You're Invited!

SAVE THE DATE - Reader's Theater - May 13th

Mark your calendars for Friday, May 13th at 2:30 pm. We will be having a reader's theater performance in our classroom and you are invited! Watch for your invitation in your child's folder in the next week!

Colorado Writing Pen Pals

Over the last few months we have been sharing some of our writing with a class from Colorado. The class we are partnering up with is a first grade class from Vista Peak Elementary School in the Denver, CO area. Their teacher is Mrs. Danielle Hunter who also happens to be married to my cousin. We worked hard to send them a book that taught them all about our school. This book was from our informational writing unit and included an all about me page as well. Yesterday, we received a package of writing back from them. The kids were VERY excited to read writing from another first grader.

We also connected this adventure to our social studies unit on mapping. We located their town on the map and visited the outside of their school with a virtual field trip on Google Earth.

Our next step is going to be to write a book review about a favorite book to send to our pen pals. This will go along with our current opinion writing unit. I also hope that by the end of the year we will also be able to do a Google Hangout with them so we can see their faces and classroom.

Below are some pics of the kids with our pen pals writing. :)

Minute to Win It

Today all the kids at Hemlock Creek enjoyed an hour of minute to win it games. This was a reward for earning Phantom slips for the last two months. They first graders played 3 games and rotated through classrooms. Below are some pictures from the game in our classroom.

Earth Day Super Heroes!

As you may already know today is Earth Day! To honor Earth Day we did a few activities in our classroom. We started by reading a book titled Michael Recycle followed with a discussion on ways to keep our earth clean. The kids then made super hero masks and we took pictures in front of the green screen. We then used an app called Green Screen to turn the pictures into something exciting. :) The kids also then wrote pledges to be Earth Day super heroes listing five ways to help the earth. All pictures will be uploaded to Seesaw by Monday. Here is a sneak peek!

UPDATE: ALL pictures have been uploaded to Seesaw. Stop on over to sign up. If you need me to resend directions please contact me via email. :)

Click HERE
http://web.seesaw.me/

Introducing Seesaw!

Today our class was introduced to an iPad app and website called Seesaw. This app allows students to collect their digital work in one spot. It also allows parents access to work that their child is doing at school. Work done during Daily 5 rotations, math centers, reading lessons, and much more will be uploaded by your child. A note giving you and your child access from home is in their take home folder today. Don't miss it!

To introduce the kids to Seesaw Mrs. Gossen (Library Media Specialist) and I worked together to teach a lesson. The lesson started with a read aloud of the book If I had a Robot by Dan Yaccarino. They then had to respond to the story using an app called Hello Crayon. Their assignment was to then draw a picture showing what they would make a robot do for them. They saved the image to the iPad's camera roll and learned how to upload it to Seesaw.

During writing we continued the activity by writing about our robots and what they would do for us.

PLEASE check out our Seesaw page ASAP! :)

 

Reach for the Stars

Last week on Tuesday you should have received a packet of information in Tuesday notes regarding a PTO fundraiser that is new this year. The goal of this fundraiser is to get more books in the hands of students.

This is a pledge based fundraiser and 100% of the money donated goes towards books for your child at home or here at school  (50/50 split of donations). I urge to you consider participating in the fundraiser as it is a GREAT way to get books for summer reading at home. 

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me. I can also send home another packet of information if you misplaced yours. Happy reading! 

For More Info Click HERE!

Jazz Band Concert

Today all of the students here at HC got to listen to a concert put on by the West De Pere High School Jazz Band. The music was great and the kids enjoyed it very much. :)

1st Grade and Google Docs

In 1st grade your child has been introduced to Google Docs. They are able to login using their school log in information and create documents. These documents can then be shared with me and printed.

In addition to creating Docs your child also learned how to open a shared folder (created by me), make a copy of a file, and save it to their own Google Drive account. They can then edit the document responding to a prompt that was created for them. This document will also be shared with me and eventually uploaded to an app called SeeSaw as well.

If you would like your child to access their Google Drive account from home (no email access) they can visit the HC library page through the link on our sqworl page. They should be able to show you as this is how we do it at school as well. :)