Descriptive Writing

We have been using our senses to make our writing more descriptive.  We built on our knowledge of senses from Kindergarten to revise our writing and add details about what we can see, touch, taste, smell, and hear.  Here is a glimpse of our descriptive partner writing about the weather:

"A Sunny Day"

 

We hear some birds.  Chirp!  Chirp!  We see the blue sky.  We smell the flowers.  We Feel the Trees.

 

"A Sunny Day"

 

The wind is cold.  We can see the sun.  We can hear the birds.  We can smell the fresh morning air. 

  

Over the past few weeks we have been learning about and using adjectives. Our first graders know that adjectives are describing words.  This week we brainstormed as many adjectives as we could think of to describe the inside and outside of the pumpkin. 

  

We especially loved feeling the inside of the pumpkin which allowed for some very creative adjectives!

 

 

Have a safe and fun Halloween!





We're on TV!

From time to time the high school broadcasting students visit our classroom and videotape what we are learning.  During our community helpers unit the high school students visited us twice, to document the firefighter and police officer visit.  These videos have been edited and are broadcast on the Quakertown cable channel.  They can also be viewed using the following links:

Firefighter Visit:

 

http://qcsd.pegcentral.com/player.php?video=4ba0a49306341be60f1573530d338e5c

 

Police Officer Visit:

 

http://qcsd.pegcentral.com/player.php?video=474766e7a763b17e5bd1cafb77746add

 

 

Enjoy!

Community Helpers

Community helpers was the topic of our Social Studies learning over the past week and a half. We discussed community helpers such as doctors, nurses, teachers, construction workers, firefighters, mail carriers, and police officers. We  discussed what these professions look like and the tools these community helpers utilize to perform their jobs. 

We were lucky enough to have an officer from the Quakertown Police Department visit our first grade to share about his daily duties and provide us with some important safety tips!  Some of our friends even earned official police badges by answering the officer's questions correctly. 

As we conclude our first Social Studies unit on communities, talk with your first grader about what he or she would like to be when they grow up. As our final project we will be finishing the sentence, "When I grow up I want to be ______ because . . . "

Look for the finished projects in the hallway by our classroom at the end of the week!

Fabulous Friday

Lunch Bunch

Every other Friday we celebrate good behavior by having Lunch Bunch.  Friends are invited to Lunch Bunch, where we eat in the classroom, when they illustrate good choices by staying on green or a rainbow color for two straight weeks.  This past Friday was a special one, because ALL of our friends were invited to Lunch Bunch for the first time!  It was a wonderful treat to have our whole class enjoy lunch together in the classroom.  Keep up the great work 1st grade!

Rainy Day Reading

There's no better way to spice up a rainy Friday then with some Rainy Day Reading!  After rereading last week's story, Lucia's Neighborhood, we listened to the text on CD to practice our reading fluency.  Students got into groups of three, one child was the page turner, one the flashlight holder, and one the word pointer.  Then we turned off the lights and it was time to read!  Now we have something to smile about inside even when the weather may be dreary outside.  

Class Pet

Congratulations to our first graders!  They have earned a class pet by spelling out their reward C-L-A-S-S  P-E-T letter by letter.  The children earn letters when the whole class is exceeding expectations.  On Friday afternoon we brainstormed pets we could have in the classroom that could be kept in a cage and/or tank and did not have any hair or fur due to allergies.  We came up with a lot of great ideas.  Snakes, turtles, fish, and even tarantulas - Yikes!  We took a class vote, and the winner is...FISH!  Ask your first grader to share about our new pet's arrival tomorrow afternoon.

Firefighter Visit!

October is National Fire Prevention Month.  The firefighters from Quakertown Fire Department visited QE today to share important safety tips and give our 1st grade friends a look inside their fire trucks.  We started off our day with an assembly where we discussed the concept of stop, drop, and roll, smoke detectors, and how important it is to have a family meeting place in case of an emergency.  We got to see all of the equipment a firefighter wears to combat a fire along with hearing the firefighter speak with his mask on so that we are familar with the sounds and are not afraid in case of an emergency.  

After the assembly we went back to the classroom to discuss and write the facts and safety tips we learned from the firefighters.  Then it was time for the highly anticipated look inside the fire trucks!  We were walked around the outside of the fire truck first to learn about all of the different tools and ask any questions.  Finally, our friends got a chance to climb inside the rescue truck and also sit in the driver's seat!  

The firefighters could not have come at a better time, as we begin talking about community helpers in Social Studies next week!  Be sure to have your 1st grader share their fact writing from today and read you their mini-book!

And a HUGE thank you to the Quakertown Fire Department for creating such a great day for our primary students!

Apples, Apples, Apples!

Happy Birthday Johnny Appleseed!

Did you know Johnny Appleseed was a real person named John Chapman?  We celebrated Johnny's birthday by doing a variety of activities with apples.  Each first grade friend brought in an apple on September 27th.  We began by sorting our apples by size, shape, and color.  We collected data on the colors of our apples by creating a tally chart.  From there we took the data from our tally chart and created a bar graph that allowed us to analyze the data by asking questions such as - Which color apple did our class have the most/least of?  How many green apples and yellow apples did we have in all?  How many more red apples did we have than yellow apples?

We also read two biographies about Johnny Appleseed and, together, took notes about what we learned.  After this we read and colored our own mini-book and puppet to share everything we learned we our family and friends.  

Finally, we just HAD TO taste our delicious apples!  As we ate our apples we brainstormed adjectives using our sense of sight, taste, touch, and smell to create list poems.  These lovely apple poems are currently hanging on our classroom windows.  

YUM!