BEACH DAY!

We had the best time and the best weather at beach day this year!  Here are some snaps from the festivities!

We planted flowers in our playground's raised beds!

Coastal Carol visited with live horseshoe crabs this week!  We learned so many amazing facts about these prehistoric creatures. Ask your kiddo to share some with you!

We had another first grade poetry meeting where we shared some poems that we really enjoy reading out loud.

Last week we wrote lots of poetry!  At the end of each writers workshop, we've been coming together to share poems we've written or are working on.  The poems are AMAZING!

Our POETREE bloomed last week!  Students look out the window and write a few poetic words or lines to add to the tree.  When all the leaves are read together, it becomes one big poem!

Students created masks for their parts in our reader's theatre plays.  Now it's on to designing sets and practicing on our 'stage'!

We also created spelling game boards as a way to practice the first grade trick words we've been learning this year!

In science we continue to study the ocean.  Last week we learned about crabs, seastars, coral, rainbow fish, and manatees!  Once we learn the size, diet, and habitat of a creature we then use that information to add it to our ocean posters.

We had a great first grade writing celebration!

On Tuesday, we kicked off our poetry writing unit with Mrs. Lobel!

In science we've started our study of the ocean!

In readers workshop we spent the week practicing our fluency and expression as we got familiar with our new reader's theatre plays!

We did a fun clay mapping activity that focused on the text Me On The Map by Joan Sweeney!

We held a bedroom map gallery walk in our classroom!  Students got to study each others' map creations and write comments about what they noticed.

Some musicians from 317 Main taught us about string instruments!

We experimented some more with Blubots and KIBO.

We celebrated the last day at Rowe for one of our classmates with a special treat (as a result of LOTS of persuasive letters on the topic)!

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful women raising these amazing people!

As part of our mapping unit, we visited Garmin to get a closer look at Eartha!  Students learned more about the importance of scale and got to ask a cartographer lots of mapping questions!

Students brought home the directions for their mapping homework project this week!  Please remind your child to bring his/her completed bedroom map back to school by Wednesday, May 9.  We will use them for a mapping activity here in the classroom. 

Students are hard at work publishing their small moments stories in preparation for our writing celebration next Friday!

We wrapped up our study of the water cycle right before vacation by making it rain in our classroom!  Students predicted how many water drops it would take to make our shaving cream clouds 'rain'.  We used pipettes to add blue water drops to the clouds.  Predictions varied and so did the results! 

This week we've switched our attention to the study of maps.  Students have practiced reading different kinds of maps as well as using a compass rose to give and follow directions.  On Monday we will visit Eartha to learn more about scale and get some of our mapping questions answered by the pros!

In writers workshop students continue to use the craft moves of our mentor Donald Crews in their own small moments stories.  Next week we start our publishing process!