The Week of November 18th

Fire Prevention Week

On Monday the Hopkinton Firefighters came to HMS to talk about fire safety. We learned a lot about what to do if there is a fire at our house. If we're in our room and there's a fire and your bedroom door is hot, then put a blanket under the crack so smoke will stay out, then go to your window and yell out anything you want, including "HELP"' or "SPONGEBOB SQUARE PANTS!" As long as you are yelling for help, the firefighters will come and help you. 

If your clothing is on fire, you cover your face and STOP, DROP, and ROLL to put the fire out. 

When we went outside we explored the fire engines. Joey saw the chainsaw that can cut through concrete and metal. The engines are full of 500 and 1,000 gallons of water. They also have a ladder that goes really high (75 feet) which Malcolm discovered could reach about a 3 or 4 story building.

Our homework from the fire department was to ask mom and dad to find a meeting place at home in case there's a fire. A meeting place should be somewhere away from the house where all family members meet so incase you can't go out of the house together you'll know everyone is out and safe. 

Thankful Trees

We made trees that showed what were are thankful for. We traced our hands out of paper and wrote 5 things we were thankful for. These will make great Thanksgiving displays! Keep an eye out for them on Monday.

Library

Did you hear? It was a tie for first place for the Ladybug Book Award at Harold Martin School. The two books that won were Stuck by Oliver Jeffers and Little Dog Lost: The True Story of a Brave Dog Named Baltic.  More students in our class voted for Stuck than any other Ladybug book. Mrs. Alibrandi said we'll probably find the official winner in December or January. 

Today in the library we read 3 books today about bunnies. One book was called The Snatchabook. We liked that book the best. 

Native American Play

The majority of our class shared that their favorite part of our week was learning about the Pilgrim's Journey. To reinforce our leaning about the hardships and struggles as well as the success the Pilgrims experienced,  we're working on a Thanksgiving play in our class. Be on the lookout next week and maybe we can make a video of our dramatic play!

Elements of a Story

Speaking of videos, take a look at the rap we've been singing to help us understand the 5 parts of a short story. The video is posted on the right sidebar. Be careful....it's a catchy tune!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving with your family and friends and a Happy Hanukkah too!

The Week of November 5th

1S with the Artist in Residence

(This post was written by the first graders with very little of Mrs. Surrette's help.)

This week was exciting because we saw it snow outside!


Thank you Veterans!
On Friday we went to the MPR to thank veterans in the morning. Veterans are people who served the country by fighting in the military. Some of the veterans we met today fought in WWII. We thank veterans because they risked their lives to make our country free. Monday is Veteran's Day. We can thank them in our hearts or write a letter to a veteran.

Fun Loom Bracelets
Mrs. Surrette bought our class Loom elastics. We used them to make Fun Loom bracelets. This helped us practice our fine motor skills (which makes us better writers), math (color patterns) and our communication skills.
Will said, "It was really fun!"
For 9 of us, this was the first time we had ever made a bracelet. The other classmates helped us make them and showed us all kinds of ways to do it. We were persistent (a new math word) and were very proud of ourselves!



Turkeys in Disguise
We read the book Turkey Trouble. The turkey tried to disguise himself as other animals so that he wouldn't be eaten for Thanksgiving. At the end, he disguised himself as a Pizza Delivery Man and Farmer Jake fell for it. So they ate pizza instead of turkey. It was Turkey's best Thanksgiving ever!

You can help disguise your turkeys too! In your Home Folder you'll see a fun, family activity to complete together. Turkey needs your help to blend in with your family so he doesn't end up on a platter for Thanksgiving day. Check out the packet and have fun!

Sink or Float
We put objects in water to see if they sink or float. We were testing our hypothesis: Heavy things sink and lighter things float, but it was not true. We discovered objects that were hollow floated.

1S with Mrs. Alibrandi

Our Week in Library with Mrs. Alibrandi

Every other Friday we meet with Mrs. Alibrandi for a lesson in the library. This week we read about Ladybug books from years past. Today we read a book and then watched the movie. It was pretty good.

Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

In the beginning, there was a big tornado and a man lost his memoir. He had to start his book all over again. It was like The Wizard of Oz, where he gets sucked up in the storm. He goes to a library where the books are alive. He gives other people books and they turn to color.
In the end, it made Cassidy cry because the man left the library with all of the books left behind. The books were very sad, but then another character comes to the library and the story starts all over again. It's like a circle story.

This was a good book/movie.

The Week of October 21-25

Chart: Find at least 5 sets of rhyming pictures

Literacy Workjobs

During our 90-minute literacy block your first grader independently completes various tasks throughout the classroom. We have a work board to help keep us organized and on task. On the work board there are 4 activities to complete. Each picture icon represents a different center around the room. These activities reinforce skills and concepts within our curriculum. Centers may include computer, journaling, a word sort, spelling, rhyming, listening center, reading around the room, buddy reading and many others. 

While learners are engaged in their individual jobs, I meet with reading groups to provide small group instruction. Students are encouraged to problem-solve or ask a friend if they need help before coming to a teacher. We encourage learners to talk with peers and utilize resources around the room (dictionary, word wall, posters etc.)

Here, you'll see some of the jobs that your child engages in.

Journal: Use quality handwriting, correct letter formation and quality, detailed illustrations. Write until you reach the bottom line.

ABC: Hearing Sounds in Sequence-choose a minimum of 5 picture cards.  Write the letter for each sound you hear. Then read it to a partner.

Spelling: Letter Stamps-practice making your spelling words using pencils, stamps and markers.

Math

On Wednesday our class learned a new activity called SCOOT! We had to "scoot" around the room to find different numbered cards with number lines on them. Each number line had 1 missing number. We had to count the numbers until we figured out which one was missing and then write it in the box for that numbered card. We had 24 cards to find. We thought this activity was fun, but hard. It was great learning about missing numbers. 

We also LOVED addition baseball. In honor of the Red Sox entering the World Series we played Addition Baseball on the IWB (Interactive White Board). We roled the dice on the computer. If we got a sum of 2 or 3, it was a strike. If the sum was 4, 5, or 6 it was a single so we ran to first base (Cassidy's coat on the floor). If the sum was 7, 8 or 9 it was a double and so on-you can see the rest in the picture below.

Our class kept score by using tally marks. We scored 12 runs! We thought it was great because we got to move our bodies around the room and run and we slid into home. We also got to practice our addition skills.

Addition Baseball

Brockway Field Trip

1S at Brockway Nature Preserve
(click the link to visit the Hopkinton Conservation Land and Trails Site about Brockway)

Today's blog post was written collectively by 1S. We have 4 goals for narrative writing. 
1. Write a story in sequential order using the words First, Next, Then, Finally.
2. Include details
3. Tell how you felt about your experience
4. Provide a quality ending to your story

Our class had a great time visiting the John Brockway Nature Preserve on Thursday. We went with Ms. Nichols' class.

First, on our field trip we met with Kevin Wall, Environmental Educator. He took us ponding. Ponding is when you catch bugs in a pond. We used nets and dug through the muck at the edge of the pond to find giant water bugs, backswimmers and other creatures. We found salamanders, snails, a leech, tadpoles, dragonfly nymphs and damselfly nymphs. Before we left the pond, we let them go back into their habitat.




Next, we went with Mrs. Chapman, Environmental Educator. We identified a wetland by digging up the soil, touching it and smelling it. We observed that the soil was cold, wet, muddy, stinky and clay-like. The soil in the uplands was dry, like garden dirt and it smelled earthy and like pine needles.

Then we went to the vernal pool. The soil was bouncy, dry and smelled like salad or sphagnum moss. The vernal pool was dried up because there was no water. It got dried up by the sun. In the springtime it will fill back up by the rain and melting snow.


Finally, we went up on the look-out and we could see an old beaver lodge. We identified another wetland by finding wetland plants like cat-o-nine tails and again, smelled the stinky, mucky soil. We finished our field trip by hiking back to the trail and seeing the Welcome Tree. It's big and fat and it welcomes everyone when they first walk onto the Nature Preserve.







On our trip we learned:

• That backswimmers can bite.
• That backswimmers have 2 sides. One side is dark to look like the pond so predators from above can't see it. The other side is white/blue to look like the sky so predators from below can't see him either. That's called being camouflaged. 
• Bullfrogs lay their eggs in ponds not vernal pools because they take 3 years to become an adult bullfrog. If they layed their eggs in a vernal pool they would dry up and die.
• The soil in a wetland acts like a sponge and it absorbs water to help prevent flooding.
• Wetlands act like pillows because it's where animals lay their head (it's their home).
• Wetlands act like a strainer to filter and clean the water.

We had lots of fun. It was a great adventure and we were excited to see all of those creatures.

Welcome to 1S

Welcome Families!
Do you like our new blog? Your children helped to create this page! In fact, each week the children will reflect on our activities at school and work together to write the posts. Our class is very excited to share pictures and videos with you.

Be sure to check in at least once/week to view the Upcoming Events and other features on the right for some important updates and helpful links.

Let us know what you think about our blog. Please leave a comment below for us to view.

Leaf Prints/Nature Journals
Last week our class began making our Nature/Science Journals. We started by going outdoors to find freshly fallen leaves of different shapes and sizes. We brought them in and painted them and printed them on paper. This week we cut out the leaf prints and pasted them on our new Nature Journals. This notebook will be used for conducting experiments and field studies throughout the year!

Math: 
Cole and Sydney liked our new math books. "We write in them and we learned about numbers to 10."
Sydney liked working on the snowman page. Will enjoys math on Wednesdays when Mrs. Jones, our Math Specialist, does math with our class.

This week we've really focused on subitizing. "Subitizing is an easier way to recognize numbers." explains Malcolm.

We may know subitizing as "instant recognition". It's like rolling the dice and recognizing 6 by the dot pattern instead of counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Here is a great article describing subitizing and why it's important.
Subitizing: What is it?

As we learn to represent and use numbers in different contexts, we will also encounter number relationships. Children are comparing numbers and extending patterns. You may have seen some packets come home with the vocabulary "1 more, 1 less, greater than, and fewer than". These activities encourage us to verbally describe and compare number sets.

Library
We went to visit Mrs. Alibrandi & Mrs. Bohlman in the HMS library last Friday! Cassidy enjoys getting new books out of the library because they're fun to read and look at. Abigail likes looking at the books. Mrs. Alibrandi introduced our class to books without words.