What a great year!

It was with many emotions that I said goodbye to these amazing first graders today! I felt sadness, as I will miss them terribly next year, I felt proud of them for all they have learned and how hard they have worked, and I felt gratitude to you, the parents, for sharing them with me each and every day this school year! They will always hold a special place in my heart after all of the hours we spent together. Please keep in touch, and best of luck next year! I am confident that they are ready for everything second grade holds in store for them! Have a wonderful summer!


Now, on a fun note, today the students had the opportunity to watch these two videos in a school assembly, but I wanted to share them here as well for your viewing. To celebrate Dryden's 60th birthday, we filmed the all school Lip Dub a few weeks ago, and then the staff surprised the students on Field Day with a flash mob. You can access these videos by clicking below! Enjoy!

Lip Dub:

Dryden Lip Dub from Joe Robinson on Vimeo.

Flash Mob:

Dryden Staff Flash Mob from danielleporte on Vimeo.

Some Field Day Photos!

Here are a few pictures from our Field Day fun!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MATTHEW, PETER, AND LUKE!

Today we will celebrate our summer birthdays! Happy birthday to Matthew on June 22nd, Peter on July 14th, and Luke on July 30th!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ELLIE!

We are so excited to celebrate Ellie's birthday today! What a lucky duck you are, having field day and your birthday on the same day!

Royal Readers!

Recently we were joined by two special Royal Readers! Jill's mom and Matthew's mom surprised us last week! Jill's mom read, "I Ain't Gonna Paint No More", which the children adored and loved pointing out their favorite limb the child in the story painted! Matthew's mom read, "Let's Do Nothing!" and "Officer Buckle and Gloria", both funny stories that sparked a few belly laughs from the first graders! Thanks for coming in to read to us!

Weekly News!

We are wrapping up our final days in first grade! Last week, the highlights of our week included finishing our non-fiction animal books, continuing our study of China, and celebrating dress like Dr. Jares day! He was dressed for retirement, while the rest of us were dressed in a tie, in true Dr. Jares fashion. Emily was our photographer, and below are a few of her favorite photos and captions!

All of us with Dr. Jares.


Lily is finished with her non-fiction animal book.


Emilia and Jill are working together.


Katerina is working on her non-fiction animal book.


Kate is working on her challenge math packet.


Andrew is reading quietly.


Andrew is working on his Chinese writing booklet.

Royal Reader!

On Thursday, Emilia and Luciana's mom joined us as a Royal Reader! She read two books, "Five Chinese Brothers" and "Ruby's Wish". The students loved hearing these tales that tied into our China unit. Thanks for coming in to read to us!

Weekly News!

We are inching closer and closer to summer in 1-1, but we still have a lot to accomplish in the coming weeks! Here are a few important reminders:

*Starting tomorrow, May 21-May 23rd will be the Dryden School Store, sponsored by the Student Council. During the lunch period, students will have the opportunity to purchase "Smencils" (smelly pencils) or Dryden wristbands. Each item costs $1.00, and students will be permitted to buy 2 items per lunch period.

*May 22nd is Dress like Dr. Jares Day. Students are encouraged to wear ties as a tribute to Dr. Jares! If you don't have a tie, just dress nicely as if you were the principal for a day. On this day, our class will give Dr. Jares a class book that we have been working on, where each child wrote a page about what they will do when they retire. Some of their ideas included moving to the "Sunshine State" (direct quote!), taking naps everyday, going to Yogurtland, and becoming a teacher. All great suggestions for Dr. Jares to consider!

*May 23rd is our sports themed Spirit Day. Students are encouraged to wear clothes that support their favorite sports teams on this day!

*May 24th and 25th are teacher attendance only days, so the students will have an extra long weekend to enjoy this beautiful summer weather!

*May 30th is the day we will be taping our Dryden Lip Dub in celebration of Dryden's 60th birthday. On this day, students are encouraged to wear Dryden spirit wear, red, or white to show their Dryden spirit on the video!

*May 31st is our picnic lunch bunch to celebrate those first graders who completed the Amazing Reading Race! Students will need to bring lunch or order lunch as they normally do that day, we will just all be eating together in the courtyard to celebrate!

*June 1st is Field Day!

*June 5th is a half day

*June 6th is our last day of school, and is also a half day

Now that that's all sorted out, we can move on to discussing what's been going on in our classroom! This past week, Lily was our photographer, and she did an excellent job of documenting our activities. Here are a few of her favorite photos and captions:


(I took this photo so Lily could be in it, but Lily wrote the caption!) This is us with the dragon kites we made and dragon masks for Chinese New Year.


We are getting ready for a Gumball Math timed test. That is our timer.


We have a lot of words on our word wall.


We are doing grammar stuff.


If you finish this, you get to go to our special lunch bunch for the Reading Race.


We are doing our math journals.


We are visiting the library to meet an author.


She is showing us all of the pictures.


This is her toad.


Kate is making the wooden toad croak.


We are making music.

Literacy
Last week, our Treasures theme was "Exploring Space”. As we read, we practiced using context clues and making predictions. Our spelling and word work pattern focused on words with the /oo/ pattern. During grammar instruction, we practiced identifying the predicate in sentences. The students were so incredibly sad to read their final Treasures stories of the year, take their final spelling test of first grade, and complete their final first grade grammar packet. ☺
We also had the opportunity to meet the author, Eileen Zeisler. She shared her books, Little Sprout and Toads, and the children had the opportunity to play little wooden musical toads during a song the author sang for us. They had a great time!
This week, we will focus on literacy activities that go along with our cultural comparison of China. We will compare the Chinese versions of Cinderella (Yeh-Shen) and Little Red Riding Hood (Lon Po Po) to the versions we are familiar with.

Writing
Last week, we took the research that we did on the animals of our choice, and began publishing our own non-fiction books about these animals. We have been working on one page a day, first writing a description of the animal, then the habitat, and next, the food that the animal eats. This week, we will wrap these up as we write about interesting facts we learned about the animals, make our table of contents, design a cover, and put our books together!

Math
Last week, we continued our review of various concepts. We began with a review of mental math, and practiced "buying" items from a vending machine. Next, we combined two digit numbers to buy two items, and practiced making change. Then, we switched gears to review geometry, temperature, and thermometers. We continued to take our math fact timed tests for our Gumball Math folders. The students who have finished all of their math facts use this time to work on their math skills links packets independently.

This week, we will have one final day of review with place value activities. On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, we will take our end of the year math test. I am eager to see how far the students have come this year, and how much they've retained! We will continue Gumball Math through the end of the school year, so keep practicing those snappy quick math facts!

Social Studies
Last week, we learned about Chinese New Year. The students were so excited to celebrate Chinese New Year (a few months late!) with dragon masks, dragon kites, and leisees with their very own lucky (play) money! This week, we will learn about school in China, along with Chinese writing and number writing.

Keep up the great work, first graders! Summer is almost here!

Mrs. Glaser ☺

Royal Reader!

Last week, Ellie's dad was our Royal Reader! He surprised us right after our afternoon recess. He read the book, "Cat and Rat" which explains the legend of the Chinese zodiac calendar. The students were then eager to share with him what the animal year was for their year of birth, since we just learned about the Chinese calendar! He soon learned that all of our students were born in either the year of the monkey or the year of the rooster. Thanks for coming in to read to us!

Weekly News!

We are off and running on another exciting week in first grade, but let's not forget to check in on last week! Isabel was our class photographer last week, and below are her photo selections and the captions she has written to go with them. Nice job, Isabel!


Emilia and Peter are working on the laptops during writing time.


Emilia was finding out things about peacocks.


Leilani and Kate were practicing telling time with their clocks.


Kate is paying attention nicely.


Ellie was getting her snack out.


Lily is getting ready to do her animal researching.

Literacy:
Last week, our Treasures theme was "Bugs, Bugs, Bugs", and the first graders were so excited to read about insects, one of their favorite topics! They had so much to share about their own experiences with insects! As we read, we practiced rereading portions of the text when we don't understand something, or find ourselves confused. We also used illustrations in the text to help us comprehend what we have already read, and gather new information that perhaps had not been spelled out for us in the text. Our spelling and word work pattern of the week focused on the "ow" sound, with /ou/ and /ow/ words. During grammar instruction, we practiced identifying the subjects in sentences.
This week, our Treasures theme will be "Exploring Space”. As we read the selections for the week, we will practice using context clues and making predictions to improve our comprehension. Our spelling and word work pattern will focus on words with the /oo/ pattern. During grammar instruction, we will learn about and practice identifying the predicates in sentences. This is our final week of Treasures and spelling for the year! Can you believe it?!

Writing:
Last week, we spent a great deal of time on our expository writing. We began by practicing writing sentences about animals that are fiction and non-fiction. We identified differences between these types of sentences and learned that with expository writing, we are writing only non-fiction sentences. Next, we used the laptops to research animals using the pebblego website. The students were so excited to have such a fantastic resource right at their fingertips! They were able to each select a different animal to research, then took notes on the animals' descriptions, habitats, food, and interesting facts. Pebblego was the perfect tool for them to use, as it highlights the text as it is reading it to them, and also includes great photographs and videos for the students to access as well. They did an incredible job researching and taking notes independently, and they had a great time! This week, we will begin to work on our publication of our non-fiction animal books!

Math:
Last week in math, we began the week by reviewing Unit 9 with our Mimio Vote system, followed by our Unit 9 test. On Wednesday, we reviewed collecting and analyzing data. We wrapped up the week with a review of telling time. Over the summer, don't forget to practice telling time to the hour, half hour, quarter hour, and to the minute to keep those skills strong!

This week in math, we started with a review of mental math. We are practicing combining sets of coins to make believe buying items from a vending machine. We are using our strategies of counting by 5s and 10s from numbers other than zero as we work on adding these large numbers together! On Wednesday, we will review geometry, followed by a review of temperature and thermometers on Thursday.

Science/Social Studies:
Last week, we continued our cultural comparison with China. We learned about the Chinese calendar, how it is different from our calendar, the animals that are represented with each year, the legend behind the formation of the calendar, and which animals represent our birth years! This week, we will learn about Chinese New Year!

Speaking of China, we did some research on the Chinese land and culture during our LMC class time, and the students are so excited to share their video creation on the right side of our blog! They did such a fantastic job. Be sure to check it out!

Mrs. Glaser ☺

Weekly News!

What a special Teacher Appreciation week this was! I was so surprised and so touched by the sweet book that the kids made for me! I loved each and every one of the pages in the book and will treasure it always. You all are too good to me!



This week, Kate was our photographer, and she captured some great moments throughout the week! Below are a few of her favorite photos and the captions that she wrote to go with them:

Looks like we are doing math time.


Now we are learning about fractions.


We are cutting paper to do more fractions.


Leilani is working hard comparing the flags.


What is Emily working on?


Looks like we are learning more about fractions.


Literacy:
Last week, our Treasures theme was "How Does it Grow?", where we read stories about seeds and plants. It was great to see them recalling some of the information they learned during their Collecting and Examining Life science unit. They do remember! Hooray!! As we read our stories for the week, we continued to work on our questioning skills, and worked on classifying and categorizing information. Our spelling and word work pattern of the week focused on r-controlled vowels, specifically the /ur/ pattern, with words containing the –er, -ir, and –ur blends. During grammar instruction, we focused on synonyms and antonyms, and came up with words that either mean the same or the opposite of words.

This week, our Treasures theme will be "Bugs, Bugs, Bugs”. As we read the selections for the week, we will practice going back to reread and using the illustrations in the selections to comprehend what we have read. Our spelling and word work pattern will focus on words with the /ou/ and /ow/ blends. During grammar instruction, we will learn about and practice identifying the subjects in sentences.

Math:
Last week in math, we began the week with Explorations, where students measured their heights, used pattern blocks to make symmetrical shapes, played the number grid game, and worked on our math boxes. Next, we learned about fractional parts of a whole, followed by comparing fractions. Finally, we learned about different names for fractional parts of a whole, and made fraction pizzas to display what we have learned about fractions!

This week in math, we will begin the week by reviewing all that we have learned in Unit 9 with the Mimio Vote system. On Tuesday, we will take our Unit 9 test. Unit 10 will be our final math unit (can you believe it?!), so each lesson in Unit 10 is a review lesson. We will start with reviewing collecting and analyzing data. On Thursday, we will review telling time. We continue to take our timed tests on our addition facts for our "Gumball Math". Thank you for all of the extra time and effort you are putting in at home to practice these facts and help your first grader commit them to memory!

Science/Social Studies:
Last week, we began studying China. We started by looking at the Chinese flag, and comparing and contrasting the Chinese flag with the American flag. Next, we learned about the geography of China by studying a map of China and identifying various landforms and cities on the map. This week, we will begin learning about the Chinese calendar; how it is different from our calendar, the animals that are represented with each year, the legend behind the formation of the calendar, and finding out which animal is represented in our birth years, and what that means!

I eagerly look forward to another productive week in first grade!

Mrs. Glaser ☺