Starfish News- September 27, 2016

A Beautiful Day to Celebrate Our Community

We had such an amazing time at the Stratham 300th Anniversary Parade! It was great to see so many Starfish marching with us and cheering us along the way!

There were also lots of other starfish marching in the parade with other groups such as cub scouts, girl scouts, and the Wiggin Memorial Library.  If anyone has any other pictures they took that they would like to add to the post, please send them along to Mrs. Murphy!



To top it all off, our "Flotilla" depicting all the schools that have been in Stratham over the last 300 years won 1st place in the float contest!  Congratulations to the students at SMS! 
                                                       Pete the Cat
We are so excited to see Pete the Cat on stage tomorrow at the Portsmouth Music Hall. We read many of Pete's stories today, checked out the Pete the Cat website, and played Pete the Cat Bingo! 

If you would like to check out Pete the Cat's Website, please click on the link below.  It has many videos, coloring pages, and activities to check out as a family! 
http://www.petethecatbooks.com/

Writing like Mentor Authors: Mo Willems

This Starfish are diving in to Mo Willems' writing craft.  They are completely engaged during independent writing to the point I feel bad to stop them to eat snack!  We have been enjoying sharing our writing in partnerships and as a whole class.  Some of the writing elements that we have focused on include speech bubbles, illustrations to match the character's feelings, writing voice, and flow of story writing to include a beginning, middle, and end.  

This week we are taking a look at Mo Willems' punctuation marks in his stories.  The kids will begin to add question marks, exclamation marks, and ellipses to their writing.  We will soon be exploring Mo Willems' Elephant and Piggie stories and look forward to new writing ideas. 

                        Math Centers in the Starfish Classroom

We played Top-It with Partners.  This game helps the Starfish determine which number is greater.  

 We explored Geo-Boards as one of our math centers

 We added a new level to our Top-it game this afternoon.  We played Ten Frame Top-It to practice recognizing patterns and combinations of numbers. 

Classroom Wishlist

We are looking for a few items for our classroom 

• Sandwich size zip lock bags
• Brown Grocery Bags (we use them to take home our classroom artwork)
• Empty Greek Yogurt Cups (we love these for organize art projects/paint)

Stratham 300th Parade

This year, all of the students at SMS have the exciting opportunity to march in Stratham's 300th Anniversary Parade on Sunday, September 25th. The parade route begins at Stratham Hill Park and ends at the circle by the Post Office. 

Here are the parade details:

• Permission slips for marching in the parade are due back by Thursday, September 22nd
• The parade begins at 2:00 at Stratham Hill Park
• Everyone marching in the parade has to arrive at 1:00 at Stratham Hill Park. Wear your SMS Gear!! Look for Mrs. Murphy when you get to the park.
• We will walk to Stratham Circle. During the parade, students will all take turns holding signs, pulling wagons, etc. 
• Once the parade is complete, the organizers of the parade require that all walkers take buses (provided by the parade group) back to Stratham Hill Park for pick up. Because of traffic, parents are not allowed to drive to the post office to get their children. SMS staff will be at the post office and on the buses to ensure all students get on buses safely and are picked up at Stratham Hill Park

Our students, staff, and volunteers have worked incredibly hard to create our walking flotilla to depict the history of education in Stratham. We have had lots of fun adding our own details to the structures during our time in MakerSpace! We can't wait to show off the final results!

A HUGE thank you to Mr. G and Mrs. Dow for organizing the creation of our flotilla! We can't wait to march in and watch the parade on Sunday!

Tide Pool Time and Celebrating Our September Birthday

We had so much fun making Lobster and Starfish Stained Glass for our classroom windows!  We can't wait until next Wednesday for our next time together! 

We also celebrated our September Birthday today!  Happy Birthday! 

Don't forget that tomorrow is Picture Day! I can't wait to see those smiling starfish in the morning! 

Starfish News- September 13, 2016

First Grade Recess Fun

Tide Pool Time

The kids have been looking forward to Wednesday afternoon Tide Pool Time with the Lobster Class.  Last week we played Top-It.  This is a math card game.  We are looking forward to making Lobster and Starfish Stained Glass tomorrow afternoon!

Readers Build Good Habits

Reader's Workshop is up and running in the Starfish Classroom!  Even within the first few weeks of school, the Starfish are already falling into place with the routines of daily reader's workshop. The kids are working on finding a just right reading spot, setting a reading plan, and building stamina to read independently. Over the next few weeks, the children will continue to develop good habits for before, during, and after reading.  This week we have been working on taking a sneak peek at the cover of books to help make predictions of what might happen in the story.  As we continue, the kids will learn how to check their predictions as they read, revisiting or confirming them.    

The kids have also been paired with a reading partner.  Each day the kids meet with their reading partner to share their books and strategies.  This week we learned how to sit and share a book with a partner.  We also learned a variety of ways to read a story such as choral read or taking turns reading the pages. 

Friends Just Like Us

The first week of school the kids worked together to find similarities with one another.  Check out these new friends!

We met our third grade buddies this week

We were excited to meet our third grade buddies. We invited them into our classroom to show them around our room. Here are few pictures with our new friends. More to come soon!

News Outside the Classroom

I have some exciting news to share with all of you. My husband Ryan and I are expecting our first child this January. I shared the news with the Starfish this afternoon. They were so excited and couldn't wait to guess Baby Murphy's gender!

 After we made our predictions and created our class graph, I showed the starfish an ultrasound picture and picture frame revealing that Baby Murphy is a BOY!

I'm excited to share this exciting time with your children. When the baby arrives, I am planning on taking a few months off but I plan to return to the starfish classroom for the last few months of school!

DOT DAY

Coming this Friday! Have you ever read Peter H. Reynold’s story The Dot? This story tells of a teacher who reaches a reluctant student in a creative way. The teacher pushes the student to “Make her mark,” which all begins with a simple dot on a piece of paper.

To celebrate this story, and to encourage students to "make their mark," educators around the world have declared Friday, Sept. 16th, International Dot Day!
SMS will begin the celebration with a whole school morning meeting. Then, our class will participate in various dot-related activities throughout the day. Please encourage your child to, if possible, wear dots on Friday. I have plenty of dot stickers we can put on when they arrive if they don't have any dots--don't worry!

Important Dates 

Thursday, Sept. 15th: Picture Day
Thursday, Sept. 15th, 6:30pm: PREK-2 Curriculum Night
Friday, Sept. 16th: International Dot Day
Wednesday, Sept. 28th: Early Release (12:50 dismissal) and our

Field trip to the Music Hall