Starfish Gazette- September 25, 2014

Celebrating Fall with Apple Explorations!

Happy First Week of Fall!

It has been a wonderful week in the Starfish Classroom.  We have been working hard to continue establishing our daily routines and build a starfish community.  We just finished our Brown Bag Share.  Thank you for your support at home helping to prepare your first grader with their share items.  The children loved having the spotlight to shine and the class enjoyed making connections with each other.  Some commonalities included having gardens at home, playing similar sports, having common pets, and love for our families.  

We have been celebrating our first week of Fall in the classroom.  We have incorporated apples into our science experiments this week.  We tried out our sense of taste this week as we became scientists of 3 different types of apples: Pink Lady, Red Delicious, and Granny Smith.  We then graphed our favorite apple on our classroom Interactive Board.  For our first experiment, we cut open each apple in half.  We learned the science behind why apples and other fruits such as pears turn the color brown after being cut open.  We used a lemon on one half of each apple and left the remaining half untouched.  The observations are continuing to happen throughout week.  We learned why lemons can stop the reaction of the apple turning brown.  Our Scholastic News article this week tied in nicely with our experiments.  We learned some interesting facts about apples.  Did you know that apple seeds are called pips?  Did you know that there are 7,500 different kinds of apples?  Ask your first grader if they can remember any other interesting facts we learned from our studies of apples.

If you would like to try this experiment at home, you could also try lime juice, pineapple juice, or cranberry juice to see what happens! 

What are Starfish Partnerships?

We give our first graders many opportunities to work in collaborative groups everyday!  One of our goals for student partnerships is to grow 'talk' about a learning topic.  This week your child received their first starfish learning partner.  The children will meet with their starfish learning partner during reader's workshop and writer's workshop.   Starfish partnerships are frequently changing which will allow your child to work collaboratively with each chid in his or her classroom.  Mrs. Eichholz and I have been modeling partnership conversations in front of the class this week to teach our class some of the key elements of collaborative conversations: role taking, active listening, and sharing.

It was wonderful to watch the Starfish work together with their partnership during reader's workshop.  We have been working to give compliments to our partner, help friends with tricky words, growing conversations about characters in our books, and trying different ways to buddy read a story.  

On Wednesday, we named our Starfish Partnerships.  This has given the children ownership of their partnership.  Their names are too cute! 

Bailey 'Cooper' and Cooper- Team Cooper! :)

Lila and Lauren- Team L

Eli, Annita, and Niamh- Team Super Readers

Victoria and Hayden- Team Girls

Tommy and Austin- Team Boys

Brock and Jackson- Team D.S. (created based on their last names) 

Patrick and Racquel- Team R (both have the letter R in their names!) :)

Update from PTO: The School Store

The SMS PTO is running a school store for the students.  The store will be open on most Fridays from 9:30-10:30 and features items such as pencils, erasers, sharpeners, and rulers.   


Who is Sully and Spotty?  
Sully and Spotty are our favorite classroom mascots!  Your child will have a chance to bring Sully and Spotty home for a night. Later in the year we will begin a traveling notebook of Sully and Spotty and your child will bring the stuffed animal home for longer lengths of time!  

Where's All The Stuff? 

 During our days at school, many of our learning activities are done with hands-on games and activities.  Most of our written work and output is kept in ongoing folders, notebooks, and journals.  Student work that has been sent home typically comes from morning work or during a learning center.  You will have opportunities throughout the year to view your child's work during  your child's conferences and learning celebrations.  Mrs. Eichholz and I save your child's artwork until we have a few projects to send home.  We will send the artwork and larger projects home in brown paper bags.  (This is similar to many Kindergarten classrooms).  We ask that you please send the brown grocery bag back to the classroom to be used again! A bag of artwork will be coming home soon!

Launching our Word Study Lessons: Words Their Way

Our School Reading Specialist, Mrs. Fitzgerald has been coming in this week to help launch Words Their Way.  We learned the routines of cutting our cards, learned the basic sort, and a picture sort.

  

Here are some pictures from our week

 

We like to observe our science experiments when we come into the classroom in the morning!

 

It's fun to use Legos during math time!

Check our our teamwork! We finished our 1st puzzle!

We are learning to book shop by ourselves!

MARK YOUR CALENDARS

The First Grade Team has decided to change our location of our Fall Corn Maze Field Trip.  We will be visiting Scamman Farm in Stratham on October 17th.  Any family members are welcome to join us at the corn maze.  We are not sure on the exact time of the field trip but we are sure it will take place in the morning.  A permission slip and additional information will be coming home in your child's blue folder in the next week! 

Starfish Volunteers

Thank you for all your interest in volunteering in our classroom.  I am working on a volunteer schedule for the month of October.  This will be available to you early next week.

Questions to Promote School Conversations:

1. How do you play Last Starfish Standing?  Have you won the game yet?

2. What is your favorite snack to eat at school?

3. What instrument did you play in music class?

4. How do you play mystery trash?

5. Can you tell me about your word sort this week with the letters y, z, and v?

6. Can you tell me about Jigsaw Jones?  What mystery is Jigsaw trying to solve?

7. Who do you like to sit next to at lunch?

8. What did you learn about apples this week? Can you remember an interesting fact?

9.  Can you tell me about the formal greeting?  Hello Mr. _________ Hello Miss __________

10. What Ladybug story did you listen to in library class this week?

Have a wonderful weekend! 

Warm Wishes,

Megan