Check out our Fairy Tale and Winter Reader's Theatre

Ms. Ball has been working hard with the class preparing to perform plays. We practiced reading with expression and got to use puppets too! Watch our movies below.

Fun with Reading

We have great readers in our class and we can prove it! Listen to four of the fantastic readers read Hey Diddle Diddle. They practiced reading with expression and even threw in a funny voice too!

To hear them click here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

To put you in the holiday spirit we have recorded a song for you.

Click here to hear the Turkey Song.

Watch the movie below. We made corn muffins and then had a feast just like the Pilgrims.

November's Character Education Awards

It is my pleasure to announce that two children in our class won the Cherry Lane Character Education Award for the month of November.

Congratulations!

The class is working on being TRRFC (terrific). That means we are trustworthy, responsible, respectful, fair, and we show citizenship.

Happy Halloween

The Halloween festivities began on Thursday afternoon when we displayed our Spooky Houses for the kindergartners and second graders.

We had a spooktacular day on Friday with all of our Halloween celebrations.

The day began with a laser light show by Prismatic Magic sponsored by the PTA. The kids loved it!

Next we carved a pumpkin after designing the face with shapes we are using in math.

The excitement did not stop there. Mrs. Greenhut and Mrs. Fahmi (the class parents) brought in two great Halloween craft activities. Then we finally got to dress up in our costumes for the parade!

Parent Information about First Grade Literacy

One of the most exciting things about teaching first grade is the metamorphosis that each child undergoes as a reader. There is such a wide range of readers at this age and parents may not know what is expected of a first grade reader. In my cyber travels I have found fantastic resources for parents on the Literacy Information and Communication System (LINCS) web site. In particular I saw a publication entitled Shining Stars: First Graders Learn to Read. I hope you take the time to look it over because I think it is very informative and not too long to read :).

Also, I found a quote that I liked so much, I put it on the home page of the class web site.
It is...

Reading without understanding. It's like...

Spring without flowers

Chocolate chip cookies without chips

Facebook without friends...

It's not really reading at all.

-International Reading Association Inspire newsletter (November 2010)

We are authors!

The class has published their first books of the year. We celebrated by sharing our books with a partner and then putting it in the "Class Books" basket in our classroom library.

Here are some pictures.