Spring has sprung!

Dear Families,

I hope you enjoyed the break with your first graders!  It is so nice that we finally have some warmer weather just in time for the start of our Bridges math farm unit!   This is an interdisciplinary unit that will involve literature and social studies activities, as well as mathematics, including money, place value, mapping, and computation.

We have been continuing to work on elaborating in writing.  We spent a lot of time before break reading mentor texts to discover how authors lead us into their stories.  Then your first graders wrote their own wonderful pieces beginning with a setting,  describing a character, asking a question, a single word, and/or using dialogue.  This week we are reading and writing with a focus on how authors close their stories.

Before break we wrapped up our geometrey unit by making three-dimensional shapes out of toothpicks and spice-drops.  We tested them in bubble solution to see what shapes were formed by the soap film inside the frames and also what shape formed as we waved them through the air.  I was impressed by how well your children listened to me about only using the spice-drops as connectors and not eating them!

Speaking of STAR behavior... A couple of our first grade friends have earned 100 stars!  Way to go!  This is something to be proud of! To celebrate, these star students received a special shirt.  We have many more friends that are working hard and are so close to earning their shirts as well!

We're all looking forward to our field trip to Shelburne Farms coming up soon. Thank you to all of you that have volunteered to chaperone. I will send an email with more details soon to all volunteers. 

Fun indoors and out!

Dear Families,

Happy Spring!  It's nice to have the sunshine warming little shoulders outside at recess and cheeks rosy from running around rather than cold temperatures!

We have been busy here in our classroom!  The children have put the finishing touches on their penguin reports, and they are ready to share them with our reading buddies at some point later this week. Speaking of reading buddies, we had fun visiting them at their Toy Fair on Thursday.  The fifth graders created toys that demonstrated one or more of Newton's Laws of Motion. They were very impressive! 

During reading, our mini-lessons have focused on informational texts and the features authors use within them.  Examples of some text features include: photographs, labels, and captions. We have generated a list of these features, have found examples of them in books and magazines, and have discussed the author's purpose in using them. We will continue to add to this list during the coming week. Your children love this activity as this is a class full of curious readers who love learning new information through reading!

In math, we have continued our study of geometry and have added 3 dimensional shapes to our discussions and our math work places.  

We have an exciting week ahead of us!  We will have a visit from Champ on Monday.  He will be here to tell us about a new fundraiser for HCS which includes selling Lake Monster tickets to a Hinesburg Day at the ball park.  Look for more information to be emailed to you on Monday. On Wednesday, we will have an opportunity to watch our 5th - 8th graders perform "Willy Wonka" in the school play!  We'll also plan to squeeze in a lot of learning in between these activities.