Harvest Celebration

In an early post I said we would be having a harvest celebration next Thursday.  As a Learning Lane community we have decided to do a celebration together on Friday.  We will be planning special activities in the afternoon that go around the harvest theme.  It will be similar to our fun Friday time, but it will be extended so that students will visit 3 different classrooms over 3 blocks of time.  We are looking forward to doing this in place of a party alone on Thursday.  I look forward to sharing photos with you!

Fun Friday!

Last Friday we had our first official 'fun Friday'.  This is a 30 minute block in our afternoon every other or every few Friday's.  During this block we offer the students of our community the opportunity to make a choice of what activity they would like to participate in for that block of time.  Each teacher in our community plans an activity or craft.  These crafts are sometimes themed around the season or holiday that we are currently in.  So, most of the themes this past week were around fall.  Fun Friday is an opportunity for students to meet other teachers, mentor and be mentored by peers younger and older then them, and practice listening and direction following skills.  Also, most projects will help increase fine motor skills and creative thinking!  On top of this, fun Friday is a chance for students to simply, have fun!!!  Here are some pictures of some of the activities that students on Learning Lane participated in last Friday.

Working on Pumpkin Watercolor Pictures

Adding eyes to our pumpkins

Leaf Art with Mrs. Roy

Beautiful leaf creations

Mrs. Flanagin giving directions on scarecrow making

Collecting beautiful leaves for our pumpkin pictures

Too many nice ones to choose from!

Mask making with Mrs. Shanks

Spider web painting with Mrs. Scorza

Learning through technology!

Thursday we had the opportunity to use the laptops in our hallway.  We were able to log into our xtramath accounts.  This website is a great tool to help build students addition and subtraction fluency. Students are able to access this account at home for extra practice!  If you need the code resent to you please e-mail or send me a note.  Students were very excited to try and beat the teacher with their fact knowledge.  After practicing our facts students were allowed to go on a great site called starfall.com.  This website has literacy and math games.  It is fun, interactive, and great practice on the skills that 1st graders are working on.  Also, don't forget about RAZ Kids!! Students are accessing this site here at school during literacy centers, but please try to take advantage of this site at home too!  Thank you for sending in earbuds and headsets, it made our whole class computer time a lot quieter.

Working hard on xtramath

Just a little excited about computer time!

Starfall time

October 

Here are some important dates to keep in mind for the month of October!

4th - No School, teacher workshop day

14th - No School, Columbus Day

18th - Progress Reports Come home

28th, 29th, 30th - Parent Teacher Conferences 

*I will be sending sign up sheets for this next week!

31st - Harvest Party

Little Gardeners!

We have talked a lot about plants over the last month.  We have learned the different parts, what a plant needs, and the plant life cycle.  Now, it was time for us to try our hands at growing our own plants.  Each child was giving the choice to grow either a sunflower or bean plant.  They will be responsible for providing their plant with what it needs to grow.  I hope with this beautiful sunny weather we will be able to grow some nice looking plants!

The start of our little garden