The Story of the Pilgrims begins...

Last week our class began reading about and learning the story of the Pilgrims.  Today each child made a small map with a Mayflower ship.  They're going to tell you tonight (or tomorrow if the map didn't make it home today) how the story of the Pilgrims began almost 400 years ago in England.  They'll be able to tell you how the King wanted the people of England to pray in his church and how not everyone wanted to do that.  Many wanted to pray in their own way.  They wanted to be separate from the King's church so many called them Separatists.  They held secret meetings and when the King found out...he put many in prison!

So they left for Holland and stayed for 12 years, but their children were becoming more Dutch than English and the English families wanted to keep their English customs and traditions.  So, they decided to come across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World.  They bought a boat called the Speedwell, but it was old and small.  They wanted another boat, but they had no more money.  So they made an agreement with some English businessmen who bought them a boat called the Mayflower in exchange for the Pilgrims sending back furs and lumber from the New World.

When the Pilgrims were finally ready with their supplies on board, both the Speedwell and the Mayflower took off.  But the Speedwell was leaky and they returned to England.  Some of the passengers boarded the Mayflower and some decided to stay back in England.  Finally, they were ready to leave for the New World.  The trip was very dangerous and many people were seasick.  There were no bathrooms (the class found the concept of chamber pots quite amusing!) and no way to bathe.  Partway through their journey, they encountered a very bad storm and a beam in the Mayflower cracked!  They were able to repair it and they journeyed on.  The food was very boring...they ate the same thing day after day...salt horse (NOT horse meat) and hardtack (a very hard and dry biscuit).  They couldn't run about and play.

At last, after 66 days, they spotted land!  They had finally reached the New World!  They'd been pushed off course during the storm and landed at the tip of what is now Cape Cod when they were originally headed for Virginia.  Because it was growing colder and winter was coming, they decided to stay.

Here's a short video of several students explaining the story in their own words!

Twenty Yawns a la Hinesburg

This week's global read aloud book was a very sleepy story called Twenty Yawns.  In this story a young girl named Lucy has a long, busy day and when it's finally bedtime, she drifts off to sleep while her mom reads to her.  She awakens in the night and can't fall asleep again.

When I read this book the first time I noticed that every time I read the word "yawn" someone actually yawned!  Sometimes it was me!  As you know we celebrated our week by having our very first pajama day on Friday.  Each child also brought a favorite stuffed animal.  Our project for this week was to create a movie where each child described what he or she does when having trouble falling asleep.  Below is the link to my youTube channel with the movie for you to enjoy!

Global Read Aloud, Capes and Pumpkins!

Today really was a Fantastic Friday!  This week our class began the Global Read Aloud Project by reading the book Nana in the City by Lauren Castillo.

Global Read Aloud was started in 2010 with a simple mission-one book to connect the world.  Now it has grown and classrooms all around the world connect with each other after reading the very same books.  Today your children were able to talk with children in New Jersey at a Jewish day school and children in Michigan in a suburb of Detroit.  They asked each other questions and shared our writing about being brave.  In class we spent time this week discussing Nana in the City.  The boy in the book goes to the city to visit his Nana and is afraid of the bustling, noisy city.  Nana makes him a cape and he spends the following day bravely exploring the city with Nana.  We talked a lot about what makes us brave sometimes.  Each child wrote a short piece about being brave.  Mrs. Stanton and I made each child their very own red cape just like the boy's cape in the story.  Most children wore that cape all day long!

One of our students brought a pumpkin for each child today!  This was a most exciting Friday!  This is G. looking very brave in her cape and happy about her pumpkin!

Fire Safety and Firefighter Visit

Monday our local Hinesburg firefighters visited Hinesburg Community School.  Our day began with an assembly in the cafeteria with Firefighters Spivak and Crawford.  They explained what to do if there's a fire at home and how to make a plan with your family to meet outside.  Firefighter Crawford put on the gear including the loud and noisy air pack.

Later we went outside to see a fire truck and rescue vehicle.  Each child was able to get into the fire truck and see the equipment inside.

 They also looked inside the rescue vehicle and asked questions.  They were also lucky enough to get their own fire hats and pencil cases!  Thank you, Hinesburg Fire Department, for coming to HCS!

Wemberly Worried...and So Did Some First Graders!

Today we read the book Wemberly Worried by Kevin Henkes.

In the book, a young mouse worries about...everything!  She worries about cracks in the wall, the safety of the swings and slide at the playground, and if her parents will still be there when she wakes up each morning.  She worries about a tree falling on her house and snakes in the radiator...but her newest worry is school!  She's headed to school for the first time and has many worries!  But after she spends some time there with her mom, she makes a new friend and isn't worried any longer.  Each child in our classroom made a poster of Wemberly and wrote about Wemberly's worries.  Then each shared something they worry about, too.  The following are just a few of the beautiful portraits of Wemberly.  They're even better in person!  You'll find them on the wall at school next week!

Fantastic Friday!

Today was Fantastic Friday in our classroom!  I call most Fridays "Fantastic Friday" just to boost morale at the end of what can sometimes seem like a long week for first graders!  Actually, we had a really fun and pretty busy week.

On Wednesday morning, two students from CVU (who are part of an athletic leadership team) came to our classroom to read to the class.  Jack and George both play a variety of sports at CVU and knew several children from soccer camps.  They volunteered to come one Wednesday morning each month to read to us.  This was the first week and they read a favorite Dr. Seuss book, Horton Hears a Who.  The class was mesmerized by our new readers!   Here the class enjoys the book while Jack takes a turn reading.

Thursday was an even busier day...yet another group of CVU students visited!  This time it was the public speaking classes whose first assignment is to memorize a children's poem and then perform it for our first grade classes.  The group of roughly 20 students arrived right after PE and stayed for about half an hour.  The class was startled at times (some poems were a little scary) and giggled when they poems were funny!  They thought the poem where a monster eats the teacher was funny!  Hmph?!  This is one of the (slightly nervous!) CVU students performing for the first graders.

Enjoy the weekend!

Reading, Writing, and Other Stuff!

I love the look of concentration on their faces as they work...

Popsicle Day!

Today was twin pop day for first graders at HCS!  Our very first math unit has us practicing counting by 2s.  The medium the program uses is twin pops.  As an interesting side note...it was challenging FINDING twin pops in a grocery store!  Luckily, the cafeteria can order them!

You'll see some very sticky, but happy faces!