pictures.  We will hopefully finish them on Monday.

Phonics: We have been playing -y (long I) Bingo this week.  Students were also introduced to how a -y can make a word have a long E sound.

Science:  We read a book about ants and made our own mini nonfiction book.

Next week, we will be finishing up projects, cleaning the classroom, and having fun with our friends.  I know there are some students who have accumulated a ton of clothes and objects in their lockers this year.  On Monday, please bring a large tote or bag so your child can clean out his/her locker.

Have a wonderful weekend and summer!  Andrea

Friday Letter June 5, 2015

Happy Friday! This is the second to last Friday of the year!  The students did an amazing job last night at the Spring Concert! I am so proud of them.  Just a reminder, Field Day is next Thursday, June 11, morning.  

Here is a re-cap of this week’s activities:

Reading:  Students worked in their regular reading centers.  For guided reading, we continued to work on reading non-fiction books.  At word work, students worked with words ending in -y, that had the long I sound.  I read the story, That is Not a Good Idea, by Mo Willems.  During their book work center, students wrote a new ending to the story.

Writing:  We finished our writing assessments this week.  Students have been working on squiggle stories.  They are quite imaginative!

Math: On Thurs., students finished their 3D geometry books.  Today, we'll be working on the doubles facts.

Social Studies:  Students finished their mini kimonos.  They were created on cardstock, using black sharpies and watercolors.

Science:  Last week, students investigated the function of birds’ beaks, by doing a fun experiment.  You can see pictures on the classroom blog.  We are still learning about animal body parts and their functions.  Students have been able to make the connection to how humans can mimic certain animal parts to make our lives better (e.g. a helmet mimics a turtle’s shell).

Have a wonderful weekend!

Festival of Colors Class Photos

Just a few photos from the Festival of Colors...It was a great outing on a hot day.  The kids did wonderful!!  (and Kallie's younger sister, Reilly, is an honorary member of the class in the group photos, in case you don't recognize the new student with Isabella)

Shape People and Robots

We have been studying 2D & 3D shapes in math class.  Today, students created a person or robot using 2D shapes.  After they finished their picture, they had to count up how many of each shape they used.  Students will be using their picture to create a fictional story about their person/robot.  Here are some of the students' creations.

Function of Bird Beaks

In science class, we analyzed the differences between birds' beaks.  We examined the shape & size of the beaks to determine why the beaks were shaped a certain way.  As an experiment, students pretended they were birds, using different instruments (beaks), such as tweezers, clothespins, eye droppers, & spoons, to try to pick up different kinds of food. They had to use the different tools to pick up a variety of bird food: fake worms, spaghetti, plastic bugs, water, goldfish in water, & shells.  Students kept track of which tool was the easiest to use for picking up the different kinds of food.  To relate our experiment to our science unit, we'll be discussing how humans have invented tools to mimic the function of a specific bird's beak.  For example, a human invention of a humming bird's beak, would be a straw.  The students have been making wonderful connections!

Fun With Jen's Art Class

Our class teamed up with Jen's middle school art class to do a fun project together.  Jen's middle school students assisted the 1st graders in painting with marbles and toy cars.  The paintings had interesting lines, patterns, & textures.  Jen taught the 1st graders about cool & warm colors on the color wheel.    Here are some pictures from our fun afternoon with Jen's class!

Japanese Fans

Here are some gorgeous Japanese fans the first graders created! They made multiple sketches before deciding on the winning picture they would use for their project.  The fans were made using black sharpies and watercolors.

Friday Letter May 22, 2015

Just a reminder to check out my scs blog: http://scs-1st-andrea.blogspot.com I have some great pictures of the students’ artwork up.  I will be putting up some pictures of the Japanese fans the students made this week.  They are beautiful!

Here is a re-cap of this week’s activities:

Reading:  Students participated in their regular reading centers this week.  We worked on the -wh digraph.  For guided reading, each group read a nonfiction book.   This is our last unit for the year. 

Writing:  We have been looking at nonfiction text features.  Each student has their own nonfiction text feature book.  Everyday, we have been adding examples to our books.

Science:  This week, we have been focusing on animal features and a human invention that relates to the animal’s feature.  For example, we have been discussing how chameleons change the color of their skin to blend in with its surroundings.  A human invention to replicate camouflage, would be hunting clothes.

Social Studies:  Students created beautiful Japanese fans this week using black sharpies and watercolors.  Students had to create a fan depicting Japanese culture. 

Phonics: We focused on the -oa vowel team.  Ask your child if he/she remembers the phonics chant for this vowel team.

Have a wonderful long weekend!!

Andrea 

Andrea's 1st Grade Music Class

Mount Fuji

During our social studies unit on Japan, students studied the Japanese ukiyo-e artist, Hokusai. We looked at his famous landscape prints, "36 Views of Mount Fuji."  As we studied his work, we also discussed the importance of Mount Fuji in Japanese culture.   

For this project, we studied Hokusai's 36 prints, noticing what each print had in common.  Students spent a couple days making different sketches, before they decided on the sketch they would use for their final project.  Each picture had to have Mount Fuji as the main focal point of the picture, with at least one extra item added (e.i. cherry blossom tree, pagoda, hills, lake, etc.).  The students also had to decide what season they wanted to depict in their painting.  The entire painting was done using watercolors.

Here are some beautiful paintings done by first grade!

Kandinsky Inspired Art

Here are some students' artwork, inspired by the Russian artist, Wassily Kandinsky.  To prepare for this project, we studied Kandinsky's abstract works of art & discussed how he used shapes & colors in interesting ways to evoke emotion.  Students arranged shapes on their canvas & added lines to show movement.  I asked them, "how do you want people to feel when they look at your artwork?" Students used oil pastels for the shapes & lines, & then painted over their picture with water colors. 

Piggie and Elephant Puppets

We did an author study on Mo Willems, reading his wonderful Piggie and Elephant books.  The students LOVED these books.  We studied character traits and students made their own Piggie and Elephant mini stories, using speech bubbles.  After the students wrote their own stories, they made Piggie and Elephant puppets.  The students acted out their stories with the puppets for their friends.  Everyone had lots of fun! 

Shadows in Nature

During our light and shadow unit, we studied shadows in nature.  We went outside and searched for shadows around our school.  First graders created this beautiful oak tree painting using masking tape and water colors.  Students had to decide which direction the light was coming from and create shadows. 

Moon Reflections

At the beginning of the year (2014), we did a science unit on the moon.  We discussed how the moon reflects light onto the Earth.  We looked at multiple pictures and paintings where the moon is reflecting on water.  The students (first graders) made beautiful crayon-resist paintings, showing the moon reflecting on water.  

Making Chinese "porcelain" plates