Legacy X

Last month, students at Underhill participated in an anti-bullying campaign called Legacy X. View the following video to see how they contributed to the largest anti-bullying signs.

Marty Kelly

Yesterday the first graders had the treat of seeing a presentation by Marty Kelly and heating all about being an author/illustrator. We heard where he gets ideas, learned the million steps in the writing process, and saw how he does his artwork as well. 

Be sure to come join the fun on Thurday April 3 to see Marty Kelly in concert with Steve Blunt here at Underhill.

Maps, maps, maps

The kids are throwing themselves into maps, exploring the world, our town and stories about maps.

The students worked hard to find and mark their houses on a map of Hooksett and continue to revisit it and see how far away a friend lives--or find a way to their house for a playmate!

Thank you for all the maps you have sent in--I've never had such a variety of maps and new ones arrive every day. The kids are also teaching me something--I'm not a skier and they had to use the map key to teach me how to read a map of a mountain. Keep finding and exploring maps in the world around you!!!

Make a 10

On Friday the students worked at centers, practicing making 10. At one station they rolled a die, and then had to say how many more to make 10. At another station they played Memory, matching up combinations that would make 10, as seen in the cards below.

Here is a card game you can play at home with a standard deck of cards called Tens Go Fish:

Directions:
Remove the King, Queen, Jake and 10 from the deck.
The Ace will be equal to the number 1.
Each player gets dealt 6 cards.
The object of the game is to make as many ten facts as possible.
1+9   2+8   3+7   4+6   5+5
      Ex. If you have a 3 and 7 in your hand you can put them on the table and say 3+7=10

Each player takes turns asking for cards in order to make ten facts.
     Ex. If you have an 8 in your hand you will ask another player for a 2.
If the person has the card they will give it to you and you can put down your 10 fact.
If the person does not have the card they will tell you to "go fish."

The game is over when you run out of cards.
The winner is the person who has made the most tens facts pairs.


There is also a free app called 10 Frame Fill that provides practice in making combinations of 10.

Students are asked how many more to make 10 and can drag counters to help them find the answer, and a number sentence is also provided to support the pictoral representation.

Have fun!

Long Vowels

We have finally learned all of the spellings for our long vowels. These are the sound/spelling cards that hang in the classroom for students to refer to.

Ask your student to tell you what they know about the spellings, or challenge them to find certain spellings in their reading.

Jobs, jobs, jobs!

We have been very fortunate to have parents come in and share their jobs with the class. Here is a look at the visitors we have had come over the course of the last few weeks (and their very proud children):

Our first visitor was an ichthyologist, or fish scientist. 

We learned all about how he uses data when studying fish and their habitats. We even got to hold something that had been INSIDE a fish, tracking movements. 

Thank you for sharing!

Our second visitor was a nurse, who shared many of the tools she used when working in the ICU. 

 We talked about how nurses take your blood pressure, listen to your breathing with a stethoscope and  sometimes in the hospital you may need to get medicine. 

The students had lots of their own experiences to share about the doctor and their own visits to the nurse. What a great experience to see the tools that nurses use and hear how a nurse helps many people. Thank you for coming!

We had an optometrist, who works with veterans, come teach us about the many parts of our eyes. She showed us pictured of the tools she uses as well, a great preview for those who have not been to an eye doctor. 

The students had a blast with the disposable sunglasses patients need to wear after having their eyes displayed. 

Thank you for coming! 

We were also visited by a financial planner who talked to us about saving.

It was fun to hear what all the kids were saving for now, and seeing what it was like to 'own' a piece of Disney got the class excited to invest.  Thanks for the pens and notebooks too!

Our last visitor was also a financial advisor, looking to influence our young learners to work hard and save money. He had the class play a game of Life--making choices about school, homes, card and vacations. Then they had to make payments for all their choices...

Near the end, a few students looked at how much money they had left and had to rethink their choices!

Thank you so much for the fun lesson...and the first 100 grand. :)

Thank you to everyone for sharing their jobs with the class--the students loved sharing a bit of their family and their friends loved learning more about each of these jobs.