Happy Spring!

We've been busy bees this spring! Here are some things we did:

• plant plants and watch them grow...from seed to plant
• grow caterpillars and watch them become butterflies! (this was SO FUN, to watch the life cycle of a butterfly and then eventually release our butterflies)
• had a first grade insect rotation to learn about the dragonfly, bee, ladybug and praying mantis
• learned facts about ants and bees from the Magic School bus
• created spring poems-what we like about spring and what it makes us think about
• the important things...about our favorite foods and favorite animals
• become authors through writer's workshop-sharing our writing, publishing our books and sharing our hard-work by reading our published books through author's chair
• shared insect projects with the class (some made posters, power points and 3-d models)
• reading-learned important parts of the story (beginning, middle and end)
• spelling our no-excuse words correctly
• working with our fabulous fourth grade buddies (created symmetrical Mexican art, sticker masterpieces and reading with our buddies)

Not only have we done these fun things...but we have become better readers, writers, scientists and mathematicians!! We are almost ready for second grade! YEAH!

Read Across America

We are celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday with a week-long Read Across America celebration at school.

Here's our schedule for the week:

• Monday-First Grade Pajama Day and Drop Everything AND Read Day...keep a book with you all day!
• Tuesday-School-wide BINGO and first grade field trip to Bodyology
• Wednesday-Storybook character day...dress up as your favorite storybook character
• Thursday-Cat in the Hat Day-wear red/white or a Cat in the Hat hat
• Friday-Read My Shirt Day...wear a shirt with words

We will also do several activities in class too to celebrate Dr. Seuss! Happy Birthday!

The 100th Day of school!

Tomorrow will be the 100th day of school! I can't believe that we've been in school for 100 days! We will celebrate tomorrow with a 100th day of school first grade rotation! We will create 100 day glasses, what will we look like when we are 100, 100 day necklace and what we would do with $100. Happy 100th day of first grade!

We've been busy, busy bees this month...here's a list of things we've done and learned about just in the month of February:

• Stanford Testing
• School-wide letter writing
• Grammar-how to make a sentence make sense
• Weekend News-adding detail sentences to make our news more interesting
• Reading-important parts of the story (beginning, middle and end)
• Field trip to the Kirkland Performing Arts Theater to see The Emperor's New Clothes
• Buddies-created Valentine's Heart Friends
• Friendship Week and Valentine's Day Week
• Art Docent-watercolor hearts
• Fairy Tales-Little Red Riding Hood-elements of a fairy tale
• Groundhog's Day
• 100th day rotation
• Health Rotation
• Chinese New Year-year of the tiger
• President's Day-what we would do if we were president

and there's so much more to come!

The beginning of school

The first month of school was a very busy one in room 144! We had so much to remember and do! We learned all of our friends' names, interesting facts about each other and we are all special to each other in our classroom. We got to know each other while learning the rules, procedures and routines. We worked on handwriting letters correctly, counting by 5's, words that rhyme to writing complete sentences. What fun we had the month of September and there is so much more to come!

Interesting things Mrs. Hooke learned about her kids:
1. Many of them follow the Huskies and Seahawks!
2. How they love to create things and do art!
3. How they all love to share stories about their life!
4. How they love to be silly and have fun!

Welcome!

Welcome to Newcastle! I'm excited to be your first grade teacher this year! We will have so much fun learning together!