Mrs. Dagley

It is with excitement, but also a touch of sadness, that we say goodbye to our First Grade friends as we finish up the year. It has been a busy, productive year, and the kids have so much to be proud of in all they have accomplished! They have all made good friends, so perhaps getting together over the summer will be a fun way to stay in touch – who knows, maybe they’ll run into each other at the children’s library program (keep reading!!!). Everyone signed autograph books, many with phone numbers, so keeping in touch should be easy!

One of the activities we did this week was to go on a bird watching nature walk to the stream. We heard lots of birds but didn’t see any up close, until….suddenly a Great Blue Heron flew up from the stream and into a tree! What a discovery! Now we had something to draw and write about in our bird book! We also read Captain Jack’s Journal, and each child has a mini ‘piratey’ looking journal to write in this summer. Two map pages are included as well to draw the places they have explored, even if it is only the backyard!

We wish a Happy Summer Birthday to Trevor, Kyle, Rori and Jacklyn – summer birthday parties can be lots of fun!

Thank you parents, for your support, hands – on help, encouragement, and involvement with your kid’s education this year! Having interested, actively engaged parents always motivates young learners!

Kids, enjoy some carefree, sunny days, and I will be on the look out for you in the fall! Take care, Valerie

What a week of excitement we have had! We wish to thank all the families that came to our First Grade ’snapshots’ program on Tuesday. The kids did a wonderful job of sharing favorite book series, interviewing classmates dressed as story characters, telling facts about subjects we learned about this year, and of course reading their ‘published’ stories.

We also had a blast at Field Day, and wish to thank Mrs. Laforge for all the planning and organization that went into it! The kids participated in a giant obstacle course in the gym, volley ball in the playground, relay races in the tennis courts, dancing in the parking lot with the D.J., parachute play and face painting, and finally a short movie at the end of the day. I’m sure everyone slept well Friday night!

As a way to thank the parent volunteers and staff helpers in our room, the children decorated 11 glass flower pots with squares of tissue paper. They loved the project, and the end result was very pretty!

We enjoyed a story of nesting dolls (The Littlest Matryoshka), and seeing real samples of these hand carved and painted dolls made it even more meaningful. We also read, Me on the Map which fit nicely with the graduated booklet we made showing our world from planet, to continent, country, state, and town.

We anticipate the last three days of school will be busy as well, but in the meantime, have a great weekend!

Valerie

What a lot of fun we had for Celebration of Learning touring the gym and seeing all the wonderful projects that each grade made! We admired our own First Grade display as well of course, and everyone had fun entering a raffle ticket for a themed basket. Seeing the variety of projects gives the kids something to anticipate as they move on from First Grade!

We are wrapping up our Bird unit and have completed our Bird booklet. We had fun making nests from yarn and including pom pom eggs. This week we will make small clay birds to go with them. We have also wrapped up our solids and liquids unit, and those booklets are also ready to go home!

We enjoyed writing and sequencing activities with The Stray Dog and The Important Thing , and introduced a silly frog (a sticker) in our writing center.

This coming week is full of activities too – please stop by our classroom on Tuesday, June 8th for a chance to see some of what we were learning this year, and to share our ‘published’ stories as well! Field Day is on Thursday, and notes went home detailing the events. It should be a fun filled week!

We wished a Happy Birthday to two children this week – Henry and Dustin! Happy Birthday, boys!

Enjoy the weekend, Valerie!

We had lots of fun this week mixing solids and liquids and discovering which solids would dissolve. The kids recorded observations of sugar in water before and after stirring, and had fun observing how the two liquids of oil and water did not mix.  Since we are learning about birds, we also had a volunteer rub cooking oil on their hands and then immerse them in water to see what would happen. Seeing the drops of water bead up on the oil covered skin helped us understand how water doesn’t penetrate a duck’s feathers, once ducks have spread their own natural oils on their feathers!

We have enjoyed some very funny bird related books this week, Big Chickens, and Three Ducks Went Wandering. The three Big Chickens were overly aware of potential dangers, and panicked so thoroughly that their worst fears came true in hilarious ways, while the Three Ducks were oblivious to very real dangers, but managed to escape each one by chance, never even knowing they had ‘escaped’! We also read,  I’m A Duck! by Terri  Sloat, and found it to be a charming, optimistic story that left everyone smiling after hearing it. We used this book to write our own versions of  ‘I’m A Kid!”  for the Celebration of Learning sample!

We are busy completing our Bird information booklet and enjoyed researching specific birds to learn their habitats, diet, nesting habits, and other unique or interesting features!

Happy Birthday to Shaun, who has a birthday on Memorial Day, and enjoy the Memorial Day weekend!

Valerie