Celebrating Citizenship, a Busy Month Ahead, Pics and More ~

Where to start…We have been busy, busy, busy to say the least!  I’ll begin by saying thank you once again to all of our parents who donated items for our flag cookies and apples. 

Picture day was on Wednesday and boy how sweet did our little firsties look that day.  I always love picture day because the littles always come dressed in their best.  They are so very precious!!!  I figured this would be a great day to take some snapshots of the class as well.  So I carried my camera around and took some great shots of the kids.  Enjoy the cuteness!!!Playing a rhyming game on the Promethean board during reading rotations.  I have a lot of games from Lakeshore that I use during our center rotations in reading and math.  The kids love them and so do I.  What a fun way to reinforce our learning in the room!Working with Mrs. Gosnell during work with words.  We love Mrs. Gosnell.  She is in our room 45 minutes of the day during our reading rotations.  Currently, the students are working on sight words with her.Working with Mrs. Dusenberg during reading rotations.  We love Mrs. Dusenberg too!  She is in our room during reading, math, and writing.  During reading she works on phonics with our students.Read to Self.Read to Self 

The students get to pick out their own good fit books.  We discussed in class how not everyone has the same good fit books.  Everyone has their very own book shopping day.  This is when they return their old books and pick out 5 new good fit books to work on.  We read the same 5 books for one whole week to work on comprehension (I understand what I read) and fluency (I can read smoothly with few errors and still understand what I read).

Practicing our smiles.Practicing our smiles.Practicing our smiles.A little recess fun.A little recess fun.A little recess fun.A little recess fun.A little recess fun.A little recess fun.A little recess fun.A snapshot of our class.  Awww!!!

Mrs. Maness was able to get this snapshot of our class that included me!

Now on to some other things that have been happening in our classroom.  We began our bean seed observations over a week ago.  The students have been recording their observations in a bean seed journal.  We will finish our observations next week.  Then, we begin learning about plants. The following are just a few pics of this science project in action.
 

Working in their bean seed journals.

Our bean seeds sitting in the window. 

In social studies we were learning about the constitution of The United States of America.  We also learned about The Pledge of Allegiance and the United States Flag.  We dissected the Constitution and the Pledge apart line by line and discussed their meaning.  We also learned what each part of the flag meant.  Then, we made flag cookies.  They were yummy…so I’m told! 

I always enjoy having the kids make these cookies as a culmination to our citizenship unit.  Thanks again to all the parents that donated supplies for this activity.

Now for the important upcoming dates:
September 29 – October 3 – Spirit Week, please refer to the handout sent home today for the themed dress up days.
October 1 – Muffins for Mom; Field trip to the Peach Tree Farm  If you are a chaperone for this trip, please arrive at 8:45 a.m.
October 3 – Early Dismissal for homecoming at 1:00 p.m.  The parade will start at 1:30 p.m. Scholastic book orders are due TODAY!
October 10 – Donuts with Dad
October 13 – NO SCHOOL, professional development day.
October 17 – FIRST GRADE MOVIE NIGHT
October 23 and 28 – Parent Teacher Conference from 4-8p.m.
October 30 – Fall parties at 2:00 p.m.
October 31 – NO SCHOOL

A few weeks ago the cheerleaders held their mini-cheer camp.  I watched our minis perform at the high school football game.  They were adorable.  Here are some pictures of that event.  Sorry it took me so long to get these on here.  I guess that is what happens when you have thousands of pictures on your camera....I should really take care of that!  ;)

Our Week in Pictures

As you can see we've been busy learning in a variety of formats this week.  Students learned about the Constitution of the United States, the flag, and the Pledge of Allegiance. They created their own United States flag and are currently working on learning the meaning of the pledge.  They will also create their own Pledge of Allegiance book.  You'll notice I posted a picture of our Daily 5 Literacy Rotation Chart.  The students were introduced to this and began using it during literacy stations this week.  It was also our week for the traveling first grade laptop cart.  We read digital books on it during our literacy stations.  Once we are ready, students will publish written work on the laptops as well.  Our students will gradually be introduced to more uses of the laptop cart as the year progresses.  I plan on introducing only one concept/aspect of the laptops at a time so we can become proficient/accomplished in one task before learning something new.  The students enjoyed the laptops and I know they will look forward to 4 weeks from now when we will have the laptops in our room again.  We finished our living/nonliving unit with an assessment.  The students had to find pictures in magazines of living and nonliving things and create a poster.  We also learned that author's publish their written work.  We began the early stages of editing/fixing up our stories.  On Thursday/Friday we had a share celebration.  Our stories will be placed in our classroom library for students to check out.  We also learned that as readers we often think about the book we are reading.  Sometimes we say to ourselves, "This reminds me of...." or "This makes me think of..."  The students are learning how to pay attention to their connections they make while reading or listening to stories.