Dr. Seuss

We have been having a Seusstastic March!  As part of Read Across America in Room 116 students went on a QR hunt around the classroom with all of their Dr. Seuss knowledge. Using the app, Qrafter, students worked in pairs to scan the QR codes with the iPads. Once they scanned the QR code it brought them to a Dr. Seuss question that they needed to work together to answer. Try scanning the codes below (all you need is any free QR scanning app for an iPhone, iPad or iPod).

There was lots of Dr. Seuss trivia. Do you know where Dr. Seuss was born or what the first book he ever wrote was? How about the number of words in Green Eggs and Ham? If not, ask your first grader to help.

1st graders and our Kindergarten buddies have been using the month to share our love of reading and show our school spirit.  Students celebrated Oh The Places You'll Go day by dressing in clothes from their favorite places and creating post cards to send to family members.  We traveled to Disney, sports stadiums, Hawaii and even Paris.

K-Buddies and 1st graders also celebrated crazy hat, wacky wardrobe and silly sock day!  Last Friday, buddies each created their own crazy hat with their reading favorites. 

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” -Dr. Seuss

iRead

With the wonderful addition of six iPads right in our classroom this year, you might walk into Room 116 at any point and think that students are "playing" on the iPads but Klipfel & Kids are very busy learning.  1st graders have been loving using the iPads as digital print in guided reading groups and for independent reading.  1st graders use iBooks to read digital texts with interactive digital features and to enjoy class books we have made this year.  

We of course have some favorite reading apps! A new favorite app Epic! (the Netflix of books) lets students enjoy a wide variety of digital books. Scholastic Classroom Magazine is another wonderful app students love reading from to improve their reading skills, vocabulary, and comprehension.  Klipfel and Kids can't forget Raz-Kids where students have discovered the added poetry books. 

We don't stop there 1st graders are becoming experts on sharing their thinking about texts in digital form too!  We can retell texts using illustrations from the story or what we visualized.  Check out some of our work.

Students can read digital print at home.  If you haven't already, save our class books in iBooks for easy reading anytime.  At home, search the free books available in iBooks for your child to practice their reading or download our favorite reading apps if you don't already have them!  Happy digital reading!

Rhyming with Seuss

Inspired by Dr. Seuss this month in Writer's Workshop we have been working on creating our own rhymes. We used a very popular Dr. Seuss book, Green Eggs and Ham to help us get started. First, Tim Tebow came for a virtual visit and read us the silly story. Then, we decided on our own food that we definitely would not, could not eat! 1st graders came up with rhymes to create a silly poem. Afterwards, 1st graders drew caricatures based on their poem. Next, we used a favorite app Chatter PIX to record our voices all by ourselves. Check out our work below!

New Arrivals!

Klipfel & Kids is excited to share the wonderful news...chicken eggs have arrived!  In 21 days we will (hopefully) have 15 new additions to Room 116.  The wonderful Mrs. Bucchiere (also known as Farmer Darcy) is letting us take part in this real life science project right in our classroom.  She is one expert in the realm of hatching chickens!  First, she came in early to set up the incubator and make sure everything was running smoothly. 

Letting the eggs get to room temperature before putting them in the incubator.

Then this afternoon she delivered the eggs!  She shared her knowledge, pictures and videos from former eggs she had hatch to help get us ready.  Now we wait 21 short days and watch as these eggs hatch into baby chicks.  We will be observing as this life cycle takes place right in front of our eyes!  

We are looking forward to Farmer Darcy's next visit.

I "mustache" you a question...

As part of our Math in Focus curriculum and Common Core State Standards students learned how to organize, represent and interpret data. 1st graders put these skills to the test and created their own tally and bar graph. Students first created a question to ask peers. They came up with everything from favorite animal, ice cream, movie and even favorite Patriots players.

1st graders then walked around the classroom, with mustaches on, to collect their data. Once data was collected students tallied the results and created their own bar graphs. We then analyzed and interpreted our information.

I "mustache" you a question....do you love 1st grade?

Common Core Standard for Math: 1.MD.C.4 -Measurement & Data - Represent and interpret data: 4. Organize, represent, and interpret data with up to three categories; ask and answer questions about the total number of data points, how many in each category, and how many more or less are in one category than in another.