Scoop it Up!

Today in SWR we practiced writing more words in the ___ed and ___et families and our red word, your.  Ryan B. chose "Teach It" to celebrate his awesome behavior so I had help dotting all of those words- it was awesome! He also dictated the words and came up with sentences for them.  Our favorite was when he said, "Let.  Rapunzel let down her hair." 

In math we revisted function machines (In/Out). We had to figure out what the rule was and fill in missing numbers on the chart.  We are quite good when we have the number going in.  When we're given the number coming out it's a lot more tricky!  We also rotated through math exploration stations.  Our next unit in math is all about Geometry so many of our stations were dealing with shapes and their relationships.

 

In reading today we practiced reading fluently by "scooping" words together into phrases.  As we're reading, we want to start to see and read whole sentences together and not just one word at a time.  This was the focus of our reading groups as well.  When your first grader is reading at home encourage them to scoop words into phrases and read them all together! 

This afternoon we learned more about China's land mass and forms by comparing maps of China.  We also got our China folders ready for next week.

 

Tomorrow is our very first Poetry Cafe with visitors!  If you're able, we would love to have you join us at 2:00pm for Poetry Cafe.  This is very informal, and simply an opportunity for the first graders to read in front of a difference audience.  Please bring a poem with you to read for Poetry Cafe! 

CSD Spotlight Feature

 Hi All,

 

A presentation we had in Room 3 was featured on the District's blog today.  Please click the link below to visit the District's blog and read (and watch!) all about our presentation! 

 

You will need to go through this link in order to click through links and view the video!

 

http://csdspotlight.org/2013/01/30/what-do-you-know-about-your-water/

 

 

New post on CSD Spotlight

 

What Do You Know About Your Water? by CSD Spotlight By polluting clear water with slime, you will never find good drinking water. —Aeschylus Do you know where your drinking water comes from and the path it takes from its source to your home? Do you know what happens to your water when it leaves your home? At Porters Point School, students in Ms. Terrien's class now have a much greater understanding of these concepts—and they even engineered water filtration systems—as a result of a fabulous guest presentation about water. Doug Kievit-Kylar discusses water with PPS students. (Click here to view Mr. Kievit-Kylar's lesson plan for the presentation.) Actively engaging and challenging the students with inventive hands-on activities, Doug Kievit-Kylar, a compliance analyst with the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation’s Drinking Water Groundwater Protection Division, provided students with a much greater understanding of why water is so important. Tracing the path that water takes to the school, the students learned where the water for PPS comes from and where it goes when it leaves the building. The critical learning component of the presentation involved groups of students working collaboratively to design simple mechanisms for cleaning a significant amount of various sediment deposits from a water solution. This is particularly important because developing greater awareness about conservation efforts—and developing hands-on solutions—helps our students collaborate with their local and global communities to address our intensifying ecological situation. Please click here to see a video of Mr. Kievit-Kylar's presentation and of the students' enthusiastic participation in their learning. Mr. Kievit-Kylar's work with our students is another spectacular example of many of the pathways established in the Colchester School District Vision and Strategic Plan 2012–2017, including Pathway A: High Standards, Expectations, and Individual Engagement for All Learners and Pathway E: Parent, Community, and School Partnerships Among Lifelong Learners. “I was really impressed with Meg [Ms. Terrien]; she has the classroom management down really well. The students were a joy—a pleasure—to be with, and that speaks well of the students, the teacher, and of the school," Mr. Kievit-Kylar—himself a former teacher—said. The Colchester School District Vision and Strategic Plan 2012–2017 emphasizes the importance of high standards and expanded opportunities for our students along with innovative, flexible approaches with a commitment to excellence. The study of science is far more than simply the memorization of facts; it teaches us fundamental, transferable skills in observation, critical thinking, evaluating and analyzing results, making meaningful connections, developing sound processes, and presenting ideas in a clear manner. Science teaches us how to frame and pose intriguing questions. It helps us to become engaged, conscientious citizens. Aeronautics … medicine … electronics … engineering … environmental conservation … communications … it is indisputable that science and technology have revolutionized the world in many ways, and as such, the importance of studying and applying these disciplines is clearly evident. A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas and the Vermont Science Curriculum and Standards also speak to the importance of rigorous science instruction for students of all ages. For more information about the water presentation, please call PPS at (802) 264-5920 or e-mail Ms. Terrien at terrienm@csdvt.org. Do you like CSD Spotlight? If so, please encourage your family and friends to subscribe! We are working hard to engage our community and keep everyone informed. Please help us spread the word! CSD Spotlight | January 30, 2013 at 10:04 am | Categories: Community, General, Porters Point School, Programs, Vision Summit/Vision and Strategic Plan | URL: http://wp.me/p1rdsQ-38G

 

Unsubscribe or change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser:  http://csdspotlight.org/2013/01/30/what-do-you-know-about-your-water/

Centimeters

In SWR today we wrote a 28-dot sentence and practiced words in the ___ed and ___et families.  We realized that we had to listen very carefully because short e and short i sound very similar in some words. 

In math we learned a brand new unit of measurement- the centimeter!  We had a wonderful time measuring in centimeters.  We realized that an inch is about 2 centimeters and the "longs" in our base-10 blocks are about 10 centimeters.  We also completed fact triangles and did a fabulous job- we are getting excellent at creating fact families. 

We read more of Shanghai Messenger today.  In this book, a Chinese-American girl travels to visit her extended family in China.  We have loved reading about her experiences with her family and how different the culture is from America.  We especially like this book because it's written in poems not chapters like we're used to.  The illustrations are impressive too.

 Look at this amazing informational drawing about the Great Wall!

 And word family houses!

This afternoon we revisted our realistic fiction stories and had DARE.  It was our last DARE class- we had a great time!

Please remember to log onto RAZ-kids tonight, practice your poem at least once, and send an email to me sharing new learning from today! 

New Homework Expectations

Please look for a notice regarding homework expectations in your child's folder today.  We've noticed that students have not been logging into RAZ-Kids regularly and need to be doing that at least one time per day. 

A new homework expectation is for the students to log into their email accounts and send me an email telling me one thing they learned that was new each day.  The students have logged into their email accounts many times from our room and are getting very good at it!  They have composed and sent emails, and responded to emails in their inbox.  When composing new emails students should:

• make sure it's being sent to me
• put a subject in (ie: New Learning; Monday Night, etc)
• Type a note to me

Please let your student do the typing for these emails and allow them to move through the process- it is important practice for them!  

You will notice that every email address in our district can be automatically populated when they start typing in the person's name whom they wish to send an email to.  After they have sent an email to me- they may choose a friend in our classroom to send an email to if they'd like to.  

To access your child's email visit gmail.com.  Look for their username and password information in their folder.  (Please note- you must type Their.Name@colchestersd.org in it's entirety.)

If you have any questions about this at all, please let me know! I know the first few times from home may be difficult.  Please don't hesistate to email me (terrienm@csdvt.org; margaret.terrien@colchestersd.org) or call if you're having trouble! 

Thanks for your continued support of learning in our classroom!



WOW Word: Anticipate
Word Families: ed, et
Red word: your   
Math Focus: using an addition/subtraction table to find answers   

Now- for some awesome pics from today! 

 We played "Beat the Calculator" in math

 Wrote a story about our weekend

 Wrote about our pets and friends

 Shared information we've learned about important places in China

Water Travels in a Cycle

Wow!  We were so lucky to have Doug Keivit-Kylar from the Vermont Department of Drinking Water and Ground Water in our classroom this morning teaching us all about the water we get in our houses and schools and where it comes from.  We have already learned about the water cycle this year so the first graders were well prepared for Doug and impressed him with their knowledge of water in our world, town and school. 

Doug took clean, drinkable water from our sink and turned it into water that we might find out in our town in lakes and streams by adding sand, gravel, debris, trash, chemicals and other run off (including debris from our pets... such as what they leave behind on a walk... the students enjoyed THAT part the most.) The first graders in four groups (and their teacher...yikes!) were challenged to build a filtration system that would filter the water to make it more drinkable.  

We all started with a basic filter and could add 5 other items to it to try to filter out the debris.  We could choose from, gravel, sand, charcoal, cotton balls, sponges, coffee filters, rubber bands, or straws.  When we were finished, we tested them against one another and we learned that the best filtration systems contained sand, gravel, and charcoal.  I'm happy to report that the teacher filter made it to the top two!  The first graders were *not* so happy about that!  Unbeknownst to the first graders, I did have an unfair advantage, my mom works for the Water Department in the Colchester Village so I'm a little familiar with water and it's filtration.  (Just don't tell her that mine didn't win!)

What an amazingly fun, scientific day we had today!

Remember to practice your poems! 

The blog subscription service that sends out the blog in email format to your email addresses sends at the same time every day-usually late at night. The blog, however, is usually upated by 4pm each day.  If you are looking for important information before you go to bed or before the following day (when you're getting ready for school!), please visit www.ppsterrien.blogspot.com .  You can bookmark it for easy access! 

PIO

The Project Inside Out Spaghetti Dinner is TONIGHT!  Remember to come on by and have dinner or grab take-out for home!

Fact Families

We have been learning so much about China already and we've only read a few books.  They have been a mixture of fiction and non-fiction.  Today, we read a story about a Chinese folktale called The Hunter.  We enjoyed this story very much and were quite insightful about the main character in the story.  We also read D is for Dragon: a Chinese Alphabet.  We were so surprised at the amount of information on each page!

In SWR today we worked more with our three (!) word families and our WOW word of the week- dingy.  Dingy means dirty, soiled or shabby and is a describing word. Our favorite sentence(s) so far this week for dingy came from Wallah and she said, "Our kitchen floor was so dingy that my mom asked for help cleaning it.  I quickly vanished to my room so I didn't have to help her.  Then, I felt forlorn so I went back to help her."  Three WOW words in one (almost) sentence!  Very impressive! 

We started talking about fact families in math today.  Check out this awesome first grade work with fact families!

After we read The Hunter we moved through our literacy stations.  The first graders are doing a fabulous job at our new listening center. 

It was another indoor recess day... 

This afternoon we read more about China and researched what Chinese zodiac year we were born.  I was born in the year of the rat and the first graders were born in the year of the hen/chicken or dog.  They *loved* hearing the characteristics of people born in those years.  We learned that about half of them are "extremely stubborn when you think you're right."  I couldn't believe that was supposed to describe students in our class!  (The first graders thought it was hilarious and weren't very surprised.) :) 

We also learned all about the silk worm and the Silk Road- did you know that silk comes from worms?  Also, the Chinese people kept how to make silk a secret for 2,500 years.  

Remember to practice poems tonight!  Also- remember you can purchase raffle tickets for PIO gift baskets up until 6:30 tomorrow night!