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