The Legend of the Poinsettia

  

This month in first grade we are learning about different celebrations and traditions around the globe.  We started out in Mexico with the Poinsettia plant.  We found Mexico on the globe and talked about its relation to the equator and how it is warm there all year round.  A discussion of culture followed.  We talked about what culture means and how there are many different cultures that celebrate the holidays differently.

The students then worked in small groups observing Poinsettia plants with magnifying glasses.  They were asked to describe the color, shape, and texture of the plant and work together to record their findings on a chart.  

We then met on the carpet and put all our ideas on a large chart on the board.  They students came up with some great words to describe the leaves, flower buds, and soil.

This activity generated a lot of interest and we were curious to learn the legend behind this beautiful and festive plant.  We read "The Legend of the Poinsettia" by Tomie DePaola to find out more. 

The next day we reviewed the story and paid close attention to the ending to open up a discussion on the message or lesson of the legend.  Ask your child to tell you about Lucinda and what happened when she didn't have a gift to bring on Christmas Eve.  

Here is a picture of our bulletin board in class.  The students did a fantastic job with this lesson.  I am so proud of them.  They continue to impress me everyday!  Happy Holidays!
Mrs. McAuliffe

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello everyone!  I  hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends.  By now the boys and girls probably shared with you  their "Thankful Stories" that we worked on in class.  They did such a fantastic job on these and worked so hard.  If they did not show it to you yet, be sure to dig it out of their backpacks.  This one is a keeper!

Here are a couple of reminders for next week:
Scholastic Book Orders are due on December 3rd.  You can make checks payable to "Scholastic".  I have extras if you need another order.

Monday - have your child wear their "Feinstein" sweatshirt if they have one.  If they do not have a Feinstein shirt, they can wear any Forest Park T-shirt or wear the school colors, gray and green. 

A to Z Books:  We cleaned out our book bins that we use during reading centers.  The students took home their leveled A to Z books.  These are paper books that the students have worked on in class.  These are good to keep and will be excellent practice as re-reads at home.  One of the best ways to build reading fluency and accuracy is to re-read familiar books many times over.

Have a great long weekend!
Mrs. McAuliffe

Lexia Code

If you are trying to download Lexia and are prompted for a 16 digit customer code try this one:
1193456622709334

I apologize for not putting that info in earlier.  Thank you for your patience as we get this rolling.
Thanks again,
Mrs. McAuliffe

Lexia is available!!!

Hello families!  I am so excited to tell you that Lexia online is available to download and begin using at home.  Lexia is a phonics based program that is tailored to your child's specific phonics needs.  Each student uses the program in school for about 10-15 minutes daily as part of our literacy centers.  If you can use it at home as well for about 15 minutes 3-4 times per week, it will allow your child to advance to higher levels of the program or give me information on areas we need to work on in class.  The program reacts and changes to the way your child answers.  For example, if they answer rhyming questions incorrectly, it will keep giving rhyming questions.  However, if a student answers the rhyming questions correctly, it will advance them tot he next skill, which may be consonant sounds.
The students can see their progress as they go in the form of a kid friendly graph system which appears each time they click the stop icon.  It is important to remember to resist the urge to help your child.  I know this is contradictory and difficult, but if you give your child too many hints or answers, the program will assume that they understand the skill and advance them, which will lead to difficulty later. 
So, how do you download Lexia?  It should be easy, I think.  Click on the Lexia link under Educational Links  right on this site.  Then scroll down a bit and click on the "Lexia Downloads" button.  It should walk you through it from there.  The student login name is your child's first name underscore last name and the password is "read".  Your child will recognize the login screen and probably be able to login on their own.  Please let me know if you have any problems and I will help you as much as I am able. 
Have a great night!
Mrs. McAuliffe

Vocabulary Hats

Hello families!  The students and I had a great time sharing and talking about our vocabulary hats on Friday.  Here are some pictures of them.  They were fantastic!  Great job everyone!

Bat Bulletin Board

Here are a few pictures of the bats we all made in first grade last Friday!  They did a great job with them!

First Graders are Batty for Bats!

This week we read some non-fiction books and articles to study bats. The students wrote bat facts.  Look for this piece of writing in their Friday passbacks.  After we read about bats, the boys and girls started asking more questions about bats that were not able to be answered from the non-fiction sources in our classroom.  This prompted a discussion on how to do research and where to find other sources.  Today when we visited the computer lab, we did some internet searches together on the Smartboard to find answers to their new questions.  We found some great photographs and information. We were able to find most of the answers to their questions.  For example, fruit bats eat mostly bananas and mangos and bats can be as small as your hand or some have wing spans of up to six feet. 

Back in room 4, the class made their own bats out of construction paper by tracing their foot for the body and their hands for the wings.  We will be adding them to a bat mural outside our classroom.  The bats in the mural will be sleeping during the day and hanging upside down of course!  We now know that some bats sleep under bridges, in trees, caves, and in old buildings. The students enjoyed making, tree branches, bridges, and spooky clouds for the mural.  We were amazed by the fact that some bats can fly 60 miles per hour and can eat 1,000 mosquitoes in one hour!
Next week we will be reading Stellaluna by Jannell Cannon, a fictional story about a fruit bat who falls out of a tree and lands in a bird nest.  Have a bat-tastic weekend!
Mrs. McAuliffe

Coin Rhyme

This is a little rhyme that we say during our daily calendar activities in first grade to help remember the names of the coins and their values.  Today was the 25th day of school and the students were so excited to hear the quarter part of the rhyme for the first time.  Ask you child to do the hand motions:

Penny penny easily spent,
Copper, brown, and worth one cent.
Nickel nickel thick and fat,
You're worth five cents,
I know that!
Dime dime, little and thin,
I remember you're worth ten!
Quarter quarter BIG and BOLD,
You're worth twenty-five cents
I am told!

Try having your child count coin amounts at home.  Start with combinations of like coins and then mixed coin combinations.  For a challenge give them an amount and have them try to show it to you using the fewest amount of coins possible or try having them making change.  Have a great long weekend!
Mrs. McAuliffe

Science Notebooks

The students in first grade are working in Science Notebooks as an extension of our existing Science kit curriculum.  During each investigation students are involved in some form of data collection.  Data collection can be a graphic organizer, a drawing, a chart or table, a graph, or observation notes, etc.  For the lesson on sifting, the data collection was a sample of three types of river rock they separated using screens. 
On the day following the lesson, students re-visit their data sheet and draw conclusions about the experiment in writing.

Here is a picture of one of our binders open to a data collection page with the writing on the opposite page:

The students discussed what they noticed about the samples.  One student noticed that the glue made the sand turn hard into a rock.  This led us in a discussion on sedimentary rock formations.  Students used magnifying glasses to look more closely at the samples.  One student made the comment  "But Mrs. McAuliffe... I don't see anything... just smaller rocks."  Exactly!!!  I couldn't have said it better myself.  This was the point of our lesson.  Sand and gravel are smaller versions of the pebbles in our sample because they all came from the same river bed and broke up over time.  Don't you just love first graders???  They "rock"!

Pebbles, Sand, and Silt

Today we conducted our first experiment in the Pebbles, Sand, and Silt Science kit.  Our investigation involved sifting and sorting a river rock mixture using three different size screens.

Students were asked to sift as many different sizes of pebbles, gravel, and sand as they could and to separate them into cups.

 
Next, they had to choose a label for each cup.

There were five categories at the end of the investigation.

The big idea of this lesson is that large rocks break up over time and eventually turn into gravel and then sand.  The saying to remember this is:

Rocks into pebbles,
Pebbles into sand.
I really hold a million,
Rocks in my hand.

The students had a blast during this lesson.  Special thanks to Mr. Dyer for helping us with sifting and sorting.  I was so impressed with the team work the students showed during the clean up of this lesson!  As you can imagine there was sand and gravel all over the room!  But by 3:25 the room was spotless again.  What a great class!  Stay tuned for the Science Notebook portion of this lesson.  Have a great weekend!
Mrs. McAuliffe

Counting With Your Child

Dear parents,
We are working on counting by 1's, 10's, 5's and 2's in math.  Counting by 5's will be especially important as we begin working with nickels and telling time with analog clocks.  Practice counting by 1's,  5's and 10's to 100 and by 2's to 40.  A great place to practice is in the car while driving or while waiting in line at stores. Keep up the great counting at home!   Thank you!
Mrs. McAuliffe

Friday News

Hello everyone!  I hope you have plans to enjoy the warm weather ahead this weekend.  I have just a few tidbits of information I would like to share:
Friday passbacks will resume next Friday.  There was a little confusion with the substitute today but all is well and the papers will be double the amount next Friday.
Mrs. Hart covered our class today while I was at a training in the morning.  In the late morning and afternoon, I was able to work with the students one on one for their Aims Web Early Literacy Testing.  I have four different sets of scores that I will be sharing with you at conference time.  
Next week we will be introducing our first Science kit, "Pebbles, Sand, and Silt".  If anyone is making a last run to the beach this weekend, be sure to collect some interesting rocks and send them in next week to share.
Lastly, thanks to everyone for coming to our open house.  I really appreciate your support and interest in the programs we are implementing this year.  Have a great weekend!
Mrs. McAuliffe

Supplies

Thank you so much for helping us stock the classroom full of supplies.  The students especially love the mechanical pencils!  I have always wanted to try them with first grade and I am so glad I did. They help eliminate the long line at the pencil sharpener.  The small cups have also come in very handy during these hot and humid last weeks of summer.  Everyday after recess when the students come in we use the antibacterial hand wipes for our face, hands, and desk.  I am hoping this helps keep everyone healthy and germ free this year. :)
Mrs. McAuliffe

3 Ways to Read a Book - From The Daily 5

Hello!  Today the students and I discussed the three ways to read a book.  They include:

1.  Read the pictures:  commenting briefly about the pictures in a book 
generates vocabulary associated with the story and activates prior knowledge.  It also allows students to make inferences and ask questions, which aids in comprehension.
2.  Read the words:  students read the words  if the book is at their level or with the help of an adult if it is not.
3.  Retell the story:  Students take a "picture walk" through the book again but this time they comment on each page by rephrasing the story in their own words.

Feel free to practice this strategy at home whenever possible or model if for your child.  "Three ways to read a book" is one way to foster reading confidence and independence. Try covering up the words for fun and make up your own story to go with the pictures.  Then read the story to see if your ideas were the same as the author's .  Happy reading everyone!
Thanks,
Mrs. McAuliffe

First Day

     We had a fantastic start in first grade today!  The students worked hard on generating a list of classroom rules and following them in order to stay on our class bee hive.  We read the story "First Day Jitters" by Julie Danneberg.  Ask your child to tell you about the "surprise ending".  Next, they brainstormed a list of words to describe all of our feelings today.  Some of the words included:  happy, tired, hungry, excited, nervous, sad, and scared.  The students wrote about how they were feeling using the vocabulary we generated and drew a picture to match their text.
     The day was quite long for many, especially those who were used to half day kindergarten.  Many of them kept wondering when they were getting back on the bus!  This is certainly a big adjustment but I must say they did rise to the occasion.    
     The green folders that went  home today are for official school housekeeping.  Tomorrow I will be sending our first grade orange folders that will go back and forth daily (except Friday night).  Have a great night!
Thank you,
Mrs. McAuliffe

Snack

In first grade we have snack daily at 10:10am.  Please try to pack a snack and a drink for your child each day. 
Thank you!
Mrs. McAuliffe

2011-2012 Specialist Schedule

Monday:  Physical Education (Please wear sneakers.)
Tuesday:  Music
Wednesday:  Physical Education (Please wear sneakers.)
Thursday:  Library class and Book Exchange
Friday:  Art

August 26th Orientation

Hello everyone.  If you are reading this then you found your way back this site!  I really enjoyed meeting all the families that visited the school this afternoon.  It was so nice to see my friends from DES too!  The classroom is just about finished and ready to go for the first day.  We are going to have a great year in first grade!
Mrs. McAuliffe

Welcome!

Hello families!  Welcome to our first grade classroom blog!  I am so excited to be working with your child this year at Forest Park.  I want to use this blog as a tool for communicating our classroom needs and interests.  I plan on posting once a week or more often as time allows.  I was thinking about Thursdays, since we are wrapping up our week, as a date to post new items.  I am looking forward to a great year!



Mrs. McAuliffe