Mrs. Owen's First Grade Happenings: Week of October 15, 2012

Dear Parents:

Thank you for all the good wishes for my new grandson. I loved being with Owen and Chase and being able to witness the birth of Chase. It was hard to leave them, but, I also missed my children here at school so that made it easier to leave them and come home. Mr. Schiaparelli and Mrs. Rauman did a fantastic job while I was gone! Mr. S kept me updated and worked flawlessly from my plans. He took pictures while I was gone and posted them on our class Shutterfly site. Thank you Mr. S!

I've been having a lot of trouble both with my laptop and with my internet at home so I was not able to get a blog done this past week. I am so sorry. My laptop is still "in the shop" so I am working on a desktop in the classroom to get this done. Unfortunately, many of the pictures that I want to post are on my laptop so I will get those posted when I get it back. I might even post a picture of Chase and Owen if you don't mind indulging me!

Today, we kicked off our first grade service learning project at school! Sharon Hauser of the SPCA brought her dog Rusty to meet us! She adopted Rusty from the SPCA a few years ago. She talked to us about how to take care of pets and what we can do to help the animals at the SPCA. She and Rusty will also be at Town Meeting next Monday to help first grade introduce our service learning project with the whole lower school. We will be collecting items that the SPCA needs during the next several weeks. Then first grade will go to the SPCA and take all of our donations. We began this project last year and the overwhelming support was amazing! There will be a bin in each hallway (K - 4th) to collect donations from anyone that is willing to help us. You can go on the SPCA website www.spcafl.org to find out the items they need now to help our furry friends. Some examples are Hill's/Science Diet dog and cat food, dog biscuits, cat treats, brooms, dust pans, mops, paper towels, blankets, towels, tennis balls, and latex gloves. There are many more items on the website. Check it out with your child!

Paws for Reading!

To go along with our service learning project, our class has also joined with kids across the country to pledge to read every day to help donate 250,000 books to kids in need! Each child joined a team - either the cats or the dogs - and pledged to read at least 20 minutes at home every day! Today each child brought home his/her own screen name and password to use to log their minutes read at the Paws for Reading website (www.scholastic/com/paws). Their pledge cards and more information came home on Thursday. A paper reading log is also attached to the homework calendar for your child to turn in at school. The contest ends December 15.

During science last week, we learned about the heart. Some of the really fun activities were having Mrs. Peck come and teach us about the heart while dissecting a real cow's heart! We learned about the 4 chambers and how the heart pumps the blood through the body. Also, on Thursday Mai Nguyen (a former parent of mine) brought an ultrasound machine and each child was able to see their heart beating on the screen as well as seeing blood vessels. So cool! Cyrus's mom, Charlene Hosseini, was also here and worked with the children taking blood pressure, using stethoscopes to listen to their hearts, and various other medical tools to check reflexes and hearing. The kids loved it! This week, we will be learning about the muscular system of our body and about our eyes. Mrs. Peck will be visiting us one more time on Tuesday to teach us about the eye using real cow eyes! I have pictures and will post them on our shutterfly site as soon as I am able.

In Math this week, we are learning about number grid patterns; counting, adding, and subtracting on the number line; and practicing telling time to the half hour.

In Reader's Workshop this week, we have begun exploring the patterns in books. Many of the just right books we read have patterns that we can use as a tool for improving accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. We noticed today that patterns are also often found in poetry. We will spend the next several weeks reading and enjoying poetry. We also chose a poem for our class to recite at our upcoming Poetry in the Park! I read five different poems to the children, they voted on their favorite, and the winner was "The Creature in the Classroom" by Jack Prelutsky. The poem came home today along with a note. Please practice at home every day with your child!

This week our word work will focus again on words with short u and the phonograms _ug, _um, up, and _ump. We're also working on beginning blends so please practice these with your child at home. Remember that our spelling tests are application focused. If you can spell bug, you can spell shrug!

In Writer's Workshop, we chose a piece from our personal narrative (small moment) unit for publishing. We began working with our partners as "editors" today to help us fix up our pieces. We will be celebrating on Friday at 12:15. Please join us if you can. Next week, we will begin writing pattern books and poetry.