French: Concert Song

The girls have been working very hard on learning a French song for their spring concert.  Here is a video of the song that they are learning.  They love singing and dancing along.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czim7jabhM8

Spring is Finally HERE!!

First Graders have been busy in April.  In Language Arts, the girls are cutting up contractions and acting out Reader's Theater.  In Math, we wrapped up our unit on money and began learning about the concept of time.  The girls have been very excited to learn about spring celebrations such as Passover, Easter, and the Persian New Year.  Thank you again to all of the families who helped with the Spring Festival.  It was such a special event for the girls!

Contraction Surgery!

Little Red Riding Hood

Cinderella

Three Little Pigs

Let's Go Shopping!

Telling time with partners

Clocks of our own

Decorating Easter Eggs

Persian New Year explanation

Fun with friends and family!

Decorating Seder Plates

Enjoying matzo!

Art: A Kind Gesture (Continued)

First graders have completed wax resist paintings that tell stories about kindness using the human figure. 

To begin, students used different sized ovals to build a jointed puppet to act as a model or stencil for their chosen gestures. Their paintings use crayon and watercolor to show the most important gesture from their story. 

After completing their paintings, first graders explored another way of telling stories using the figure. In small groups they used their puppets and iPads to create a stop motion animation. 

From the Library

First graders have been reading a mix of great old books and terrific new books. Old favorites include Mike Mulligan, (ask your daughter how they solved the problem of Maryann the steam shovel being stuck in the hole of the new town hall in Popperville), William Steig's Rotten Island with its gruesome creatures and fantastic vocabulary (why were they afraid of the flower?), and Kumak's House, a Tale of the Far North (How does Aana Lulu solve the problem of the too small house? And doesn't she remind you a little of Strega Nona?)
Newer books include The Little Red Pen (who helped her out of "the pit"?), The Big Red Lollipop (how does Rubina navigate the expectations of her family and of her friends? Who goes to the second birthday party?) and Loula is Leaving for Africa (how does she escape her triplet baby brothers and travel to Africa all in a day?)
We will read a few more books by William Steig this month, paying close attention to describing words. (Rotten Island has spiny, thorny twisted plants, a boiling sea seething with serpents, sharp-clawed crabs and electric eels of high voltage, and monsters - huge or miserably stunted, fat or scraggly, dry or slimy, with scales, warts, pimples, tentacles, talons, fangs, extra arms, eyes, legs, tails, and even heads, all in ridiculous arrangements)!