Fancy Day

Ooh la la! Fancy Friday was one exquisite (that's a fancy word for great) day! Our anticipation has been building for this stupendous day and let me just say it was well worth the wait to see all the 1st graders dressed in their imaginative posh outfits. Of course, I couldn't resist dressing in my most elegant clothes too. Students were thrilled (that's even more excited than excited) to complete fancy activities throughout our shortened day.

1st graders read Fancy Nancy books, went on a fancy word hunt, and used elegant vocabulary; looking exquisite while doing it all.  A large part of 1st graders Writer's Workshop is focusing on using word choice in our writing pieces. Our Fancy Word Wall will help 1st grade writers' pieces sparkle and dazzle.
Fancy day brought one extra magnificent visitor to first grade.  Madame (that's a fancy way of saying Mrs.) Klipfel had a snow day, so she was put to work in first grade.  She videotaped our green screen project and brought in fancy movie star sunglasses for the whole class (looking exquisite the whole time).

To end our fabulous Fancy Day, we had a little soiree with the rest of the first grade. Students paired up to finish the day with some phenomenal reading.

1st graders (and their teacher) had a splendiferous Fancy Day learning and working, with our pinkies up!

Common Core State Standard L.1.6: Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, reading and being read to, and responding to texts, including using frequently occurring adjectives.

Global School Play Day

Yesterday marked one exciting, fun and very educational day in 1st grade. During Global School Play Day, we focused on learning and researching through unstructured play. In the morning we had a "playdate" with our Kindergarten Buddies in Mrs. Newton's room.  Later, we rotated through Mrs. Libby's class, Mrs. Halligan's class and the gym with our K connections.  In the afternoon we had a checkers tournament before heading to 2nd grade and spending time with Mrs. Begin's class.  During the whole day the smiles, opportunities to play, creativity and imagination were endless.  It was truly inspirational to see the smiles, laughter and happiness.  Check it out for yourself:

Hopefully yesterday inspired your family to plan for more unstructured play time during non-school hours and help children’s imagination and creativity to grow both in the classroom and beyond.