***********Field Trip Reminder**************

Dear Parents, 

We will be going to Holbrook Sanctuary on Tuesday, June 17th. We will
be leaving the school around 8:30 and returning around 2:00.  Please
have your child bring a bag lunch (no glass bottles please), extra
change of clothing, and shoes.  We will be having a snack before the
bird walk when we arrive at Holbrook Sanctuary, going on a bird walk,
having a picnic (with watermelon provided by the teachers), and wading
and playing games on the shore.  The rain date is June 18th.  

Please take the time to go through your child’s kindergarten and first
grade portfolio work that was sent home with them today.   This is work
for you to keep.  They will be bringing home their Big Books next week.
 

We will be celebrating summer bithdays on June 19th, the last day of
school in the morning.  We have four summer birthdays. The students
will get to wear a birthday crown---finally!!!!  

On the last day of school, June 19th, we will be having a field day in
the afternoon.  There will be some water activities so please send in
extra clothing and shoes on this day too.  Thank you in advance.

June 6, 2008

Dear Parents,

Thank you for coming to our Bird Exhibition today. Everyone did a great
job reading their reports and sharing information they have learned
about birds. I am so proud of them.

On Tuesday, June 17th we will be going to Holbrook Sanctrary (rain date
June 18th). We will be leaving the school at 8:30 and returning around
2:00. The students will need a cold lunch on this day (please no glass
bottles). We will be hiking and going on a bird walk around Mile Pond
and then will be picnicing and some wading. Please return the
permission slip below on Monday, June 9th.

Next week is Arts Week. The students will not have regular math and
reading homework this week. They may bring home some free choice
reading. We will be finishing our last unit in math next week. They
will be taking an end-of-the-year math assessment on Wednesday, June
11th.

Enjoy the weekend and stay cool!

Sincerely,

Judy Cole

_____________has permission to go to Holbrook Sanctuary on
Student’s name the bus.

___Yes, I will be a chaperon.

Parent signature

May 30, 2008

Dear Parents,

We have been on six bird walks. We are becoming great ornithologists.
We have seen chick-a-dees at the bird blind on feeders, seagulls and
crows in the sky, and a pileated woodpecker on an old tree at the end
of the soccer field. We have been recording our sightings in our bird
journals. Parents will be able to check them out when you come to our
Bird Exhibition on Friday, June 6 at 1:15 pm.

In math this week we have been working on fractions, addition facts to
12, and using the number grid to help us with double digit addition and
subtraction. We finished unit 9 today. I will be sending home the
assessment next week. Please look over the family math letter on unit
10 attached to this letter.

In writing we have been finishing up our bird research reports and
writing riddles about birds. I’m impressed with how much they know
about birds. The riddles are very trciky. The students can’t wait until
parents try to answer them on our exhibition day (Friday, June 6 at
1:15).

We have been reading lots and lots of books too.
Again, I am amazed at how well they all are reading. Yesterday a
student said to me, “Mrs. Cole I can read all of the books in your room
now without any help.” It’s exciting when they can just pick up a book
and read. Only two more weeks of Love Notes! Thank you for still
sending them in.

Enjoy your weekend.
Sincerely,

Judy Cole

May 9, 2008
Dear Parents,

We have completed our study of the human body and your child has
brought home his/her paper body with all the parts that we attached.
They have also brought home their science jotters (journals) that tell
about each body part. The children learned so much information about
their bodies and how various organs work.

In math this week we took an assessment on Unit 8. The students did
well on most of it. We are continuing to pracitice counting by 25’s to
100, 2’s to 40, and practicing math facts to 12 so that they are
automatic. In unit 9 the students are focusing on place-value patterns
for counting by 1’s and 10’s on a number grid. This begins the
development of mentally adding and subtracting with multiples of 10 in
preparation for the addition and subtraction facts of 2 digit-numbers.
They will also continue their work with fractions and will start to
compare fractions. They made fraction creatures in math today.

We will be starting our Bird Unit next week. If you would like to send
in any bird items or if you would like to share your knowledge of birds
(perhaps you’re an experienced bird watcher) we would like you to come
in and help with our bird walks.

In writing, we have been working on using a variety of sentences in our
stories. We are working away from saying “I like, Here is, I went”,
and using different ways to start sentences (Once there was.., or When
I was... ). We have also been doing a unit on poetry in writing this
month. The students have been learning how to write acrostic poems,
shape poems, two word poems, and haiku poems.

In reading I have been adminstering the DRA (Developmental Reading
Assessment) and it will continue into next week. It takes about 45
minutes per a student. They will continue to bring home books to read
at night, but they are from their free choice browsing boxes. This is

May 2, 2008

Dear Parents,

In math this week we have been focusing on fractions and number stories
(word problems). We have written a class number story book. They have
a good understanding of addition number stories, but we are still
working on the clue words for subtraction number stories (how many
left, how many more, and the difference). The students brought in some
great fraction items and pictures for our fraction museum this week.
They have a better understanding of a half and a fourth.

We also had two representatives from Bar Harbor Bank and Trust visit to
teach the students about saving money and how they can do it. They
were in for “Teach Kids To Save Day” on Monday, April 30th. Thank you
Mrs. Gray and Mrs. Bannister. The students brought home a Bar Harbor
Bank and Trust change purse with the new New Mexico quarter. The bank
ladies were impressed with the students’ knowledge of money and its
value.

In science this week we have focused on the digestive and nervous
systems. We made nerve necklaces, had a guest speaker (Jeff Scheff),
and have written about and made a mobile about cells. Next week we
will be finishing up our body unit. We will be fisnishing our bodies in
the hallway and focusing on nutritution and having a heathy snack
celebration. The PTF provided us with a new Nutritions Unit and an
updated food pyramid from Healthy Peninsula.

We had our last schoolwide writing prompt of the year. The prompt was
“I looked at the tree...” Most of the children were able to come up
with some great tree stories about spring and how to plant a tree, and
take care of it, or fictional stories about magical tree houses. They
are still working on rereading their stories so they make sense and
using periods and capital letters appropriately. We will continue to
focus on this and to add more detail to their stories. After reading

April 11, 2008

Dear Parents,

We have been working hard in first grade. Our paper bodies in the
hallway now have body parts on them and next week we will be adding
more. We also had some visitors in from the Harbor School to share
stories that they had written in their ELA class and Mr. Nelson was in
to share his knowledge about the human body.

In Science this week we have been focusing on the urinary system. We
discussed what our kidneys and bladder do. Miriam’s dad came in and
shared some great x-rays of the kidneys and bladder. Check out some
pictures of his visit on the school website. We will be learning about
the pancreas, gall bladder, spleen, and liver next week. We will also
be focusing on the digestive system.

In spelling this week we worked on ai words as in rain. Many students
did very well on their spelling assessment and writing their spelling
sentences accurately. The class is much better at editing their work
before they pass it in and their penmanship has improved greatly as
well.

They have all been writing much better stories this week too. Many of
them have had the chance to type their own stories when they are at the
publishing stage and shared their stories with the class at cirlce
today.

We have started unit 8 in math this week. This unit focuses on counting
money and introducing the dollar, making change for amounts less than
$1, and identifying fractions. I will be sending home the unit 7
assessment on Monday.

Have a good weekend.

Mr. Nelson(Miriam's Dad) brought in some great x-rays to share with the
first and second grade. The students really liked the x-rays of animal
skeletons, girl scout cookies, and toast. They especially liked the
x-rays of the human brain and bladder.

April 4, 2008

Dear Parents,

We started our science unit on The Human Body this week. The students
traced and cut out their body shape to put body parts on as we learn
about them (check them out in the hallway by our classroom). We have
focused on the skeleton and they have learned what it does for us and
how many bones are in an adult body. We had a visit from “Mr.Bones”(a
skeleton that lives up in the 8th grade science room) and they have
drawn a skeleton and labeled its body parts. Ask your child what bones
do for us and how many there are in our body. We talked about muscles
today and how they help us move like the strings on a marionette
puppet. If any parents would like to come in to share their knowledge
on this topic please let me know. We love to have guest speakers.

In writing this week we have been focusing on editing our stories with
a friend. They read their journals to each other and they have an edit
card checklist to help each other with spelling, organization, and
“does it make sense”. Wow! They have learned so much about writing
this year. Now when they come to share their writing with me they have
circled words that they need to work on and they show me how they added
periods and added detail to their story. They are also starting to
publish their stories themselves on the computer using a program called
text edit. Mrs. Billings (Mrs. Billings) is helping out with this.
They are really excited when the computer reads the story back to them.

In spelling and phonics this week we have been working on long vowel
sounds (silent e words and ea words). We have also been working with
compound words and learning about diagraphs (sh, ch, th, and wh).

In math we have been focsuing on 3-D shapes (pyramids, cylinders,
cones, spheres, cubes, and rectangular prisms) and working on our
addition and subtraction facts to 12. Thank you for sending in some

March 27, 2008

It’s going to be April Fool’s Day on Tuesday. Parents beware!!! I’m a
little bit nervous that I’ll be getting spiders in my hair or there’s a
monster behind me for All Fool’s Day jokes. We have been reading some
great April Fool’s Day stories so be prepared.

We accomplished a lot in first grade for such a short week! We
finished our social studies unit on Economics and we finished unit 6 in
our math journals.

We will be focusing on civics for our next social studies unit. We
will be reviewing our ‘I Care Language’ and practicing and identifying
classroom rights and responsibilities and what it takes to be a good
citizen. Our next unit in science is the human body.

In math we have started our new unit on 3-Dimensional geometric shapes.
They will be learning to sort these objects into categories (prisms,
pyramids, and so on). We will also be working with attribute blocks and
learning to sort them by shape, color, size, and thickness.

In phonics we have been reviewing rhyming and working with changing the
last part of a word to make a new word (like blend to blast). We have
also been focusing on changing the middle part of a word to make a new
word (like bat to bit).

Thank you for continuing to read with your child daily and for sending
in those signed love notes. Remember there is no school on Friday,
March 28.

Have a nice long weekend!

On Market Street
We went shopping for goods from A to Z!