Fall Celebration

Last Thursday was our class Fall Celebration day! We started our day by dressing up as a favorite literary character and we paraded around the school. Everyone loved our creative costumes.
Back in our classroom, we celebrated this fun season by doing five different craft stations. We made silly slime with Ms. Sanchez, a spooky frame, a creepy popcorn hand, a paper plate pumpkin and a little candy corn guy! It was so much fun! The Mackarados LOVE celebrating with stations!!
We ate lunch in the classroom and watched Charlie Brown's Great Pumpkin while we pigged out on all sorts of yummy treats! Mrs.Alvarado, Shalyn and baby Canyon joined us for lunch. The Mackarados loved meeting Canyon!
It was such a fun day with some great memories made! Thank you to Cole's mom, Sierra's mom and Ms. Warden who stayed to help with stations and all the other parents who sent in craft supplies, paper goods and/or treats! :)

Literary Pumpkins

It is Literary Pumpkin week at CCE and it is one of our favorite events at school. Each class in the school decorates a pumpkin as a literary character and all the pumpkins are displayed in the front lobby for the week to celebrate our love of books and reading! Mrs.Alvarado and I have done many different kinds of pumpkins in the past but this year the Mackarados voted and chose to do one of our favorite Mem Fox books, Hattie and the Fox. They were very excited to have each table make a different character from the story. It seemed quite challenging to turn a cantaloupe shaped and sized pumpkin into a horse, a cow, a goose, a pig and a sheep but we have learned to never underestimate children's creativity...especially this little bunch! You have to see these animals! They are so cute! They really worked together as a table and used the book to make these characters come alive- as pumpkins! Ms.Sanchez and I supplied the materials they asked for but hardly any assistance or suggestions... we were so impressed with the finished products but also with the polite words and nice manners in which they were made! On your way in the building, check out the Hattie and the Fox display and see our hard (but super fun!) work. :)

MOSH field trip

Our first 1st grade field trip went very well! We had a blast at the MOSH! It was an absolutely beautiful day and we had a great schedule. When we first got there- thanks to our chaperones (Mrs.Yaffee, Mrs.Roy, Mrs.Cebrian, Mrs.Reyes, Mrs.Jones and Mr.Abe) the students were able to explore the museum with their groups for the first hour+. Then we all met at the front doors to walk to Friendship Fountain for lunch. We were able to eat at the picnic tables right by the water. The kids loved running around in the great weather. The Mackarados played a few group games outside until it was time for our class session. We walked back to the MOSH and joined Mrs.Harbour's and Mrs.VanAlstyne's class for the Exploring Habitats lesson. The Mackarados did a great job answering questions and participating in the lesson. We discussed all the different habitats and what kinds of animals live in them. We got to see a live tortise and pet a corn snake on the way out. It was the perfect ending to our awseome day!

4th Grade Reading Buddies!

We were so lucky to be asked by Mrs. Constande's 4th grade class to be their 1st grade reading buddies!! Every Friday during our Reader's Workshop at 10:30 our 4th grade buddies join us for our Reading work period. Each Mackarado or pair of Mackarados, has the same buddy each time so they can get to know each other as readers. The 4th graders are prepared with shared reading materials and have been bringing fun activities to do with us. Our students have had to listen to their buddy read, visualize what they were reading and draw a picture to go with the story. We have also listened to, then discussed a poem they studied and then filled-in-the-blanks to make our own poem with our buddy. We are looking forward to many other activities to do together that allow the 4th graders to practice their skills and also reinforce the strategy work we are doing as first graders. This makes us look forward to Fridays for a whole other reason!
Thank you Mrs. Constande's friends for letting us be your reading buddies! :)

Mem Fox Celebration

Last week, the Mackarados celebrated the completion of our Mem Fox author study. In their book talk groups (students got to choose which Mem Fox book group they were in), each group made a presentation of their book to share what it was about. They came up with a variety of creative ways to present their book- posters of the beginning, middle and end, story maps, story board with pictures (and vocabulary words!), acting it out with masks, acting it out while reading the book, etc.
Ms. Sasso's class was doing the same with their book talk groups and invited us to celebrate together! They joined us in our classroom and both classes were able to share to a much larger audience! :) They loved it. We also made pirate hats and eye patches (thanks Ms. Sasso!). Then was the students' favorite part....we had our own Bush Olympics! Each student participated in an event. Events included a 3-legged race, Egg race, Scooter race, Long jump, Boomerang relay, Bean Bag toss and the Potato sack race. It was a sight to see! With such great sports and attitudes, everyone received a gold medal! WooHoo! And to wrap up a great day, the students enjoyed some yummy Australian desserts. Ms. Sasso made Anzac biscuits, Ms. Sanchez made pavlova and I made lamington. Not sure what those are??? Ask your student! It was delicious!
It was a super fun day and a great way to celebrate all they have learned. We were really proud and impressed by their presentations. A lot of cooperation had to happen to come up with an idea they all agreed on, make it together giving everyone an opportunity to help, practice presenting it with everyone having a part and then sharing it infront of a group. It was amazing! Ms. Sanchez and I almost had happy tears because it really created an opportunity for some of our little people to really shine! Great job Mackarados!