Happy Holidays!

Oh what fun!

Students in 1L celebrated the holiday season by sharing experiences and traditions that they have at home. We wrote "Holiday Expert" stories that taught others every which way that we celebrate with our families. 

 We celebrated our month long learning about the Gingerbread Folktale by writing our own version of the gingerbread story, including important retell language (i.e. first, then, next, after, finally). We also had a great time making gingerbread houses just like the one that Matti made for the Gingerbread Baby!

Happy Holidays 1L Families! I feel so blessed to be your First Grade teacher! 

See you in 2017!

Love,

Mrs. L

Word Detectives-It's Official!

It's official ladies and gentlemen... 

1L students are Super Word Detectives!

Students worked hard to use several strategies for solving tricky words this month!

Receiving special missions from the Super Secret Detective Agency (SSDA), they read books and attempted learned strategies. They earned badges and as a gift from the SSDA, received word scanners (finger lights) to use when tackling the trickiest of words in books. SO COOL!
Check out these TERRIFIC Word Detectives in action!

At home, feel free to send your students on reading "missions" using these strategies!

Word Detectives Take an Even Closer Look!
Break long words into smaller parts
Pay attention the beginning of the word
Break off the ending of a word
Look out for vowel teams

Encourage them to share their experiences with the class.

Love,
Mrs. L

Hour of Code

First Graders participate in the...

HOUR OF CODE!

With the hope of sparking an interest in computer science and coding, students in 1L participated in the HOUR OF CODE today! The Hour of Code is a global movement that is attempting to "demystify" computer science. Students explored an app called Koadable. 

Students had to tell the "Ferbie" which direction to go in order to collect the gold coins. As levels got harder, the coding became more complex.

Hey Sheehan, we have 18 new computer scientists here in 1L!

Love,

Mrs. L

Hand Washing!

Don't forget!

WASH YOUR HANDS!

I just received a wonderful reminder from Nurse Brown about the importance of hand washing! 

The stomach bug and flu are traveling around the Sheehan School right now, so please remind students to wash hands and be sure to have them wash right when they get home as well! 

Just passing along the Henry The Hand website it has information, posters, games and flyers to help you promote "Hand-washing Is The New Vaccine" to prevent many respiratory and gastrointestinal illnesses. 

Love,

Mrs. L

Sound Engineers

Sound Engineers

Students in 1L and across the entire Westwood community have been studying sound over the past month! 

Wave Properties: Sound can make matter vibrate, and vibrating matter can make sound

Students participated in and designed several experiments that involved sound vibrations and how sound is created. We culminated our learning with a project based learning activity where students watched the Landfill Harmonic and attempted to design their own instruments out of recycled materials. Thank you all for your generous donations!

By the end of this unit students were able to...

1. Make an instrument that vibrates to make different sounds.

2. Demonstrate and explain what vibrates on their instruments.

3. Demonstrate and explain how they can change the pitch and volume of their instrument.

To extend thinking and review learned content, please see the video titled, "Sound" in Brainpop Jr. 

Love,

Mrs. L

Gingerbread Man Unit

Gingerbread Man Stories

Students in 1L are beginning an author study on Jan Brett and recently studying her Gingerbread stories this month!

We have watched some "about the author" films describing Jan Brett, and noticed some of the beautiful things that she does as a writer and illustrator. As we continue to explore this author as well as the gingerbread stories this month, feel free to do some at home exploration with Jan Brett's Website. 

We will be using her stories as mentors in writing and reading! 

We will also be looking at various versions of the gingerbread stories. We have quickly noticed that the fox doesn't always outsmart the gingerbread girl or boy!

With this in mind, students will be bringing home a homework activity today where they will be asked to disguise the gingerbread girl or boy so that the fox doesn't eat it! Much like our "disguise the turkey" activity from November, have students use materials to disguise the gingerbread girl or boy and then have them write a brief persuasive piece that convinces the fox not to eat him or her base on their nifty disguise!

Love,
Mrs. L

Winter Weather Gear

Winter Weather Gear

         Despite the frigid temperatures outdoors, we continue to stay warm and toasty in room 102.    

      We also wanted to send a reminder to all families regarding snow gear. Please pack students with the essentials for outdoor play. Students will be required to wear snow boots and snow pants for playing in potential snow. Please know that we do send students out a LOT. So if it is not below freezing with the windchill, it's likely we will be heading out even for 10 or 15 minutes.

       We also are hoping that you consider sending in a cloth bag (the ones that you get from the grocery store are THE BEST because they open wide) with all of your child's cold weather gear once snow season has begun. Please put their name on it somehow as well (masking tape or marker). Our spot in the hallway is particularly small and it is much easier for the kids to put their gear in one secure place. The bags have worked well in the past as they help prevent items from heading to the lost and found and make end of the day pack-up more efficient! 

      Even with the bags, sometimes winter things get lost in the shuffle, so please put names/initials on ALL winter gear anyway! 

      Another thing to mention is we do not require the kids to put their snow things on at the end of the day, as it cuts into our precious learning time. Of course, if it is snowing hard or new snow is on the sidewalks, we'll have them put them on, but it will be discretionary. Thanks for your help with this!

        One final note, we strongly suggest that the children dress in layers.  It surprisingly can be quite warm in our classroom, even on chilly days.  

Happy Snowflakes!

Love,

Mrs. Lazazzero

Thanksgiving Service Project

Thanksgiving Service Project

Students in 1L participated in a service project this month, as a part of the Sheehan citizen challenge. With the help of KT, we made special table cloths for the cafeteria with positive affirmations and thank you notes to our janitorial and cafeteria staff. Each table at each lunch had a beautiful cloth to eat on yesterday! It was quite a feat! We also thought that it would be a great way to spread positivity to our classmates! This Thanksgiving, we are so thankful for the happiness and joy that Sheehan brings to us each day.

Happy Thanksgiving from the 1L turkeys!

Love,
Mrs. L

Super Failures!

Scientists here in 1L are working on a developed understanding of sound and it's association with vibration and waves. We did an experiment with tuning forks and water, and another experiment with rice and sound speakers. Students are beginning to ask amazing questions about how and why sound works and have even begun associating waves with sound, can you believe it? I have to say, I was really pumped! Of course, feel free to recreate these experiments at home to keep the inquiry going!

Most importantly, 1L scientists are also working hard to refine experiments based on questions they develop during the experiment process! We have talked about only changing one thing at a time to test different claims. With this process, has come some pretty super scientific failures! Helping students to see failure as a tool and opportunity is a huge part of our new science curriculum. Watch this video with your students at home to continue these conversations.

"Cheers" to a lifetime of brilliant failures!!

Love,
Mrs. L

PJ DAY!

PJ day is tomorrow!

Wednesday, November 23rd

(no slippers or stuffed animals please) 

Can't wait to see everyone's jammies!

Love,

Mrs. L

Word Detectives!

Word Detectives in Training!

1L students have launched a new reading unit this week titled, "Word Detectives!" Each day this week, students have been given a new "secret mission" from the Super Secret Word Detective Agency. Missions arrive in a special, confidential envelope. 

In order to earn their status as "Word Detectives," and receive official badges, students have been focusing on using word solving strategies during Reading Workshop. 

Some strategies include:

Look at all the parts of the word 

Get a running start (re-reading the few words before helps)

Check the picture (it has clues)

Try it 2 ways (try long and short sounds)

Do a double check

and a student even made up her own strategy...

Shake it off and re-start! (for when you mess up a sound while tapping) 

As Word Detectives in training,

"We ain't afraid of no words!"

Love,

Mrs. L

WANTED: Musical Greeting Cards

ATTENTION First Grade Families!

WANTED: Musical Greeting Cards

1L is in need of some "musical greeting cards" ASAP! 

We need 5-6 of them.

These are the ones that when you open them, they play a song! 

If you have any at home, we can black out the messages! 

We will be using these for our Sound experiments coming up! 

Our little scientist are going to have so much fun exploring this month!

Thanks for your help and endless support! 

Love,

Mrs. L

Sound Unit

Sound Exploration

First graders are beginning a wonderful physical science exploration this week in the area of Sound. 

Here are some of the key verbs and nouns of the unit:

VERBS (What students will be doing):

• Plan and conduct investigations: Think and do a project to answer questions
• Provide: Supply or have to share
• Vibrate: When things shake quickly

NOUNS (What students will be learning about):

• Sound: Energy from vibrations that you hear
• Matter: Stuff that everything is made of
• Evidence: Information that proves a point
• Material: What something is made of

We look forward to having some help at our Science lab in the coming weeks! If you are interested in joining us, please email our room parents and take a look at this 

Important 

Volunteer Guide 

before joining us!

As students are learning about Sound over the next few weeks, here is some background for your home conversations:

Sound is created by vibrating objects. Unlike water waves or vibrations of a string, which move up and down as they travel sideways, sound waves travel in the direction of their motion, compressing and rarefying (expanding) the air as they go. If there is no air, like in the vacuum of space, there is no sound. Sound waves travel when matter is present in the gas, liquid or solid phase.

There are many different types of sounds. Sounds can be loud, like a siren blaring, or quiet, like a whisper. The more air that is moved, the louder is the sound. Loud sounds have higher amplitudes and quiet sounds have lower amplitudes. Higher pitches vibrate the air at higher rates than do lower pitch sounds. Sounds can be high-pitched, like an alarm, or low-pitched, like a tuba; these are examples of high frequency sound waves and low frequency sound waves, respectively (Stemscopes Curriculum).

Use the following websites to guide and insight some conversations about sound:

https://www.brainpop.com/artsandmusic/makingmusic/woodwinds/

https://www.brainpop.com/artsandmusic/makingmusic/brassinstruments/

https://www.brainpop.com/artsandmusic/makingmusic/strings/

https://www.brainpop.com/artsandmusic/makingmusic/percussion/

Feel free to explore for homework options this month!

Love,

Mrs. L

A Sheehan School Election

A Sheehan School Election

Different from some other grades here at the Sheehan, students in 1L participated in a smaller, mini unit of study on the election process in the United States this month. 

We discussed important election vocabulary.

We determined the different things that a candidate would do in order to "run" for president.

We brainstormed what values a president should have and what actions would be important for them to do or have done.

We even participated in an school-wide student election organized by the 2nd grade. 

It was also a great opportunity to weave in some ideas about leadership that we have been discussing.

Please find some additional resources on brainpop to extend student thinking about the topics above.

Love,

Mrs. L