Week 18 - Buddy Fun!

This week we participated in a fun drawing activity with our 5th grade buddies.  We used blank paper, rulers and followed directions to create nutcrackers!  We also kept busy taking our math and science assessments.  It is hard to believe that we are already half-way through the school year.  Where has the time gone?  We'll be back in January to report on our continued adventures in learning.  Until then, Happy Holidays!!

Letters to Santa

Yesterday we wrote letters to Santa.  Take a look and see!

Dear Santa, 
What do you do on Christmas Eve?  I want a video game and legos and pokemon cards.  Your friend, Brad

Dear Santa,
I want a bow from Hello Kitty a bow of makeup and a leap frog.  Thank you for getting us presents every week.  Your friend, Hailey

Dear Santa,
I wonder how old you are?  Is it hard to make and deliver those toys?  I would want an IPOD Touch and a pair of real high heels for Christmas.  Do you sometimes get cold?  Your friend, BilliJo

Dear Santa,
How are you doing?  I hope you are not sick.  I hope you did not lose your Ho!Ho!Ho!  You are so nice and I would like sandals and a chart.  Love, Sophie

Dear Santa,
I will like a bb gun for Christmas.  Love, Ethan

Dear Santa,
I have been 100% good.  Do reindeer really know how to fly?  I want a Teebow jersey, MN State.  Don't I have to ask elf?  Your friend, Garrett

Dear Santa,
What are you doing at the North Pole?  Are you looking at the letters?  Are you getting ready for Christmas Eve?  Do the reindeer want to fly?  Your friend, Mackenzie

Dear Santa,
How is the reindeer?  Are they going to fly on Christmas Eve?  How is the elfs?  Are they making lots of toys?  What is your favorite cookie?  How old are you?  Your friend, Leah

Dear Santa,
What are you doing?  Are you doing good?  Are you doing hard work for Christmas?  For Christmas I would like a stuffed zebra and jagings and brown boots.  Your friend, Elle

Dear Santa,
How is it going?  I would like for Christmas snow dots.  Your friend, Macie

Dear Santa,
Are you ready for Christmas?  It is 13 more days.  Is the reindeer going to fly?  I want a IPOD, book, and you can surprise me.  I can't wait.  Your friend, Mya

Dear Santa,
You are the best.  For Christmas I want some new boots.  What is your favorite color?  Your friend, Amy

Dear Santa,
I wonder if your reindeer will fly!  How many toys do you have in your workshop?  I think you are the best.  I want some Pokemon LVX, some crayolas, oh and is Rudolph doing good?  Your friend, Zak

Dear Santa,
I will leave plenty of cookies for you.  I wonder how reindeer fly.  Are you having a good year? Is it hard making toys?  I really want the Rapunzel doll I saw at the store.  Your friend, Dannika

Dear Santa,
If I'm being good for Christmas can you bring me some presents?  If you bring some presents I would like more makeup.  Your friend, Jade

Dear Santa,
How is December?  How cold is it in the North Pole?  Can I please have for Christmas a Magic Tree House book and a DS?  Have fun on Christmas.  Your friend, Meredith

Dear Santa,
How are the reindeer doing?  I hope they fly.  How are you doing?  What's the temperature at the North Pole?  For Christmas I would like Lego star wars, football cards.  Your friend, Jonas

Dear Santa,
Thank you for all of our presents.  How do the reindeer fly?  Are you magic? Is Rudolph real? You are very nice.  I want Lego Star Wars.  Your friend, David

Dear Santa,
are you doing good work for Christmas? I would like a leather jacket and a Lego Star Wars set and a fake puppy that looks like a real one.And a DSI and the Cars 2 movie.  Your friend, Ben

Dear Santa,
Is it hard to make toys?  Are you having a good December?  I like you Santa.  I want for Christmas a crar (?) and some make up.  Your friend, Alli

Dear Santa,
I am so glad that you come around each year to brighten the lives of the little ones.  For Christmas my wish is that they all get what they want and need and return to me safely in January.  Merry Christmas Santa!  Love, Mrs. Heath

Happy Holidays to all.  Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  Thanks for sharing your children with me each day!

1st Grade Weather Forecast for Monday, December 12, 2011

It is 40 degrees.  It feels warm to us but the thermometer says that 40 degrees is still cold.  It is a partly sunny day.  There are many thin, white and gray clouds in the sky.  You should wear long sleeves and a jacket.  You don't need your hat or gloves today.  It is getting warmer and the snow is melting.  There is a lot of slushy ice and puddles on the ground.  When we go outside to play at recess we won't have to worry about ice, but we will have to worry about puddles and keeping our shoes dry!

40 degrees F     Partly Sunny with some clouds    Have fun playing outside!

Week 17 - Indoor Recess Fun (and a little artwork too!)

This week we enjoyed our first dose of indoor recess!  While the temperature was within an acceptable range, the snow left us a VERY ice playground that wasn't safe for our little feet!  After a few kids (and Mrs. Heath) slipped we decided to stay inside for a day or two until the ice melted.  We were blessed to be able to enjoy our new recess games, courtesy of very giving families.  I love that it allows the students a chance to work together and build lifelong social skills.  Losing, playing fair, and taking turns are all great life lessons that can be learned from playing games.  Plus, having unstructured play time is an important thing.  Too often we "structure" every minute of our kid's lives.  Having recess, either indoor or outdoor, is athe perfect opportunity for them to enjoy their lives as  kids.  So -- play away!!

I am also posting a picture of our holiday bulletin board.  We talked about how our actions are like lights that others can see.  We want to make our lights shine, just like the beautiful holiday lights during this season. Each child wrote one thing that they could do to make their lights shine.  I love the fabulous decisions that they make each day to be a good to each other.  What an awesome example they set for each of us!
Happy Holidays to all!

Wednesday Adventure - A True Class Story

We were hard at work when the intercom made an announcement. "Please have your children get their jackets and go outside. There is the odor of gas in the hallway. " said Mrs. Kunkle. We quickly grabbed our coats and headed out the door of the classroom. "What is a gas leak?", someone asked. "Is it going to hurt us?" "Hurry!" said Mrs. Heath. "This is just like a fire drill." Once we were outside we noticed a lot of vehicles coming. First we saw a school truck with a snowplow, then police cars, and finally a fire truck. We waited for 5 or 10 minutes outside. It was FREEZING! "Put up your hoods," said Mrs. Heath. After we waited some more, the firemen said we could go inside. All of the students at Hickory Hill went into the gym. Mrs. Palatas said "Let's sing some songs." First we sang Rudolph, then we sang Jingle Bells, and last we sang Frosty the Snowman. At the end of the Frosty song, Mrs. Heath said "We can go to back to our room now." "YAY!" the kids cheered. I wonder if we will ever have that happen again?











--written by Mrs. Heath's Class about our adventure today! No worries, everyone is safe and sound.

Week 16-Weather Fun

Students have embarked upon another science unit - this one on weather and seasons. They began this week by measuring water temperature using thermometers and journaling about what they found out. They also learned the difference between WEATHER and TEMPERATURE. While sunny and cloudy are types of weather - hot and cold are not! Also, it is interesting to know that Mrs. Heath is correct when she says that 50 degrees is COLD and anything under 32 is FREEZING - we even labeled our thermometers that way! (some people - Mr. Heath- make fun of Mrs. Heath when she says 50 degrees is cold. I guess Mr. Heath is wrong after all!!)

David Biedrzycki

The students enjoyed getting the opportunity to meet the author of "Me and My Dragon" David Biedrzycki .  What was really neat for the students was that they could see that an author of one of their favorite books is just a regular person like them, AND if you go by the pictures, he can be just as silly as my 1st graders!  Learn more about him at his website:  http://www.davidbiedrzycki.com/Home.html

Week 14 and 15- Thanksgiving Fun!

The highlight of our pre-Thanksgiving weeks was preparing for our Thanksgiving program.  I am saddened that I missed it but I heard it was FANTASTIC!  I have a few pictures to share.  I have a video at school as well and I'll try to get that posted sometime this week. 


Happy Thanksgiving to all of our friends and families.  How grateful I am for each and every one of you!!

Veteran's Day

Thank you to all the families that sent pictures or joined us for our Veteran's Day Program on Friday.  It was a very special, moving program.  The kids were a little surprised at my tears and asked "Why are you crying?".  Leah summed it up for them when she said "Because she misses Ben!"  That is of course the main reason why I had tears -- but the other reason is because I am truly proud to be an American and I am so grateful for all those who have, and are, serving our country. 

Week 13 - Author Studies

This week students began a unit on author studies.  We study authors to help us become better writers ourselves.  If we can recognize what other authors and illustrators do that make their works interesting, we can use those same things in our own writing.  We focused this week on Audrey Wood, Jan Brett, and Mem Fox.  Some of the things that we noticed are that these authors use their illustrations to help tell the story, that the words are in different places on the page, and sometimes the pictures go across two pages.  Over the next few weeks we will also be studying David Shannon, Robert Munsch, Tomie dePaola, and Donald Crews.  I love it because I get the chance to read many stories to the kids -- what fun!

Students are working hard on their own stories as well.  It is fun for me to see them utilize some of the traits of their favorite authors when they are writing.  I am THRILLED at how their writing has grown and developed this year.  They are pretty amazing writers!!

:) Mrs. Heath

Week 12- Letters from Loved Ones

What fun it has been to read our letters from loved ones!  It is thrilling to see the kid's eyes light up as their special letter is chosen to be read.  The information being shared about the past is doing more to teach the kids about inventions and how things continually change than any other lesson or books that I could read.  The idea that you had to catch (and kill!) your own food was shocking.  Even more shocking was the understanding that "electronics" did not exist as they do today.  I brought in a record and we compared it to our class ipod.  It is amazing that something so large only held 6 songs on each side while our little ipod holds 1,000's of songs!!  Some other fun things we have learned about are telephone party lines, buying 2 candies for one penny, going home each day for lunch, and hanging laundry around the house to dry.  Serveral letters have included pictures to share and those have been great fun.  Perhaps one of the most special letters to be read was from Meredith's great-grandmother.  We were able to read it this past Thursday on her 101st birthday.  It was a neat experience to read and see how the world has changed during her lifetime.  We will continue to read the letters this week and record our learnings about the past.  Thanks to all the wonderful family members who took time to write to us!
Love,
Mrs. Heath

Pumpkin Investigations

Everything is coming up pumpkins in our classroom on this Halloween Day!  We weighed and measured, counted and graphed, read and wrote -- all about pumpkins, day long!!Students learned about pumpkins and got the chance to taste some pumpkin goodies.  The overwhelming favorites were pumpkin whoopie pies, pumpkin cookies, and pumpkin popcorn.  A special thanks to all our families for making this fun day possible!  Here are a few pictures, I'll be posting a slide show with all of the pictures soon!

Love,
Mrs. Heath

Fall Party

Thank you so much for all the help with our Fall Party.  We had a TON of fun pumpkin bowling, drawing jack o'lanterns, pitching candy corn, watching things sink and float, and getting some pumpkin body decorations.  We appreciate Mrs. McLean for organizing and for all the help and donations that made it possible. 

Week 11 - More Science

One of my very favorite pictures!  The students are flying kites to learn about wind direction and speed.  Learning at its best!

I am sad to see our first science unit wrap up this week!  The kids have loved learning about science using inquiry -- a hands on method that allows them to create the learning for themselves.  I would like to write a sternly worded letter to Mother Nature however.  We were seriously lacking in wind this week and last when we were trying to test our wind vanes and pinwheels!  Of course it was always windy in the afternoons -- just not in the mornings when we had science!  On Friday we took our test and I was thrilled to see the students explaining what they had learned about air and wind.  We will be coming back to science in a few weeks and will be learning about weather, seasons, and the cycles of the moon.  Stay tuned!!!

Week 10 - Writing How To Books

Students have started on a new course for writing -- How To Books.  We began this week by doing an oral practice for giving instructions.  Students worked with a partner and attempted to verbally tell them how to create the same shape they had.  The catch was they couldn't see each other and had to do it all with words!! Afterwards we had a great discussion on how you had to give EXACT and CLEAR  directions for the project to work!  From there we looked at a variety of How To Books to see what important information we needed to include and discussed how the author uses pictures as well as words to explain.

Our class "How To Make a Peanut Butter Sandwich"

Our next step was to write a How To book together.  We choose to write about how to do the reading center "Read to Self".  Students then went on to write their own How To Book - a book explaining how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  I told them that I would use their exact instructions the next day to make a sandwich for them and to make sure they told me everything I need to do.  Of course when it came time to read and follow their instructions we found that many of them forgot important details (such as to use a knife!) and it resulted in a few minor problems for sandwich making!  All and all it was a fun experiment and helped the students to understand the importance of being exact and explaining ALL of the steps.  After we tried out a few of their instructions we worked together to write clearer instructions to follow.  I then used those instructions to make a sandwich for each of them.  This next week they will choose something that they know how to do and write their own How To book.  I can't wait to read them!

Jonas did the best job of creating a How To book for sandwich making!

Have a super week,
Mrs. Heath