updates

June 17

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 21:26:52 +0100

We had a GREAT last few days of school. We enjoyed wonderful assemblies, had a yummy, wet and buggy class party, and most of us finished our end of year math packets and writing assignments.

Please explore the math websites at the back of the summer math packet sent home last week. They'll be fun on rainy days this summer.

Thanks to Ms. Harig, Ms. Bodie, and the other parents who planned and helped at our class party Wednesday afternoon. We really filled that hour with LOTS of fun, food and activities.

Also, thank you for the thoughtful gifts. My visits to Starbucks, Target, Barnes and Noble will be much more enjoyable this summer thanks to your generosity.

Enjoy your vacations! Anne Bordine

What a Year!

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 20:14:12 +0100

Following Whacky Wednesday, Pajama Friday and Favorite Character Days during Spirit Week, we are winding down. We have been briefly introduced to contractions, homonyms and abbreviations. We're finishing up any writing projects and sharing these with the class. Most of us can read and write time on the hour and half hour now. Many of us can read time to the five minute and minute too! Bravo! We are also practicing several calendar skills, e.g., "What will the day be two weeks from now?"

The students had a LOT of fun serving our gracious classroom volunteers some tea, sandwiches and cookies on Wednesday morning. We enjoyed reading aloud some of our creative poetry and written stories that these volunteers helped with as well.

The last week of school is a busy one but also a very fun one. We have several assemblies, a class party, some folder work to complete and some vegetable soup to have with ingredients from our courtyard garden! Each student in the first grade will have a teeny tiny cup of soup with our carrots, beans, onions, parsley, cabbage and cherry tomatoes I'll have to cheat with these...there wasn't enough sun the last few weeks for our tomato plant :(

WELCOME NEW STUDENT, ADRIAN!

Sun, 19 May 2013 20:45:17 +0100

Adrian comes to us from Georgia. It is fun comparing our recesses to his.

We welcome Tippy Toad to our classroom terrarium!

Sun, 19 May 2013 20:43:44 +0100

Apparently we GREW a toad in our garden!!! We are using our imaginations and we are writing creative stories as to how Tippy Toad was found sitting next to the "BEWARE OF ATTACK TOAD" statute in our garden. It is a cement floor surrounded by brick walls. How did he get in?!

We will also be writing personal narratives using a checklist/rubric that we develop for both sloppy and final copies. I hope to see a lot of new vocabulary included in these writing tasks as that is what we will be focusing on in our whole and guided reading groups.

I wonder how many different words mean the same thing as 'said.' We will be making a list while listening to stories this week. We will also be determining the main idea of stories by identifying IMPORTANT details.

Equal parts of a whole

Sun, 19 May 2013 20:37:53 +0100

We are using the word, 'partitions', in our parts of a whole unit. We are learning to fold various shapes to see if we can create equal parts. The fold is the partition. Are all shapes able to be partitioned in halves (two EQUAL parts) and quarters (four EQUAL parts)?

Geometry coming up!

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 19:21:34 +0100

What is an 'attribute' of a shape? Can you describe a shape using its attributes? What shapes can be put together to make another shape? These are just some of the questions we'll be solving during our Geometry unit beginning April 29.

Math example

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 21:46:40 +0100

LOTS of us struggled with a problem on one of our assessments.

8 = _____ - 4

We will continue to work on understanding that what is on one side of the equal sign must be the same as what is on the other and we may need to use opposite operations to determine a missing number.

We are also adding 2 digits numbers with or without regrouping. We build the numbers using base ten blocks (tens sticks and ones cubes) and then combine each place to arrive at our sum. Students must be able to show this procedure using the blocks, explaining as they go and/or drawing the ten sticks/ones cubes with given numbers.
Sometimes the problems will be presented horizontally..sometimes vertically,e.g.,

47 + 32 = OR 47
+32

China Report addendum

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 15:52:56 +0100

As we read through our report, we are finding some errors! This is GOOD! Writing is a process and rarely is a masterpiece. We have found some run-on sentences and some missing apostrophes. We are in the process of writing an opinion about the project. Then we will meet with partners to recall at least three facts they learned about China. I hope the black and white copies of the report will be sent home Monday, March 18.

MARCH 2013

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 19:39:21 +0100

Be sure to see my comments under the Research tab.

Yes, 'ginormous' IS a word. Thank you Elizabeth.

In reading, we will use graphic organizers to identify story elements. We will describe characters motivations/traits and compare their experiences with those of other characters.
In math, we will work on fluency of our addition and subtraction facts to 20. We will continue to demonstrate our understanding of the equal sign, e.g, ___ = 4 + 5 vs. 4 + 5 = ___; We will find unknowns within equations and we will create our own word problems with unknowns in varying positions, ___ = 17 - 9 or 8 = 17 - ___, etc. We will add and subtract 1 and 2 digit numbers using a variety of strategies, e.g, based on place value, number charts, number lines, base ten blocks, drawings, etc.
RECYCLING UNIT coming up! OPINION writing and the use of conjunctions and compound sentences also beginning.

End of Marking Period 2 and the beginning of MP3

Sun, 13 Jan 2013 22:21:53 +0100

We are writing a lot! Thanks to the parent volunteers coming in to help with this. Writing is THE most difficult task at this age and, for that matter, at ANY age. It is motoric, developmental, AND hard! I am very proud of all of the students for their focus and concentration. One on one help is valuable. We want to include our new words we're learning (adjectives other than 'good'; 'nice'. We prefer words like 'exciting', 'special', and 'beautiful'. Have we introduced our readers to our idea with a great topic sentence? This often includes who, what and when. Our readers also need closure. Do we have a concluding sentence? SOOOO many sloppy copies are needed. Even Mrs. Bordine needs our help to edit her written work.

Our class projects involve comparing past and present AND...coming soon....the comparison of the USA to another country...to be announced soon.

By the way...Mr. and Mrs. Bordine have a new family member. His name is Guinness. He is a rescue pup from the Humane Society. He is somewhat scary looking for some but is a love muffin for us. We are in the process of signing up for training classes. Plans for the other dog we wanted fell through for SO many reasons and breaks my heart. But Guinness has brought us a feeling of renewal and we're blessed he is with us.