Goodbye Friends

First grade sure was easy!

Dear First Grade Families,

It's finally here-summer! Today, I give you back the same child from the fall a few inches taller, a few months wiser, and much more mature. Although this growth would have happened anyway, it has been my pleasure to watch them develop every day. They are all readers, writers and mathematicians, and I am overwhelmingly proud of each and every one of them.

One last thank you to all the boys and girls for their continuous hard work this school year. Thank you also to the parents for your support and encouragement from home, as well as, all our faithful blog followers. We loved all the times you visited our classroom as guests, mystery readers, or helpers.

Enjoy your days at the beach and nights by the BBQ. Don't forget to post your summer adventures on our summer padlet or send me an email jklipfel@middletonps.org with what you are up.  I love nothing more then getting notes and postcards too! This summer, encourage your student to join the library's summer reading program. Trips to the library on those rainy days can be a great way to spend time-you might just see me there. Don't forget, our blog and Symbaloo are always there with great links to learning. Do a little bit of practice with words or numbers every day. Your children love to learn – they'll surprise you.

We have truly lived, loved, laughed, and learned together this year. I wish it could continue but each and everyone of you is ready for 2nd grade. Remember, I will always be interested in your child's future, wherever they go, whatever they do. Their joys and sorrows I will always be happy to share, so please make sure to keep me in the loop for many years to come. Until we meet again!

Love always,
Miss Klipfel

Hello 1st Graders                                                       Goodbye My Good Friends

Monkey Day

Marvelous Monkey Day was a magnificent hit in first grade.  Today we met Margaret and H. A. Rey the author and illustrators of the Curious George Series.

Curious George and our monkey friends from home helped us do our school work all day.  In reading, 1st graders learned the story behind the creation of the Curious George stories. Curious George began as a character in Margaret and H.A. Rey's french book titled Raffy and the Nine Monkeys. We practiced drawing George step by step and I LOVE how different all the monkeys look.

Afterwards our monkeys joined us for a most delicious snack break. I couldn't resist making a few banana phone calls. Another part of monkey day included brainstorming things we are curious about and using crazy Curious George hands to help us practice telling time. 

Writer's Workshop had 1st graders transforming themselves into curious little monkeys.
Imagination and creativity shined through as these monkeys came to life.

Lots of monkeying around today!

1st graders get an ape-plus for today! Check out all our monkey photos:

“George can do what kids can’t do. He can paint a room from the inside. He can hang from a kite in the sky. He can let the animals out of their pens on the farm. He can do all these naughty things that kids would like to do.” -Margret Rey

Tide Pools

The BIG day finally arrived! Yesterday, we suited up and headed out to Odiorne Point in Rye, NH. 1st graders had a blast exploring the rocky shore and seeing first hand everything we've been learning. Thank you to all the chaperones who were able to join us today on our excursion. Our little scientists did an excellent job sharing all their sea creature knowledge. I'm happy to report we all looked adorable in our tie dye and made it back to school with smiles on our faces. Enjoy our Seashore Smilebox:

Don't Let the Pigeon Play Sports

Today was a jam packed 1st grade day with field day, sports day, Pigeon, hot dogs and Mo Willems. Needless to say we had a spectacular day (and yes we're ready for a nap).  Students (and their teacher) played tug-of-war, ran through obstacle courses, and ate delicious snow cones. Students even had a sponge race. Smiling faces and cheers filled the back field! Thank you to all the volunteers who helped make this field day a success.

Make sure to check out our field day slideshow!

First graders and their teachers enjoyed a delicious hot dog lunch.  I even taught some 1st graders how to spell their name in ketchup.  As a grade we created a graph and all voted on how we liked our hot dogs.  Overwhelming hot dogs with ketchup won, although in our classroom we had hot dogs with BBQ lovers and even some who liked hot dogs with chips on top.

Taking lunchies

We spent the afternoon celebrating ourselves as readers. Yes, we can all read!! We began by watching an interview with the hilarious Mo Willems and learned how he gets his ideas and makes them into a real published book.

Mo Willems always entertains us will his writing and definitely makes us laugh. We learned that every night at dinner time, Mo and his family sit down to doodle at the kitchen table. Mo explained that we should never give up on drawing, so we thought we'd give his doodling a try.

Tide Pool Boogie

Thank you to everyone who could attend our Tide Pool Boogie this morning. As you can tell 1st graders have learned so much about Tide Pool creatures. They worked very hard learning all of the songs, poems and hand motions.

We also loved having you back in our classroom for our Author Share. The boys and girls have been working hard since September to become better writers and were extremely proud to share that with you today. It is always a treat as a student, teacher or parent to see the growth since the beginning of the school year. In the words of a first grader, "Look how I used to spell that!"

Check out and share our favorite first grade memories video:

Scientific Research

Students have been using non-fiction texts to learn facts and information about different tide pool animals. 1st graders were split into groups to fill out an organizer with all the facts they read.

Deep in research

Each group became the expert on that ocean animal so they could then teach the rest of the class. We recorded all their information on large posters hanging in our classroom.

1st graders weren't done there. Each group then created a labeled diagram of their animal for our very own classroom tide pool. Students used labels and captions (which are non-fiction features) on their posters to help inform us.

Students have learned lots of new vocabulary and facts. A new vocabulary word we learned was invertebrate or animals with no backbones. Did you know a crab molts its shell? Or that a sea star can regenerate? Keep discussing these facts at home with your child so you're ready for our field trip too! You never know what you're going to learn.