1st Grade Readers!

We are working hard to learn to read!

Welcome Back Letter

Dear Crew 104 Families,

I would like to welcome you to Crew 104 at Polaris Charter Academy!  I am Mona Iehl and this is my third year teaching at Polaris and I have the pleasure of teaching the 1^st and 2^nd graders in Crew 104!  I am originally from Michigan, but feeling right at home here in Chicago!  This year we will engage in a tremendous amount of learning.  I will challenge your child to be a risk taker in their learning and an idea factory in their exploring.  I am looking forward to facilitating as your child grows as a reader, writer and explorer this year!

It is very important to me to establish a line of communication with each family in order to develop a partnership.  As a team we can help your student learn a great deal.  I will work hard to communicate successes and difficulties through out the year.  Please feel free to communicate your concerns and successes.  I am available for appointments before or after school or from 12-1:50pm.  Please call the office to set up an appointment.  I am also available by phone or email. 

I am looking forward to hearing from you and beginning the year with your child.  This year will be full of academic growth, exploration, and social development! 

Thankfully,

Ms. Iehl 

Buzzing about Bees

Crew 104 has started a new expedition all about bees!!  The students are investigating the role bees play in creating the food we eat.  Students are researching bees through reading books.  Through research, students are learning about the needs of a living thing, parts of a bee, and the life cycle.

 

Students took the knowledge of the bee and investigated a bee specimen.

Through careful observation and more research, students created scientific drawings of bees.

 

Reading in Crew 104

We spend at least 20 minutes each day practicing our reading independently.  This is a time when we practice all the things we've learned and read books at our level.

Above is a video of our friend Da'jah and Joshua talking about the books they were reading during independent reading.

New Technology!

Click here to visit our Voicethread!!! :)

We have been working hard on writing letters.  We learned about the parts and how to communicate our ideas in a letter.  Last week we worked on thank-you letters.  Down below you will find a link to our voice thread.  Voice thread is a website that you can create a slideshow.  You can even use the microphone on your computer to record your voice.  We all recorded our thank-you letters and created a voice thread.  Ms. Iehl put together our recordings with our pictures.

We sent the voice thread to Mr. Ramaker.  He is Ms. Iehl's cousin who donated money to our crew to help us pay for things like new books, field work and indoor recess games.  Thanks, Mr. Ramaker!



http://voicethread.com/share/1632604/
(You can also copy and paste the link above!)

Celebration of Learning

Today we are celebrating our learning!  We are sharing our maps with our parents and community members!  We are very excited to show them all the hard work we've done on our maps.

Thank-you to all the people who came today to support us! :)

Who is Crew 104?

In Crew 104 we work hard.  We read, write, and do math every day.  We also do EXPEDITIONS!
We grow our brains.  We always do our best.  We've been writing letters.  Please keep your eye out because we will be putting some of our letters on this blog!

You can learn more about our school at pcachicago.org