Thursday, January 31, 2008

Today we performed Gobble, Quack, Moon two times for the first graders in school.

The first performance was this morning and the second was in the afternoon. They were great because everybody was participating and everyone knew the songs. Some people were a little bit scared because it was the first time that we had an audience and some people haven’t put on a play before. We think that the first performance was better than the second because more people were trying their best. Joel wasn’t at the second performance because he left school early. We got to wear our costumes for the first time. They have animals on them. Some even had tails! Everyone was supposed to wear black pants.

Lily lost a tooth during Art today! This was her second tooth to fall out!

In Art, we got our heart blots back. This time, we made patterns around the hearts that had been blotted.

We are continuing to finish up our writing. We had to color, check our words and punctuation, and make sure we had a strong ending.

Ms. Stern has to leave now to go to a Smartboard meeting at another school so the children who are still here during dismissal will go to other classes to wait for their buses to be called.

Please remember to bring in your items for the cast party. We can’t wait to see you tomorrow at our performance!

Friday, January 25, 2008

Today was Cassie’s birthday. We had a special snack. Her dad made butterscotch brownies. They tasted delicious.

We had practice in the cafeteria again today to prepare for our performance. Mrs. Fox brought the instruments for the orchestra to practice with. She also brought the rocket ship that we will use in the play. Joel’s mom saw us while we were practicing singing This Pretty Planet. Later on, during music, we pretended to be on the risers and in our places. We practiced the whole play.

This afternoon, we had to look over our memoir writing pieces. No one started new pieces.

Ms. Stern had us reread our work and continue unfinished pieces and add details to the ones that were done. We also had to check to make sure that we didn’t leave words out and check the word wall for old spelling words.
At the end, Jackie and Thomas shared the pieces of writing that they were working on.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

This morning we had rehearsal for our performance, Gobble, Quack, Moon.

We practiced our speaking parts first. Then we learned new songs. This was the first time that we sang This Pretty Planet (by Tom Chapin). We learned the words and the hand movements.

Today we had technology. Mr. Tanenbaum showed us a game called Kid Keys. We played different games and earned certificates but Mr. Tanenbaum told us not to print them. Ms. Stern had to remind some children to use appropriate behavior and quiet voices when they were having book exchange.

In Art, we made heart paintings. We made hearts by folding paper in half and cutting out the heart shape. After that, we painted them using red, purple, and pink paint. Then we folded it in half and smooshed it together. Finally, we opened it up, and stamped it on a white piece of paper before it could dry.

Tomorrow is Mikey’s birthday. It’s also Ms. Stern’s brother’s birthday. We figured out that Ms. Stern’s brother is 23 years older than Mikey.

Friday, January 18

Yesterday we read a book called Martin’s Big Words. We learned that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a reverend that wanted to make the world a better place. He didn’t think it was fair to treat people differently because of the color of their skin. He wanted to change the laws that allowed people to be treated that way. Martin believed that people shouldn’t fight with their fists; rather they should fight with their words instead. Also, when people said, “hate,” he said “love.” Then, we went to a performance put on by Mrs. Yelin’s and Mrs. Kuhn’s classes. The children acted out the story of Rosa Parks. They recited poems, and sang songs about peace and love. The performance ended with a short video clip show the “I Have a Dream” speech.

Mrs. McNamee was here this morning. She gave us our spelling test while Ms. Stern was reading with children one at a time. Many children had to shop for new, more appropriate “just right” books. How exciting!

Today we had music. We were talking about our own performance. We started playing instruments such as the xylophone, glockenspiel, and metalaphone. Mrs. Fox had us practice one of the dances from the Dance Festival last year. It is called the Hand Jive.
Today, we also played Word Wall Sight Word Bingo. We had to choose words from the word wall to write on our boards. Lots of children won.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Recently, during math, we have been practicing number combinations by playing games like Bears in a Cave and Mice Upstairs, Mice Downstairs. Today we started making number trains to practice. We discovered that the total number of combinations is always one more than the number we are using. For example, there are 4 ways to make the number 3 (0 and 3, 1 and 2, 2 and 1, and 3 and 0), 5 ways to make 4, etc. Ms. Stern helped us figure out that one way we can make sure we don’t forget any pairs is to use a staircase pattern. First, we did this on the Smartboard together. Then we went to our seats to work independently using Linker Cubes before we started to record in our packets.

We spent a lot of time during Reader’s Workshop talking about retelling. Retelling is different from reading because the speaking is using his/her own words to tell the story, rather than read the words on the pages. Together, we came up with a list of helpful ideas to keep in mind and discuss when retelling a story:

-Go back and look in the book for information in case you forget.
-Use transition words like first, next, then, after, and finally.
-Use the characters’ names when telling about them.
-Tell about the problem(s) and solution(s).
-Explain where and when the story takes place.
-Think about the 4 W’s: who, what, when, and where.

We also discussed why retelling is important for first graders to learn how to do. Earlier this year, Ms. Stern taught us that the most important part of reading is understanding. Good readers read to learn new things. If someone doesn’t understand or remember what they read, they probably aren’t learning anything new. Retelling is the evidence that a reader understood what they read and also allows our classmates to find out about new and interesting books that are available. Julia and Aidan did a fishbowl for the class to observe and listen to the great conversation that they had and the important questions that they asked one another.

Some children were really good listeners and noticed lots of great things that they were doing together.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Lots of children have been bringing in their holiday coupons over the past two weeks. So far, people have been redeeming their “Treat Yourself” and “Lunch with Ms. Stern” passes. Madison B. had lunch with Ms. Stern today. From now on, lunch with Ms. Stern will be on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Last Friday, we saw a performance by the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company. There were five dancers who came to show us different types of Chinese dances. We noticed that the dancers used their whole bodies to move to the music. One dance involved a man and a long spear.

Towards the end of the performance, some children were chosen to dance with the dancers in front of the audience. Cassie was one of the lucky ones picked to dance! She used a long ribbon to do different moves (such as the rainbow, waterfall, and ocean waves). The dancers changed their outfits many times. The costumes had unique designs but they all matched each other. Many had flowers on them. We also noticed that the dancers often used props like ribbons, fans, flowers, and a spear.

The entire audience learned how to make tiger hands (for boys) and orchids (for girls).
This morning we had a two-hour delay. It felt like everyone was late. Snack time and lunch were close together. The day went by very quickly. We started our morning by doing our journals. Next, we had our morning meeting. Then had our spelling pre-test. Jonathan lost his tooth just as we were about to begin! Our spelling words this week have a long i and a silent e at the end. Before we knew it, it was time for lunch!
It’s been too long since we’ve written in our blog but we promise to keep on working!

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Today was our first day of school in 2008! Since it was our first day back, Ms. Stern told us that she expects everyone to be experts at following the rules. She is going to be looking for evidence of a Charlie Caps class! Now that it is January, Ms. Stern no longer ties children’s shoes. Everyone should know or be learning how to tie shoelaces, know how to zipper coats and jackets, and know our addresses and phone numbers!

This morning Ashley lost her tooth. This is her seventh tooth that has come out! Earlier in the day, she wrote how her tooth was really wiggly and her mom said it would come out in three more days. Ashley’s tooth didn’t want to wait that long!

Madison S., Julia, and Cassie were the first people to use their coupons to have lunch with Ms. Stern. They ate together on the rug and chatted while the rest of the class was in the cafeteria. Everyone had a great time!

We had P.E. today. We used a big parachute. Justin went in the middle while a bunch of balls flew in the air. He was able to catch 8 of them! Lily also got to go in the middle. She caught 6 balls.

Ms. Stern read the book, A Bad Case of Stripes, by David Shannon to us. It is about a girl named Camilla who got stripes all over her body because she didn’t eat lima beans (since other children didn’t like them). Her condition got worse and worse. The cure to turn her back to normal was to eat the lima beans. After she finished reading, Ms. Stern asked the class to turn and talk to a partner to retell the story, including the names of the characters, the setting, and the important parts at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end. We are practicing retelling during partnerships as well (because good readers are good at retelling and remembering what they read).