Happy Catholic Schools Week! This week we celebrated the joys of attending a Catholic school. Each day there was a special dress up opportunity like pajama day, wacky day, hat & shades day, jersey day and dress up day. There was also a special activity every day. We watched a movie, went on a scavenger hunt, had an inside picnic, played board games, and played bingo. Our theme for the week was the Three Little Pigs. We enjoyed listening to several different versions of the Three Little Pigs. We worked on comparing and contrasting stories. We started by reading the “original” story the Three Little Pigs, where the wolf eats the pigs, and the “new” version, where the pigs move on to their sibling’s house. Then each day we read a different version (The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig, The Three Little Javelinas, and The Three Little Hawaiian Pigs and the Magic Shark). After each story, we listed the ways it was the same as the original and the ways it was different. We found that many of the stories had a lot of things in common except for the setting or the place the story takes place. Our big project this week was to create the characters and setting from the story and to use the props to retell the story.
Monday: Happy Catholic School Week! This week we are celebrating Catholic Schools. This is a national event and Catholic schools all over are doing special things to show pride and support their school. Today was pajama and movie day. We got to wear our pajama’s to school! Our morning started with our normal routine. After flag, we move right into reading. Some friends worked on reading stations while others worked on a writing project. We had to write about our favorite thing about the School of St. Philip. We met with Ms. Torborg to do our writing. If we didn’t get a chance today, we will do it tomorrow or Wednesday. In reading, we were also introduced to a new letter and letter sound, Uu. After watching our video and identifying words that began with the short u sound, we completed our letter Uu sorting worksheet. Our theme for the week is The Three Little Pigs. Today we read two stories titled The Three Little Pigs. Our first story was the “original” Three Little Pigs. In our story, the pigs each built a house. The big bad wolf blew down down the first two houses and ate the pigs. The third pig built a strong house and was able to capture the wolf. In the second story, the pigs each built a house. The wolf blew down the houses of the first two pigs, but they got away. Then together the three pigs captured the wolf. As we read the second story, we talked about things that were the same and things that were different. We ended our morning with calendar. We spent our afternoon with popcorn and a movie. We could choose between 101 Dalmatians or Romana and Beezus. We had a break in the middle of the movie for PE.
Tuesday: Today was wacky day and we sure had some wacky outfits. We started our morning writing about our favorite things about the School of St. Philip. Some people worked on their writing project from yesterday and some people worked on a new writing projects. As a school, we are creating table tents that are going to be put around town (mainly restaurants). After we wrote about our favorite thing about the school, we had to draw a picture to match our words. During reading time, we also listened to the story, The Three Little Javelinas. A Javelina is a southwestern cousin of the pig. Our story was similar to our first story The Three Little Pigs only it was set in the dessert. When we were done with the story, we compared it to the original story. We learned a new word- similar. It means that it is just like it but not exactly the same. There were many things in the stories that were similar. In the first book they built a house out of straw. In the second book, they built a house out of tumbleweeds. We decided that straw and tumbleweeds are similar. We also found all the ways they were the different and the same. Finally we were introduced to our 2 new sight words, him & her, and our new emergent reader, Three Little Pigs. After reading our book together 2 times, we completed both of our sight word worksheets. In the afternoon, we went on a scavenger hunt. We started with a clue in our classroom. Ms. Torborg read it to us. We had to work together to try to figure out where our next clue might be. We had to do this for each clue until we found our prize, a 6 color pen. We also had PE and music, completed our calendar binder, and worked on coloring pictures for the seniors at the nursing home.
Wednesday: Today was hats and shades day. We could wear our hats and sun glasses all day in class! We also had a picnic lunch in our classroom. Plus after PE, we had rootbeer floats. We skipped our morning free play time today and got right to work. We worked on writing and illustrating the table tents we started yesterday. We also illustrated our page about our favorite thing about our school. In reading, watched a letter Uu video and identified word that began with a short or long u sound. Then we completed our letter Uu worksheet. We also we listened to the story, The Three Little Hawaiian Pigs and the Magic Shark. We compared and contrasted it with the original one. We found the biggest difference in the The Three Little Hawaiian Pigs and the Magic Shark was the setting. This story took place in Hawaii, so there were several new words we didn’t know. The way the story ended was also different from the other stories we read. Our project today was to create the stick puppets characters for the story of the three little pigs. We colored and cut out the three pigs and the wolf. Ms. Torborg will taped them on popsicle sticks. In math, we were introduced to the + symbol. It is called an addition or plus sign. It means we need to put them together. We use it with a some and some more story problem. Ms. Torborg showed use how it works on the SMARTboard. As Ms. Torborg told a number story, she drew a picture. She put some on the left side of the symbol and then the rest on the right side. To find the answer, we had to put them together. Then we gave it a try with our own addition symbol and counters. After several examples, we tried solving the same number stories by drawing a picture and writing a number sentences. In religion, we finished coloring our pictures for the seniors at Ecuman. We ended our day with a little extra free time since we didn’t get any in the morning! Thursday: We had an unexpected 2 hour late start today due to the weather, but it didn’t stop us from having a fun day. Everyone dressed in their favorite sports jersey. We started our day reading the story of the Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig. In this story, the wolves worked together to build different houses. Each house was stronger than the first. The big bad pig would find a way to destroy each of the houses. That is until they build a fragile house of flowers. The pig decided to change and be their friend. Throughout the story, we made predictions about what might happen next. After we read the story, we compared it to our first story (the original Three Little Pigs.) We identified things that the same and things that were different. Then we completed our calendar before we were off to lunch. After lunch, we revisited the story of the Three Little Pigs. First we watched a short movie. Then we completed a sequencing worksheet. We had to cut out all of the pieces and glue them in order. Since there were so many pieces, we had to make sure the second row went from left to right just like when you read a book. We also started creating the setting of the story, The Three Little Pigs. Today we made the brick house. We started with an outline of a house. We draw bricks across and down the house to make the bricks. Then we colored and cut it out. Our special activity today was board games. We spent half an hour playing board games before PE and half an hour playing board games after music! Friday: Today was dress up day. Everyone dressed up in their finest clothes. We sure have a handsome class. We started our morning by working on the setting for the Three Little Pigs. We cut out the outline of our next two houses. Then we glued them on a big piece of paper with our brick house. To create the straw house, we glued yellow string pieces on a house outline. To create the stick house, we glued popsicle sticks on a house outline. We also added some background designs like a blue sky and grass, to our paper the our houses on it for our setting. Then we used our puppets to retell the story of the three little pigs. We finished our Three Little Pigs theme by reading the story, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. We found out that the same story can sound a lot different when a different character tells us the story. This story was written from the wolf’s point of view. After we read it, we compared the story to the rest of the stories we read. We also took a vote to see which story we think was the truth and the pig’s story won out! We also worked on retelling the story of the Three Little Pigs. We ended our day by playing BINGO with the first graders! Mrs. Lingen called the numbers over Zoom. If we got a bingo, we were able to pick a prize out from the table in the Assembly Room. The best part was everyone won a prize!