Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

This week we wrapped up learning about addition, subtraction, and related facts. (Next week we move in to Base Ten!)

While kids were testing, the rest of the class got to do another True/False sorting activity. They all flew right through this and did a great job without any help from me!

This week we had a special visit from another teacher at our school. Her name is Mrs. Finley and she is  a literacy coach at our school. She came and did an opinion writing lesson with the class. They all wrote about their favorite holiday. She was most impressed with the hard work our class did and the results of their writing! Here are some examples...

"...and you can go visit your cousins..."

"Do you like Cheist,as? I think Christmas is the best. You get presents. You make Christmas tree. You open presents. Do you like Christmas?"

Speaking of holidays, we had SO much fun celebrating Thanksgiving this week. Can you guess what we made with all of the paper bags? If you guessed vests than you are correct! Wampanoag vests to be more precise!

We cut paper bags in the shape of a vest with holes for our neck and arms. We also crumpled them up to make them softer and look more like leather. Then we decorated our vests with pictographs. Be sure to have your child tell you what the pictographs mean on their vest!

After learning about Squanto all week we got to do a really cool art project! Squanto taught the pilgrims how to plant corn using fish with the seeds to help make the soil better. So, we made pictures of Squanto planting real corn and fish! (Well... Goldfish!)

After that we made gift bags of goldfish and candy corn to give to the second graders in F21. We dressed as the Wampanoag Indians and they dressed as the pilgrims. We taught them what we learned about Squanto and they taught us what they learned about the pilgrims.

They gave us a gift too! We each received a friendship bracelet to remind us that the pilgrims wanted to make friends with the Wampanoag!

Our neighbors in P1 also dressed as the pilgrims. We gave them a set of goodie bags with the goldfish and candy corn too!  And just like we did last year in Sr. kindergarten we mixed classes for lunch and ate together like the real Wampanoag and pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving! The cafeteria even served a full Thanksgiving meal for lunch. Yum, yum!

Just a reminder - the PTO has a booth at the craft fair this weekend at the King Kamehameha Hotel. They will be selling really cool trucker hats that say "Kealakehe" on the , so be sure to stop by!

I hope you all have a wonderful and peaceful long weekend filled with gratitude and family. And most of all I hope you all have a...

Habitats and Helping Out

Aloha friends and family!

We have been learning a lot about character, setting and events in first grade lately. We even have a cool graphic organizer that we have been using to help us gather the information from the text! As as activity this week everyone read a story called "Thump Thump Helps Out". It is about a bunny who loves to thump his feet, but the other bunnies tell him to stop. They think it is annoying. Well, then one day their bus gets stuck, and no matter how much they yell for help no one comes. Then Thump Thump comes to rescue! He thumps his feet on the so that the grown up rabbits can hear, and they come and help pull the bus out! 

(Hmmm, I don't know about you, but this makes me have a connection! This story reminds me a lot about Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer, who also was disliked for being different, but then saved the day!)

After the kids read the story they were each given four Post-it notes. On one Post-it they wrote a page number from a story. On the second they wrote the name of the character from that page. On the third the setting, and on the fourth the event.

The kids then brought their Post-its and book to the carpet. One at a time someone came to the board and placed their Post-it notes. As they did this the rest of the class went to that page number to help double check their peer's work. They all did a great job!

Just like "Thump Thump Helps Out" is a fictional story, we have begun to write fictional stories in class ourselves. The ones that we have been writing are realistic fiction - so no talking animals! Together as a class we created a realistic fiction story about someone who helps out in the community. We first chose our character's name, which was Elsa. (Yes, we love Frozen in this class, can you tell!?!) Then we chose how our character would help in the community. We chose picking up rubbish. Here is the story that we created together!

And just like "Thump Thump" and ALL other stories, we made sure that our story had a beginning, a middle, and an end!

For the last week we have been learning about habitats, and how animals live in a community - just like we do! This week we concluded learning about animal communities with a cool collage project. Each student chose one habitat and then had to find pictures of animals that live in that habitat.

We had the Jungle-

Lots of collages of the Woods -



And LOTS of collages of the Coral Reef-



As I mentioned last week we are now learning in science about animals that live in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. This week we focused our learning on the Polar Bear. Here is what we learned...



And of course we had to watch some cute baby polar bears! (I think this class loves baby animals just as much as they love Frozen!)



I am so excited for this up coming week as we gear up for Thanksgiving by learning about Squanto and the Wampanoags! Thank you everyone who brought in paper bags. (Hmmm, have you guessed yet what we are making!?!)

Hope you all day a fabulous weekend!

Sincerely,
Mrs. Kawai

Changes and a Challenge!

As you remember, last week we were learning about buildings. We wrapped up our learning on different buildings and the materials they are made out of with a fun art project! Each student got to choose one building they wanted to focus on. They each drew their building first and then labeled the materials that it is made out of. Finally, they got to paint it! It was so much fun! There was a great variety of buildings from a house, to a school, to even the Eiffel Tower!

Eiffel Tower - metal

School- brick, glass, concrete

Castle- gold, stone, iron, metal, emerald, diamond

Leaning Tower of Pisa- Marble

Now that we are done learning about buildings we have begun learning about communities in nature. Animals live in a community too! The place where they live is a habitat. In science we have already been studying how animals survive different environments so we are able to make lots  of connections! For the next few weeks our science lessons will be focusing on how animals survive a cold environment. To get us started we wrote about our favorite animal that lives in the snow or ice. Don't worry, we didn't forget to tell why!

"Dear Class, my favorite animal that lives in the snow or ice is a penguin because it slides into the water."

"My favorite animal that lives in snow is a snow owl and they have heart on their face."

"My favorite animal in snow or ice is a penguin because they walk funny."

A few weeks ago we learned about different ways to pronounce the -ed endings. EVERYTIME a kid finds a word with -ed at the end they get SO excited and always rush over to show it to me. So this week, we introduced the -ing ending. Now whenever someone finds an -ing word we now have a place to record it!

In math this week we have been continuing with learning about the relationship between addition and subtraction. One game that we play in class is choosing three numbers and then finding all the related facts that contain those numbers. For example: 2, 5, 7. The related facts with these numbers are 2+5=7, 5+2=7, 7-2=5, 7-5=2. The kids are really great at it! And this is even a game that you can easily play at home. You can make it MORE challenging by having your child choose the three numbers themselves, and then see if they can make related facts with them.

There have been a couple of changes to our classroom this week. For starters, we have instituted the pencil challenge! I numbered a set of pencils. One pencil for each student. Each student has a designated number and therefore a designated pencil. Every morning the class takes their pencil from the challenge cup and at the end of the day returns it. The challenge is... Who can keep their pencil the longest without losing it! The final winner will get a totally awesome prize!

This week we also rearranged the desks in our classroom. We were ready for a change! Most of the kids now sit in groups of three. Now that we have learned to effectively communicate to our partners we are going to focus on becoming effective communicators within a group of three!

In other news, the PTO (Parent Teacher Organization) was offered free space at the Joann Williams 32nd Annual Christmas Fair at the King Kamehameha Hotel. They will be selling trucker hats and some baked goods. If you would like to help supervise the booth or donate baked goods, please let our Vice Principal Janice Blaber know. Her direct number is 895-6671. The dates for the event are Friday, November 28th and Saturday, November 29th. Supervision times run for 3 hours a piece (i.e. 9am-12pm, 12pm-3pm) for each day.

Finally, a great big mahalo to the Ahuna family for donating paper grocery bags for our special Thanksgiving project! We are still collecting bags until Nov 25th (or until we have a complete class set).

We all had a fun-filled week of learning this week in P2. Hope your kids enjoy a well deserved, restful weekend!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Kawai

What would you build your house out of?

Aloha everyone!

This week we hads our very first field trip of the year. On Monday we left first thing in th morning and went down to the Aloha Theater. There the Honolulu Theater for Youth put on a great performance! It is called "Grinds".

Through song, dance, and some great story telling we learned about the story of food in Hawaii. We started all the way back to the very beginning when the islands were formed all the way until now. They even included audience participation and one of the keiki from our class got to go on stage! It was a great time!

Our theme for this week was about buildings that we know and what they are made out of. We also read the story of "The Three Little Pigs" and how each pig chose their own material to build their house. 

Thursday was another "Thinker Thursday" this week. Everyone had to write about what they would build their house out of, just like the three little pigs! The kids came up with a great list of possible materials. We had everything from wood to ice to diamonds!

Well, that is it for this week. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs. Kawai