The Starfish Give Thanks

Celebrating November Birthdays

Happy 7th Birthday Racquel, Brock, and Cooper.  We had so much fun celebrating with you!

Meet our new starfish friend

Alp is our newest member of our class community. We are excited to add a new 1st grader to our starfish class!

Thanksgiving Shared Snack

Important Reminder!!!

 

On Tuesday, November 25^th, our class will be having a “shared snack” like the Pilgrims and Native Americans.  I am asking each child to bring in “15” healthy items to share.  Examples: carrots sticks, celery sticks, raisins, grapes, pretzels, crackers.  We look forward to turning our classroom into “The First Thanksgiving”.

Mark your Calendars: Important Dates for November and December

UPCOMING EVENTS - Mark Your Calendars

1. PTO Spaghetti Dinner and Bingo Night is tomorrow night 11/14 at 6:00 pm.

2. Field Trip to Portsmouth Music Hall is Wednesday, November 19th to see the play Skippyjon Jones

3. Class Thanksgiving Snack-11/25 (Information will be coming home next week about this)

4. Thanksgiving break - 11/26 - 11/30

5. Scholastic Book Fair will be open in our library December 2nd - 5th from 8:30 to 5:00 and on Saturday, December 6th from 8 to 11. Our class preview shopping date and time is 12/2 at 8:35.  You are welcome to join us if you would like to help your child shop for books. 

6. PUBLISHING PARTY (Pigeon Party) to celebrate our Mo Willems inspired stories is on Tuesday, December 9 from 8:00 to 8:25.  (More details coming soon.)

7. EARLY RELEASE on Wednesday, December 17th at 12:50.

8. Holiday Hike (a first grade tradition inspired by the book "The Night Tree.") is on Friday, December 19th at 11:00 or in case of inclement weather Monday, December 22nd at 11:00.  This hiked is based on the story, "Night Tree."  All families are welcome to attend.  More information will be sent home in December.

Looking for Binoculars: 

We are looking for a few pairs of binoculars.  Starting Monday, we will start a unit on the five senses.  As part of our unit, the kids will learn to use sight to look at close details of objects.  If you have a pair that you would be willing to let us borrow, we would appreciate it! 

The starfish are excited about Mo Willems

I hope you had a great long weekend and Veteran's Day!

Last week we began reading Mo Willems' books and starting learning about Mo Willems' unique and creative writing craft. We have been adding to a class anchor chart as we read his books together. During our next unit of study for writers workshop, we are learning how to write stories that use his humor, style, and writing features. 

Today we learned how to draw Mo Willems' pigeon and brainstormed story ideas for our own stories. Some ideas include: don't let the pigeon become a ninja, don't let the pigeon meet Tom Brady, don't let the pigeon eat a cupcake, don't let the pigeon go to the makeup store, don't let the pigeon go to recess. We are so excited to start our stories tomorrow!

To extend our unit at home:

Read Mo Willems stories at home 

Ask your child to show you how to draw the pigeon

Visit Mo Willems website 

Download Mo Willems app 

Here are some pictures of our brainstorm sheet:

Writing Celebration

This afternoon the starfish celebrated the end of our unit on personal narratives. The kids loved sharing their stories with their classmates! We are excited to start our new unit of writing. We will be learning Mo Willems' craft moves in his hilarious children's books. We can't wait to create our own pigeon stories!