Maple Sugar Mountain Field Trip

 

Maple Sugar Mountain Field Trip Pictures

Thank you to Mr. and Mrs. Baker for hosting us on Thursday afternoon! We had a great time learning about the sugaring process, checking out all the interesting machinery, and of course sampling the syrup! Mrs. Baker even made us maple frosted cookies :)

In the next few weeks, we will be cooking with Ms. Megen in our classroom. She will be making pancakes and of course, we will add some Maple Sugar Mountain syrup.

Juniper Creative Artist Workshop

Juniper Creative Artist Workshop

Today we worked with Will, Jennifer and Alexia again! Students enjoyed painting various shapes that will make up our WES mural. We are looking for family volunteers to help assemble and paint with our resident artists on Wed. March 23! 

Please join us Wednesday, March 23 from 10:00-2:00 in the WES gym!

 

The Week of March 13

 

Upcoming Events

Juniper Creative Residency March 21-23rd

The first and second graders will work with Jenn and Will Kasso for a short time each day to create a mural at WES!

We are looking for family volunteers to help in during this exciting workshop! Please contact me if you are able to volunteer!

Monday- Wednesday 9:00-9:45

***Please send your child to school with a water bottle each day***

***Also, it is helpful to have an extra set

of clothes here at school or in your student's backpack- Mud season is upon us!***

Leprechaun Trap Building

On Tuesday and Thursday we built some awesome leprechaun traps with our Big Buddies from Mr. Braun's class! Let's keep our fingers crossed we catch Lucky the Leprechaun! 

First Grade Math

In math, the first graders are learning how to use a number line. We created a giant number line in our room. We worked with numbers from 0-100. Students counted  forward and backward by 1s, 5s and 10s. We used our number sense to make connections, such as : what number lands halfway between 0-10 and what number lands halfway between 0-100? 

Readers' Workshop

In reading, the first and second graders are working hard on using various reading strategies as they bump up into hard words in their texts. Here is a chart of the strategies we are using in class! I work with small groups each day to practice a variety of reading skills. 

We are also working on reading our Folk Tale plays with fluency. Students are  learning to read the author's speech tags. For example, " The sky is falling," yelled Chicken Little.  We are learning to read with expression- matching the character's feelings. It is really fun and exciting to hear the progress each child is making in reading fluency.  Our class we will be performing our plays in the next few weeks. Please look out for your invitation!

Writers' Workshop

This week in writing, the first and second graders worked on writing about their favorite animal. This is a shared writing project, where students are learning about the organization of an opinion piece. We worked on writing beginnings, and supporting our opinions with reasons. Next week, we will work on rereading to be sure our pieces make sense, and we will learn how to end our opinion pieces. Students will also create a painting to accompany their writing. We will display these pieces in our room. 

Fundations/Spelling

This week, we reviewed all welded sounds and suffix endings. Students worked on new trick words and enjoyed making choices on how they can practice these words. Students used a spelling menu to choose different activities. 

The Week of March 7

 

Upcoming Events 

Simple Machines Leprechaun Trap Building

Tuesday, March 15th 

On Monday, we arrived at school to find our classroom turned upside down, and a note from Lucky the Leprechaun! The mess caused such a disturbance that we decided to make some traps to catch him! Students used their laptops to research different kinds of traps and types of simple machines that we could use to trap that little rapscallion! 

  Supplies Needed

   cotton balls

soup cans 

string

toothpicks

small cardboard boxes 

plastic bottle caps, or any other recycled items you think would work! 

Thank you all so much for your help!! 

Thursday, March 17th 

Early Release Day @11:30- Teacher Conferences 

On Monday you will notice lots of student work coming home! I have been collecting work samples for a bit to help complete your student's report card! 

Please be sure to contact Ms. Debbie to schedule your conference time. 

Friday, March 18th

No School 

Juniper Creative Residency March 21-25th

The first and second graders will work with Jenn and Will Kasso for a short time each day to create a mural at WES!

We are looking for family volunteers to help in during this exciting workshop! Please contact me if you are able to volunteer!

M-F 9:00-9:45

Juniper Creative Arts is a Vermont-based Black and Dominican family collective that facilitates community mural projects with colleges and universities, K-12 schools, and community-based organizations. They are nationally recognized muralists, facilitators, and educators with a mission-driven practice of creating art that both involves and celebrates historically excluded communities. They use visual art and murals to lift up the voices, images, and people that are often left in the margins. Their work and vibe is inspired by their cultural and spiritual lineages, urban art, Hip-Hop culture, the mystical, and the natural world. They believe in the power of the arts to heal, bring people together, build community, and create dialogue. Their mural initiatives involve developing a shared vision and visual narrative that speaks to and honors the collective voices of the community who they are working with.

Check out their link below!

https://willkasso.com/juniper-creative/

Drum Daddies

Here we are drumming with the Drum Daddies! This was so much fun. These musicians were so talented and kind!

Morning Meeting Fun

Opinion Writing Begins!

Last week, the first and second graders explored what an opinion is and how mentor authors write about their opinions. We made several anchor charts together which we will reference throughout this unit of study.  We worked to show the beginning, middle and end of an opinion piece, and how authors give reasons to support their opinion. We studied the author Mo Willems, and enjoyed his humor and author's craft moves! 

We began writing a class book about our favorite animal. This class writing project will help students learn how opinion pieces are organized, and will give students guided practice on writing an beginnings, reasons + elaboration, and endings. 

Readers' Workshop

In reading, we are beginning a new unit of study on comprehension strategies, and have been reviewing and perfecting our decoding skills. We are reading some fun Folktales from different cultures and have been incorporating some important fluency skills into this work. Each reading group has a folk tale that they are reading together, and have been practicing a readers' theater play. This makes fluency skills fun and relevant to the students. We will be inviting families into the school to watch our final performances soon! 

Spelling and Fundations

This week, we worked on welded sounds sounds ang, ing, ung, and ong + suffix endings and took a spelling assessment on Friday. Up next, we will spend a week reviewing all welded sounds and practice new sight words. The first and second graders love practicing their spelling skills using multiple modalities!