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