Children and their Science Mice have endured rain, wind, and hurricane conditions in the last several weeks which sent some mice to the Mousepital for rest and recuperation. Next, many made it out of town, state, country, planet and the universe in wheeled vehicles. Thursday morning mouse astronauts rocketed to summer freedom and have successfully headed home with students.

Earlier in the week First Grade Children made their way to the zoo for our final field trip for the year. Thursday afternoon children joined together for a fantastic Field Day. All came away drenched from activities which utilized H2O abundantly.

Science - Mousemobiles

Balloon Powered Rocket Science!

Balloon Rocket Videos

Field Day Fun

Thank you for joining us for our Learning Celebration with performance and engineering by all. Wonderful creations for our stuffies. We are off to the Oregon Zoo on Monday!

Then on to the next part of our Learning Celebration...

Engineers creating useful furniture for resident stuffies...

Room 22 welcomes you to our First Grade Learning Celebration this Wednesday after the Moving Up Coffee. The program begins at 9:00am and will run about 45 minutes. We'll explore some of the ideas that we are thinking about in Room 22 through music and theater. Next, visit the new housing complex under construction by our recently formed company, Stuffie Deluxe, K.I. Then create a piece of furniture with your child for use in the unit. Stuffies need comfortable support to sleep, too. (Think back to our plastic bears and bridge challenge at the beginning of the year!)

"AROUND THE WORLD" MATH GAME

HOLIDAY PARTY - MAKING DOG TREATS, DOG AND CAT TOYS, AND BIRD FEEDER GARLANDS

ST. NICK'S CHAPEL

Dear All,

Intellicast says that there will be snow on the mountain this week. Children have created a colorful mini-blizzard of snowflakes for our classroom window--in case snow doesn't fall on the Valley Floor by Friday. (See Pascal Snowflakes comments and pictures below.) We've written more "How to . . ." narratives and are getting a bit more precise in stating directions. Also, journal recording of a variety of analogies continues to stretch areas of comprehension since comparison is a much more intellectually robust exercise than we often realize. And in the ongoing curriculum of personal development through socially responsible/appropriate behavior choices, children are deepening their relationships. They do this by actively acknowledging, being grateful for, and appreciating family, close friends, and classmates. Classroom stuffies somehow manage to fall into, from time to time, the category of acquaintance or even new friend status. Paddington is pleased.

In anticipation for a lovely final week of school in Good Old Two-Thousand Eighteen--

Mr. Whitmore

ORIGAMI BOXES FOR LANTERNS--Children pay close attention to basic folds with a square piece of paper. Two valley folds, a reverse valley fold, vertices folded along the edge of a triangle, inward folds and tucks (camper head-first into the tent) to secure the shape, creasing to create the cube edges, and a mighty puff to blow it up and create the cube-shaped balloon. Fun.

D.E.A.R. = Drop Everything and Read

HANUKKAH CHAPEL

Ever wonder how to do the American Crawl? Just ask Shaarav, our resident expert, about this classic swim stroke. He and classmates have been crafting non-fiction "How to . . ." compositions in which the writer gives step-by-step instructions for bike riding, making sandwiches, hiking, building sand castles. The initial drafts are reviewed under the careful scrutiny of Room 22 Editors--who (tough bunch that they are) seek clarity as needed and as these directions (early iterations of what adults call "Technical Writing") are read aloud from the Author's Chair. Shaarav had feedback from children and teachers and one question was whether breathing was allowed as the swimmer crossed the pool. We are fine-tuning our paying attention skills-- to become fully aware of possible missing steps that are probably central to excellence in this genre. And from Shaarav? Either hold your breath or tilt your head and breathe!

Opening the day with word play brings focus to the relationship between words (and pictures) in simple analogies. Children learn to use their rich language experience to hear what looks right, sounds right, and makes sense: "does : doesn't :: will : ___________" or "hands : wash :: teeth " _________" . Read that: does is to doesn't as will is to won't; hands is to wash as teeth is to brush.

SCIENCE - This week's test of materials was a check on whether mealworms or beetles will slip or be able to walk on smooth foil, bumpy foil, paper towel, sandpaper, or cotton. Children predicted results and found that as a whole class they were all very close to their own predicted results.

AUTHOR'S CHAIR

Family Traditions

“When you see someone putting on his [her] Big Boots you can be

pretty sure that an Adventure is going to happen.”

from Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A.Milne

Beginning next week (December 3) Room 22 adventures out into the world of Family Traditions. Children are asked think about and define—to question and wonder about a few of the activities and practices in your family that help to make it the unique unit that it has become/is becoming. Then, each child will present to the class a short talk to the class about something that happens regularly enough in the family culture that it can be called “a tradition.”

An example of a family tradition is on our present bulletin board--a grandfather cooking with his granddaughter. Or, once a First Grader brought her dad’s identical twin to school and the whole First Grade was in a delightful uproar over the confusion of having two grownups in the school who looked so much alike. (Her family tradition was in noticing that when she was out and about in the community with her uncle and dad that everyone around them did a double-take and smiled a lot.)

More possible traditions? For many years in my own family I made waffles every Saturday morning. Other family traditions have included a family “story hour” on Christmas Day while listening to a recording of Dylan Thomas read aloud his masterwork, A Child’s Christmas in Wales.

Children have shared freshly made potato latkes with the class--and Hanukkah games. Others have brought in foods from their Diwali celebration.

But the traditions do not have to be those particularly related to celebrations or observances during December and January. We’ve heard about hiking in the Gorge to honor a family member’s memory and about picking apples in September with cousins. It could be cookies brought to class but baked ahead by Grandma and your child as they are used to doing every four or five months. It could be tea and toast and silly jokes.

It could be a board game that everyone in the family loves to play once or twice a year on Sunday afternoons. Or--photos of family skiing pasted on tag-board and a chat in front of the class about the tradition?

It could even be a power-point of pictures—if that’s easy for your child and you to get up.

Your family has traditions that you’ve kept with for many years—or maybe are creating new traditions and are casting about for how to make them fresh? Whatever resonates with you and your child is a fine tradition to come speak about with our class for ten to fifteen minutes at the time for which you will be signing up.

This presentation can be given with simple hand-written notes read aloud by your child. Or, it can be a poster about which your child speaks.

The learning objectives include the idea that your child begin to consider the traditions in your family from a position in thought that can only be called “critical thinking”—a chance to take some small steps in analytical thinking—and, here, to notice and be grateful, perhaps, for the riches of your family culture.

Also, we are looking for a degree of poised presentation in front of others—within a small time-frame--conveying genuine enthusiasm for your family’s tradition, respectful listening (and questioning, as needed) with you—and others, as needed--and understanding how unique is each family

Let the (simple) Adventure begin.

You can find a link to our class weekly schedule on the classroom website https://sites.google.com/oes.edu/firstgrade-a/. I have noticed that children are usually freshest for sharing their Family Traditions first thing in the morning and it may be easiest for participating adults to schedule at that time, as well. However, anywhere in the daily schedule when children are not away from Homeroom or involved in a Special is fine for scheduling your family tradition. Just send me an email to sign up for a time for your child to share a tradition.

Juidi, I, and the children are looking forward to learning about each other. We’ll begin next week and finish this up in January.

With kind regards to all,

Mr. Whitmore and Ms. Juidi

SCIENCE --- Do mealworms like rough or smooth surfaces, to be in the light or dark? Children predicted, observed, and recorded findings.

Word-Play with spelling patterns-- practice with "ice" generates a wider vocabulary base with fairly reliable predictability!

Dear All,

•A full week last week--see below for only a FEW of the areas of content that children examined.

•Thanksgiving Week ahead including (on Tuesday) Grandparents and Special Friends Day.

•Much to be grateful for with each family and student. The children are growing.

•Enjoy the five-day holiday break. You deserve some rest and recreation!

With loving regards,

Mr. Whitmore

Some language arts study.....

Work Stations

Spanish with Senor Peche

Studying Robert Frost and performing in front of others . . .

More Science with Mrs. Kenney-Norberg --- Egg, Larva, Pupa, Adult

Life cycle of the mealworm to Beetle

GEOMETRY--- Paddington Tower under construction . . .

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, . . . eleven, twelve segments!"

Maths.... learning the game of Dominoes to move toward subitizing, the ability to see "6" when there are six dots, and not have to count each dot.

First Grade Bus Safety Training