Look What’s Happening in Room 102!

I want to congratulate all my first graders for a fabulous year.  We had a great year learning about technology and blogging.  We had over 2,000 visitors to our blog from over 50 countries. We learned how to use voicethread and Tux Paint.   Next year we will continue to learn more about technology and blogging.  Have a safe and fun summer boys and girls.  Find a cool and shady place under a tree and read a good book.  See you in September.
A big thanks to my parent volunteer, Maggie Leo, who has helped me in my classroom for the past 5 years.  This year she helped with reading and all the first graders benefited from her kind and supportive way.  Thanks, Maggie.  Daryl Shefford was another parent volunteer in our class.  Thanks for all your help and support this year.

Also, thanks to all our visitors who commented on our blog, too.  We learned a lot from you.  It was great to connect to classrooms around the world this year.  Thanks to other teachers who shared their blogs and resources.  We learned from all of you.

Yesterday was our last day of first grade. In the morning we played board games with our friends. In the afternoon we had an Ice Cream Sundae party. Thanks to all the parents who came and helped us. Also, a big thanks to everyone who contributed sundae toppings.  I had the best sundae ever…. oreo cookies, peanut butter cups,  strawberries and chocolate sauce on top of vanilla ice cream.  Yum!

Monday was Beach Day. All of Cycle One participated. Kindergarten, First and Second grade were out on the field all morning. There were 20 stations, 4 snack stations and a photo station. Children has punch out card around their neck and could chose which station they wanted to do. They could only do a station once. Everyone had a fabulous time even if it was a bit chilly. Watch the video and see some of the activities of Beach Day and our last day of school. Thanks to Ms. Mohammed for all her planning and ideas. You are amazing.

We’ve been practicing our reading fluency by doing a Reader’s Theater. This is our first try at this. It was a challenge for us to learn how to follow along so we would know when we had to speak. We worked on using expression in our voices, too. Congratulations to everyone. You all did a great job.

Reader’s Theater - Caps For Sale from Mary Ellen Lynch on Vimeo.

Father’s Day is this Sunday, June 21st.

Grade One would like to wish all our dads Happy Father’s Day. Listen to our Voicethread and find out about all the fun activities we like to do with our dads.

Grade One has been busy designing book covers for some unfamiliar stories. I read aloud Abuella by Arthur Dorros the other day. The pictures are by Elissa Kleven. I had the cover of the book blocked with a piece of construction paper so that the children could design their own book cover. This is a story about a little girl named Rosalba who is always “going places” with her grandmother who she calls Abuella. This is Spanish for Grandmother. It is a multicultural story with Spanish words and phrases weaved into the English text. During one of their bird feeding outings to the park Rosalba wonders aloud “What if I could fly”? Thus begins an excursion in the child’s imagagination as they fly high above the busses and tall buildings in Manhattan in New York City. Each stop reveals memories from Abuella’s ethnic past. The illustrations are just beautiful. If you are looking for multicultural stories check out Abuella.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Maybe next year in grade two we could reread this story and then make up our own version using Montreal landmarks and French words mixed in with English words. What do you think first graders???

Grade One brainstormed favorite things about our year with a partner. I collected the papers and typed all the responses on an appleworks document. Then I copied and pasted them to a website called wordle. The words that appear larger were more frequently listed as favorite things about grade one.

Yesterday we went to the University of Montreal for a Sports Day.  We took a bus there.  Mocha, our monitor, met us outside of the building.  First we went to swim.  The pool was very big.  We had to listen to the rules and then  some kids took a swimming test.  If they passed the test they could go in the deep end and go on the slide and the diving board.  Most of us stayed in the shallow end.

Then we changed out of our bathing suit and we ate our snack.  Next we went to this gym that had ropes and mats.  There was a Tarzan rope and a net bridge.  Catherine got hurt on the Tarzan rope and she took a trip in the ambulance to the hospital.  Mrs. Lynch went with her.  It was quite exciting but Catherine was scared.  She had to lay down on a board.  After getting tested by the Doctor she was able to go home with her Mom.  She was happy to leave the hospital.  The children were all concerned and sad about Catherine.

After that everyone else had their lunch.  Then they saw a show with a magician.  There were some fun games to do in the afternoon.

James, Amelie, William and Magalie liked the pool the best.  Laura and Ben liked the diving board and slide.  Miguel liked swimming in the deep end.  Mylene and Louis liked the Boula Boula game.  William liked the game with the big ball.  Guillaume and Hunter liked the Virus game.  Anthony liked everything.

It was a fun day.
Written by the class

Grade One loves to read and have stories read aloud to them by their teacher. Here are some of our favorite stories. Have you read any of them?


Make a Smilebox slideshow

Here is another website to practice spelling. It is called Spelling City. We will try to use this site next year to practice our spelling words. Thank you to Mr. Alvaro for suggesting it.
We tried it in class today and had a lot of fun. Just type in five words - for example your power words. We tried - school, jump, because, friend, and house. Then with audio and text you can practice them. You have a choice of games to play with these words, too. Check it out. What do you think?