Mrs. Surrette is Back

Greetings from Mrs. Surrette

Hello Everyone! It's great to be back with the class. As we finish our first week together I am reminded how wonderful these children really are. Although it's hard for me to leave my little girls, this class has made my transition back to school easy and smooth. As I get back into the swing of things I would love to have the chance to speak with you all regarding these last few months of first grade. Within the next few weeks I'll be contacting your family to chat about our goals as we move toward the end of the year.

Thank you to Mrs. Chodosh for taking such great care of this group of children. She will be missed!

Math with Mrs. Jones

This week when Mrs. Jones came into our class we worked on our 120 boards. The focus of our lesson is to move by 10s and 1s on the board. Children are solving addition and subtraction problems using this tool. We are able to show 56+32=88, 74- ?  =25 and so on.

We encourage students to count by 10s first, then 1s. Using the first example from above it would sound like 56, 66, 76, 86..87,88! Doing this with a visual is helpful, but you can also try this in the car or anywhere for quick mental math practice.

Choice Time

In first grade playing and learning are not separate. We have choice time where students are able to choose an activity and who they interact with. This is a great time to monitor conversations, model appropriate social skills and observe children's interests and curiosities. Last week I saw a group of students using the play-doh to create a "bakery". They served cinnamon hot cocoa with marshmallows, chocolate cakes with strawberry frosting, pizzas with extra cheese and pepperoni and so much more.

I could tell this was a "feel good" center for our class and we are going to run with it! We will create a bakery in our room as a new choice time area. The students are thrilled to welcome this to our curriculum. I will integrate writing, table manners, money and other subject areas into our play. If you have something that you would be willing to donate to our class please let us know. We are looking for pans, baking utensils, a cash register or anything else one might connect to a bakery. If you would like us to return the items, please mark your donation with your child's name so we are sure to return it to the correct place.

Have a great week and I look forward to speaking with you!

Sarah Surrette

Happy New Year

Welcome to 2015! 

I hope you've had a wonderful holiday break. Mr. Surrette, the girls and I have been enjoying the nice weather and being home together for the holidays. 

I just want to say a quick hi and Happy New Year!

Love, 

Mrs. Surrette

Happy Halloween

Halloween Day Snack

On Friday we had a special spider snack. We learned about spider characteristics and how they are different from insects. The spider's head and cephalothorax were made from crackers and either cream cheese or peanut butter. They each had 8 pretzel legs and many mini chocolate chip eyes.

Rotten Pumpkin

This week our class read Rotten Pumpkin by David M. Schwartz. This was a great story told from 15 different points of view. It tells about the pumpkin life cycle and how animals, mold, insects and other things help decompose a pumpkin. After reading this story we made a list of all the things we learned just by listening.

• Earthworms eat pumpkins and poop out nutrients for the soil
• Fungi is on pumpkins
• Animals feed on pumpkins
• Pumpkin seeds can grow into pumpkins
• Pumpkins rot and leave seeds behind
• Yeast can help bread rise
• People can make medicine (penicillin) from mold (penicillium) which has saved lives
• Some molds keep other molds away/off

This is an interesting book and worth reading. It took us a couple of days and sparked many discussions. It is available at the Harold Martin School Library.

Lunchroom Etiquette

This week first graders were reminded about correct behavior during lunch. In 1S we brainstormed a list of behaviors that make eating more enjoyable and encourage us to fuel our bodies for the rest of the day. 

1. Keep your hands to yourself and your own food.
2. EAT!
3. Quiet time = Eating time. (First graders have 5-7 minutes at the beginning of lunch to just sit and eat. There are red signs placed at tables to remind students it is not a visiting time yet. We hope this encourages your child to eat more of their lunch first and then once the signs are taken off they continue to eat while they chat and visit with friends.)
4. Follow the 3B's.
5. Listen when the bell rings. (Mrs. Kilens rings a bell when an announcement needs to be made)
6. Sit on your bottom.
7. Chew with your mouth closed.
8. Clean up after yourself.
9. If you wouldn't do it at your dinner table, please don't do it at school.

The Week of October 14th

Exploring Pumpkins Using Our Five Senses

Pumpkins

Today we read our weekly Scholastic News: What's Orange and Bumpy? The students were thrilled to be discussing a favorite seasonal fruit! Once we read the article and identified the main idea & key details, we went back to find "juicy" adjectives throughout the text. The words squishy, creamy & reek made us curious to know what other describing words could be discovered using our senses with pumpkins. Then Mrs. Surrette, Owen & Alivia unveiled 2 freshly plucked pumpkins from her garden. We sliced them open and got busy! The students brainstormed a list of words that included slippery, slimy, wet, yucky, hard, smooth, shiny and more. Ask your child what adjectives they would use to describe a pumpkin!

Rekenreks

On Wednesdays Mrs. Jones, our Numeracy Specialist, comes to join our math lessons and usually brings some fun activities, math tools and games. This week she brought Rekenreks! They look similar to an abacus, but the Rekenrek has two strings of 10 beads each, strategically broken into two groups of 5 red and 5 white. This provides a visual model that encourages young learners to subitize or instantly see how many.

Here's a resource from www.therekenrek.com that shows how children use the rekenrek as a math tool:

For example, a child might view the number 7 as one group of 5 (red), and 2 more.

Similarly, 13 might be thought of as 10, and 3 more.

Brockway (written by 1S)

We went to Brockway Nature Preserve last week to learn more about beavers and how they live. We also learned about wetlands, the animals that live there and food chains. 

First, Mrs. Chapman came to school to introduce herself and tell us about Brockway. She showed us beavers skulls, teeth marks, beaver skin, beaver teeth and we made a mural of all the animals that live at Brockway. 

Next, we went to Brockway and we got to catch some of the animals. Rebecca and Lilly caught a crayfish. Aisling caught a tadpole and then fell into the pond! After, we got to see all the creatures that everyone caught. That includes bullfrog tadpoles, crayfish, water striders, water bugs, salamanders, water boatman and lots of dragonfly nymphs.

Then, we built beaver dams. We got to see a real-life beaver dam and lodge. Then our challenge was to build mini dams in plastic bins with sticks, mud and leaves. None of our dams passed the water test, but if we had more time I bet we could've made the dams work.

Finally, we went back to the busses and went back to school. We loved our field trip to Brockway. Thank you parents for helping. 

Roll, Say, Keep!

Here's a fun way for us to review and learn High Frequency words. The game board has 6 squares, one for each number on the dice. A word card is placed in each square. A student then rolls the die and selects the card in the corresponding square number. If the child reads the word, he/she keeps the card and replaces it with another word from the deck. If he/she is unable to read the word, the partner reads it and the card is put back in the square for more practice. 

Library Visits

Welcome to Our Blog!

Our website will grow as we collaborate together and decide which activities and links we'd like to share with you. Here's what we started...

Check out our IWB (Interactive Whiteboard)

Welcome Families!
Do you like our new blog? Your children helped to create this site! 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.

Library
Last Friday we had a library introduction with Mrs. Marino, the new HMS Library Media Specialist. She read a very funny book called Peanut Butter & Cupcake. Then we watched a video and we talked about how to take care of library books.







Nature Walk (told by 1S students)
We had a nature walk today. We learned about scientists by reading our Scholastic News this morning. Scientists investigate to learn more about animals, robots, computers, instruments, insects and other stuff. They use tools like magnifying glasses, pencils to record data, flashlights, magnets, rulers, thermometers and more. We began our own investigation about insects and butterflies. We hunted for caterpillars and insects with magnifying glasses. We found 3 caterpillars. We saw 2 japanese beetles, 2 grasshoppers, yellow jackets and a monarch caterpillar egg on a milkweed plant. We were happy and excited to learn about insects, but Mrs. Surrette forgot to bring her camera to take cool pictures!



Open House
It was so great to see you at Open House. It's helpful to put faces to the families that students share stories and pictures about.

I'm sorry that I didn't get photos of all of you, but I would like to have a family photograph for each student. If you don't see yourself pictured here please send me a photo of you and your family to keep in our class photo album!

The Last Week of School

Refund for Odiorne
The HMS office and SAU are currently working to refund your payments for the Odiorne field trip. The bus company is charging a minimum payment, but the remaining refund will be returned to you by mail.

Last 2 Days
Monday and Tuesday are our last 2 days of school. On Monday, first graders will meet their 2nd grade teachers in their new classrooms along with next year's classmates. They will spend about 40 minutes together in the morning. Then we will have a later outdoor picnic lunch at 12:15 with the whole school. After we enjoy lunch with everyone, we'll be splitting up into groups to enjoy an afternoon of field day activities. Each group will be made up of first, second and third graders. This is always a fun afternoon at HMS! Please be sure your child wears appropriate shoes and clothing. They are welcome to change before field day.

On Tuesday, students will be dismissed at 12:00. This means we will have an early lunch at 10:50. First graders will be helping me pack up and clean the room as I prepare to move to a second floor classroom. I will continue to teach first grade, but my classroom will be upstairs near the computer lab.

I want to let you all know that your children have been an absolute joy to work with this year. I have been blessed with a caring, enthusiastic, and silly group of students that has made my year so wonderful. As I reflect back on our curriculum and where the students have taken us, I am amazed that they are only 1st graders. We have learned about US and World History, Addition & Subtraction WITH REGROUPING, environmental and life sciences, bird calls & habitats, fiction and non-fiction text regarding The Medieval Ages and so much more. This class will be missed! Thank you for a fabulous year!

The Week of April 14th

Mr. Martin talking with 1S & 1N about how to care for our Earth

Birding At Brockway

On Friday, May 9th we went to Brockway Nature Preserve to observe birds. We split into 2 groups. One group learned about making bird nests. Some nests are different than others'.  Robin's nests are larger than black-capped chickadee's nests. Some were very fragile while other nests seemed unbreakable. There were some made out of hair. Some were made out of moss and lichen. An oriole's nest is shaped like a teardrop and hangs from a tree while other nests are shaped like circles and ovals and sit on top of a branch. After we learned about bird nests, we got to build our own nests. The test was to see if our nest would hold jellybeans. The nests that were shaped like circles could hold jellybeans.
While this group learned about nests, the other group went to a look-out over a wetland and used binoculars to watch ducks and birds. We saw 2 mallards, 2 geese, 2 wood ducks and 2 hooded mergansers. We saw a beaver dam too.
We liked going to Brockway to learn about birds. We want to go there again!

Leave It to Beavers!
On Friday, May 16th we watched a PBS movie called Leave It to Beavers. It taught us how beavers live in the wild. Sometimes they walk on two feet while they carry mud to make their lodge. Travis says, "If you want to see something funny, watch this movie."
Nolan learned that the beavers can live with their family from birth to two years. Then they go out to find a mate and make their own lodge so they can survive. Malcolm adds, "Or they find an empty lodge and build onto it."
Jake learned that beavers chop down trees within minutes. Joey learned that beavers like to eat the sugar under the bark of trees. Cassidy learned that beavers don't hibernate. They store trees for food and burry it in the mud so they have something to eat during the winter. Cody learned that beavers can scare away predators like bear and wolves and they can keep moose away from their food by splashing water with their tail.
This movie was terrific. It was real. It was a very good non-fiction movie. Take a look on the right side bar if you'd like to watch Leave It to Beavers. 

Upcoming Field Trips
On Monday you'll see a notice about our two spring field trips. We'll be heading to The Capital Center for the Arts on Tuesday, June 3rd and then to Odiorne State Park on Thursday, June 5th. We'll need chaperones for the Odiorne trip. Keep an eye out for the notice on Monday!

Growing Up WILD
Mrs. Surrette will be running a summer nature camp for the month of July. If you're interested in coming and you're willing to travel to Chester, NH, here is the link to the WILD CHILD blog.
growupwild.blogspot.com