Cherry Lane First Graders Hit a High Note

Congratulations to all of the first and second graders that sang beautifully in today's concert. Mrs. Cardillo also worked hard to provide the parents with lyrical entertainment before everyone leaves for the holiday vacation. If you missed the concert watch clips of it below.

Candy Houses

We have completed our annual candy house project. Thank you to all the parents who came in to help. Thank you to all who would have loved to join us and our sticky icing for some building fun but were unable to make it.

Watch the movie and you will feel like you were there too!

Happy Holidays!

The Premier of Our First Digital Books

Instead of publishing our books with paper and colored pencils we decided to go digital. We typed our stories in Keynote and then imported pictures from clipart.com. The books were converted to a Quicktime file.
Enjoy reading our list/pattern stories by clicking here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! For the holiday we wrote down what we thought the turkey would say not to get eaten for dinner. Check out our digital book by going to the class media website.

We also have the digital book book of Leaf Man posted as well.

Watch the video of when we baked corn muffins from scratch (no mix!) and then we had a feast in the cafeteria.

What's the Matter?

Thank you Cherry Lane PTA for sponsoring the High Touch hands-on assembly. We learned all about solids, liquids, and gases which is the next unit we will be doing in Science.
Watch the movie of how we made Silly Putty. We turned a liquid into a solid!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween to everyone. Those who attended the parade know it was a smashing success. Just in case you missed it, here is a video of all our Halloween festivities from Spooky Houses to the costume parade.

Squirtle and Sally Visit Cherry Lane

Thanks Maddie for sharing your pet turtles with us at school! Thanks to her mom too for bringing them in.

Leaf Man Project a Success

(Thanks Mrs. Tamburro for taking this great picture!)

Lois Ehlert's book Leaf Man was the inspiration for this digital art project. The class brought in leaves and made their own leaf creations. Check them out by going to our other webpage.

Parents Supporting Literacy

Throughout the year I will try to pass on some great resources for you to use to support your child's literacy growth. I am embedding a link to a publication from the International Reading Association of the best books recommended for children to read.

Click here to get the Children's Choice Books for 2009.

Also, if you are looking for something great to do on a rainy Saturday go to the Haverstraw King's Daughters Library in Garnerville at 1:30-4:30 PM for day 2 of the Storytelling Festival! It promises to be an entertaining time for everyone and it is FREE!

If you would like to plan ahead, there is another great event at the same place on November 14th.

Infusing Technology

So far this year we have used the laptops, desktop computers, and digital cameras to enhance our learning. Watch our movie to see how...

Read-at-homes Going Home

Today is the start of our read-at-home program. Children will take home one book that is at their independent reading level. That means that your child will read accurately almost every word AND be able to retell the story with details such as setting, plot, and characters in sequence. Many times we say to "sound out the word" but that is not a very efficient strategy for beginning readers. As adults we know the rules for letter/sound chunks but our first graders are developing this skill. Instead of sounding out the words such as "have", "said", and "what" your child should try to think what makes sense with the beginning/ending sounds and the context of the sentence. Skipping the word and coming back to it when the sentence is finished is also a valid strategy. Pictures are valuable resources too. Watch the video I made for more strategies beyond "sounding out."

http://media.ramapocentral.org/CES/csteffens/Site_2/Movie.html

Books should return every day with the title and your initials on the record sheet provided.

Again I cannot emphasize enough that these books are not at your child's instructional level and will not be difficult to read, nor should they be for this piece of your child's intructional program.

Check out the resources provided on the website for more information about strategies and how to choose good books.

http://media.ramapocentral.org/CES/csteffens/Site_2/parentspage.html

PS: check out Cherry Lane's Homepage... we are featured doing science with digital cameras.

Also on our homepage I have posted the rotating schedule and revised specials schedule. We will be doing book exchange at the library on D days and not B days.

An Introduction to Internet Communication Technologies

This is a movie about a teacher that uses some great technology that we are using this year. Watch to find out a little about avatars on Voki.com, Twitter, and wikis.

We are learning about apples for Johhny Appleseed's birthday

Look at the apples we brought to school.

Click on the apple for great apple recipes

Chris Sare Official Website : Exercise, It's Child's Play : Family Nutrition, Health and Fitness : Certified Nutritionist and Fitness Model

I came across this great website for kids to promote healthy lifestyles.

http://www.chrissare4kids.com/index.php

Here is a great article on excercise

Chris Sare Official Website : Exercise, It's Child's Play : Family Nutrition, Health and Fitness : Certified Nutritionist and Fitness Model

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A New Year has Started!

Watch the movie to find out what we have done so far this new school year.

Calling all Volcano Enthusiasts

Do we have a video for you! One of our College of New Rochelle reading scholars have created a "How to" video for making a model volcano that really explodes! Check it out!

Happy Fourth of July

I saw many Cherry Lane families at the RCC fireworks. Here is a movie in case you wanted to remember the great show or missed it.

Interviews with Important Cherry Lane Faculty

Eunice, Sean, Kevin, Grace, and Melissa asked the questions that inquiring first graders want to know!  Check out their interviews with our new Flipcam!

Thank you Mr.Wulfson

Thank you Mr. Wulfson for your generosity. As the recipient of the WISE Award I now have a Flip Cam to use with my students to enhance our learning and projects. So here is a day in the life of our class as we end the school year.

Blue Team wins Olympic Day

Even though the White Team had an amazing dominance over the 1st grade events, the Blue Team ultimately took the first place spot. Good teamwork and sportsmanship for all participants! Here is a movie with all of the highlights of the day (you can watch it from the comfort of your air conditioned home (without the fear of sunburn).

REACH Foundation Run a Success

Congratulations to all the Runners and Walkers that completed the Can you 26.2 Challenge.

Everyone got a medal and some were lucky enough to win raffle prizes.

Guess who I saw?

The Simons Family

The D'Antonio-Krebs Family

And they are off!

Mrs. Cherniss and Gabe were there too!

The Today Show

We finally made it on the Today Show... here is the link to watch our 4 seconds (unfortunately not 15 seconds) of fame.
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/30929265#30929265

Mr. Cherniss Comes for Kids Inc.

We had the absolute pleasure of having Mr. Cherniss talk to the class about his job as a financial advisor. He taught us about the concept of scarcity.

Thank you for reading us the book, The Doorbell Rang.

We also got to see the product we are selling in the school store. Thank you Cherry Lane PTA for making it possible (especially the screenprinting!!!!).

Get your Cherry Lane Bandanas at the school store while supplies last!

Our Soggy Trip to Bear Mountain

It was a rainy day but nothing could stop us from seeing the sights at Bear Mountain Zoo. Watch some of the highlights from the trip. Some of us got to see the animals we are researching and we impressed others with our knowledge.

Outrageous Pets Assembly

We learned how tarantulas got their name.


This is a lizard from the Grand Canyon... we know his name is Chuck.


























This is Eve the Burmese Python

We got to pet her too.







This is a tortoise.



We got to pet it too.

Earth Day Every Day

We have been studying the Amazon rainforest and its importance for the whole world. We created a mural/collage to show the information we have gained from our rainforest animal research.

Mrs. Roberts gave us a great puzzle of the rainforest and we worked as a team to put all the pieces together. It was a lot of fun!

On Earth Day we read books, read a Scholastic News, and watched a BrainpopJr. movie. Then we created posters to let the school know about what we learned. We have a whole group of ecologists now in the class.

Soon we will begin researching woodland animals and go on our annual trip to the Bear Mountain Zoo.

Pictures of Our Community

As you know we have e-pals in North Carolina. They wanted to know what our community was like so we took some pictures to share with them.

Gabe C. was our roving photographer and took some great shots for us. See the pictures at

http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/album.sfly?sid=0AcNnLNyzcsWLlI&startIndex=0&fid=90778c754fa9d92f

Jill Rappaport from the Today Show Comes to Cherry Lane

Jill Rappaport came to Cherry Lane to read her brand new book called Jack and Jill. All of the money from the book sales go to the Tails of Hope charity. Gabe C. is the Junior Ambassador for this charity and has raised a lot of money for sick animals. Here is a flip video taken by Mrs. Elberg.

http://sharing.theflip.com/session/bc789b34729fc15b894442e5d529a988/video/3828698

Ms. Rappaport was given a special award and flowers for her generosity.

Mr. Leach also recognized her good work.

Can You 26.2?

Today we launched the 26.2 Challenge. Can you run a marathon like Ms. Esposito has done before (2 x!) over the course of 2 months? We are all ready to go with our snazzy backpacks.

This was the first day and we logged in 1/4 mile. After some warm-ups we did a lap around the school (April showers bring May flowers).

Don't forget to log in your miles on the website!

April Fools!

Ok. I recant my statement about becoming principal. It seems that somebody at school decided to switch around the name plates and I ended up at the principal's office. I will let Dr. Leach move back into his office now and I will be content to stay with my first grade class. As it turns out, being principal is tough work!

Ms. Steffens Becomes Principal

Yes... the writing is on the wall. Ms. Steffens has moved into the Principal's office at Cherry Lane Elementary















It is official, sorry Dr. Leach.

We Are E-Mailing!

We have e-pals from North Carolina! We are so excited to have our own e-mail addresses and we have been to the computer lab a few times to correspond with our e-pal from Ms. Pittman's class.

Check out their webpage at: http://www.johnston.k12.nc.us/education/staff/staff.php?sectionid=6596&

The kids can log in to E-Pals and send messages from home too. I monitor all of the accounts and approve messages going in and out so no need to worry about security and safety. If you need the email log in, just let me know.

The kids have been watching a movie on Internet safety at Brainpopjr. too.

OOBLECK!

Bartholomew Cubbins had a major problem when the king got bored with regular weather and ordered something new to fall from the sky. What resulted was Oobleck and investigating it was the perfect way to end our study of solids and liquids.

Is it a solid? Or is it a liquid?

Well, the jury is still out on that one. We had fun trying to figure it out though.