A Visit from Grafton Firefighters

Several firefighters visited school today to teach about fire prevention and fire safety.

The firefighters taught about how to get out and stay out of a burning building.

The First Graders are watching a firefighter put on all of his gear.

We learned that firefighters may look scary or sound scary with all of this gear, but there is a regular person underneath. Never hide from a firefighter! Let them know where you are, so they can help you get out safely.

Counting On

In math, we are working on the count-on addition strategy. We say the big number, and then count on to add 0, 1, 2, or 3.

Insect Fun

We got up close with our mealworms to study their behavior and structures.

A few students got to hold the butterflies before they flew away outdoors.

Today, we searched for insects in their own natural habitats.

Goldenrod is home to lots of insects.

This ladybug is showing off its two sets of wings!

Observing an anthill

We found so many tiny milkweed bugs on the milkweed! We talked about how important this plant is for the monarch butterfly.

A full-grown milkweed bug was admired by all!

Science in Full Swing

The First Graders are loving our Plants and Insects science unit!

We planted brassica seeds. We can't wait for them to grow!

We had caterpillars arrive on the second day of school. We watched them change to chrysalises and today we got our first butterfly!

A container of mealworms arrived today... Stay tuned over the next few weeks for mealworm news!

Writing and Reading and Insects... Oh My!

First Grade learning is taking off! In Writer's Workshop, we have been writing small moment stories. These are true stories that take place during a small moment in time.

sharing a small moment story

In Reader's Workshop, we are building our reading stamina. Each day, students practice reading "longer and stronger" by themselves, then with a partner. I look forward to working with small reading groups when reading stamina grows to about 15 minutes.

reading partners sitting elbow to elbow...

...knee to knee...

...book in the middle...

...so we both can see!

In science, we are learning about insects. Today we went on a hunt to find evidence that leaf-eating insects live in our schoolyard. We found plenty of leaves with holes and squiggly marks.

Wheel of Books

The school joined together to play Wheel of Books on Friday, as a kick-off for our annual Spell-a-Thon.

The wheel spins to choose a class, then a student in that class.

Students guess letters or try to solve the puzzle. All the puzzles were book titles, authors, or book characters.

 Several lucky members of our class were chosen to guess letters.

Happy Birthday!

We celebrated our first birthday of the school year. The birthday person gets to choose someone to be the "sun." Then the birthday person walks around the sun while holding the globe to show how Earth moves around the sun. Each lap around the sun stands for one year. Seven laps means you are seven years old!

The Woodview Way

On Friday, we took a "passport tour" to learn about using the Woodview Way in different areas of the school.

Mr. McMahon taught about using the Woodview Way in general.

Mrs. Lyneis taught about what dismissal should look like for those who ride the bus and those who get picked up.

Mrs. Binder taught about bathroom behavior.

Mrs. Mossman taught about walking in the hallway. She used a video that starred a few First Graders!

Mr. Darmoday taught about cafeteria behavior.

The best part of all was reviewing recess expectations -- and then practicing them by playing on the playground! 

At the very end, we filled out paw prints with things we had learned.

We are ready to follow the Woodview Way to have a great year of learning together!

Happy First Day of School!

We managed to beat the heat and have a great first day of First Grade! Here are a few pictures from our day.

When it was time to read, the class dove right in!

We did puzzles with our own names, and then traded them with friends to spell their names, too.

We started working on some Fall decorations. You'll see them displayed at Back to School Night on Sept. 17th.

We were tired by the end of the day, but excited about coming back tomorrow!