Coppal House Farm- First Grade Field Trip on October 9th

 Upcoming Field Trip to Coppal House Farm

The first grade will be taking our first field trip to Coppal House Farm in Lee, NH on Wednesday October 9, 2013 from 8:45-11:30 A.M.

(Ms. Rochford's Class, Mrs. Mastin's class, and Mrs. Fennessey's Class)

Here is the Field Trip Website (The 2013 corn maze is a Salamander!)  http://www.nhcornmaze.com

Helpful App to Practice Spelling Words

Hi Families,

 

I wanted to share an app that might help your child with their weekly spelling words.

 

Build at Word by @Reks

This is an app that can be purchased on iTunes.  (This is one of my favorite apps for spelling practice!)  You can enter each week's spelling list and use the professional narration or your child can narrate their own list. 

Brown Bag Shares

Andrew and Hayden shared their brown bag shares today. 

Andrew brought in a spy camera to share with his classmates his love for spy equipment.  The kids were very interested in the features of the camera.  Andrew also shared some sports cards with the class. He brought these in to show that he loves sports. His favorite sport to watch is football.

Hayden brought in his vest from Yellowstone National Park.  He shared with the class that he visits this National Park each year.  His grandparents live near Yellowstone.  He also shared that his parents named him Hayden after Hayden Valley at Yellowstone.  Hayden also shared a flag from Switzerland.  Hayden was living in Switzerland with his family before moving to Stratham.

Way to go boys!

Caelum and Eleanor shared their brown bag shares on Friday.  These two starfish have a lot in common. One being that they have live goats and chickens to care for at their houses. Eleanor shared her Hungry Caterpillar stuffed animal to represent that she loves reading Eric Carle books.  She told the class that she loves reading them because she can read the words and enjoys looking at the pictures.  Eleanor also shared pictures of her goats.  The kids had lots of questions about Eleanor's responsibly to care for these animals.

Caelum also brought in pictures of his animals.  He brought in a goat collar, similar to a dog harness to represent that he loves taking care of his animals before and after school.  Caelum also brought in his bike helmet.  It had lots of bumps and scratches on the helmet.  We all agreed that his helmet gets a lot of use when Caelum is not at school!

Thanks for sharing!! :)

 

Lhana shared her brown bag on Thursday last week.  She brought in a tap shoe to represent that she loves to dance and goes to dance classes.  She explained to her classmates how the tap shoe works.  There were some other starfish who had the same connection with her.  Lhana also brought in her Dorthy doll from Wizard of Oz.  She shared that Wizard of Oz is one of her favorite movies to watch.  In addition, Lhana brought in a special charm bracelet.  Each charm represented something special about her! :)

 

 

Meet Lips the Fish and Chunky the Monkey

Reading Strategies to Solve Challenging  Words:

This is Lips the Fish.  He is our stuffed animal friend that helps us to figure out tricky words while we are reading. I am teaching the starfish to look at the first letter of the unknown word and think of the sound that letter makes. Then I am teaching the kids to reread the sentence saying the sound of the first letter, and thinking of what a word might be.

 

Chunky the monkey is our second stuffed animal friend that is helping our class to solve tricky words in our classroom.  Chunky helps us to find chunks or parts of words we know.  For instance look for a word family (at, an) or a part of a word (th, br) to help figure out the word.

 

Can you help?

With the Everyday Math program, students in first grade will be working with coins with many activities and games throughout the year. I encourage children to learn about money using authentic money coins.  Each child needs 20 pennies, 5 nickels, 10 dimes, and 4 quarters to add to their math tool kit.  It would be very helpful if you could send you child with these coins by next Monday 9/30 in a plastic bag with their name labeled on it.  


We also send home a collection of art projects at once.  We use brown grocery bags that we recycle throughout the year to send home art projects. Please send in one brown bag with your child (if you have a collection of brown bags at home and would like to donate them to our classroom- we would greatly appreciate it)



Have a great week!
Megan Rochford

Starfish Gazette- September 22, 2013

Dear Starfish Families,

Happy Fall!


Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to visit the Starfish classroom on Thursday night.  It was very nice to meet many of you!  The Starfish had fun celebrating International Dot Day at SMS on Friday.  It was exciting for the first graders to have a whole school morning meeting with all the children at SMS.  

In your child's blue folder this week...

 I will be sending home a paper for you to fill out with your child.  This paper is titled, When my Head is Empty.  Please sit down with your child and write special activities, places, and events that your child has experienced. (More details the better!) We will put this paper in your child's writing folder.  This will be a tool that we can reference when your child needs support brainstorming new writing ideas.  I appreciate your help in building this resource! 

Some examples of ideas:
- Trip to Disney World 
-Going to see Annie at Prescott Park
-Going to Water Country
-Surf camp
-Playing on the purple soccer team
-My birthday party at Air Zone
-Trip to Boston Aquarium 
-Sleepovers

This week we will learn:

• about temperature and thermometers.  We will add a 'meteorologist' to our morning meeting jobs to record the temperature each day!
• reviewing number facts to 5 using ten frames and math games
• continue playing games to learn about one more one less on the hundred's grid and number lines
• learning how to shop for "just right" books from our classroom library during reader's workshop
•  Read Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? for shared reading. We will create a class book called, Starfish, Starfish What Do You See?
• how to set goals as readers during reader's workshop
• reading short "a" words.  The "an", "ap", and "ab" families will be our specific focus in phonics.
• Learn how to access IXL on our class set of IPAD Minis.  
• Learn how to Play 4 Corners: This is a movement game 
• Learn how to observe as scientists.  We will pick a class tree outside our school.  We will observe our classroom tree throughout the seasons in our scientist notebooks.
• Learn about our R.A.H folder.  What will learn about the Reading at Home Program (R.A.H)

Here are some helpful questions you can ask your starfish as a home-school connection:

1. What was your classroom job last week?  What is your job this week?
2. What is your poem and song journal?
3. Can you describe the IPAD app you used on DOT Day?  The App that allowed your DOT to transform into a 3-D dot.
4. Who sits at your table in your classroom?  Can you tell me something about them?
5. Who is Ms. Keefe?  (She's our Education 500 student from UNH- She comes into our classroom on Fridays to observe our classroom and learn to become a teacher)
6. What is 'A Social Detective'?
7. Can you tell me anything about the character Candance Brinkwater in your chapter book that you are reading in your classroom?

Important Dates:

1. October 4 First Grade Fall Field Day
2. October 9 Field Trip to Coppal House Farm

*More information coming about both of these exciting events soon!

Check out the SMS DOT

The Starfish Celebrate Dot Day

Dot Week

This week the Starfish are celebrating Dot Week in celebration of International Dot Day on September 15th. International Dot Day was created with the publication of the children's book, The Dot written by Peter Reynolds. Schools across the world celebrate Dot Day to Celebrate the importance of bravery, individuality, creativity, and "leaving a mark" on the world.

Today we did a fun community building activity surrounding The Dot. Each child created their Dot using oil pastels and water colors. The only rule I had was the dot had to be covered with color and no white left on their paper.

After creating their colorful design on their dot, we cut the dots in half. The kids had to decide which half of the dot they wanted to keep and which half to trade. I turned on dance music and when the music stopped they had to trade half of their dot with a classmate. After a few rounds of trading and our dancing feet getting tired, this is how our dots turned out. Each one unique and special. Enjoy the pictures!

Brown Bag Share- Alex and Thoren

Alex and Thoren shared their Brown Bag items with our class

We learned that Thoren loves to read books at home. The book that he shared was written in German. Thoren shared that he speaks German at home with his family. The kids were asking him to speak German phrases. It was so neat to learn that Thoren speaks another language!

Alex shared her ribbon that she received from the Stratham Hill Fair Pageant. She was very proud of her award. She even sang us the song that she performed at the fair!

Way to go Alex and Thoren!

Brown Bag Share- Aidan,Maya, and Charles

On Tuesday Aidan, Maya, and Charles shared their brown bag share.

We found out that Aidan likes to build with legos and has a large collection of legos at home. We also learned that he has an sister and a younger brother.

We learned that Maya has a love for horses and enjoys reading magazines at home. She shared a special necklace and told us about her collection at home.

Charles has a love for skiing. He brought in his ski helmet and goggles. Charles also shared his drum sticks and shared with us the music lessons that he takes each week.

It was so much fun to learn more about each of you!

Brown bag share-Hailey

Hailey was our 1st starfish to share her 5 brown bag items. She brought in:
1. Irish step dance shoe to represent her as a dancer
2. Soccer cleat to represent her playing soccer on the purple team
3. Cat toy to share she has 2 cats at home (twinkle and star)
4. A password notebook to represent that she loves writing
5. Headband to share with us her love for headbands. She's got her own collection!

Great job Hailey!!

Starfish reading spots