Friday, April 15, 2016

Happy Vacation!

First graders sure kept busy this week! In phonics we learned to make multi-syllabic words like upset, napkin, and cobweb. We will continue this unit after vacation. In math, we started Topic 12, Length. In writing, we continued our unit on poetry. We completed our rainbow concrete poems. Pictures of the published pieces are below. Students also learned to write a list poem using the app Theme Poem by the International Reading Association. The icon for the app is below if you'd like to get it at home. You may also use their website to make poems by clicking the link below.

Theme Poem App



104's Concrete Rainbow Poems!


Over vacation, you may challenge your first grade to write some poetry!
Here are the types we learned:

  • Cinquain (Name, 2 adjectives, 3 -ing verbs, 4 word phrase, Name)
  • Acrostic (First line starts with a letter of the topic)
  • Concrete (A poem in the shape of the topic)
  • Pyramid (Add a word to each line)
  • Listing (A list of words about the topic)

After vacation we will wrap up our unit on poetry by learning one last type of poem-- Haiku!


Best of luck to our very own Mrs. Visocchi who is running the Boston Marathon on Monday!

Have a great vacation!

Friday, April 8, 2016

Springing Into Poetry!

Though it sure hasn’t felt like it outside, inside the classroom we are in the spring swing!

WRITING
Last week, we kicked off our month long celebration of poetry. After writing and publishing our first poem, we have made our debuts as a new kind of writer-- POETS! Here’s what we’ve done so far:

DOJO PYRAMID POEMS
First, we made detailed illustrations of our DOJO Monsters. Next, we looked at some examples of pyramid poems and discussed the features of this type of poem. We brainstormed names for our monsters, adjectives to describe them, and verbs. Last we wrote our poems and typed them up on the Drawing Pad app. A picture of the finished products are below. Check out these cool creatures next time you are at Pine Glen!

SELFIE CINQUAINS
The second type of poem we learned to write is a cinquain. We began by brainstorming adjectives and verbs to describe us. While our lists were long, we were very careful to choose words that we thought best fit our personalities. We looked at some cinquain examples, talked about the structure of a cinquain, then got to work! After we were done writing we took some “selfies” to display with our poems. Our “selfie cinquains” are fabulous! They are now displayed above our cubbies for all to read!

ACROSTIC POEMS
Students are also working with Ms. Carney and Mrs. Ardizzoni in library to write an acrostic poem about spring! We brainstormed spring words using an alphabox and then used the Acrostic Poems app by the International Reading Association to draft our acrostic poem. We will publish these poems next week during our library time.

RAINBOW CONCRETE POEMS
At the end of the week, we began our rainbow concrete poems. We brainstormed objects that are the colors of the rainbow and painted rainbows using watercolors. Next week, we will choose the nouns we want to include in our poem, and two adjectives to describe them. We can’t wait to publish these colorful creations!


PHONICS
In phonics, we reviewed the v-e rule in words such as cake, Pete, home, pine, and mule. We also learned to add suffix s to these words. Students have learned that suffix s can make a word plural or also that it can make an action word mean that it is happening now.

Blue Student Information Forms
Please return completed blue student information forms no later than Friday, April 15th, 2016.


Important Dates
Dates have been set for end of the year events. They can be found on the side of the blog.
More info to come!


Talking Tidbits

  • Dojo pyramid poems
  • Selfie cinquain poems
  • Acrostic poems in library
  • Adding tens to a two digit number
  • Clay pots in art!
  • New Vocab in Art: Vertical, Horizontal and Diagonal,
  • Dream Career Day

Saturday, April 2, 2016

Keeping Busy!

We have been very busy here in 104!!

Carnival Basket
The Pine Glen Carnival was a big success! Many thanks to all of our 104 families who donated to our raffle basket. Our class contributed a large basket of "Pamper Yourself" goodies! Ms. Fallon and Mrs. Fallon were VERY excited to win it! :) Also-- a very big thank you to our room parents for organizing this basket!!

Mark your Calendars!
The following end of the year events have been scheduled. More information will be sent home as the dates get closer.

  • Thursday, May 26 - Tide Pool Field Trip (limited number of chaperones)
  • Friday, June 3 - Field Day
  • Wednesday, June 8 - First Grade's Spring Fling
  • Monday, June 13 - First Grade Author Event (time to be determined)

Publishing our Informative Reports
We are happy to announce that our informative reports are published! After writing our reports, we learned that we can show information through our pictures by adding labels or captions. Our reports came out amazing and we are so proud of them! Check out pictures of the published authors below!


Talking Tidbits

  • Visit with Author Brian Lies (pictures below!)
  • Continents and Oceans
  • Maps & Globes
  • Vowel Teams! (ay, ai, ee, ea, ey, oi and oy)
  • Tens and Ones
  • Poetry!
  • Writing Pyramid Poems about our Dojo Monsters
  • Writing Acrostic Poems in Library about Spring
  • Suffixes -ed and -ing

Happy (Belated!) St. Patrick's Day from Room 104!!

A Visit with Brian Lies!

R.A.K.'s
We were SO close to our goal of 120 Random Acts of Kindness!