Thanksgiving Recipes

We've been cooking up a storm this week. Here are the recipes and directions for the various food items made in school.

Pumpkin Pie
1 (5 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin
1 cup milk
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup frozen whipped topping, thawed
1 (9 inch) prepared graham cracker crust

In a medium bowl, combine pudding, pumpkin, milk, and cinnamon. Mix slowly for about 1 minute. Fold whipped topping into the mixture then spoon entire mixture into pie shell. Freeze until firm (about 4 hours). Let stand at room temperature for about 10 minutes before slicing.

Cranberry Sauce
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 package cranberries

Before cooking, rinse cranberries in cold water and remove stems or bruised fruit. Combine water and sugar in medium saucepan. Heat to boiling. Stir in cranberries, returning to boiling. Reduce heat; cook 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Cool to room temperature; cover and refrigerate until serving time.

Cornbread
Follow recipe on box.

Butter
Pour heavy cream in a container with a sealable lid. Shake vigorously until the butter solidifies and liquid is extracted. Drain the liquid. Add salt to taste.

Stone Soup
Beef bones
Stone (washed)
Yellow onion, chopped
Salt and pepper (to taste)
Pot filled with water
Carrots
Barley
Soup vegetable pack (found in the produce department)
1 can of stock (chicken, beef, or vegetable)
2 red potatoes
Butter

Brown the meat in the pot. Add the onions and allow to cook until tender. Add water to the pot. Include the rest of the ingredients. Allow to simmer over medium heat for 3-5 hours. Serve and enjoy!

November 25, 2009: Happy Thanksgiving!

Dear Parents,

Recently, we have been discussing families, holidays, and life long ago as part of our Social Studies curriculum. During this time, we have reflected on the variety of things for which we are thankful. I am very thankful for the unique and special class that I have. I would like to thank you for sharing your children with me each day.

Additionally, I am thankful for all of the help and support that you have shown and the time that you have dedicated to making our first grade community a success. It is a pleasure to work with such phenomenal families.

I wish you and your family a season of health, happiness, and joy. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving (and an extra long weekend)!

Sincerely,
Randi Stern

Monday, November 23, 2009

According to Jacob, “Today was awesome! We got to do a lot of cool stuff.” A few groups of children got to cook in our classroom. Emma, Amanda, and Dylan A. got to make cranberry sauce with Amanda’s mom. They used cranberries, sugar, and water. Two groups made pumpkin pie. Lauria, Victoria, Adam, and Dylan M. worked with Adam’s dad. Jacob, Drew, Dylan, and Eesha also made a pumpkin pie with Jacob’s mom. Most of the ingredients were the same. A few ingredients were different. One of the groups put a smiley face on the top.

Ms. Stern read us a book called Stone Soup. It was about a hungry young man who tricked an old woman. He asked for food but she wouldn’t give him any. He asked her for a stone and told her that he was going to make soup from a stone. Slowly, she gave him onions, carrots, beef bones, salt, pepper, and barley to add to the boiling water. In the end, they ended up with a meal fit for a king! Lots of people thought the woman was greedy. The young man was smart to be able to trick her. On Wednesday, we will be making Stone Soup with our own stone. Mrs. Polansky asked us whether the soup would end up tasting good even if we didn’t include the stone. Some people thought yes and others thought no. We will have to wait and see when we try it on Wednesday!

During Reader’s Workshop we reviewed the latest strategy that we learned: looking for chunks. A chunk is a little word or a part of a word that we already know that helps us figure out another word that we don’t know. We DON’T need to look for chunks when we already know the word. We learned that sometimes a chunk that we find doesn’t help us figure out the word. If that happens, we need to use other strategies like looking at the picture, getting your mouth ready, or thinking about what makes sense.

Ms. Harding read us a book called Sarah Morton’s Day. It was about a girl who lived at Plymouth Plantation. We made a Venn diagram comparing children today with Pilgrim children. Children long ago had chores like milking goats and feeding chickens. They also played marbles and wrote on chalkboards. Children today watch TV, use air conditioning, and have running water. Children long ago and today do chores, play with toys, and fold clothes. After we talked about the book, we worked on turkey booklets at our seats.

In art, we worked on tissue paper collages. The colors were overlapping and some made new colors. Sasha placed yellow and red together to make orange. Sarah used blue and yellow to make green. Red, yellow, and blue are primary colors. Orange, green, and purple are called secondary colors.

Meeting the Author: Alyssa Satin Capucilli

Today we got to meet the author of the Biscuit books. We found out lots of facts about being a writer and also how the Biscuit series was created. Before we met, we read a bunch of Biscuit books. We also looked on her website and even worked on a Biscuit word search together. We knew a little bit about her before we actually met.

Here is the author, Alyssa Satin Capucilli, explaining how she was inspired to write the very first Biscuit book.


We got to see one of the author’s very own writing notebooks. She calls them her “Treasure Keeper” because all of her ideas are treasures, even though they might not all become books one day.



These are the big ideas that she talked to us about:
-Encouraging children to read all kinds of books
-How books are written
-How books are made
-Being INSPIRED
-INSPIRATION
-Using IMAGINATION
-How she writes: recording ideas, starting stories, writes every day, favorite spot is on her blue couch with her dog by her side, on the train, on a plane…, she never erases because the idea that is gone forever and can never be used, crossing out is okay
-Biscuit facts: Biscuit was based on a much bigger dog and was shrunk down by using her imagination; when he gets something, he wants more; Biscuit is a boy; he never gets older or bigger; he is the only character that says “woof, woof;” in Spain Biscuit says “wow, wow;” Biscuit and the little girl are in every book in the series; the little girl doesn’t have a name because she could be anyone
-Authors and illustrators don’t always know each other…sometimes they even live in different parts of the world!
-Previewing a new story called: Biscuit Meets the Class Pet

We were able to leave our Biscuit books behind for Alyssa to autograph. It was so cool getting to meet the real author of one of our favorite series of books!

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Ms. Stern shared the great finds that she got at the book drive yesterday. Some children said that they went and got some books too. Ms. Stern was thrilled with her box filled with priceless jewels! One of the books that she got was a Biscuit book. We read 2 more stories together. The kids do a fantastic job speaking just like Biscuit! Everyone got with their reading partners and read 1 or 2 Biscuit books together. We shared noticings about the series: Biscuit only says “woof,” Biscuit is always a puppy, lots of people like Biscuit, the books can be silly and fun, and Biscuit is playful. Tomorrow we will get to meet the author, Alyssa Capucilli!

This morning we got to go on a word search. Ms. Stern asked us to go on a hunt through our reading book bags to find words with beginning blends from our spelling list this week. We found words like: tree, trunk, try, fluffy, flew, flowers, flying, flashed, flat, friend, front, frog, friends, snow, sneezed, sniffed, and snorted. Later on, during Reader’s Workshop, we learned our third reading strategy: Good readers think about what makes sense when they get to a word they don’t know!

Victoria lost her very first tooth! She raised her hand and announced that it came out…only she couldn’t find it! Luckily, the tooth was found inside her mouth! Anthony D. was the paramedic. He took her to the nurse. Mrs. Spiro called Ms. Stern in the classroom to report what great students she had and how nicely they behaved while in the busy office. The class earned 2 marbles for their great choices!

Yesterday we began our trial of Rosetta Stone. A few classes at WOS are giving it a try for a few days. Yesterday, we had only just begun when the website froze so we tried again today. We learned a bunch of words in Spanish. We listened, spoke, and matched words and phrases with photographs. People took turns coming up to the Smartboard.

We continued our discussion of “Long Ago.” Ms. Stern asked us what long ago means. How long is long? Here are some of our thoughts about when long ago is:
Anthony-100,000 years ago
Drew-1 century (6,000 years) ago
Amanda-55 years ago
Sarah-150,000 years ago
Stephen-200 years ago
Dylan A.-67 years ago
Nancy-180 years ago
Sasha-190,000 years ago
Dylan M.-40 years ago
Eesha-204 years ago
Arlo-5,063 years ago
Ms. Stern explained that long ago could mean lots of different things and that all of our ideas can be right and that it depends on what events or people we are comparing. Ms. Stern was born long ago to first graders but in comparison to the Pilgrims or even the time of the dinosaurs, she wasn’t born so long ago.

Mrs. Fox gave us rhythm sticks during music. We copied what she did. Then we went around the rug, counter clockwise, making up our own patterns.

During Writer’s Workshop, we continued working on our personal narrative stories. We filled out graphic organizers first. Then we got 5 page packets of writing paper. The first page told “when, who, and where” from our graphic organizers. The next three pages were for each of the “what”s that we came up with. The last page is for our ending. We learned that the ending is a great place to include what we were feeling when our story event took place. Some people finished their first personal narrative story and began new ones. Other people continued writing and sketching.

At the end of the day, Ms. Stern gave out prizes from last week’s spelling dictation. 12 children got the whole entire sentence correct!

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Yesterday was Election Day, the book fair, and Parent-Teacher Conferences. Dylan A. gave his Nona a tour around the school while his mom and dad met with Ms. Stern. Sasha was at the book fair. She helped set it up and was also delivering books. Stephen was coloring in the hall with his brothers and sister in the hall. Ms. Stern was SO lucky. Lots of students were very generous to donate books from her wish list to the class. We even read one, Too Many Toys, by David Shannon today.

Today is Anthony's birthday! He turned 6. We had mini-cupcakes to celebrate.

We learned 2 new poems today: Zack and Jack and Backpack. There were LOTS of ck words in them! We found them together and then practiced at our seats. Everyone had to read all of their poems 3 times once they were done.

During Reader’s Workshop, we learned that good readers carefully study the picture when we get stuck on a word. We practiced together by reading a book called What Will You Pack? We were able to figure out words like bear, map, cap, game, and book. When we were having our private reading time, we marked a page with a post-it and drew an eye with the word that we figured out. That meant that we looked at the picture to figure out the word. Anthony figured out the word “sailboat” by studying the picture.

We went to RIF. Everyone got to choose a book to keep. Someone stamped it so we could write our name inside. Then we went out into the hall to look through our books while everyone else made their selections.

Today we went to art and worked a little on our leaf collages. Adam had to start his because he was absent last time. Arlo traced leaf stencils on his paper. Then he cut them out and placed them in an envelope. They are going to get glued on to cool colored papers next time. The leaves were traced on warm colored papers.

At the very end of art, we had a fire drill. We had to line up outside near the kindergarten classes. Nancy, Stephen, Sasha, Hunter, and lots of other children saw their old teachers. The fire drill took a long time!

Part of our homework this week was to bring in a wrapper from our favorite candy that we got trick-or-treating. We are using them to make a book. Today, we glued our wrappers on the paper and wrote a sentence telling about what kind of candy we like the most. We also drew a picture of ourselves in our Halloween costumes to go along with it.