Starfish Gazette- May 25, 2018

Hello Starfish Families,


What an exciting week we have had in the Starfish classroom! We can start to feel the end of the year is near with the warm temperatures and the busy schedule ahead.  However, if you were to walk into the Starfish classroom , you would be surprised to see how focused and invested the kids have been with their learning.  I am trying to hold onto our routine and consistency for as long as possible, and leave lots of fun and celebrations for the last few days of school.


Important Dates:
Starfish of the Week
1. Grace- Week of May 29th
2. Cole C. -Week of June 4th
3. Gavin- Week of June 11th


1. Memorial Day- NO SCHOOL Monday, May 28th

2. Friday, June 1st-Wiggin Memorial Library visits our students to kick off their summer reading program. You can bring your child to the town library to sign them up.

3. 1-2-3 Fun Run- Friday, June 1st

Join the SMS community for a fun family event for all!  Marked, marshalled 1-mile cross-country loop through the fields and trails of SMS and Stratham Hill Park.  Choose to go around 1, 2 or 3 times for this 1mile-2-mile-3mile  Fun Run!  Afterwards, relax and mingle on the field and playground and enjoy music and food.   Click here to register and here to volunteer.   Contact Pamela with questions

4. Grand Luncheon- Monday, June 4th

5. June 6th-Retirement Reception (After school in the library)

6. First Grade Mall- June 7th. Details were sent home last Friday. We would love donations to supply our mall stores. Some items will be made by the students as well. This is an all student led event!

7. Field Day- Friday, June 8th Volunteers will be needed. Bring water bottles, sneakers, towel, and an extra change of clothes

8. Monday, June 11th- The Ultimate Treasure Hunt will take place for first grade in the afternoon. Please have your child wear sneakers this day and bring a water bottle. We won't need volunteers. 

 
9. On Tuesday, June 12th (am only) END OF YEAR CELEBRATION AT STRATHAM HILL PARK. All first grade students will hike to Stratham Hill Park to celebrate a great year together. We would love for you to meet us there anytime from 9:15-11:00. Permission slips were sent home. Please send in $2.50 for the Kona ice truck, if you haven't done so already.

10. Thursday, June 14th...Community Service Day in First Grade-The first grade has planned three community service centers to tie nicely into our musical, Friendly Neighborhood Helpers. We are going to make thank you cards for people in our community, book marks for our local town library, and make special treats for the animals at S.P.C.A. 

11. June 15th...Parent/Community Appreciation. We would love you to join us in the cafeteria at 8:45 to appreciate you, our volunteers!

12. Last day of School Celebration- Monday, June 18th-We will have an end of the year slideshow and have some breakfast to celebrate our wonderful year together. All families are invited to join us at 8:45. Please look for a sign up genius from Mrs. Girard that came out this week if you would like to contribute a breakfast treat!

Here's a sneak peek into our learning this week
- Worked on our three digit numeral writing with our number scrolls
- Compared fractions (halves, thirds, and fourths)
- Did some review of math concepts from earlier in the year (coins, balanced equations, and greater than, and less than)
- Word study with long vowel words
- Looked for ed endings in our books during reader's workshop
- Created a kindness initiative for the last few weeks of school
-wrote more series books during writer's workshop
-Began learning about sound during science
-Learned our new school song during music class
- Acted out different scenarios and emotions (learning more about the zones of regulation) during whole class OT


Social Detectives
This week we worked conversation and social skills.  We interviewed each other with questions and based on the information that we gathered, we had to brainstorm what we might buy for a birthday present.

The kids did a fabulous job using their skills to determine the best gift for their friend.

Compare and Contrast
During reader's workshop, we have had lots of discussions comparing and contrasting characters and their traits.  We have even compared characters from text to text.  We have been using Venn Diagrams as a visual tool to sort our ideas.  This week we made Venn Diagram posters to promote conversations between us.  The kids were so proud of their posters!

We had a special visitor on Friday.  Ava's Great Grandmother Gigi came in to join us for Reader's Workshop!  She's 91 and the kids loved having her as our Grand buddy for the day!

Proud to be American- Happy Memorial Day!

A few fun Friday Pictures

Thank you to our door holder this week!

on our way to recess

 A little love for Mrs. Saxton

 Go Fish!

Have a wonderful long weekend with your family

Starfish Gazette- May 18, 2018

Hi Everyone!

I hope all the Starfish mothers had a wonderful Mother's Day.  Thank you so much for sharing your children with me everyday.  They were so excited to create beautiful and thoughtful Maps of My Mom for you. 

Here is the long list of school wide events, as well as dates for our individual class. In my previous post, I put out dates but this provides you an overview of the event on that date. I thought this would be the best way to get them to you so you can prepare for the end of the year and get your calendars marked! As each event gets closer I will post about it in more detail, so make sure to check out our blog often during these last few weeks of school! I can't believe it's this time already.

Wed. May 23rd- Early Release Day: students will be dismissed at 12:50 pm.

 Fri. June 1st- PTO 1-2-3 Fun Run: Teachers, parents, and students are welcome to run or walk 1,2, or 3 miles around SMS and Stratham Hill Park at 5:00 pm. Following the run, there will be a BBQ, Dunk Tank, Snow Cones, and a Dance Party! 

Monday, June 4th- Grand Luncheon: Grandparents and friends of SMS students are invited to join us for our annual Grand Luncheon. First Grade Lunch on this day is scheduled from 11:40-12:15

June 7th: First Grade Mall: This is fun and memorable first grade tradition! This is a great morning for your child to experience working, shopping, counting money, and making change.  Your child must bring in one dollar in change (pennies, nickels, and dimes) to go shopping at the various stores.  Please bring in your child's mall money by June 5th! In order for our mall to be a success, we need the help of families for donations.  Please make sure to check the flyer that came home this week for suggested donation items.  We are looking forward to this fun event! 



Friday, June 8th- Field Day: It's everyone's favorite day of the year! Students need to wear sneakers and may want to bring a change of clothes. The water games can leave them awfully wet!

Thursday, June 14th- Community Service Day: The first grade has planned three community service centers to tie nicely into our musical, Friendly Neighborhood Helpers. We are going to make thank you cards for people in our community, book marks for our local town library, and make special treats for the animals at S.P.C.A. We will be looking for a few volunteers for our centers. I will send out an email as the date gets closer if you are interested in joining in on the fun!

Mon, June 18th- End of school year photo slideshow and breakfast- all families are invited to join in the last day of school Starfish celebration.  Our celebration will begin at 8:45 in our classroom.  We will have a photo slideshow to watch all the memories of our days in the Starfish classroom.  Please be on the look out for a sign up genius from Mrs. Girard in the next week if you would like to contribute a breakfast treat! 

Here's some pictures to give you a sneak peak into our days at school

What beautiful weather we had for our Wellness Walk this week! In honor of Physical Fitness and Sports Month, the Wellness Committee planned this wonderful event to help promote walking as a fitness activity. It was a great afternoon to get our bodies moving! We enjoyed walking with our buddies as well as several parents and siblings! Thanks to all who were able to join us :)


Learning About our Zones of Regulation:

With the help of Mrs. McIntosh, an OT at SMS, we have been learning about the four zones of regulation. Our emotions are categorized into four colors. We have been learning which emotions allow us to be most ready to learn and be focused at school. There are also emotions such as tired, sick, silly, nervous, worried, angry, etc. that make learning more challenging. Over the next few weeks one of our goals is to learn strategies to move us into green zone. The zone best fit for learning and success!





Learning about attributes of 2D and 3D shapes and fractions:


Here are some of the activities we have done:

- Played I Have Who Has with fractions and shapes
- Explored 3D wooden blocks in our classroom
- Used Venn Diagrams to compare and contrast 2D and 3D shapes
- Played Roll and Cover- a math game identifying everyday 3D objects
- Discussed math vocabulary of shapes, vertices, faces, edges of shapes



Pictures from Friendly Neighborhood Helpers:

 The Friendly Neighborhood Helpers

 Quick Picture with Mr. Fosher before getting on stage

 Here are the Crossing Guards

 Who fights the fires and puts them out?... we do! we do!

 We are all dentists.. we love every tooth!

 The Storytellers

 Clean up on aisle 9!

 The Mail Carriers!

 We are chefs, chefs, chefs! oOo La La!

 The Plumbers!

 The Garbage Truck Fans! We Love the Garbage Truck!

 The Librarians, Recycle, and Veterinarians! 

Reading with our Buddies in the garden

Learning to become series fiction writers

We are so excited to begin our last unit of study for writer's workshop.  The kids have been introduced to many series fictional characters during reader's workshop.  The Starfish are so excited that it is now their turn to imagine and dream of a fictional main character to write across many books.  Early this week we decorated our writing folders with with our main character.  We wrote character traits around our drawings.  On the back side of our folders, we did simple sketches of ideas for adventures our characters will go.  In each book that we write, we will focus on story structure, detail, and dialogue between characters! 

It's finally Spring Weather! 

Bike/Scooter to School Day

Questions to Promote Home-School Connection:

1. Can you tell me about the 4 zones?  What does the blue, green, yellow, and red zone mean?

2. Can you name a 3D Shape?  Can you help me find 3D shapes around the house?

3. What's the name of your series character that you are writing about? Can you tell me about him/her?

4. What do you like to do at recess? Who do you usually play with?

5. Can you tell me about the book, Snowball?

6. Who is Ready Freddy?  Can you tell me about the chapter book your reading in your class?

7. Tell me tell me a magic e word that you worked on this week?

8. What have you been working on in the Makerspace?  Who did you work with to make the cell phone holder?

I hope you had a wonderful weekend! 

Megan Murphy