WELCOME TO FIRST GRADE!

By now you have probably received the Welcome Letter that I sent in the mail!  If not, it should be arriving soon!

I hope your child enjoyed his/her letter and is having fun decorating the puzzle piece!

Here are a few reminders to make the first day of school easy and take away the First Day Jitters (for you and your child):

Transportation Form: Please fill out and send this form to school with your child on the first day of school.  I know that some children may have different dismissal instructions for different days of the week -- please note that on the form. 

Also, I realize that sometimes dismissal on the first day of school is different from other days...if this is the case, please attach a note with your special instructions for the first day of school (for example: your child will usually go to after school on Mondays, but will be a walker or take the bus on the first day of school.)

Bus Sticker:  Please add your child's Bus Number  to the sticker and then attach the sticker to your child's backpack. (If your child is a walker you can just write walker on the sticker).

What to Expect:  The first day of school makes students (and parents) excited and nervous.  Believe me when I say that I still get nervous on my first day of school -- and I've been doing this for 19 years!

We are gong to play name games, get to know each other, explore the classroom, make graphs, orient ourselves to the school, sing songs, read books, draw and play together.  At the end of the day your child will bring home a Communication Folder. 

This communication folder will have a "Keep Home" side and "Send Back" side.  Please have your child bring this folder back to school every day regardless of whether it is empty or not.  This will be our daily form of communication.  Please send any notes to me in this folder and look in this folder every day when your child brings it home to find any written correspondence from me.  

You can also correspond to me via email at farmer@bpsk12.org or just call!  I'm not always available to answer right away but will get back to you at my earliest convenience when I'm not teaching.  If it is an emergency, please call the office. 

Another form of communication is this blog.  Please sign up in the "follow by email" space at the top right hand corner to receive automatic updates every time I post a new blog.  It's simple and easy and looks like this:

Follow by Email

Click on the additional resource tabs on the right to receive more specific information about sight words, apps, free websites and more. I will continue to update these tabs as the year progresses. Look at the upper right hand side and find a tab list that looks like this:

Additional Resource Pages to Explore:

• Home
• Reading Class Blog
• 100 Sight Words for 1st grade
• Apps In the Classroom
• Free Reading Websites:
• Websites for Math:
• Children's Yoga Resources
• Online Book Ordering Through Scholastic
• Math Vocabulary
• Field Trip Photos

Overwhelmed?  Don't be!  I'll go over this again when we meet each other at Open House!  In the meantime, enjoy the remaining days of summer vacation with your child and I will see them on August 31st!

Francis Wyman Dinosaur Show 2015

This video has been shared from Patrick Larkin's Burlington Public Schools blog.  If any parents were taking pictures on the day of the show, please share them with me and I'll post them on our blog for all to see!  What fun we had!  The students worked hard and sacrificed many recesses for this show.  Watch for a smile!

Important June Dates

It's been a fantastic year!!!  I can't believe it is already June!  Here are some important dates to remember for the upcoming weeks:

Tide Pool  June 10th

The end of the year field trip has finally arrived!  If you have not already sent in your permission slip, please do so.  We will be notifying chaperones in the upcoming week.  We need many chaperones so don't hesitate to volunteer if you have already chaperoned this year.   Please have the children dress in layers and wear SNEAKERS only for safely on the slippery rocks.  Absolutely no sandals or flip flops as children can twist their ankle if their foot slips out.  Also, the rocks can be pointy and break through thin soles.  You can send in an extra pair of shoes for your child to change into after the Tide Pool exploration as their shoes do tend to get wet. Pack a bag lunch and water or a cool drink in a non-breakable container.

Field Day: June 16th

Depending on the weather, please have your child wear sneakers and dress in layers.  (If it is hot, please load them up with sunscreen!)  Sending in a change of clothes is always a good idea.  If you would like to volunteer for that day, please submit the form sent home.

Dinosaur Show: June 19th

The Dinosaur Show for parents will be held at 9:00 am in the auditorium on June 19th.  Please plan to come for this dino-mite show!  A notice with what your child should wear on the day of the show will be coming home soon.  But please do not feel as if you need to go out and buy anything new.  They will be stars no matter what they wear!

Watch and listen to Room 111 Students Narrate Their Very Own Informative Rainforest Books!

You Are Invited to Room 111's  Virtual Author's Tea on Rainforest Animals -- TODAY!  Right now!

Below are our classroom's published non-fiction Rainforest books. Just click on any book to learn about a rainforest animal which was researched, drafted and published by a student from Room 111. We all had fun learning about note taking, writing, editing and publishing.  We even learned how to upload images into our books which cite the author and the license terms for each photo through www.photosforclass.com

So grab a cup of tea or your favorite beverage and take a moment right now to enjoy viewing just your child's book or all of the books from our classroom collection.  Discover for yourself how hard-work mixed with fun pays off with a beautiful book!

After listening to a story or two, continue on in this blog to view classroom photos which capture the students collaborating, researching, editing, illustrating, publishing and sharing their books at our "Celebration."   Enjoy!

Andrew's book:

Ava's book:

Amirah's book:

Varsha's book:

Daniel's book:

Tayah's book:

Nathan's book:

Roy's book:

Cole's book:

Matty's book:

Justin's book:

Aafreen's book:

Chloe's book:

Dylan's book:

Bella's book:

Jaiden's book:

Isabelle's book:

How We Researched:

Step One:
After choosing which rainforest animal we wanted to research, we began with a R.A.N. chart.  Prior to doing any research, we wrote information/facts which we thought to be true about our animal on post-it notes.  We then placed them on the "What I Think I know" page of our R.A.N. chart:

Step Two: We began to research facts on our animal in a few different ways.: 

We researched facts and jotted them down in our Research Notebook.  We focused our research on "What the Animal Looks Like"; "Where It Lives"; "What It Eats" and "Other Amazing Facts."  We got to choose from the following animals: jaguars, poison dart frogs, toucans and sloths.

A.  We researched through teacher-approved websites on our iPads:

B. We Researched Through "Sketch to Stretch":

In "Sketch to Stretch" the teacher reads us some information from a book and/or a magazine and we quickly sketch some pictures with labels to help us remember the facts about our animal.

We then add this information into the proper page of our Research Notebook:

Step Three: We begin to write the first draft of our informative piece, using the information from our Research Notebook:

Step Four:  We Edit and Publish our Informative Writing on our iPad:

After much writing and editing with the help of our teacher, we are ready to input all of our words into our electronic book created on the Bookcreator app on our iPad.  We use www.photosforclass.com to find appropriate, kid-friendly photos to go with our writing.  Each photo also cites from where the photograph came.

Step Five: We Celebrate!

After much research, drafting, typing and layout work, our book is ready to be recorded.  We read aloud to record what we have written on each page and then share with our fellow classmates. Each of us gets the chance to listen to all of our classmates' books as we rotate around the room.  After each listen, we jot down a short compliment on a piece of paper for our classmates to take home.

Step Six: Back to Our R.A.N. Chart

Lastly, we go back to our R.A.N. chart.  We move our post-it notes with information from the "What I think I know" page to the  "Yes!  I was right" page or the "I don't think this anymore" page.  

We discovered that we already knew a lot and learned even more!  Thanks for coming to our virtual Author's Tea!  I hope you enjoyed the books!