What a beautiful week we are having together inside and out of the classroom! I really appreciate all the support you have given your child regarding homework and through your donations and volunteer work this year! Please mark your calendar for our annual Lewis Volunteer Breakfast on June 8th, 8-9 a.m. Childcare will be available. Come share in some yummy, teacher made food and relax for a bit with others who have volunteered this year. Field trip forms for our Oregon Zoo trip in June have been sent out for all first graders and if you are able to Chaperone, let me know as soon as possible. In the classroom. our renewed focus on friendship and kindness has been a success! I am noticing more problem solving, caring hearts being put in the kindness basket and positive friendship groups out on the playground. Empathy training remains a daily focus for my lessons with the students and throughout the curriculum. In Math this week learning and practicing telling time to the hour, half hour, and quarter hour will be our focus as well as fractions. Towards the end of the week we will begin our new study on The Farm. There is a lot to learn that entails mathematical understanding when purchasing a farm and it's contents! It should be a great hands on experience for all:) Our Science lab is very busy! Snails , darkling beetles living their last.(beginning?), stage of being, silk worms going through their 2nd stage of "in star",(molting) and our wee caterpillars striving to grow into butterflies! I hope to have some pond insects coming to visit next week. This week we have finished our last story in our literacy adoption for the year and homework will look different next week. Please continue reading daily with your child and tell them you love them every chance you get!  Keep in touch. abuckley@pps.k12.or.us

Thank you to families for coming out to the Lewis Annual Art Night 2012 and to the children who shared their art expertise as Docents:) This wonderful night at Lewis was made even better by the great music, (made possible by our amazing music teacher, Mr. Jamesbarry), and the delicious donated desserts served at the Paintbrush Cafe. A special thanks to second grade teacher, Mrs. Swan, for once again spearheading this event. I am inspired and  already researching new art activities for my students next year! This week and on through the next 4 weeks of school, our classroom will be bustling with projects and activities. In science, we have many interesting insects growing and changing in our classroom "laboratory":) The students are caring for and observing crickets, silk worm eggs, meal worms and an assortment of visiting insects brought to us from home and our playground including some beautiful snails. We are in need of mulberry leaves to feed our Silk Worms when they hatch. If anyone has access to these please let me know. In math we continue learning about geometric shapes and their attributes. Our new focus this week is on number operations and  fractions. Please talk to your children about reading a traditional clock face, especially identifying on the hour and half hour time positions. Connecting time with events is especially meaningful for our little ones. In writing, we are paying extra attention to rereading for meaning and checking to be sure our mechanics are correct. I am planning a trip for the students to The Oregon Zoo in early June so please let me know if you have a Zoo pass you would like to use and/or if you would like to Chaperone. Keep a look out for paper work coming home this week. As the spring days warm up and first grade , some of the children are becoming restless and at times cranky in the classroom. any are "burning the candle at both ends" as they are playing sports after school and weekends.                                                        

We are putting the finishing touches on our art work to be presented this Thursday evening during the Annual Lewis Art Night. Please be sure to stop by and admire the fused glass installation in the windows at the front of the school created by the three first grades.  You will LOVE it! Art Night is one of my favorite Lewis Community gatherings.  Music, art, yummy treats and best of all the "Docents" who line the hallways in front of every classroom, excited to tell all the "Patrons" about the beautiful art work they have studied and created. Thanks so much to all who have signed their children up to be Docents, the sign up sheets were sent home on Monday and again on Tuesday.  We also have a sign up sheet outside of our classroom. It is such a fun night for all and I look forward to seeing you there, whether or not your child has decided to be a Docent. In Literacy studies this week we are learning about simple machines, and the letters that make the sound, "oy"/"oi" in words we read each day.  The amazing Spring month of May has come and our science lab is filled with worms, caterpillars, silk worm eggs, visiting snails and assorted insects found by several students.We are observing and documenting changes in their bodies. Our math calendar corner  has changed and we will figure out the new pattern as we practice addition and subtraction facts to 20. The students are learning more about geometric shapes and later this month fractions:) Please keep in touch and email me anytime: abuckley@pps.net

Photos and stories at: mrslogue.posterous.com 

I hope you had a beautiful Earth Day last Sunday! My eldest daughter, Claire  and I were in McMinnville Oregon at a High school equestrian meet. We cleaned a lot of stalls and I was so happy to learn that the  dumped horse manure is headed for local gardens:) It is  great to see how the fuel we give our horse, ( Oregon Timothy Hay)  is used and reused. Makes it all worth it. Last week the children and I pulled a lot of  very young but heavily seeded weeds from the front garden to contribute to our promise to keep the Lewis Garden healthy. We also planted a few pea plants by the front door benches to observe and enjoy the yummy peas we hope soon to see! This weekend Lewis had a wonderful Garden Party  I am so sorry I had to miss it. Thanks to all who helped out.  I am looking forward to attending next years! This week our lead story is, " Dot and Jabber and the Great Acorn Mystery" Our phonics focus, " vowels oo as in book. and inflected endings, ( drop e before -ed, -ing). We are embarking on our new math unit and continuing to observe and record information on the meal worms and crickets in our science laboratory:) Of course, preparations for the Lewis Annual Art Night continues as well. Your children have expressed themselves artistically through out the year and a nice selection of their lovely work will be on display. Please consider coming in to volunteer before the year is over. We need and appreciate you:} Keep practicing telling time and counting coins, have a great rest of the week.
abuckley@pps.net
mrslogue.posterous.com

We finished last week enjoying  our final lesson with our glass artist, Lisa Wilke. She was enthusiastic, well organized and had a great sense of how to engage the children! All students were able to participate in creating their own fused glass pendants and in contributing to a whole class mosaic. All three first grades will have their final project with Lisa on view soon at the front windows of Lewis school. We are thrilled and look forward to you seeing them:) We are now in the process of creating paintings based on stained glass and a crafting rattles out of clay! We are preparing for the famous, Lewis Art Night next month, more information to come soon. Come join us in the classroom at 9:30 to 10:30 Monday through Friday and/or 1:30 to 3:00 Monday through Friday to lend a hand. The students love to see you! Also, PLEASE, if you are able take home a few (or many!),  sheets of geometric shapes on the table outside of our classroom. Thanks so much to Logan's, Faith's and Matthew's Moms for doing so many already!!  They need to be  cut out for our coming math lessons. The children, and I especially, will appreciate your help! THANKS SO MUCH!  Last week was our official kick off of our studies into Arthropods, (insects with jointed limbs, segmented bodies and exoskeletons!) We have some amazing crickets visiting and the chirping in the classroom and it  makes us long for warm summer evenings. We are hoping to see the females deposit eggs and see the nymphs arise from their sanding nests. This week we are introducing the meal worm, (not really a worm mind you!), and each child will have 2 of their own in a habitat to observe and record changes it makes as it becomes...shhh..don't tell...