Our Butterfly Garden

Remember I told you about the butterfly garden that we planted at our house? Well this year our milkweed has really grown and we have Monarch Butterflies laying eggs. We even have two chrysalis's...I will let you know when the butterflies emerge. Check out the pictures of the milkweed, butterfly, caterpillar and chrysalis. Click here for a link to some fun butterfly activities that you can do at home.

Now a Baby Lizard...

Well you know me, I am still taking pictures all the time...check out this tiny lizard, good thing Rusty or Bishop didn't find him!

Yikes!!!

Thought you guys might enjoy these photos. Mr. Costello found this baby snake on our back porch when he let Bishop out. Luckily Bishop did not even see him....isn't he cute?? I wanted to keep him as a pet, but Mr. Costello let him go in the bushes.

Dog Days of Summer!

Thought you might enjoy some new pics of Bishop and Rusty. Rusty is busy chasing lizards in the backyard and on our daily walks ( he ends up pulling me down the sidewalk!). Bishop just finished his first training class at Petsmart ( he will be taking another one!). Bishop likes to bother Rusty, swim in his pool and steal things out of wastebaskets in the house! Yes, I am still trying to teach him some manners!

Are You Reading???

We miss you guys so much! Remember to have fun this summer, but please find time to read. Information was placed in your report card envelope on how to access the Summer Math and Reading Technology Program this summer. Many of you already visited Destination Success during the school year. Summer activities are now loaded for you to complete. Here is the link to Destination Success. Your username is your first name + last name + 208 (no spaces). Your password is your 2 digit birth month + 2 digit birth date (ex: March 5th = 0305).
Also, you can continue to access online book through this link to eduplace. Your username is: kinnacostelloclass. Your password is: student. Feel free to read books from any of the reading groups.
Have a wonderful summer!

Slideshow of Our End of the Year Celebration

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Reading Awards

We wanted to give special recognition to all of the students in our class who were invited to the Reading Celebration this past weekend. We had 22 students that received certificates and 21 students that received either a bronze, silver or gold medal. Way to go......room 3 has some awesome readers! As a special bonus, Olivia won the grand prize drawing at the celebration....a Visa gift card for $100.00 !!! Now that's something to celebrate!!!

Three More Days!!

Wow! We can't believe this is our last week of school! Remember, our party will be this Thursday. Some of our activities will take place outside so please dress your child in cool, comfortable clothes. They may also wear a hat if they like. The first grade teachers have many fun activities planned and we think the children will have a blast! Today they had fun getting their classmates to sign their autograph books. These will be sent home later in the week.


Your child will also be coming home on Thursday with a DVD that contains five different slideshows with over 200 photos taken throughout the year. The students have had a "sneak peak" at it already and they really enjoyed singing along and seeing themselves on the big screen. It is our gift to you and we hope your child will enjoy having this special keepsake from first grade. Send us an email and give us your feedback on it...we would love to hear what you think! We will try to keep posting on the blog this summer ( watch for party pictures over the weekend), but of course next school year will bring a brand new set of first graders to room 3. Feel free to still visit our blog for any school information or links to sites.
Thanks for all of your support this school year and have a wonderful summer!

International Vacation

Only 14 Days Remaining!

We can't believe how quickly this year has passed! The year is not over though, and these last 3 weeks will be busy. We will not have any more spelling tests, we will just be reviewing our words from this year. Your child will not come home with any new high frequency words cards either, but please have them to continue studying their words nightly. All students should still be logging a book a night on their book logs!
This week we will begin an author study on Mem Fox. The author study is designed to help students meet standards in reading and writing. To meet the standard the students must make connections to books that they hear and participate in book discussions using accountable talk. We also will be studying characters, comparing books and looking at the structure of a story.
I have provided a link to the Mem Fox website that gives a lot of information about this wonderful author. They can even hear Mem Fox read aloud a few of her books!
Your child will also be coming home with a line or two to practice for our Belize presentation that will be next week. ( check out the photos above ) They do not have to memorize the lines. We will be presenting our information on Belize to several visiting classes next week. We will also be "visiting" several other countries in other classrooms.
Remember to sign and return all progress reports and turn in your child's party money as soon as possible!
Thanks!