Well happy summer. I attached the video that the students made, using their Model Magic Ocean animal in the computer lab. I have one correction Shae did the parrot fish and Elise did the seahorse. Their voices are correct, their names were typed in the reverse order. Enjoy! It is awesome. Thank-you for coming to our Project Share last Wednesday. Here are some of the pictures.

Here is the link. Click on it! Pick up your copy of the DVD Commotion in the Ocean in the Lower Division Office at school. They did not make it home on Friday, too much stuff!

https://voicethread.com/book.swf?b=4559668

Happy Tuesday! Head deep in glitter, glue, sand and paint, but our projects are almost finished. Hopefully, you can come by on Wednesday at 2:00 to see our completed projects. The students have had a blast creating them, and I have let them go.
I am happy all of you had a great time at the aquarium. It looks like the students had a blast! We are winding down and keeping focused these last few days.

Happy Monday! Well this is the last Monday I can say that. I can't believe the year is winding down so quickly. Thank-you for bringing project boards and boxes to school. We are beginning our display work today. This is a project to be completed at school. If your child has done some of it at home no worries, there is still plenty to add at school. We will be presenting our projects next Wednesday at 2:00 for all who would like to come and see the presentations. Only the children who would like to present will do so, while the others will have their projects set up for preview and answering any questions. The aquarium field trip is tomorrow. Please have your child wear their Commotion in the Ocean shirts with comfy bottoms. We will be leaving school at 8:45 planning on arriving in Tampa at 9:30ish. So plan on being at the aquarium at 9:30. You will have to wait before going in because your ticket is already paid for, in a check, that Mrs. Owen will deliver.
Mrs. Peck came and did her last dissection of the dogfish shark last week. The students loved seeing and learning about the lateral line, gills, caudal fin and what the shark ate.
We have put review skills for Math on line, as well as summer reading lists, supply lists for second grade and other end of the year items. They will all be posted in June. Have a great week. We will now, that we have moved our desks into All Girl and All Boy islands. Yes, I only do that for eight days.

Well, we caused quite a Commotion on Friday! It was awesome and the students were excellent. If you have not sent back your child's research sea animal graphic organizer, with the three columns of boxes, please do so immediately. We are beginning are all about books and projects.
I will be assessing all week in Math, Writing and Reading. It is very important you make a reading and review math plan with your child throughout the summer. We will have info posted on line. Please read the Splash Day letter that went home today with the Homework Calendar. We will have a great week!

Happy Monday! Well this is it "Commotion in the Ocean" on Friday May 10th at 8:30 a.m..
I will be sending home their T-shirts on Thursday, to wear to school on Friday, with jean shorts. Please join us for the performance and a reception to follow. We have studied sea turtles all last week and our focus this week is sharks. They are so excited. When checking their Math homework, please pay careful attention to the fractions. They have to be equal parts not just drawn pieces. All fractions that we are learning have to be equal parts. The numerator is how many parts you are talking about, and the denominator is how many parts there are total. The Unit 8 Checking Progress went home along with the unit 9 Family Letter today. We are in major review time. They need to understand what is being asked and what the correct response should be. We had the sea urchin dissection with Mrs. Peck on Tuesday and Jacob Nelson shared his whale baleen with us. Our last library check-out day is May 7th tomorrow. Please make sure they bring their library books to school. We will be writing our "All About" books with their researched sea animal so send back the graphic organizers when they have found more information. We will be presenting their projects at the end of the month. Have a great week. We will! See you on Friday.

Happy Monday! Well we are coming towards the finish line of First Grade and it will be a busy next few weeks. First and most important is our show "Commotion in the Ocean" on May 10th at 8:30a.m. with light refreshments to follow. This is a great showcase of what your children have learned and  can perform. We had our squid dissection with Mrs. Peck on Friday and our focus study this week is sea turtles. We learned so much about the squid. Make sure you ask your child. We also measured the lengths of different whales this week. My goodness that blue whale is 100 feet long. Congratulations to Kate for competing in her first swim meet and winning ribbons. She shared her ribbons at Town Meeting. A letter will be sent home this week about our project work. The students will be working on them some at home and mostly at school. Depending on what they want to do, they may need to bring in special supplies. I talked to them about different options and ideas.

Happy Tuesday! I hope you had a great long weekend. What a wonderful Celebrate the Arts day on Friday. I hope you enjoyed our performance. All week we celebrated and began our week at the Dali Museum, played the drums, watched a Rock Band, talked with an Opera Singer and made homemade pasta with a chef. A special thank-you to Gissella, Sofia's mom who shared her story of how she became a famous singer and songwriter with us. The chocolate covered strawberries were especially delicious. We had a great week learning all about dolphins. Next week we will be learning about whales. Every area of our curriculum centers around our study except for Math we are continuing reviewing throughout the remainder of the year. We are comparing whale lengths, so Math will be part of our learning this week. They are so big. Remember our vocabulary each week are new ocean words. Please encourage your child to write on all of the lines on Wednesday night. Three sentences are not enough for this time of the year. They need to challenge themselves. Have a great week. We will!

Happy Friday!  Too much to tell, to wait for Monday. We are beginning our Commotion in the Ocean projects and show rehearsals. I sent home the poems to memorize on Thursday. I will be sending home your child's speaking parts next week. Please send in a clean white T-shirt to school ASAP. They will begin decorating them soon. The next four weeks will be fast and furious. This week is Celebrate the Arts with our performance Friday at 11:00 followed by a picnic lunch. Please enjoy all of the Art displayed throughout then entire campus. All divisions participate in the Celebration all week. The Upper Division will be performing The Music Man Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. We are going to the Dali Museum on Monday. Out tour begins at 10:00 and we will return to school after for lunch. I would like to send a very warm thank-you to everyone for making Teacher Appreciation Week one of the best ever! The breakfasts were a wonderful surprise each morning and lunch was a delightful treat. I even got Godiva chocolates and Edible Arrangements apple slices dipped in chocolate delivered. Thank you again, I feel tremendously appreciated.
The pictures show quite a bit going on this week. Have your child use an empty egg carton for Math. They can label it with numbers and use pennies as game pieces. Depending on the digits the pennies land on, will determine what 3 digit numbers they can make. Have them practice how many flats, longs and cubes they need to go along with the number or which coins they need to show that amount. We also had our Writing Celebration for Our Craft of Revision Unit. Purple was everywhere. They worked on changing the story leads, endings, spelling, sequence or added where more detail was needed. Next week we are back to our non fiction All about books, with our focus being dolphins. Each week our focus will change. We are also reading out of our nonfiction dolphin books. Have a great week. We will!