Happy Valentine's Day

I'm a little late but better late than never :)

Last Tuesday was Valentine's Day and boy was it fun! One of the quotes from the end of the day went something like this: "This was the best party I've ever had!"

We started the day by making special Valentine's for our 6th grade reading buddies in Mr. Clouse's class. They were several steps involved and the kids listen great! Aren't these cute?!

We also decorated our bags to hold Valentine's from our friends. The kids also made a very special Valentine for their parents. I forgot to take pictures the rest of the day but here is apicture of what they look (somewhat) like:

We finished the day with our party! The class had fun cupcakes and fruit punch. They also passed their Valentine's out. We also danced a little to some Kidz Bop while reading the Valentine's cards. It was a really fun day!

100's Day!

Today was the 100th day of school! To celebrate, we did several fun activities! First the children brought in a collection of 100 items from home. Check out the video to see what they brought:

 

http://youtu.be/4-VosKKWHHQ

Then we created a list of 100 words!

We then made a poster made out of our hands! 100 of them!

Finally, we all made our own ladybugs with 100 dots!

We had a really fun and exciting day! We're now over halfway to second grade!

 

Water Habitats

Last week and this week we will be learning about water habitats and the plants and animals that live in them. Last week we learned about different wetland habitats like bogs, swamps, and marshes. This week we will be looking closer at ocean and aquarium habitats. Before we started, I asked the children to think of one animal that ilves in a water habitat. They had to label the animal, draw the animal, and write one sentence about which habitat they thought it lived in. Here are a couple examples:

We are Thankful

Tuesday in class each student created a turkey that told a few things each child was tankful for. They each read what they wrote and we made a video! Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/wC_43_Zrt80

Turkeys in Disguise!

This week's homework is to disguise a turkey so that he/she won't be eaten on Thanksgiving! The homework is due Wednesday. If you want to see some examples, check these out! (They are from another classroom.) Can't wait to see what they look like!

Alligator Math

Last week we worked on number sense with numbers to 100. We spent a couple days practicing greater than, less than, and equal to. We had a fun song to practice using those math words as well as learning which number is greater than or less than. I just found the video, so enjoy listening to your child sing along!

http://youtu.be/kWOwpS9Z9Wg

Crickets!

This week we are starting a new chapter with science. We will be studying plants, animals, and habitats for the next few weeks. To start out, each group received a cricket! Rather than type out what we did on Tuesday, read Alex's Writer's Notebook:

Each group also named their cricket. We have Max, Jiminey, Cricky Bubble, Rockstar, Colts, and Hoppy.

We will be observing the crickets all week, looking for movement and change. We will also watch them eat and drink. Friday we will have a release party outside!

Family Night

This past Tuesday we had our first of four Family Nights! Our first event was math night! The kids and families arrives, enteredt the estimation contest, grabbed popcorn and juice, and played assorted math games. It was so fun seeing first grade friends introduce their families to each other and to see parents meet other parents. Our class had 12 students and their families come (the most of all five classes!). There were almost 100 people total in attendance! Four students won the estimation contest and took home candy corn and vanilla caramels! We hope you can make it to the second Family Night, Wednesday December 14th! Thanks again to all who could make it!

Computers

In case you didn't know, I love technology! First graders love technology too (in case you didn't know that either)! We have been to the computer labe several times this year so far in addition to using the computers in our classroom. Some people ask me whether or not first graders can do much on a computer. My answer is "Of course they can!" While it definitely takes time and practice, we are learning so much already! If you are wondering what we learn about computers in first grade, here are a few things:

logging into the computer

accessing the internet

bookmarking favorites

finding the address bar and typing a new address

access Microsoft Word

typing (capital letters, sentences, using punctuation)

adding a picture to a word document

printing

These are all things that adults can do in a cinch! First graders however have to learn these skills and they have done great!

They even got to show off to our superintendent, Dr. Butts, and the school board! They did such an awesome job!

 

Candy Corn Graphing

A couple weeks ago, as we were wrapping up our graphing unit, the children had a special treat! We were going to practice graphing using candy corn! All the children were given three different pieces of candy corn: regular, chocolate, and pumpkins. They had to make a tally chart, a pictograph, and a bar graph. The final test: eat the candy corn!

Fun treat to practice graphing!