What A Month!!

Phew! We made it to Christmas Break! (Although it feels like this is the start of Christmas Break #2 this year.) Our ONLY full week in December was a fantastic week. (Dec. 2-5) The students returned after Thanksgiving Break ready to go. I was so impressed with how well they did after a week off for Thanksgiving! We worked hard as we began to make our Christmas gifts for parents, create our holiday art projects and learn how to hook you reader when you write! Ask your child to tell you about the 4 types of hooks! (Question, Sound, Exclamation and Word Picture)

On Friday of that first week we awoke to a beautiful white view. I don't think any of us could have expected that much snow! It was a bonus that it fell on a no school day! As we all know that snow unfortunately stuck around a LONG time causing us to miss several school days. I was so sad that we missed an entire week and our field trip, but was so glad everyone was safe at home. I enjoyed seeing kids having fun outside and especially enjoyed watching the 1st and 2nd grade basketball teams play each other that week.

Knowing we only had 4 days left until Christmas Break, my team teachers and I worked hard to figure out how to fit 2 weeks into 1 week. (Or at least as much as we could!) Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we worked HARD! The students amazed me as we all worked as a team to fit everything in. Wednesday night when we got the call that school was to be cancelled Thursday, I was so thankful we had worked so hard earlier in the week, but was SO sad I wasn't going to get to say Merry Christmas and goodbye to my students. Plus, they didn't have their gifts for parents or gifts for me! My team-teachers and I decided we would spend Thursday delivering the gifts to our students! It was such a blessing to deliver those today. The shocked faces of kids in jammies and smiles on their faces made our deliveries that much better! I hope that all of you have a wonderful Christmas Break.

During our first week the students had planned to create a post about our Christmas art project. Below are pictures from this project and words from the students.

"We love doing tissue paper art!"

"I love tissue paper art!"

"We love our things!"

"We liked doing it!"

"We like doing the hands and the hat."

"We like our snowmen and wreaths when they're done with all the stuff."

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Corn, Turkeys, Soup and the Civil War

This post contains a little bit of everything we've experienced this month of November. The students have been hard at work on many different activities. My most favorite are their thankful turkeys because it shows who they are in such a meaningful way. I LOVE reading what they are thankful for. I am thankful for all of them and for you, parents and families who help them learn. I look forward to seeing parents this week for conferences. Here is a sneak peak at what you will see!

We began November by making mosaic indian corn. This project helped students work on fine motor skills, patience and using the proper amount of glue.

2 weeks ago we created thankful turkeys. Students were shown how to create their turkey but were then given free reign. When you see the turkeys hanging in the hall you might notice a turkey head or some turkey feet re-attached, some smaller or upside down feathers, even some feathers coming out of turkey feet! Each turkey has it's own personality. I strive to help children learn to be problem solvers. Many students asked for a second turkey and I simply said I have no more you will need to solve your problem, and each one of them did!

This past week we read several stone soup books and other variations such as pumpkin soup, mouse soup, vegetable soup and others. The students loved comparing and contrasting the stories as we were reading. Stone soup teaches great lessons on sharing, kindness and working together.

We illustrated a book about making stone soup.

We illustrated a poem about stone soup.

We ordered the steps of stone soup, cut them out and glued them in order.

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We wrote how-to make stone soup! (This month we have been learning how to write a how-to paper and this week was their first writing by themselves. They did an awesome job using numbers, signal words and sequencing the steps correctly!)

We made stone soup at the end of the week. Students had mixed feelings about the soup. Some just had a bite and others had seconds! Thanks everyone for contributing to our stone soup feast! I asked the students to tell me their thoughts on everything we did with stone soup. This is what they had to say:

"I like the books with the two pigs and I like them shared." - Justine
"I liked Pumpkin Soup." - Pacey
"I liked the Mouse Soup book because when the mouse was saying something he went on the floor and his mom was making mad soup." - J
"I like Mouse Soup because it's funny because the big guy did the stuff." - Emma
"The Vegetable Soup." - Savannah
"I like Pumpkin Soup, with the monks and I like Pumpkin Soup with the kids." - Travis
"I like the video." - J
"I like eating the stone soup." - Evan
"I like the Stone Soup and the old lady and the boy." - Bryonna
"I liked Mean Soup." - Brayden
"I like the Stone Soup." - Albert
"I like Vegetable Soup because the vegetables are healthy." - Calley
"I like Mouse Soup." - Nolan
"I like Mouse Soup." - Isaac
"I like those 3 strangers that tried to help people and needed stuff to make soup and said go away we are as poor as you and they tried to help them but then they started to share." - Tanner
"I like mean soup because they yell, scream, stick their tongue out and banged the pot." - Aiden
"I like this Stone Soup because it has lots of vegetables in it." - Juvanna
"I like the two pig book the villagers were hiding the food and then they would go get them." - Rebecca

Finally, it was civil war and Eagles day! Here are your adorable children supporting their favorite teams!

Thank you again for sharing your children with me each day. I am truly thankful they are in my class. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

We Like Library!

This is the library.

They're headed to the carpet to listen to a story.

We like looking for books.

We like to checkout books.

We love them!

 Justine, Calley and J's Favorite books!

We like reading our books.

This was another post completely designed by these amazing first graders! They wow me more and more each day. It was so fun to see them working together to brainstorm ideas, choose the most important parts to highlight and plan the order of pictures and words! Best of all they didn't know they were practicing teamwork, sequencing, describing the main idea and details and learning about compromising. 

Thanks to everyone who follow our adventures! If you would like to comment, you're welcome to. I think the students would enjoy seeing and "hearing" that their families and friends are looking at their posts, especially that they are doing most of the planning now. (All comments are screened first and will not be viewable until approved.)