So far in May

May has been super busy so far.  We have been writing opinion pieces in Writer's Workshop.  We tasted regular (vanilla) Oreos and mint Oreos to see which one we liked best.  We had to state our opinion and give three reasons to support our opinion.  Check us out.....

Kate gets to try both.                  Kyle is seriously thinking about it.

Jaedyn and Livia dig right in!

 

And vanilla Oreo wins!

 

               The kids did an excellent job writing this time!!!!

 

"AAARRRRGH"

It's AR week here in the Cialini class.  We put on our pirate hats and brainstormed as many AR words as we could.

Check this cup out...who wants one?

Isn't this a great cup?!

 

If you want one shipped to you leave me a comment with your email and I will contact you.  You can pick your colors.  They are $12 including shipping.

 

Seuss Week

This week was Read Across America Week when we celebrate the work of Dr. Seuss.  Thanks to Brainpop Jr. and Scholastic News, we learned lots of interesting facts about Dr. Seuss's life.  Of course, this week lead to super fun activities based on some of our favorite Dr. Seuss stories.

On Monday we wore pajamas to cuddle up with a good book.

 

Here we are on Wacky Wednesday!

 

On Friday, we tried Green Eggs and Ham.

Mrs. Bellettini was a great cook!

 

  

Snow Fun, 100 day and Dental Health

One day this winter it actually snowed enough for us to go out and TRY to build a snowman in hopes that building the snowman would help us with process writing.  Well, we were not super successful at building the real snowman, except for Livia as you see below.  However, we were successful at writing our How To Build A Snowman piece!

 

 

100 Day and Happy Valentine's Day

 

On February 14th, we celebrated the 100th day of school along with Valentine's Day.

 

 

We are 100 days SMARTER!

 

We ate 100 snacks!

 

And mailed our valentines.

 

We also wrote a book containing 100 words, decided what we would buy with 100 dollars and drew ourselves looking 100 years old.  It was  a super busy, fun-filled day for sure.  Oh, and on top of that...we had class pictures taken.  If it wasn't for the class pictures you would have seen all these little firsties dressed as if they were 100 years old too.

 

Dental Health

 

Ethan and his dad.

 

 

Thank you to Mr. Scalfaro from "Brayces" for coming in to teach us about keeping our teeth healthy.  We learned so much!

 



 

 

 

 

January Updates

January has gone by so quickly and we are ready to talk Valentine's Day and 100 Day already.  Guess what.....both of those BUSY events are on the same day this year due to school closings from hurricane Sandy.  Go ahead and say it....."That STINKS!"  There is even worse news.  We are also scheduled to get our class photo taken that day so dressing up like we are 100 years old is out this year.  Go ahead and say it again..."That stinks!" I am so bummed! Hopefully, we will have a snow storm between now and Feb. 14th so school can be closed one more day. That would solve this problem, I tell ya! (in my Junie B. voice)

Oh well, time to focus on the good things we have been doing in January.

We were "head hunters" with our sight words.  We each got a word on our foreheads and a list.  We had to go around reading one another's foreheads and connecting the word  to the name of the child it was on.  See the list below.  We didn't know what word we had on our own head until the end of the game.  I had a good laugh watching how serious everyone was with a sticker on their head.

 

In math, we have been working with place value.  Here is Ian and table 4 exploring with the base ten blocks before we had the lesson of the day.  Got to get the play factor out first with new manipulatives!

 

I promise we only "explored" with them for a few minutes!  cough... cough

 

Since we have had so many inside recess days this month I have been trying to think of ways to get the kids moving during the day.  Here you see a place value hunt the kids went on around the room.  When they found a place value card they had to record the number it showed.  If they found an exercise card along with it, they had to read and do the movements.

 

Another place value lesson that went well was using cereal as our tens and ones.

 

 

Thank goodness for YouTube videos that get us up and moving too on inside recess days!

 

 

 

Keep your fingers crossed for a snowstorm in South Jersey so 100 day can be as fun as I want it to be in first grade this year!!!!!!!

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

Oh What A Feeling

I was voted teacher of the year!  Oh, what a feeling of honor I have.  I am so very grateful for my career and for each and every student I have taught in the past 20 years.  Absecon is a wonderful community and I have been so blessed to have been a part of this school system.  Every teacher in our school is outstanding and puts their best foot forward each and every day.  Being recognized among them all is so exciting.  Thank you so very much!