100 Days Smarter!

100 Days of learning and 100 Days of fun.  I truly don’t know which is better!  Didn’t our first grade friends looked amazing in the 100th day finery?  We spent the day playing with numbers and discussing place value.  Our class book of what we will look like and do when we are 100 years old is a hoot to say the least!!   One of the highlights for me was when we joined up with the other first grade and kindergarten classes to put the numbers in order from 1 – 115.  The only problem was that we were missing number 100!  No worries though, Mr. 100 (aka Mr. Snyder) came out just in time to save the day.  He needed a little guidance in figuring out where he fit, but we had brilliant students who were able to help him out.  I would have to say that the kids enjoyed their 100th day snacks the most – that or building necklaces out of 100 Fruit Loops (eating any extras of course!).  All an all it was an amazing celebration of our 100 days together.

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Timelines

Today we made a timeline for our first grade year.  Our blog was the PERFECT tool to help us remember the things that we have done!  How fun it was to go back and see what we have learned this year and to see how much we have changed.  We noticed lots of new holes in our smiles and some smiles that have filled in with grown up teeth!  Some of our favorite memories include past science experiments, class visits and field trips, and of course our classroom celebrations.  We hope you enjoy spending time on our blog learning about our classroom!

Week 23 - Filling Buckets with Mr. Snyder

We LOVE our principal - especially when he comes in to read to us!  On Friday Mr. Snyder visited our classroom to remind us to fill one another's buckets.  What a great lesson in being kind and following The Golden Rule it was.  Thanks Mr. Snyder for being a fantastic example to us all.  For more information on what filling a bucket is, please visit www.bucketfillers101.com

Week 22 - Measurement

We are learning all about measuring in our classroom!  Students are getting the opportunity to measure things using a variety of non-standard measurement tools, including their feet!  Other tools we are using are:  paper clips, inch tiles, craft sticks, baby feet, and basketball player feet.  While we introduce the concept of standard measurement using the inch tiles, our focus is more on understanding HOW to measure something - starting at the beginning of the object and ending at the end, putting your tool in a straight line, not leaving gaps, etc.  Students are also getting experience comparing the lengths of objects using the vocabulary of shorter and longer.  We are becoming measurement wizards!

Week 20 - Penguins!

Did you know that an emperor penguin can dive 900 feet down in the water and stay underwater for 20 minutes?  And did you know that not all penguins live in the ice and cold or that baby penguins are fed regurgitated food from their parents?  Well, we learned all of this and more as we studied penguins this week!  Students read many books and did online research to find out facts about the 17 different species of penguins.  They wrote about why they were glad they were NOT a penguin and it seems that many of our first grade friends do not like to eat fish--especially regurgitated fish!!  Two of our favorite activities were passing penguin eggs from mom to dad using only our feet and posing next to a life-sized emperor penguin poster to see how we measure up.  I have posted a slide show of all of our penguin pictures at the top of our blog but here are some more pictures and fun videos for you!  One note on our penguin display - students created their penguins from scratch - they did not have a pattern to trace.  I'm pretty impressed with their creativity!

New Year's Resolutions

Happy New Year to all of our friends and family!  We were excited to get back to school with our first grade friends for a brand new year of learning!  On our first day back we reflected on what we did in 2011...

 and made some resolutions for school in 2012.  Some of our favorite resolutions were to work on math facts, spend more time reading, and work on centers.  Here's to a great 2012 in 1st Grade!!

Holiday Games Video

Our holiday party game!

Holiday Fun

Our last week of school in December was filled with holiday fun in 1st grade!  The students participated in a two different rotations with the other first grade classes.  The first rotation taught about holidays around the world - Hanukkah, La Posada (Mexico and South America), and La Befana (Italy). Students enjoyed creating an art project that symbolized what they had learned in each lesson. The second rotation revolved around Christmas traditions - Mrs. Oaks read stories about Santa and created a Santa art project, Miss Tomsen read a story about gingerbread men and decorated gingerbread cookies, and in our classroom the students played a variety of holiday games on the computer.  The clear favorite was Snow Lines at Primary Games http://primarygames.com/holidays/christmas/games/snowline/index.htm . 

Then on Tuesday we were joined by many of our AMAZING parents and had a blast at our holiday party!  The relay race was a hoot - watching the kids ski on boxes and ring the bell with their nose made my day!  A very special thank you to all those that helped with organizing, donations, set up, and running of the activities.  The students loved every minute of it!  I am posting several pictures here and will post a slide show of pictures from the party as well as a video or two!