What Have You Been Reading?

Hi there!  Remember me??  I hope you and your family are soaking up all that summer has to offer.  It seems to be going by quick for me despite keeping our activities rather unstructured.  It won't be long and I'll have to start packing!  I wanted to share a series that someone in my house has recently found and has really been enjoying!

Do you like adventures with animals?  Would you love to travel the world?  If so, the Magic Bone Series by Nancy Krulik might be for you.

Join Sparky, a loveable sheepdog puppy,  as he discovers a magic bone that transports him to amazing adventures across the globe.  Although this is a series, it's one of those that doesn't have to be read in order.  As a teacher, I really love how Nancy Krulik teachers her readers about fascinating places like London, Hawaii, Rome, Switzerland, and Japan all while giving readers a fast paced adventure story. For those craving more information, there's even informative facts about some of the sights mentioned in the book at the end.   

Here's a few of the other books we've been enjoying at my house:

2014 Newbery Medal Winning book filled with amazing vocabulary a superhero squirrel, and so much more!  Great one to read as a family.

Did you know the new Stick Dog just came out? YAY!!

Looking for some more great books?  Mr. Scott has challenged himself to reading a book a day this summer- quite impressive, right?  He seems to be keeping up with it very well and is blogging about it too.  Find him here: Mr. Scott's Blog

What have you been reading lately?  Do you have any book suggestions for your classmates?  Post a comment to share with all of us.  I'd love to hear about your summer too!  

A Couple of Final Mysteries

Last Wednesday, we enjoyed TWO pop-up Mysteries.  See if you can guess who our first special guest was:

• I was a "new" teacher this year.
• I coach soccer.
• Once upon a time, I used to have a pierced eyebrow.
• I write a blog about the Baltimore Ravens that has been featured in the Baltimore Sun as well as some other sports' websites.
• My significant other teaches at Friends School, I have two kids that go to FS, and two cats that stay home.

Can you figure out THIS mystery?  It was a little tricky for the friends in 1A too, but we were super excited to see Mr. Hanes waiting for us outside.

Mr. Hanes shared one of his favorite books titled, You Are Special by Max Lucado.

This is such a great book and we all enjoyed the message!

Thank you, Mr. Hanes!

Later that same day, we had another mystery to solve.  This one was much easier.........

• I have worked at Friends School for 9 years.
• I work in the Upper School building.
• I live near the school.
• I have a child in 1st grade.
• Some mornings you will see me in the carpool line.

Have you figured this one out?  Our room was a little bit of a mess, by the afternoon on Wednesday, so we ventured over to Mr. Micciche's office.  Instead of reading to us, Mr. Micciche listened to a few first graders who had stories of their own to tell.  

 Mr. Micciche also shared a bit of Make Way for Ducklings that his son, Peter, recited when he was three.  We stopped by the library to find this book and read it the next day in our classroom.

Thanks for sharing your time with us, Mr. Micciche, and for listening to our stories!

Thank you to everyone who was a Mystery Reader in our classroom this year.  It was such a fun activity!

Frog & Toad Claymation

Friends in Mrs. Etemadi-Cusic's language arts class have been busy!  They recently read several Frog & Toad stories and decided to write their own and turn them into claymation movies.  They invited other members of the community to their world premier today.  I thought all of our families might enjoy them so here they are:

Presenting..........
Frog & Toad Go Camping:
http://viewpure.com/jFsHo_QFsH4

Frog & Toad Get Lost:
http://viewpure.com/kLB_7inqlrE

Great job first graders and way to go Mrs. Etemadi-Cusic and Mr. Hanes!

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream.........

For another Mystery Reader with ICE CREAM!!!!

See if you know who our Mystery Reader was:
1.  I have lived in 9 different cities.
2.  I can't wait to go to the beach this summer.
3.  I love watching my children play sports.
4.  My favorite color is purple.
5.  I was born on Thanksgiving.

Do you know who this ice cream making Mystery Reader is................

It's Dylan's mom, Mrs. B!  

Mrs. B just got a new ice cream maker and wanted to make ice cream with 1A!  We all helped with the ingredients and toppings.  

After our ice cream was churning and freezing, we enjoyed an ice cream story titled The Ice Cream King.

 Then it was time to create a spectacular sundae! YUM!

It sure was delicious!

Thank you, Mrs. B! This was the perfect way to wrap up our family Mystery Readers for the year.  Thank you to all of our 1A families for their support with this activity this year.  I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

First graders, what is your favorite ice cream flavor?  Post a comment to share with all of us.

A Tricky Mystery

Another pop-up Mystery Reader stopped by for a visit today!  Can you guess who THIS is?

1. My favorite stories to read when I was in firs grade and lived in PA were fairy tales.
2. When I got older,  I loved reading the book Caddie Woodlawn and the Nancy Drew series while my 4 brothers read the Hardy Boys.
3. I read aloud to my 3 children every night and now I get to read to my granddaughter, Rebecca, who is 1 year old.
4. When I taught 4th grade at Friends, my favorite part of the day was reading aloud to my students.
5. The best part of now teaching kindergarten is sharing the joy of reading with children who are just learning to read.

Do you know who this is........ We had to review the last clue a couple of times before some 1A friends identified this as their former kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Morrissey!

Mrs. Morrissey read the book Probuditi by Chris Van Alsburg.

It was a great story with an ending that raised a few eyebrows.....hmmmm.....!

Thank you, Mrs. Morrissey!  We enjoyed having you in our classroom and thank you for sharing one of your favorite books with us and a few stories from your childhood.

Mystery, Mystery

We had a pop up Mystery Reader today (and will enjoy a few more of these in the coming days).  Let's see if you can figure out this mystery:
1.  I am a mom with two sons.
2.  I love birds.
3.  My favorite birds are ravens and orioles.
4.  My favorite president is Teddy Roosevelt.
5.  My hair is spiked up!

The students in 1A were a bit perplexed by these clues......... I reminded them that Mystery Readers aren't always family members and could be other community members...... like former teachers!!

This sealed it for many and they knew one of their Pre Primary teachers, Mrs. Fluery, was coming to read to us.

Mrs. Fluery shared the story Kali's Song by Jeanette Winter.  She told us it was one of her favorites!

Thank you, Mrs. Fluery for being our pop up Mystery Reader today! It was great to have you in our classroom and we really enjoyed the book you brought to share.

First grade friends, we just might have a few more of these pop up Mystery Readers scheduled for the days ahead (or final days..... booooo!).  Who would you like to have come and read to us?  Post a comment to share with all of us!

Puppet Pals

In our language arts class, we've been talking (again) about retelling a story as a way to demonstrate our comprehension.  This week we read two stories:

         

Today, we used the iPads and an app called Puppet Pals to create a retelling of one of these stories or our own spin off based on one of these stories.

Here's a few of our puppet shows for you to enjoy:

Sam:

http://viewpure.com/S8EJsp4LyKE

Henry:

http://viewpure.com/gaajeA-ixc8

Roisin:

http://viewpure.com/yf1UGXhvqN0

Francis:

http://viewpure.com/9qaAnfUN1uw

Ben:

http://viewpure.com/0351xwBn6rY

First graders, what did you enjoy about using this app or this activity?  Post a comment to share with all of us.  

A Mystery in 1A!

We always get so excited when our Mystery Reader envelope appears in our classroom.  When we saw it hanging in our room last week, the children quickly pointed it out to me!

Our clues for this Mystery Reader were:

• I have brown hair.
• I have 2 kid.
• I am a teacher.  

Many of our friends in 1A was SURE this was their own teacher after this clue.  They concluded that Disco was my second kid!

• One of my favorite foods is tacos.
• I LOVE to play Just Dance 2014 with my babes!!

Some of the kids have figured out that there's only a few families who haven't surprised us as Mystery Readers thus far.  Francis concluded it had to be his mom or Dylan's, but Dylan said it couldn't be his since his mom. isn't a teacher.  This sealed it and Francis was quite sure his mom would be our reader.  

He was correct..... however he didn't know his younger sister, Felice,  would also show up to share some time in our room!  

Ms. S read The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by A. Wolf:

Many friends in 1A seem to agree that the Wolf's point of view might actually be the REAL point of view!  

Ms. S also read The 3 Ninja Pigs by Corey Rosen Schwartz:

After listening to these versions of the familiar story, we enjoyed some fresh baked chocolate chip cookies..... YUM!  It was another fabulous Mystery Reader visit! 

First Graders, which 3 little pig story do you like best?  Post a comment to share with all of us.  

The Day of the Book

Our April PLUSS day was such a wonderful day!  We enjoyed "The Day of the Book" a vision of our Middle School Librarian, Mrs. Montrie.  As some of you in our community know, Mrs. Montrie is courageously fighting cancer and hasn't been in school for many months.  Mr. Scott and Mrs. Rutstein along with others were determined to make her vision a reality and that's just what they did!

On Monday, first graders made their selections for The Day of the Book from over 80 options.  All students in 1A were encouraged to select one session with our visiting Caldecott winning illustrator, Pamela Zagarenski.  This left two sessions for them to choose what they'd like to learn about.  Lower school and Middle School students and faculty members lead sessions ranging from book creation, cartooning, making bookworms, and playing games with a book theme.

Many of our 1A students blogged about their day on their personal blogs which you can access here:

http://kidblog.org/MissMunteansFriendsinFirst/

Take a peek at who has commented on the posts where her session was highlighted!  SO COOL!!

Our day wrapped up with an all LS and MS school DEAR  (Drop Everything And Read) time on the field and a LS Smackdown- a period of reflection.  

Hopefully your child came home with many positive things to say about this day as I think it was a day they really enjoyed and will remember for years to come.  

Because we were all spread out, I wasn't able to get too many photos, but managed to get a few here and there:

Illustrating with Pamela Zagarenski!

First graders, what was the highlight of your day?  Post a comment with all of us to share.