Week 17:

There was one thing on the student's mind this week and one thing only, and I refer to that thing as the the 5 letter S word. Well, before we could even say his name, guess who appeared at Rockaway Gardens? The man himself....

Our trip to Rockaway Gardens this week was absolutely fantastic. The students learned about getting change at the register (thank you to the staff for not charging us tax...totally forgot to teach that), we learned about all the different evergreens typically used for Christmas Trees, how to find out how old a tree is, and how the seeds are harvested from pine cones. Santa was simply a HUGE added bonus. 

To add to the excitement, our Pen Pal letters arrived from India this week, so PLEASE remember to bring in a picture of your child so we can send that overseas as soon as possible. 

Things to work on at home:

We've been learning how to identify verbs, and the future tense of verbs. We'll continue to work on that this week. In math we've been learning about the greater than or less than signs, and we will continue to review that this week. We also have been talking about gravity, which will segue into a conversation about the solar system and the moon. 

Week 15

Week 16: Dec. 2

Welcome back to school. We had no problem getting back into the swing of things this week. I was really impressed with how well the students adjusted to the change. For the first time the weather finally agreed with us and we were able to have our first Beach Day. We also had the school's first magical Lantern walk, and our first Closing Ceremony.

Things to work on this week:
We really only have one more full week of school left until the break. We've been working on identifying if something is living or non-living, measuring, creating bar graphs, and identifying verbs. This week will be a lot of review, with a little more information: we'll be talking about tenses of verbs, more detailed measurements (getting to the half inch). I've noticed the students are getting a little rusty with their addition and subtraction. We've moved away from that, and I will be reinforcing it in the classroom. If you could continue to ask your child addition and subtraction problems that would be very helpful.

Week 14: November 18

Our class worked hard to fill our compliment jar and we celebrated all our hard work by making cookies this past Friday. A humongous thank you to Mrs. Silverman, who not only got the supplies for the cookies, but also organized everything for our class.

Week 13: Nov 11

Even though it was a short week we started and ended with a bang! Mrs. Peters brought the baby chicks home over the weekend, and on Monday (right at the 21 days) she was blessed with 21 little fluff balls. The children were absolutely ecstatic to see the baby chicks.

On Friday we had a visit from a local Recycling Company. They talked to the students about Recycling Day, and how important it is to recycle. Fortunately, our students already know the importance of recycling. 

Things to work on at home: We're working on bar graphs and collecting data in class this week. Talk to your child about how to conduct a survey. We're also working on sorting for science, which is a great opportunity for you to get cabinets and drawers organized. 

Week 12:
We had a very exciting and windy week! May I begin with a special thanks to Emilia's parents, Mr and Mrs. Thorpe. We had some VERY special visitors on Thursday. The whole school came to see them.

In honor of all this fall wind we build kites. This week we learned about R controlled vowels, we wrote letters to honor our Veterans, we prepared for the last day we would see the baby chick eggs (they are supposed to hatch today, we build obstacle courses and learned to count by tens.

Things to review at home:
Please continue reading with your child. Encourage them to write letters to family members and friends. Also, please do not correct the child's spelling, remember that their love of writing is the most important. If your child is struggling with the spelling help them sound out the word. In math have your child count to you by ten. We're also working on double digit math equations- subtraction and addition. The kids love to do practice problems!

Here the class is making their lovely magical egg paintings!

Week 11: Oct. 28

Another week full of surprises and action. In addition to our amazing trip out to Navera Farms (please send me an email with any photos of that), we also had Halloween. I'd say Halloween might have trumped everything this week. Somehow every conversation revolved around Halloween and costumes. Our class was so excited to share their experiences and tell Halloween jokes.

We made pumpkin poms and beeswax candles this week. The students were so proud of their autumnal creations.

In preparation for the St. Martin festival we created some lovely watercolor paintings.

Week 10: Oct 14

We had a very special visit from Mr. Tolle- AKA the "Eggman". Mr. Tolle came to our school this week and gave us a fantastic presentation on hatching baby chicken eggs. Now every classroom has an incubator and the children are taking turns making sure the eggs are safe and getting rotated.

We'll most likely be seeing more of the little chicken eggs when we head over to Navera Farms this Monday!

Week 9:

It's difficult to believe that it is already week 9 of school. We finished our first session of surfing lessons and next week we'll be heading to the farm! Remember, this is a short week- early dismissal on Wednesday and no school on Friday.

Things to work on this week:
Continue to review vowel sounds and work on making observations with your children. We're getting ready for our trip to the farm so I want the students to feel comfortable making observations and using scientific terms to describe objects. For example, talk about the texture, size, amount, and movement of different objects.

Also, check out our fabulous primary color paintings!

Week 8: Oct 7

Another action packed week at Seaside. Remember, Parent Teacher Conferences begin next week. I look forward to meeting you all. Some of you may have noticed some pillow cases make their way home yesterday with your child. I was hoping you could all wash those and return them on Monday with your child. This really needs to be done monthly.

We had a very unexpected surprise this week. When we were at the beach for surfing lessons I spotted the Sea Turtle Patrol. When they stopped I told them abou tour nest and how we have been studying sea turtles in school. The Sea Turtle Patrol was kind enough to give us coloring books and they also let us see a real baby Loggerhead sea turtle. It was the most amazing thing!

Also, another fantastic week with the surfers at http://www.jacksonvillesurftraining.com/

The kids are just so excited about surfing and the instructors are really amazing with the students. What an incredible experience it has been. We certainly will miss them. 

Things to work on at home:

Create word problems for your child. Find something they really like (fairies, dragons, dinosaurs, ect.) and create a word problem story. For example, there were 10 fairies flying through the forest. 3 Fairies stopped to fly back to the magical kingdom. How many fairies were left in the forest? Mix the word problems up with addition and subtraction. 

Vowel sounds: /ee/ /i/ /e/ /ae/ /a/ /u/ /o/ /oe/ /uu/ /oo/

Week 7: Gardening, Surf Lessons, Letter from India, and Rockaway Gardens!

What an incredibly exciting week we had. It was full of surfing and gardening, we received our first pen pal letter from India, and we had our first Field trip to Rockaway Gardens.

Our trip to Rockaway Gardens was fabulous. Mr. Walter and Ms. Ronnie took us all around the facility and told us so much about organic gardening. They also told us about how important it is to have nutrients in our soil. Both first grade classes were so well behaved and asked poignant questions.

Our surf instructors from http://www.jacksonvillesurftraining.com/ were absolutely amazing, they made me want to try surfing. In addition to the experienced staff at Jax surf training, we also had Mr. Evan Thompson, local pro surfer, who has been all over the world to surf in competitions, and Mr. Kai Ferguson, a Seaside Father, and one of the beaches best surfers.

Things to work on at home: We learned about smile vowels this week, /ee/ /i/ /e/ /ae/ /a/ /u/, and this week we'll be learning about round vowels, /oe/ /uu/ and /oo/. When you're reading with your child, try and let them sound out some of the vowel sounds. In math, I know most of the students have already been exposed to counting forwards and backwards, but one thing that we're trying to work on is memorizing the order so that when you say count from 20 backwards it is fast and fluent. So ask your child to count backwards, and then ask them "What's 13 minus 6?" Let them count backwards for 13. 

Here are some of the paintings we made this week. 

Week 6: September 28th

WOW! We had an action packed week, and an even more exciting week approaches. On Monday I told the story Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, we worked on adding and subtracting numbers up to 20, we got to observe our beans growing up our obstacle course, and best of all, the second graders gave the most delightful production of St. George and the Dragon. You would have been very pleased with your child. Our class was incredibly respectful during the performance and gave the second graders a standing ovation at the end of the play. On Friday, the same second graders came in to help teach us how to finger knit. All the students were asking, "were you St. George? Were you Una?" It was as if they were star struck.

Next week is going to be full of field trip fun! Rockaway Garden Center has offered a school partnership which includes a 20% discount for the school as well as getting tours of the nursery. We're going to walk to the Garden Center on Wednesday and learn all about native plants and soil.

Thursday will begin our first trip to the beach. Several Seaside friends have volunteered to teach the children how to surf. We are so excited to make our first beach trip of the year, and think it will be a perfect time to infuse many different concepts.

One thing to work on at home this week will be counting by different numbers, for example, count by 2's, 5's and 10's.

Jordan was so captivated by the story of St. George and the Dragon, she created this scary fire breathing dragon during her free draw!

As a confidence and team building activity I had everyone share a compliment with a classmate. It was really sweet to see how we built a web of confidence and love. 

Hello Seaside friends and families. I was so happy to be back in the classroom this week, and was greeted with many many hugs. I feel like we didn't miss a beat. Keep you eyes peeled this week as the Harvest Moon wanes. It has just been beautiful.

A special shout out to Emilia and Ella for making it to the International Beach Clean Up. It was such a success I think we are going to start meeting for beach cleanups on a fairly regular basis. As we move into October we will begin learning more about sea creatures and the ocean. I have posted a couple great sites if you are interested in adopting a manatee or a Loggerhead Sea Turtle nest please follow the links below. I adopted a Loggerhead nest for the school, and pretty soon we are going to have a representative from BSTP come in and talk with the students about sea turtles.

I think it would be nice if we could adopt a class manatee as well. I believe the fee is $25.00, and this is something that the students will try and get donations for.

http://www.savethemanatee.org/adoptpag.htm

http://www.bstp.net/

Some things to work on at home:

• READ READ READ: This group of students just love reading! Please make sure that you are reading with your child and your child is reading to you as much as possible. 
• We just learned how to make yarn balls this week, and this is an excellent way for the students to develop their fine motor skills. If you have any spare yarn at home let your child organize it! 
• We are really cruising with addition and subtraction. The class made flash cards this week for addition problems, and we are getting pretty fast with subtraction as well. If you are waiting in line somewhere or traveling in the car, throw some equations at them. For example, "What's 5 + 7? What's 10 - 7?" 
• Throwing and catching is always a good thing to work on at home. Try and create a game where if you hit a certain object it's 3 points and if you hit something else it's minus 1 point. The kids love doing the math and it's a great way to reinforce eye hand coordination. 

Here are some pictures from our yellow and blue painting. I love how everyone in the class got all the same materials, and all the paintings turned out so unique.

Several parents have written with concerns about what food they should bring to school. Here is a fantastic site- if you've hit a meal plan block.

Great Meal PLans

This is a really interesting discussion on what color is. I think it's an important article for parents to listen to because too often we impart our sense of color and the world onto the child's sense of color. It's essential to remember that the child is experiencing color for the first time, and sees things through a very different narrative.

Radio Lab article on COLOR

Week 3: September 2

I am so impressed with everything our class is remembering and all the fantastic observations we are making. Though short, this week was action packed. We watched the pole beans sprout in the garden and in our personal cups, we heard the Tale of The Golden Goose, learned about the "Th" sound, worked on our eye hand coordination in gym, began to solve more complex addition equations, learned about the different parts of the body in Spanish, and we even studied ants.

Classmates constructing supports for our sprouting beans. The support system morphed into a lizard and ant theme park quickly. 

Week 2:

Our second week was even better than the first. Our class is getting used to the daily rhythm, and what the classroom expectations are. This week was action packed: we got to paint for the first time, we got our beans in the garden bed, we practiced writing math equations, we had our first yoga class, and some of our personal beans are beginning to sprout. Ashby's bean seems to be growing the fastest. It was the first to root!

A special thanks to Lili's parents for bringing in some lettuce, carrots, potato, and a magnifying glass.

We've had a bit of confusion as to what a fire ant is these past two weeks, so Mrs. Glass' class and I will be doing a week long unit on studying and learning about ants this coming week.

Please tell your children to keep up with all the fantastic learning and observations.

A humongous thank you to Ms. Hastings and Ms. Harris for teaching our class yoga. This was the perfect way to start the week!

In addition to our Yoga Instruction, I'd also like to thank the parents who volunteered to put our blackboard and our cubbies together. Our room is nice and organized now, and it makes it so much easier to line up. 

Also, in case you missed it this weekend, our class was on the front page of the Shorelines. I think we are off to an amazing start this year. 

Welcome to our Room!

Congratulations to all our students and families as we made it through our first week of school.