Happy November

 We worked on a few halloween inspired activities:

Pumpkin Life Cycles

Why do we need bones and silly skeletons after:

And of course the class book sent home inspired by 

Math Snapshots

We began work on a class paper quilt project.

We are practicing our "Make Ten Facts"

And learning more about odd and even numbers 

In our second Step work we are learning about Empathy

This month we will engage in various activities to honor Native American Heritage Month.

Our UVM Student Izzy began the unit with a discussion, a book and another class book sent home this past Friday:)

We had our monthly whole school morning meeting which also honored the start of Native American Heritage Month and ended with our carnation ceremony.  The eighth graders presented each kindergartner with a carnation symbolizing friendship and welcoming them into our CCS community. 

We also were lucky to have Mr. Crites and Woodhead share their vaudeville act with us!

A few extra photos of your children having fun at CCS!

Fall Fun In Grade One

PJ and Stuffy Day Smiles

This month we learned about bus safety and fire safety.  As a school we practiced our procedures for a lock down and fire drill. 

To celebrate the end of our Personal Narrative Writing Unit each child chose one of their books to "publish".  They fixed up their writing and then we made covers for them.  Although I guide children in this process each child finds and fixes what they know to be errors at this time. They enjoyed reading their books to one another.

During reading we have rolled out our center routine which we will do four days a week.  During this time, children are working on different activities.  Here are the activities.

Snap word practice:

Word study worksheet practicing skills taught to date

Handwriting-we are focusing on writing our first and last names correctly

Listening Center and Response Sheet-yes they listen to old school cassettes and follow along with the book!

Once they are done with the day's activity they either work in Lexia or Epic.  

Lexia is an adaptive literacy program that targets skills each individual needs. Epic is a fun online library of books.  Michelle and I assign books and for the last 5-10 minutes they are free to listen to books of their own choosing. Being read to increases vocabulary and love of reading!  

A current class favorite is the Cat Ninja series.  

As children grow more independent with this routine I can begin to pull reading groups. 

Science Unit-Patterns in the Sky

This week we focused on the day time sky.  We learned about the sun's position in the sky. We know that we can make a stationary object's shadow move by changing the direction and angle of the light source.  This happens throughout the day to the shadows of things like trees and fences as the sun's place in the sky changes.  We also made fun hand shadow puppets.  

Once a week our UVM students teach a Mystery Box lesson-the kids love it!  They place an object in a box and the students work together to discover what it is is using their senses. 

To wrap up Latinx heritage month we listened to this bilingual book about 

The Day of the Dead 

and then made these traditional "papel picado" crafts that are brightening up the hallway.

This past Friday students watched a directed drawing video on how to draw a pumpkin.  

We then used craypas and watercolor to finish them. They came out amazing!!