Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Goods and Services – Parent Style!

 

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A special thank you to our parent volunteers who came in and taught us about their careers and how they provide goods and services to the community.  Mr. Winklemann spoke to us about his career as an insurance agent and Mrs. Haan spoke to us about being a physician’s assistant.  We are also expecting Mr. Rees, who will be coming in later this week to speak to us about being a lawyer.  It is so exciting for the students to hear about goods and services from someone other than myself!  It is not to late to come in and share YOUR job.  Just let me know when you are available! IMG_0384 IMG_0385

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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Pizza for Box Tops

 

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To celebrate our collecting over 1,800 Box Tops for Education the fabulous ladies of our PTO brought us pizza and soda.  Yummy!! Thanks so much for supporting the PTO and sending in those Box Tops every month!IMG_0398 IMG_0399 IMG_0400

Music Videos

I give up on trying to upload videos straight to blogger – they just don’t want to work for me usually!  So instead, I will upload them to You Tube (on a private, unlisted channel) and see if I can link it that way.  Here goes nothing!!

Music Program

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On March 21st the sweet sounds of the jungle filled the High School in Papillion.  From “Hakuna Mata” to “See You Later Alligator” our 1st and 2nd grade friends sang, played,  and danced their way through some fun animal songs!  The program was based on the wonderful children’s poetry book “A Rumble In the Jungle”  and several of our students had the opportunity to read aloud poems to the audience.  That is a PRETTY SCARY thing to do when you are only 6 or  7!   A big kudos to Ms. Palatas on a FANTASTIC job putting on the program!  Enjoy the video of some of the fun songs, my personal favorite is the “Monkey See, Monkey Do” song, found in the next blog.  Man can those kids make some funny faces!!

Absolutely Awesome Adjectives

 

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Students have been learning all about adjectives this past month.  They created self – portraits and labeled them with adjectives that describe themselves.  Encourage them to use these describing words to liven up their writing as well! 

Friday, March 16, 2012

NO Leprechaun for Us!

Wednesday night we got ready, we set out our traps and prepared to catch that sneaky leprechaun named Lucky that had been terrorizing our classroom for the past two weeks.  We just knew we were going to get him!


 

 (please click on the link to see ALL of the fantastic leprechaun traps!  http://s468.photobucket.com/albums/rr46/darcy9086/?action=view&current=16676503.pbw  )


The students entered the classroom in a state of high suspense on Thursday morning.  Had THEIR trap been successful?  Would they find a leprechaun in it?  They came in....they looked....and they found... green leprechaun footprints stamped over EVERYTHING, gold and green leprechaun dust, shamrock stickers, St. Patrick's Day pencils, and fancy buttons to wear but NO LEPRECHAUNS!!!!!




Meredith figured out the error of our (eerrr...my??) ways.  It seems that Mrs. Heath (that would be this clueless teacher) had left the trap building How To sheets sitting on the guided reading table.  But when we came in to class, they were lying in the middle of the floor.  Meridith surmised that Lucky must have READ their instructions and knew how to escape from all of the traps.  Man - I will have to do better about keeping those papers under lock and key next year!

We figured Lucky was done with us and we went about our day and headed off to our field trip.  But when we got back we found a HUGE surprise. 


Lucky had left us a fruit rainbow with a special note.  His parting words to us were that while he was giving us a rainbow, we were on our own for finding the pot of gold.  Sigh...just wait until next year Lucky.  We ARE going to get you then!!
Looks like that sneaky Lucky left right through the window.  Look at those footprints that he left!

Goods and Services Galore

We set off on a little walking adventure this morning - to find out all about the goods and services that surround our school.  Dr. Deford explained about the services that she provides as a dentist and we watched lots of yummy cookies being made and decorated at Eileen's Cookies (that's one good that is really GOOD!). At Sport's Clips students learned that some businesses provide both goods and services, information that was useful when we visited Village Inn, which also provides goods and services.   The kids LOVED getting in the freezer and seeing where everything is made at a restaurant.  Many wonderful questions were asked and answered.  My favorite tidbit of the day is that on Thanksgiving Village Inn made 600 pies and sold them all.  WOW!!


Dr. DeFord at DeFord Dental

Checking out where the pies are made at Village Inn.

Hey!  That cookie looks like our friend Lucky!  At Eileen's Cookies

Angie taught us all about the business of cutting hair - did you know you have to have a license for that?

Who wouldn't want to be a cookie maker when they grow up?
 

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Kid's Speak

You just never know what a 1st grader is going to say when you ask them a simple question!  The Papillion-Times asked our first graders "What happens when you eat too much candy."  Take a peek at a few of their fun answers. 

Friday, March 9, 2012

Lucky the Leprechaun

Oh that naughty, naughty Lucky is making our life difficult here in our 1st grade classroom.  He makes messes, steals our things, knocks over our chairs, and leaves us sassy notes.  What our we going to do about him? 
This week we wrote him back and we LOVED getting personalized responses.  However, as the teacher, I have a bit of a problem with some of the kid's notes.  Can you  BELIEVE they asked Lucky to steal my Diet Coke and my Sharpies???  They KNOW that those are my two favorite things!!  Thank goodness that Lucky likes Pepsi and not Diet Coke...but I might need to count my Sharpies and make sure that they are all there still!
We made our own Lucky pictures and are so grateful to Mrs. Haan for her artistic display of them in the hallway.  Look closely to see the fun things our leprechauns are doing!  We also wrote about the three wishes we would ask Lucky for if we caught him.  I'm with Brad who wished for 500 more wishes.


Here's hoping we catch that little bugger next week!  Don't forget to bring your traps to school on March 14th.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

More Dr. Seuss and Love Monster Pictures

 

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Yay, helpful husband to the rescue with a new card reader!  Please enjoy the rest of the pictures of our love monsters and Dr. Seuss Breakfast and Books.  Sorry again for the delay in getting them posted!

Dr. Seuss – Breakfast and Books

 

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Dr. Seuss, quite simply, ROCKS!  Our first grade friends celebrated Dr. Seuss and Read Across America Day by dressing up as their favorite book character.  Many Dr. Seuss characters made the cut – from Sue Snue, Cat in the Hat, and Thing 1to The Lorax.  But never fear – our other favorite books were well represented as well!  We had Junie B. Jones, Fancy Nancy (times 2!), Bad Kitty, Sludge from Nate the Great, Annie from Magic Tree House land, princesses galore, and a super hero (and villain) or two to round out the fun.  The best part were the family members that came to join us for breakfast and books.  I love to see families spending time reading together.  The love of reading is born at home and I treasure the times that it overflows into our classroom community.  I guarantee that I could not be successful in teaching my students to read without the solid literacy foundation that was established in their homes from birth.  Today we celebrated not only great authors but also great families and the time they have spent to develop the love of reading in my favorite young people.  I hope that you make every day “Read in Our Homes” day! 

Love Monsters!

 

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Ok – so I’m a little late getting these posted.  Please forgive me!  On Valentine’s Day we celebrated by creating our own “Love Monsters” and writing about the things that we love.  It is fun to see how far the kids have come this year in using writing to express their thoughts and ideas.  It is also fun for me to see what they truly love – some of which surprised me, others of which made me laugh and touched my heart. One thing I know for sure is that I love being their teacher!