Saturday, August 25, 2018

School Year 2018-19


Welcome to the New School Year!  I hope everyone has had a great summer!  I have been and continue to be very busy getting the classroom ready to go for September!  I am excited to be in my new space, Room 108 - this was Mrs. Lazzazero's classroom last year and Mrs. Walkowicz's classroom before that.  I am getting my welcome letters out soon so be watching the mail!!  I look forward to seeing al of you soon!

Mrs. P :)

Saturday, May 19, 2018

May 14 -18 Happy Mother's Day!

Hope all of the 1P Moms had a great Mother's Day!  The students enjoyed working last week on all of the pieces that we included in your gifts and wrapping them up to bring home!!


Math

We are moving on to talking about counting by 2's, 5's and 10's, as well as working on adding two-digit numbers.  This is helping us to be more efficient in our computation.  We use tens and ones to more easily add 2 digit numbers.  We decide based on the problem if grouping might help us to count by a different number, such as 2's, 5's and 10's.  We are practicing by solving problems with things that naturally come in groups of each number, such as hands, fingers and toes.

Reading

We continued to talk about character development this week.  We also talked about setting - time and place, and how this can change in a story.  Mrs. Berne and Ava taught us a strategy called Story Grammar Marker, which is a way to help keep track of a story and to retell it.  It has braided yarn with different attachments to help remind us of different parts of the story - fuzzy pom-pom with eyes for character; star for setting; sneaker for "kick-off"; a reminder for how the character feels, the problem, beads for events to help us remember first, then, next, after, finally; and then the ending and how everyone felt.

Writing

We continues to work on poetry this week.  We worked more on our poetry using our senses to write about different topics we are interested in.  Some of us experimented with repeated lines in a poem.  Then we worked on acrostic poetry, writing poems for our names and for the Sheehan.  The students help me write an acrostic poem using my name (Mrs. P) coming up with some great descriptic vocabulary that melted my heart. 


Bugworks!!

1P recently had a visit from the Bugworks program -

we learned about a variety of insects - this aligns with the Life Science standards of exploring the traits of animals and how they use them to adapt and to survive.  We had an opportunity to touch or hold many of our little visitors.  We listened and learned quite a bit, and also had an opportunity to answer and ask questions.



 Moth Larvae!


Praying Mantis!
 Can you find him?
Stick Bug!



 Beetles playing dead!
 Millipedes!



 Tarantula - not an insect - an arachnid!



May 7-11 Spring is Finally Here!!!


May 11, 2018

Well, we finally have the spring weather and that lets us know that we are getting close to the end of our year!!  After so much excitement last week with our field trip and Derby Day, we have settled back down to work here in 1P.

Math

In Math this week, we have continued to work on story problems, or word problems as they were traditionally called.  We are working on finding the important information in a story problem and knowing the information that we can disregard.  We have learned how to pull out the important words that let us know what operation we are using (addition or subtraction) and what kind of problem we have to solve (one answer or many answers, missing number, etc).  We continue to practice all that we need when recording an answer to a story problem on paper - 1.) an equation - 5+3=8; 2.)a strategy - 5 -count on 3 - 6,7,8 or I know 4+4=8, so take one from one of the fours and add to the other 4, so 5+3=8; 3.) answer - circle 8 and 4.) label (this one is forgotten the most!!!) - are we talking about buttons, balls or steps - be sure to add the label to your answer!

Reading

1P loves to read - I often hear groans when I ring the bell to end Reader's Workshop - that is such music to my ears!! At this point, we are all motivated to read, read, read which is what helps us to become even better readers.  All of the kids are pretty good at choosing good books that are at their reading level and we continue to practice our reading strategies to help us with unknown words.  A few of us do still need reminders to use strategies and not to guess when we get stuck.  We are all working on reading fluency now - how to read aloud with a voice (sometimes we call it teacher voice - how the teacher reads books aloud) that sounds like it flows and remembering to read the punctuation too (so a questions sounds like a question and we stop at end marks, etc.).  The other concept we are working on is retelling - an important piece for comprehension, which is the area that all of us need work on.  We are working on character information and how we know more about a character than just what is told in the story.  

Writing

In Writer's Workshop, May is the month for Poetry.  We started off our Poetry unit, reading rhyming stories, for example, Dr. Seuss books that read like poetry. We also read examples of rhyming poetry.  We then began to experiment with our own rhyming poems and how to write about our preferred topics and find rhyming words that fit.  Then we read more poetry and talked about how we are able to close our eyes and see a picture in our minds by reading the poem.  We experimented with this using our senses to write the poems.  Choose a topic -what would you see, hear, feel, smell and taste?  We talked about using descriptive words in our poems.  

Science

We have been working on our Physical Science topic Behavior of Light. After conducting experiments to compare things that are - Transparent -let all light pass through, Translucent - let some light pass through, and Opaque - let no light pass through.  Then we used flashlights and Mirrors to experiment with reflection and how light changes direction.





Mrs. P :)
        

Thursday, May 3, 2018

Field Trip to Museum of Science

What a great day!!!

A special thank you to our chaperones who joined us today - Jackie O'Doherty, Anthony Rodrigues, Taso Giannopoulos and Julie Whelan.  In big part, today went so smoothly because of all of your help.

We left Sheehan at 9:00am this morning.  After about an hour's bumpy and fun bus ride - we had a whole bus to ourselves - the 1P express to MOS, we made it to the Museum.  We headed inside and went to check out the Cosmic Light exhibit.  Many of us were comparing information about the planets to see - how many moons?  which one had the most moons? which one takes the longest to go around the sun?  which one is farthest from the sun? is there a relationship there?



After asking and answering many questions, we went to the Planetarium.  We had our own Sheehan First Grade show!   The entire show tied into our Earth Science Unit about the Seasons and the sky and the changes we see.  It also told us about the moon and how it changes and why, as well as the length of our days and nights on Earth and how and why they change.

Once this show was over, we divided into our groups with our chaperones and went off to follow our Scientific exploration schedule.  We went to the Suit Cabot Lab where we could make our own microscope slides with moss samples and see all of the tiny creatures that are actually living there.  We could also mix different solutions together to see the color-changing results! 





At the Design Challenge, the challenge was to build a sailboat using the materials and then test it out in a race.  We could try to make the fastest one or try to carry the most gems in our boats.  Some of our 1P scientists immediately wanted to carry the most gems - 4 of them with different designs prepared to race but all of the boats sank.  So, just like real scientists, it was back to the drawing board to change our design, and for some the challenge we wanted to try.  Then we could go back and try again! 




In the lighthouse, the students were able to look at mirrors and experiment with light and reflection.  They were also able to use light to make shadows.  This is continuing the science we are currently working on in 1P!


In Take a Closer Look,  First graders were working with experiments and activities that asked them to use their senses.  They were making vibrations and working with sound to complete many of the activities. 





Each group also had some free time during which the groups could decide together where to go.  Some groups went to the dinosaur exhibit, others went to the Science in the Park indoor playground and some chose to visit the Space Shuttle and see what it is like to be inside.


All groups took a lunch break to eat outside in the shade.  It was a perfect day!

Now we are all ready for Derby Day tomorrow and to make our predictions for the race!

Mrs. P :)
May 2, 2018


So sorry that it has been so long since I posted....what a busy time of year - I will try to bring you up to date on what we are working on in 1P these days.

Science  -

We have just finished up our Sound Unit - check out our rock band -
We are now working on Light and Communication.  We are talking about what is transparent, translucent and opaque.  We are also experimenting with reflection.

Math -

We are working very hard on story problems.  First how to find the important information in a story problem, how to figure out which operation to use (+, -), how to show the most efficient strategy and what to include in your answer (equation, strategy, answer and label).   We are working on problems with something missing, as well as problems with many solutions.

We are working on place value and using tens and ones to help us solve problems.  We will be working on adding two digit numbers more as well.  As always , we are working to firm up our fluency in knowing combinations to 10 in both addition ad subtraction.

Writer's Workshop

We are finishing up our Persuasive Writing Unit with some final reviews of books, toys, movies and restaurants.  We have learned about stating our opinion and why we feel that way, including many reasons and adding details.  We have also worked on good beginnings to "hook" the reader and good conclusions.

We are starting to work on writing poetry.  We began with rhyming poetry.  We will be learning about a variety of different kinds of poems and trying to write several different kinds.

Reader's Workshop

We recently had an amazing Leo Lionni day to learn all about this author and illustrator.  We read several of his books and talked about what kinds of books he writes and his very interesting and varied illustrating style.  Then we tried out some of his illustrating styles for ourselves.  We made torn paper pictures with watercolors,  Mrs. Isabella joined us for all of these fun activities.







We are also working on our fluency in reading,.  We read to our partners and practice sounding like a teacher.  We are also working on talking about characters and how to think about characters based on what is happening and how they are acting.

Thank you for your patience in waiting for a blog update!!

Happy May!

Mrs. P

Monday, February 19, 2018

February 16, 2018

This was quite a celebratory week - from 100th Day on Monday to Valentine's Day on Thursday to Chinese New Year on Friday!  Amazing all of the learning that took place this week with celebrations for each of these special days mixed right in!!

Math
This week, Math revolved around the number 100.  We worked on place value, understanding the ones, tens and now the hundreds, what they mean and how they can help us with our problem solving.  We used real life problem situations to develop ways to add up to 100.  In small groups, we had to build with 100 cups. 


Once building, we had to use equations to figure out if we had the right number of cups.  Some groups made smaller towers and added the number of cups per tower. 

Other groups made larger towers and added the number of cups per row in a large equation. 

Then we combined numbers into tens to make it easier to figure it out.

When we were all finished with this activity, we combined all the cups as a class to make a large structure and then figure out how many cups in all!!


Other 100 Day Math related activities included -
Putting 100 stickers on a page arranged in combinations to make 100 -
Estimating how many times we could perform certain actions in 100 seconds and then counting how many we actual did do in 100 seconds.



Literacy
For literacy, we wrote lists of 100 words - 10 lists of 10 words each in different categories such as- Girl's Names, Toys, Number words, etc.  We also read poems that had 100 words.  In addition, we continued our study of Presidents, focused especially on George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  We read several books about these two Presidents and remembered important facts about each.  We made drawings of both of these Presidents, which will be hanging in the hall outside 1P. 

We continue to work on our Non-fiction animal books.  We began to use the information from our readings to create our own non-fiction books about our own animal.  We will be finishing these after vacation before moving into our unit on Opinion Writing.

Enjoy the vacation!  Don't forget to send back the moon journals after vacation.  We will be wrapping up our Moon unit in Science and starting Sound & Light!

Mrs. P