Last blog post of the year!

Dear families and any visitors,

Hello and goodbye! We are starting summer vacation tomorrow. Some of us are happy and some of us are anxious. Today is a half day, and the last day of school! Thanks for visiting the blog and writing us nice comments!

Here are some of our favorite things from first grade:

• everything!
• choice time
• social studies, like studying commnity activists
• making a parachute for science
• block building, especially building the neighborhood
• writing poetry and magazines
• quiet time
• reading harder books
• our trip to the real farm
• Clara's guitar sing alongs

See you later, everyone!

The (almost second graders but still) First Graders (for now)

Last Family Friday of First Grade

Here are some photos from today's Family Friday, when we shared our writing projects from all across the year. In the beginning of the year, some of us were just learning how to write and now we're really good! Thanks to everyone who came to visit!

Our Fundraising Project Total!

Dear friends,

We were making money by selling food for everybody and we gave lemonade to them. They gave us money for the fruit salad and lemonade. We made the fruit salad ourselves. Some kids brought in the fruit. It wasn't hard. Thank you for paying us so much money that we made $248.35. That's the money from collecting "Change for Change" and from our refreshment sale, all together.

Here are the photos from the sale after school.

We have a little more money that people brought from home, so we'll add that too. Next time we write, we'll tell you what farm animals we donated from Heifer International.

Catch ya later!

The first graders





Reading Buddies and Raising Money

Dear families,

It's been a while since we had reading buddies with Stefanie's class, but today we did! Owen and other reading buddies were really good at reading clearly. We read poems from poetry books that the fourth graders wrote when THEY were in first grade or kindergarten with Clara. Now we're writing our own poems and we'll make a book too, just like them.

This Friday, today, we get to have snack sale, we get to see the fourth and fifth graders do a show, Rosie's Broadway Kids from Broadway and it's a musical. It's a totally fun day!

In our fundraising for our snack sale, we are going to do something in our class really fun, making fruit salad for our snack sale! We're going to cut up the fruit ourselves. The money is going to go to Heifer International to give farm animals to people who need it.

We already made $177.23 from collecting change in our "Change for Change" bags. WOW!!! This morning we guessed how much money we'll make all together after we have our sale. We guessed $1000, $200, $201, $250 and $315.08, and other guesses too. We'll tell you how much we made after we count it on Monday.

By,
The First Graders

p.s. We promise to tell you how much money we raised!

Our Big Community Activist Projects

Dear families,

We just watched "Beatrice's Goat," the movie of the book that we told you about, which Emily got out of the library and brought to school. We saw the real Beatrice!

We have been working on our community activist projects. We studied these four people: Cesar Chavez, Dan West, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. We read books about them. They're all community activists. Community activists can change things. If they see a problem they get people together to try to fix it. They can change the world!!!

We made these posters. They're really big!

We cut out real pictures of the people, and wrote facts about them. Like, did you know that people protested with a sit-in because some restaurants only used to let white people sit down at the counter and not brown people? After a lot of protests and marches and speeches and reports on TV the laws got changed.

We also made some block projects.

And posters about stuff we found out.

It was hard work doing this, but it was fun!

Adios, families! Hasta manana!

The First Graders

Harvesting & Heifers

Dear families,

Today we went to Tompkins Square Park to do writing and reading.

Today we even harvested lettuce too! This is the lettuce we planted from seeds, when we did drama with Kelli. We left a little bit still growing to see what happens.

We've been studying community activists in social studies. Here's a picture of the first activist we studied.

It's Dan West and he started Heifer International. It's called Heifer because a heifer is a young cow who didn't have babies yet, and heifers were the first animals that the program gave to people. They were sent to families in Puerto Rico who had never even tasted milk before! Dan West started Heifer International because he was working in the Spanish War to give cups of milk to children. But as soon as the kids touched the milk it was gone, and they were still hungry. So he thought "these people don't need a cup, they need a cow."

Families, just wait, we're going to raise money for Heifer International and we'll tell you how next week!

See you soon!

The First Graders

Goats and Poetry!

Dear families,

Clubs started today. We did good in clubs and had a lot of fun.

This week we read a book called "Beatrice's Goat." A program helped this girl Beatrice's family in Uganda. The program is called Heifer International. The program gave Beatrice's family a goat! They gave her a goat because goat's milk is healthy, even healthier than cow's milk. Beatrice's family drank the milk and they sold the milk to get money. Beatrice got to go to school. Before that, she never went to school before but she always wished she could go. This is a true story, and we researched Beatrice on the computer and found pictures of her graduating from a college in the United States. She grew up to study how to help poor people who need help, just like she did.



Our class is thinking about how to raise money to buy a farm animal from Heifer International to give to a family who needs help. Stay tuned, we'll tell you our ideas later!

We're also starting to write poems for Writing Workshop.

This week some people wrote some silly poems, poems about people, poems with repeating parts and nonfiction poems. Here is a silly one Emily wrote:

Lazy

My name is Jazy.
I am always crazy.
I always cook
from a book.

But because I am so crazy

I always cook lazy.

by Emily

See you later, families!

The First Graders

Finishing our Drama Project

Dear families,

We had a farmer's market in our classroom! This was the celebration to finish our drama project. We had lots of good samples. We even had honey comb! We sold carrots, cucumbers, strawberries, honey, grapes, apples, peaches, cherries, cilantro, eggs, milk, cheese and bread that we made with flour ground from the wheat that we planted at Freedom Farm. We sold real food and pretend food. Most of the pretend food cost one dollar. The food was pretend and real.

And at the information table you could get maps, fake money to buy pretend food (for free), and reusable shopping bags.

Families came to visit our market, and Bradley and Robin too. Robin came to watch the movie with us that Kelli made.

We did a movie. It showed that one day a rabbit visited our garden and ate up all our carrots, just like the song we know "John the Rabbit." The movie showed all the other things we did on the farm for drama too. The kids giggled when they saw themselves in the movie. One thing that wasn't in the movie was that in drama we started a strike, like Cesar Chavez (he was real), so that farm workers got paid more money, were treated better and got more breaks and food.

Don't worry, if you didn't visit and see the movie we're going to make sure that all families get to watch it at home, either on the internet or on a DVD.

We all like Kelli and had a super time doing drama.

Bye bye, Kia and Rex and Feedom Farm!

Bye bye, families!

p.s. Cool.

The Queens County Farm

Dear families,

Today we went to the Queens County Farm. This was a big week for trips!

On the farm, this is what we did:

• We went on a hay ride all around the farm. It was lots of fun!
• We saw bee hives. The bees were doing work. We didn't interrupt them, or else they could sting us. We shared the research we did about bees with Miss Chris, the farmer. 
• We saw two peacocks.
• We saw sheep. A girl sheep is called a ewe. A man sheep is called a ram. A baby sheep is a lamb.
• We saw two cows. We learned that most cows have horns, even females. In big farms, the horns are cut off when they are young so they don't hurt each other. These cows still have their horns because there are just two of them and they aren't in a big herd.
• We saw hens and roosters, a chicken coop, pigs and piglets, goats and geese (the geese were honking at us!)
• We saw nesting boxes and a roost in the chicken coop, just like in our block area.
• We fed the goats. The kid goats are called kids, like us!

That's it for today, families! See you around town!

love, the First Grader Travelers

Our Trip to the Farmer's Market

Hello families!

On Monday we went to the Union Square Farmer's Market. We went there for real, not pretend like we do in drama.

At the farmer's market we had clip boards. We had to find these things: fruit, vegetables, baked goods, meat, dairy and eggs. We saw these things and we also saw:

• flowers
• died eggs and HUGE ostrich eggs
• duck meat getting cooked
• grass fed beef
• apples
• root vegetables like carrots, beets and parsnips

We talked to farmers and their helpers who were selling their crops and other food from their farms. 

That day we ate snack of things we bought at the market. We had purple carrots, three types of apples, whole-grain bread and sunflower seeds that were still attached to the sunflower! Yum.

Bye, families!

The First Graders

p.s. Thanks for all the comments. We really love it when you write comments because we can tell you read our blog!

Another farm update!

Dear families,

We did a great job of building our farm in our classroom, for Drama with Kelli. In the block area we built a barn with farm animals, a chicken coop with nesting boxes and a roost, and a garden. In our garden, our seeds have sprouted. Our hens have been laying eggs. Some of them will be baby chickens and some we will take to the farmer's market to eat.

For real, we planted lettuce seeds in a window box. There was a weed in the box, so Azul weeded it. The window box is in our class window. We can't wait to see the lettuce grow!

Today when we came back to our class from Velda's class, we saw a rabbit's footprints! It took our carrots! When the rabbit came in, we didn't even see it. There was only ONE carrot left in the garden box.

On Monday we're going to a real farmer's market. We're going to get food. Two days after that day, on Wednesday, we're going to a real farm!

See you later!
The First Graders

Our Second Day on the Farm

Dear families,

We hope you miss us because we're living on Freedom Farm now! For a whole month. We took a bus to Freedom Farm. We packed our bags with all the things we would need. It was raining for part of our trip.

Clara was the bus driver. We saw lots of things out of the windows (really pictures on the Smart Board) -- Times Square, then a bridge, the highway, then the country. There was lots of trees and grass in the country, and not a lot of cars. We went through a small town with only one restaurant, a diner! Then we passed Kia's school. When we got to the farm we sorted fruits and vegetables into roots, seeds, stems, leaves and fruit (all the parts of the plants that we have learned about). Then at night we built a campfire and slept outside under the stars in our sleeping bags.

Today we're going to plant crops on the farm!

(Don't worry, it's not real, this is all just for Drama.)

Bye bye, families!
xoxo
The First Graders

Drama with Kelli: Farms!

Dear families,

This week we started Drama with Kelli. We went to a farmer's market. It was a pretend farmer's market. We met two (pretend) kids called Kia and Rex. They live on a farm with their dad. Their farm is called Freedom Farm, because the animals run free, not like in factory farms. But something sad happened! Their dad said they had to close the farm because they didn't have enough people to do the work. Kia and Rex's parents are divorced, and their mom works in the town. So there are only three of them to do a lot of work. Then we had a great idea: we could help! Kia called her dad to tell him the good news but he didn't believe her! So, we yelled into the phone "We can help you!"

So, families, if it's ok with you, we're going to pack our bags and move to Freedom Farm to live there and work for a little while.

Remember, it's all pretend, and drama!

Have a great day!

From, The Farm Graders!

Ice Skating and Researching!

Dear families,

We went on a field trip on Wednesday. We went ice skating in Central Park. Some of us fell down, but then we learned how to ice skate all by ourselves! Some of us learned how to go really fast. Clara taught some of us, and some of us already knew how. We ice skated with friends, together. There was a guy at the rink ice dancing. He was super duper cool. He did spins and jumps like in ballet.

Here's a movie of us ice skating!

For a new writing project, we're writing nonfiction magazines about farm animals. We're in groups to research and write about cows, chickens / ducks, pigs, bees, horses, goats and sheep. Yesterday and today we thought up research questions, like "Do cows ever get fleas?" "Can cows run?" "Does the queen bee make the bees be born?" "Are baby chicks born with wings?" "How are baby horses born?" and "Where did the first bee in the world come from?"

Bye, families! Catch ya later!

The First Grade Ice Skaters

Surveys and 100 Days

Dear families,

We are working on a social studies unit studying life in the country and on farms. Next month our drama teacher, Kelli, is going to come work with our class to do a drama and social studies project with us about this study!

This week on Monday was the 100th day of school. We counted 100 objects, drew pictures of 100, and made more counting strips starting at 1 and writing up to 100 or above!

We're also studying nonfiction, reading books and writing down nonfiction facts on post-it notes. Yesterday we finished our collection of 100 nonfiction facts! We learned these facts about topics like animal life, water life, mammals, plant life and other science topics. This morning parents who visited for Family Friday helped us write even more facts. Maybe we'll get to 200!

In math we're doing surveys. We wrote our own survey questions and asked everyone in the class. Some surveys were: Which do you like better, numbers or letters? and Would you rather explore deep sea or outer space? We're already pretty much experts on surveys because we do one almost every morning for part of Morning Meeting. We're going to ask YOU a survey now. Look to the right on this blog and please take our survey. We'll be checking back to see how many people answered it!

Next week is February vacation. See you on February 28th!

The First Graders

Growing Plants and Reading Nonfiction

Dear families,

The plants are getting REALLY big! They're so beautiful. We think the plants will flower soon. The seeds will be inside the flowers. The plants are so tall they're almost falling down. They have big leaves now too.

We did a read aloud called Plantzilla about a plant that gets REALLY REALLY big. It even eats hamburgers and drinks milk. When the flowers bloomed a chiuaua popped out! (It had eaten the family's pet dog.) In this story the plant eats human food. This week when we studied nonfiction topics, Chloe learned that real plants make their own food from the sun.

We are reading nonfiction books and learning how to take nonfiction notes. This week we all signed up for something that we wanted to study. The topics were bats, sharks, plants, mammals and fish & crayfish. We made posters for each topic, and stuck post-it notes on the posters with real facts that we learned from studying nonfiction books. We learned that nonfiction notes are short, true facts that you write down. Some of our nonfiction notes are:

• Sharks sometimes eat birds that float on the water.
• Seeds grow inside a plant's flowers.
• Bats can swim, jump and climb.
• Mice can have up to fifteen babies in one litter.
• When baby fish hatch they are called fry.

Here are our posters that we made over the last two days:

Keep writing comments, families! We love to read them every Friday!

Adios!
The First Graders

Our Bean Plants

Dear families,

Sorry that we didn't have time to write on our blog on Friday. Our class wanted to make a quick post today to show that the bean seeds we planted almost 3 weeks ago are growing really well! They were supposed to grow in our "grow lab" but it turned out that the light bulb was broken the first day we got it. So, we put the plants by the window and it looks like they're getting plenty of real light because they're growing so quickly!

Here are some photos to show you how much they have grown in just ONE WEEK. The first photo is from last Monday, the second is from last Friday, and the last one is from today. Stay tuned for more news from our class at the end of this week.