Johnny Appleseed Day

Aloha P2 Ohana!

September 26th is my absolute FAVORITE day in all of first grade! Why? Because it is Johnny Appleseed Day! 

On this day in 1774 the legendary pioneer John Chapman was born. He became the infamous Johnny Appleseed after traveling west from Pennsylvania to Indiana planting appleseeds. John knew that the settlers would need food as they traveled west. So he prepared the way by planting apple trees. He would sell the trees to the settlers and would even give them for free if they didn't have the money. Now, almost 250 years later we remember this great community contributor by learning about his life and celebrating with an apple filled day!

We began first thing in the morning with making applesauce! Here is the recipe we used: 

And this is what it looked like!

Once we had everything in the pot we turned it on and let it cook all day. The class smelled wonderful!

After our applesauce began to cook we began an apple infused morning of math! Here are a couple of the stations we did...

Here we are learning about adding 3 addends. We had red, green, and yellow "apples". We found that we can add them in any order and it is even easier if we can make 10 or find a double!

We continued practicing with three addends in the form of doubles plus one!

For the second portion on the morning and the start of our afternoon we did "Johnny Appleseed Stations". These were a lot of fun! 

In one of the stations we got to read our latest Scholastic News magazine. It was all about apples!

In another station we got to make cooking pots for hats... Just like Johnny Appleseed!

We also got to make a book about Johnny Appleseed. That way we could read the story of Johnny Appleseed to our families.

Towards the end of the day we got to do something really special... Apple tasting! We sampled four different types of apples: Fuji, Honeycrisp, Granny Smith, and Red Delicious. 

We got to see, touch, smell, and taste each one. We discovered that each one was a little different. Then everyone got to share which one they thought was the best. To my surprise the apple that got the most votes was the Granny Smith! These kids really like sour! 

After we shared our favorites we then proceeded to write about it. 

Finally, the BIG moment arrived! Our applesauce was ready! It tasted SO good. AND our class was blessed with 6 parents who joined us for applesauce! Yay parents! A special thanks to one of our dads, Mr. Clarke, who even helped to pass out the applesauce !

All in all it was a great day! Thank you again to those who joined us today. Hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

Love,

Mrs. Kawai

Our Pets

Aloha friends and family of our P2 keiki!

We had a packed week this week starting with a fun-filled Monday. (Yes! Mondays can be fun!!!) 

This summer our class received funding from sponsors through Donors Choose to pay for subscriptions to "Scholastic News" and "Times For Kids". This week we got to read our first article! It was all about the good work habits of the famous children's author David Shannon. If you have not read his infamous book "No, David!" you should be sure to check it out at our school library. It is hilarious!

We then did a class activity to find all the details in the article that prove David Shannon has good work habits. 

Our class got another project funded this year through Donor Choose. We were able to get funding to purchase a class set of "Sound Phones". They are the best!!! With this tool kids are able to read aloud to themselves and the room stays so quiet! The kids LOVE to use them, and it motivates them to read all the more!

In math this week we focused on the math strategy of using doubles to solve addition problems. We began on Monday by creating our own "Doubles" books to help us remember our doubles facts. 

This week we continued our study on how organisms survive underwater. On Monday we learned about the angelfish and the seahorse. We learned that angelfish have tube mouths to help them eat along the coral reef. We also learned that seahorses can change their color. 

In language arts this week we discussed a lot about what makes pets special. Some of us even brought in photos of our pets to share!

As a writing project the kids had to write about what they thought would be the best class pet. Some of them were pretty persuasive and gave great reasonings! 

"The best classroom pet would be a caterpillar because caterpillar eat leaf and it him rows in a butterfly. And it fly."

As a reminder: Next week our class will be having their pictures taken on Wednesday, September 24th. If you would like to order pictures please have your child being their form and monies by Wednesday morning. 

Hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Kawai

Little Dojos and Special Visitors

Aloha Friends and Family of P2!

Hope you all had a fabulous week like the rest of us. 

We have been using a fun program in our classroom called "Class Dojo". The kids absolutely love it!  Kids can earn points for being self-directed, being a community contributor, having a clean desk (Awesome Organizer), participating in class and so much more! Here is an introductory video to tell more about it: http://youtu.be/KaeNSYJvrn0

Friday letters went home to explain how you can log on and get access to how your child is behaving. When a child gets to 50 points they get to have lunch with the teacher! Each month we will reset our point counts back to zero, and start the month with an added way to get points. (Next month we will add our October GLO which is Quality Producer!)

If you missed it in this week's Warrior, our class won best attendance last week for first grade. 98% of us were at school and on time! Yay!!!

We now have brand new literacy awards that match our new science unit! In first grade we learn about the different ways that animals and plants survive their environment as well as predators. This month we will be focusing on the survival adaptations of organisms in the ocean. Our literacy awards have a photograph of an aquatic animal with a fun survival fact!

In language arts this week our essential question has been "What is it like where you live?" We have been talking about ways to describe the place where we live and discussed how it is different from a city. 

As a social studies connection we each drew a house in our neighborhood. We then Labeled the different elements in our picture.

We had a special visitor this week! Mrs. Kawai's mom joined us on Wednesday! She was very impressed with how well behaved everyone is!

We had another special visitor on Friday. We got a special visit from Mrs. Nora, who is a nurse at the Kona hospital. She taught the class the importance of washing our hands.

We even got to see what our germs looks like under a special blue light!

We learned that the best way to get rid of all these germs is to 1) Rinse our hands with water 2) use soap to lather and scrub everything, even our wrists and under our fingernails. It take 20 seconds to properly wash your hands which is the same as singing the ABC song 3) wash off the soap and dry with a clean towel 

Finally, she showed us what happens when we sneeze without covering our mouth... She brought a balloon with water inside, and when she "sneezed" she POPPED the balloon. We all got stuff on us! It was a great visual on how gross it is to not cover our mouth when we sneeze!

Our Picture Day is Wednesday, September 24th at 8:10am. The ordering form for picture day went home in this week's Thursday envelope. 

That's it for this week! Hope you all have a fabulous weekend and see you on Monday!

Mrs. Kawai

Self-directed Learners and Community Contributors

What an amazing week we have had here in P2! 

     This week started a new month which means we have a new book of the month. It is a hilarious and charming book titled "The Day the Crayons Quit". 

It is a tale about a box of crayons who are disgruntled over the work they have to do, or lack there of. (Poor beige crayon only gets used to color wheat!) 

You can check it out for your self in our school library!

This week we thought about, discussed about, and wrote about what makes us special. Each of us is special and unique from everyone else. We each have our own special name, have our own special talents, and have our own likes and dislikes.

"I am special because I am taller than a 2nd grader."

This week we started something new called "Literacy Awards". When students make good decisions, solve problems or show respect they can earn a Literacy Award. They come with a bonus activity and the kids love them!

Wednesday we had a special assembly to celebrate all the kids in Kindergarten and first grade that were acknowledged by their teachers as a self-directed learner during the month of August. We had TEN kids awarded from our class! A big mahalo to all the parents who attended to help support their child in this achievement. This month, the month of September, we are focusing on being Community Contributors. Community Contributors help those around them in a respectful way and cooperate with others to get work done. Speaking of community contributors...

Tuesday concluded our school-wide penny drive for Puna. Our class donated around $50! Way to go!!! As a school we raised almost $1,000! Kealakehe Warriors are some AMAZING community contributors!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs. Kawai