North Pole Rock and Roll!!!!

Do you wanna Rock at the North Pole??
I  was so proud of the way your children performed today at the Holiday Program. They sang the song over and over and never seemed to get tired of it. I was also really impressed at their behavior when sitting for so long on the stage. I have a few photos in this album, but you are welcome to send me more and I'll add them (email me 2 or 3, or put them on a thumb drive.)

Ruoyan

We are sad to be saying goodbye to Ruoyan on Friday as she leaves us to attend a Singaporean school. She is a hard-working girl who always smiles! Come back and visit us Ruoyan!

Merry Christmas
Have a wonderful, restful holiday. I leave on Friday night to have 3 weeks in New Zealand where it is summer and should be nice and warm (but our summers are very unpredictable!)
I will see your children again on January 10 when we start at 10am.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

This week our classroom has been transformed for Christmas. We have a Christmas tree with blinking lights, a fireplace to read by, and advent calendars hanging all around. Every child wears a Christmas hat each day. Carols are playing and video clips of Santa in his workshop have been shown. It's so much fun! Here are some photos of it.

Messy Kids! Tarush celebrated his birthday on Friday. His Mom brought in cupcakes from the American Club which had LOTS of frosting on them - here's proof!

Science - last week, rolling cups were used on ramps for the children to discover how wheels of different sizes roll. Here are 4 video clips of that activity. This week we used marbles on polystyrene tubes to study the motion of spheres, We ended up joining all the tubes to create one long roller coaster for the marble. After several attempts the children finally worked out how to get the marble to travel all the way along their 'roller coaster.' Photos and video clips are here.


Technology - the children had their first try at making "Photostories" in the computer lab last month. They are gorgeous! I have emailed them to each family. If you want to see what the other children did, you can see them here (but they might take a long time to load!!) Hover the mouse over each icon to see the name of the child.

I'm Thankful!

Thank you so much for all the donations of toothbrushes, toothpaste, combs, soap and facecloths. My class made up 50 hygiene kits for Cambodia. The children had to unwrap all items, so no wrapping or plastic was sent to Cambodia (it adds to their garbage problems). Then they put one of each item into a one gallon bag, along with an instruction card that the children made, showing how to clean teeth, wash hands, comb hair etc.
Since I was the Grade 1 organizer for this project, all the leftover items from other Grade 1 classes came to my room, so your children got busy and used those supplies to put together a further 30 hygiene kits. Then, they hauled the kits down to the 4th Grade teacher who was coordinating the whole effort. Altogether, the Primary and Intermediate Schools have put together more than 2000 hygiene kits this week. That's going to make a lot of Cambodian families very, very thankful.  You can see photos of the children making hygiene kits here

Yesterday, when we had talked more about the history and meaning of Thanksgiving, the children wrote what they were thankful for, and displayed their thoughts on turkeys that they made. Some of their statements included:
I'm thankful for

• my family
• my dog
• toothbrushes
• food

Science - this week we explored things that move by rolling. The children set up ramps and discovered ways of making items roll down the ramp. Science is a loud, busy, exciting time in the classroom! There are photos of it here 

Tinsel Time

 Please join us on Wednesday December 15 at  10:00am -- 11:00am for our First Grade Holiday Program, “Tinsel Time,”  in the Elementary Theater.  This will be followed by refreshments in the classroom.. 

 You will be getting more details in the coming weeks, but I wanted to be sure that you have enough time to plan your calendars for this important event.  We will be participating with five other first grade classes.  While I know that some of you might be leaving early for the December Holidays, the date of this event cannot be changed.  I hope this fits into your Holiday plans. Please let me know if your child will not be here for this program.

 Happy Thanksgiving, 

Debbie Woodfield

Celebrating Writing Progress

Today we celebrated the improvements we are seeing in our writing. Everyone chose a piece of writing that is 'harder to read' and another piece that is 'easier to read'. The children talked about wrote about the differences they could see. There were statements like:
"This is easier to read because I left spaces between my words."
"This writing is confusing because I left out some words."
"My writing is easier to read now because I add labels to the pictures and details to my writing."
"I can't read this old writing!"
"This writing is so much more interesting."

The children were invited to share their work with Mr Schunk, Mrs. Donaghey, Miss Cannon or Ms Lyn. They listened really well to each other, and gave lots of compliments.
To finish off we had popcorn and fruit punch while saying "CHEERS!" for all our great work.

You can see some photos of the celebration here

Yay for weekends....
Debbie

8 November 2010

Last Thursday four of the moms came in to celebrate Diwali with the class. Everyone had a great time hearing a story, painting diyas, making rangoli patterns and eating Indian treats. You can see photos here

Welcome Joh!
We are happy to welcome Joh into our class. He has moved to Singapore from Indonesia. Here he is, working on math:

Writing - the children were very amused that I chose to spend my long weekend at school, writing. It was a fantastic 4-day workshop for teachers. I've always loved teaching writing to young children, but now I have even more ideas for it. This week we will finish the writing unit called "Writing for Readers"  where children try to improve their work, making it easier for other people to read it. This includes, adding more details, improving spelling, writing neater, leaving spaces between words etc. All of the children are able to say how their writing has improved this year.
Next week the new writing unit will be "Authors as Mentors." My class will study books written by Mem Fox to see if we can use some of her ideas in our writing. If you have any Mem Fox books at home, I'd love to borrow them!

Reading - Last week all the children practiced reading with fluency. Some performed Readers Theater, while others practiced reading a book until they were ready to read to the class. Here are some photos of that celebration.

We are beginning a new unit this week called "Predicting and Retelling". We will read lots of fairy tales over the next few weeks because they are great for retelling the beginning, middle and end of the story, as well as setting and characters. If you are reading to your children, discuss characters, setting etc with them too.


Math - I know that learning how to count groups of coins can be difficult for some children. We will practice it a lot more over the year. It's a good time to go to the Everyday Math Online site and let your child play the math games there. I gave you usernames and passwords for the site at the Back-to-School night.
Here is Alexa working on her slate. More math photos are here

Science - we've made twirlers and zoomers (things that move or spin) and soon we'll be experimenting with things that roll. Science is hands-on and NOISY while children make discoveries. I love it.

So, we're never bored here in 1st Grade. There's always plenty to learn and do.

Thanks,
Debbie Woodfield

Little India field trip yesterday; Halloween today!

This has been a big week!
We had a great time in Little India yesterday. 10 parents joined us to make it a really fabulous day.
Spending $2 each in the bazaar was a highlight for many of the children.

They had to buy one diya (clay lamp), one Deepavali card and one peacock feather.
So many choices!! I think the most difficult part of the day was deciding what to do with the leftover change after completing their shopping tasks! Some children bought themselves a little trinket box, Ruoyan, Amber and Skye bought themselves an apple to eat, Nick & Hannah put their change together to buy a Deepavali decoration for the classroom. Aedan showed that he knows how to bargain because he kept telling the shopkeeper he only had 70c but wanted to buy the $1:50 whistle. Eventually, the shopkeeper caved in and let him have it for 70c!
You can find a lot more photos of the Little India day here
Harmeet's photos have been added here too.


Halloween was fun today too. Thanks to all the parents who worked so hard to make the party a success. You now have very tired, happy, sugar-filled children! I have loaded all my Halloween photos. Have a look for them here

Have a great weekend and enjoy the Trick or Treating. 
Debbie

So what's been happening in Grade 1?

It's been a while since I updated the blog due to conferences and holidays. It was great to have the chance to talk to you all in the conferences. The children are now working on the goals they set for themselves.

We were so happy to have Alexa Bruschke join our class this week. The other children have been particularly good about making her feel welcome. 

PUMPKIN PATCH We visited the Pumpkin Patch today for photos and a spooky story. The children have brought home a goody bag too. There are more photos here

WORD GAMES - thanks to all the parents who come in for an hour today to help with word games. The children learned lots of new spelling games in that time. There are photos of it here

Yesterday we celebrated Amber and Zara's birthdays.

Nick took the turtles home for the long weekend. He let them swim in the bath for a couple of days!

Chilean Miners - On Wednesday last week I had the children watch as the 3rd Chilean miner was brought up from underground. They were as spellbound by it as I was. Hannah drew and wrote about it in the weekend and I thought it was so sweet I should share it with you:

The wife is saying "He's safe." The miner says, "I'm OK."

A true story in my classroom today

I was reading a story and mispronounced the character's name. Instead of saying Madison I said Medicine. The kids laughed at me. 
I said, "Medicine? That would be a weird name!"
So Nick said, "Maybe her sister's name is Antibiotic!"

We are so proud of Mr Hoss

Yesterday all 786 children from Kindergarten - Grade 2 class stepped out of their classrooms at 8:10am to celebrate the National Distinguished Principal award that is being presented to Mr Hoss next week in Washington DC. He has been recognized as one of the top 3 International School principals for 2010. Their are tributes to him on display in our foyer. I've included a short video here of the children giving him three cheers. There are more photos here

UN Day

UN Day

I love UN Day! It's such a colorful day with proud, excited children celebrating our nationalities. Every child talked about their costume before we went to the gymnasium for UN Day assembly. 55 flags were presented, representing the nationalities of the 1000+ students of Pres-School - Grade 2. Everyone claps and cheers for their own country, so you can imagine the noise they make when the US flag arrives!
Thanks to all the parents who brought food and stayed to share the lunch with us. What a fabulous range of foods.
You can see many more UN Day photos here

Trick Crayfish
You can also see here the first photos from our new science unit on Balance and Motion. We were experimenting with the "Trick Crayfish"

Walking in our neighborhood

This has been such a fun week, especially today.

As part of our study of communities, our class went for a walk around the shopping center/hawker stalls here in Woodlands.  Prior to our outing, we spent some time talking about the different people that work in our neighborhood.  During our walk, we saw food stalls, clinics, dentists, barber shops, florists, fruit stalls and more.   It took a long time to get away from the pet shops with all their lovely displays! Besides shopkeepers, our students saw taxi drivers, seamstresses, and we were lucky to be allowed to go into Dr. Tan's clinic and ask him a few questions about being a doctor. It was a great field trip. 

We would like to thank the Moms who came to help us. Thanks!!!

This afternoon, each child has made a box model of one of the shops. They were very creative and did a great job. I loved the way they shared and helped each other, and Hannah sang in the background the whole time. Several kids commented on what a happy day it was.
You can see more photos of our day (the field trip and the box models) here

The Stone in the Road

Last week we were invited to be part of the audience for the High School drama class who were performing the fairy tale "The Stone in the Road". The children really loved it and were keen to draw about it. Here's our newest bulletin board displaying their work.
You can see photos of the show here
Look for lots of other photos in the Photo Gallery too. 

Celebrations!

Hi there Moms and Dads,

Celebrating Writing

Last week we finished the first Unit of Writing called "Launching the Writer's Workshop." Each child chose the piece of writing they were most proud of and made it into a book. Then we all had a turn at sharing our books with the class. To finish off, we all had a cup of apple juice to say "Cheers!" to celebrate all our wonderful writing. One of the photos is below, but you can see lots more here

'Small Moments' Writing

This week we will begin the Small Moments (narrative) writing unit. Children will be encouraged to write about events in their own lives. Sometimes children remember events more clearly if they have a “snapshot” or picture to look at. If you have time, it would be helpful to print out some small photos of different trips, birthday parties or other fun recent moments to trigger your child’s memory and help “Zoom-In” on the details of a story. Feel free to send in these photos anytime during the first semester. We will keep the photos in your child’s writing folder. The photos need not be high quality printing or high quality paper since the point is to simply help your child remember. The photos will probably not be returned.

Reading

This Friday we will celebrate the end of the first reading unit with a 15 minute silent reading session in the Group Room with 4 other classes. This class will have no problem reading quietly for 15 minutes because they do it each day. Today I loaded more photos of kids reading in their 'book nooks'. See them here

There are lots more photos of this class online. You can find them here
 
Last Thursday I was away so there was a sub teacher in the class. She left me a note to say what an incredible class I have. She was so impressed with your children!

How is 1st Grade going?

We have fun in 1st Grade! We also learn a lot. Here's what we like about it:

• every day we do math, some writing and lots of reading. (You can see photos of us reading here.)
• We can read by ourselves for more than 10 minutes. We are building up our stamina for reading. 
• we love all the stories that Mrs. Woody has been reading
• there is Lego to play with
•  we love to dress up. 

On Monday we had our first session with our 5th Grade Buddies. We just had to read to each other. Look at the photos here

What is a class blog?

This is a blog for Mrs. Woody's 1st Grade class of 2010-2011. All students and their parents are welcome to write on this blog, once they have signed up to become members. I hope that grandparents, aunts and uncles will also enjoy seeing what goes on in our class. Let's have fun with this!