European Hedgehog Experts

Jan Brett taught us how to draw a hedgehog. -Ella

We got to read with our buddies. -Logan

We read a book and it was called Apple Trouble. -Brielle

After we read Apple Trouble, we wrote an opinion piece about it. -Alexia

One day we made a list of things that could get stuck on a hedgehog. -Sophia M.

We wrote an Apple Trouble story of our own. We got to change what gets stuck on the hedgehog. We used the lists we made in our notebooks. -Mihir

We wrote our opinion about if we would like to have a pet hedgehog. -Alexis

Hedgehogs have really bad eyesight. -Sophia D.

We had lunch when 4th graders had lunch. We had to have super stamina after lunch every day. -Oscar

We wrote our favorite words from this book called Owl Moon. -Antonio

This week was Kindness Week. -Lucia

We learned the word defend. It means to keep something safe. -Owen

We learned the word for baby hedgehog. It is hoglet. -Noora

We learned the word nocturnal. Owls are nocturnal, because they are awake at night and sleep during the day. -Savannah

I learned that the hedgehog can roll into a ball. -Gino

I learned that hedgehogs have thousands of spikes. -Krishelle

We wrote friendly letters to show kindness. Our class wrote 27 letters. -Sam

For our America book, two weeks in a row it had the Statue of Liberty. This week we got to draw people inside. -Jacob

When hedgehogs are born, they are super duper pink. -Jonah

We learned that hedgehogs stay with their mothers for 4-7 weeks. -Aiden

The Week of Hedgehogs

Check out what our first graders had to say about our week! (Thanks to Jade for coming up with our title this week!)

We did Star in Motion. -Cedrus

We made hedgehogs. -Liam

We have a new friend in our class. -Parker

We read a nonfiction book called Hedgehogs. It had subtitles. -Jade

We learned about the hedgehog. It's an omnivore. -Aaqil

We learned that the hedgehog can roll up into a tiny ball to protect itself from enemies. -Cooper

Hedgehogs eat almost anything including snakes and melons. -Mati

We put smart cards on our hedgehog chart. -Lea

We took a test on the world map. -Jules

Mr. M came today and he helped us with our art. -Fabiana

We read The Kindness Quilt and made a list of kind things. -Allyson

We watched a movie about hedgehogs with the Kratt brothers. -Jared

We have a new signal word. It is subtitle. It means a title of a small part.  -Ryan

Miss Kloczko drew a hedgehog. -Isandro

We learned hedgehogs have poor eyesight at nighttime. When Miss Kloczko was younger she sometimes watched Zoboomafoo and we watched that today. It has the same guys as Wild Kratts. -Tanaya

We practiced subtraction. -Carol

Lorenzo, Lea, and I colored the hedgehog. -Indigo

My mom came to Fun Friday to help us with art. We played Heads Up, Seven Up and I was really sneaky. -Nya

We read Please Open This Book. -Lorenzo

We did informative writing about hedgehogs for Writer's Workshop. -Anshika

Hedgehogs have 5,000 spines. -Kyara

Deciduous means trees that lose their leaves. Deciduous trees are in the woodland. -Juan Carlos

Owls and foxes and badgers all eat hedgehogs. -Jaykob

We learned that hedgehogs eat snails and snakes. -Damion

We read How to Read a Story. -Alex

Miss Kloczko had to close the library and we only had 3 days of school this week! -Anahi

Allyson's mom was the mystery reader. -Kendall

Thanks for reading! Leave us a comment!

This Week in First Grade (11-18-13)

What did we do at school this week?
Look at all of the things we are thankful for! It looks like family and friends are pretty important in the eyes of a first grader! (Also check out our last blog post and see what first graders, family, and friends are thankful for!)

Writer's Workshop

• On Monday, we learned all about a feature of non-fiction books, labels! Sometimes pictures or photographs are labeled to help us understand what we are looking at. We brainstormed some important parts of Miss Kloczko and got to label her with sticky notes! (The picture is a little blurry... first grade photographer!)
  
  
  
  

  

  This hedgehog was independently labeled by a first grader!

  
  
• We have had opportunities to write letters a few times this year, but on Tuesday, we got to see some examples of letters in The Day the Crayons Quit, by Drew Daywalt. We learned that all letters have:
• a greeting (Dear            ,)
• a closing (Your friend, )
• a signature (our name)
  
• And we learned that most letters have the date at the top, too!
• Then we got to try out our new letter-writing skills... we wrote letters to our dads in our writer's notebooks.
• On Wednesday, we got to "publish" our letters to our dads, and write them on "fancy Thanksgiving paper."
• We wrote letters to our friends on Thursday, recommending books that we like! Miss Kloczko has a whole bunch of new books to check out, because her first graders recommended a lot of awesome books!
• On Friday, we learned that one of the best places to find "Wow words" is... books! We read a new book, Bear Says "Thanks," by Karma Wilson, and we got to stand up every time we heard a  "Wow word!" 
  

Math:

• We learned about ordinal numbers this week! Ordinal numbers are numbers such as first, second, third, and even eighty-eighth! They tell us where something comes in a series. We learned that ordinal numbers can be written in two ways. For example, when writing, we can say first or 1st.
  
  
  
• Now that we are becoming addition and subtraction masters, we added a little challenge. Instead of being given a math equation to solve, we were given an equation that was already solved, and we had to decide which operation was missing in the problem. An operation is something you do to numbers, like add or subtract.

Science/Social Studies:

• We continued to talk about hedgehogs and tawny owls, but we have started to focus more on teeth and what they do.
• Did you know that we can tell a lot about what an animal eats by looking at the shape of its teeth? Look at these animals' teeth and see if you can tell if they are herbivores, omnivores, or carnivores!

            

Fun Friday:

• Friday was full of fun this week!
• Those of us who read 250 months in the month of November got to wear our pajamas to school... so cute and cozy!
• Author Erin Dealey came to visit our school. She talked to us about how she used to be a teacher and how she never wanted to be or thought she would become an author, and now she is. She talked to us about the writing process, her new book Deck the Walls, and how we are all authors!
• We made turkey feather Thanksgiving headbands! 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  My favorite photo of the day... first graders reading their new Erin Dealey books while waiting to be picked up! :)

  

This Week in First Grade (11-11-13)

What did we do at school this week?

We had no school on Monday in honor of Veterans Day. Thank you veterans!

We have been talking about what we are thankful for, since Thanksgiving is getting close! Bring in a photo or clippings from magazines to contribute to our bulletin board next week!

Writer's Workshop:

• On Tuesday, we finished our class book that we started last week, inspired by Laura Numeroff's If You Give a Dog a Donut. Check out the photopeach version of our book! 
If You Give a First Grader an Animal... on PhotoPeach
• Wednesday, for Wow Word Wednesday, we read One Winter's Day, by M. Christina Butler, which had some great examples of interesting words describing weather. Then we each made lists of "Wow Weather Words" in our writer's notebooks. When we shared our ideas, some favorites were:
• stormy
• gust of wind
• the wind howled
• burning hot
• the wind whistled
• blizzard
• snowstorm
• hailing
• foggy
• On Friday, we discussed and wrote about why we are thankful... for our moms.

Math:

• We introduced some probability vocabulary last week, and went a little more in depth this week. Check out this week's homework padlet page where we wrote sentences using one of the probability words we learned about: certain, impossible, likely, and unlikely.
• Every child got a ruler to keep in his or her desk, after we learned how to measure in inches. It makes much more sense to measure things using inches than using sticky notes or paperclips!
• We continue to practice addition and subtraction, telling time by the hour, counting coins (pennies, nickels, and dimes), and of course, doing these things independently!

Social Studies/Science:

• Last week we learned about the tawny owl, and this week we learned about a new animal... the hedgehog! 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Just for fun, say one of our new signal words to your child this weekend, and see what happens!
• Nocturnal
• Woodland
• Carnivores
• Adaptation
• These are the chants we are doing each day!
• As a class, we completed a Sentence Patterning Chart for the animal we are studying, hedgehogs. The kids came up with the words for each category themselves! Choose 3 adjectives, 1 verb, and one prepositional phrase, and ask your child to sing the song to you! 
  
  
  

PE:

In addition to doing yoga with a parent from Mrs. Luhrsen's class on Monday and Friday, we learned some new speed and agility moves this week, high knees, power skips, and squat jumps, and practiced some old exercises, like line hops and long-armed planks. We even got to listen to music during PE this week, because we did such a great job of following directions!

Fun Friday:

• First grade had a guest speaker, Sensei Wong from Kovars Karate Academy, talk to us about respect and discipline! He was so funny, too! What did the first graders learn at the mini-assembly and during the discussion afterwards?
• Teachers in Japan are called "sensei."
• Focus and the "focus clap!" Focus takes discipline and practice!
• Focus, peace, and humility
• Part of humility is "keeping your karate covered," or only using it when you need to protect yourself or someone else from danger.
• Do as your parent or teacher/sensei asks the first time (or without even being asked)!
• Just because there is no sign at the grocery store that says "Please do not throw grapes onto the floor and stomp on them," does not mean that you should. :)

  

  Playing "Sensei Says..." 

  

  We learned the symbol for peace.

  

  We learned how to do a "focus clap!"

• We played "Signal Word Basketball" to practice all of the signal words we have learned this year. 
  
  
  
  All in all, another fun-filled week of learning and smiles in first grade... I am so thankful for my students and all of the things they are teaching ME this year! Have a great weekend!

Families, ask your first graders to tell you about their favorite experience at school this week and leave a comment below!