It's crazy hat day at Dryden!

These first graders are full of spirit for spirit day today! Cute hats!

Signed, Sealed, Delivered!

Today was an exciting day in Writer's Workshop! We've been working hard preparing our letters to authors! Each child chose to write to either Jan Brett (author of The Mitten and many others) or Laura Numeroff (author of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and many others). First, we brainstormed ideas of questions we could ask the authors or things we could tell them about. Next, each child wrote a rough draft, remembering to include the heading, greeting, body, closing, and signature of the letter. Then, we met with our writing buddies to revise and edit our letters. Finally, we wrote our final drafts in our nicest, neatest handwriting. And today we completed the last step when we addressed the envelopes to mail our letters off to the authors! We will cross our fingers and hope for a reply!

Let's try this again!

Here is the video of the Matter Chant from yesterday!

Matter Chant Video

Today we concluded our Matter unit, and the students were so excited for their debut performance of their Matter chant! They really have learned so much about solids, liquids, and gases throughout this unit, and I am very proud of their efforts. Enjoy!!

Oobleck!

Is it a solid? Is it a liquid? Is it BOTH?!

Yesterday we experimented with Oobleck after reading the book, "Bartholomew and the Oobleck" by Dr. Seuss. If you want to make Oobleck at home, you can mix 2 boxes of corn starch with 1/2 quart of water, and add green food coloring. The students had a blast exploring this tricky substance, and it was a fun way to begin wrapping up our Matter unit.

Don't let the pigeon...

Check out what the first graders have been working on in art class! Hop over to The Fugleblog to see the product of their hard work. They did a fantastic job!

Royal Reader!

This week, we were surprised by another Royal Reader! Will's nana came in to read, "The Missing Mitten Mystery". Thank you for coming in to read to us! I think he was VERY surprised!

Art Appreciation

This week, Mrs. Hall came in to present our next Art Appreciation lesson. This time, we studied Rembrandt's "The Night Watch". The students were very interested in learning about the painting! Since Rembrandt was also known for his self-portraits, the students did their own self-portraits following the lesson, and used mirrors to experiment with different facial expressions. Thank you Mrs. Hall, for the great lesson!

We are back!

After some technical difficulties and a nice relaxing winter break, we are back to work in first grade! I have several updates, so bear with me! The first is that we had two Royal Readers before the break. Nathan's dad came in to read us the classic, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and Shea's mom came in to read the beautifully illustrated "Snowmen at Christmas". Thank you to both of those Royal Readers for coming in during that action packed week and reading to our excited group of first graders!

Also, don't forget on Wednesdays and Fridays to wear or send gym shoes so as not to scuff up the floor of our gym.

And finally, as you empty a paper towel roll at home, if you would be so kind as to send the empty cardboard roll to school with your child, I would appreciate it very much! We are using the rolls for our number scrolls during math time. Thank you so much for your help!