Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful. We are very thankful. Happy Thanksgiving from Mrs. Stites' Class!

Mrs. Stites' Parents Share about Native Americans

Mrs. Stites' mother and father came to visit our first grade classroom and share some information about Native Americans. Mrs. Stites' mother showed an authentic Native American doll that was hand-made by a Native American Indian woman named Ruth Jesus. Mrs. Stites' father showed the children a rendition of a chief's head-dress. Each child in our class got the opportunity to try it on, and be a pretend chief for a moment!

More November Learning Centers

The children enjoyed the centers this week . We continued trying to decipher vocabulary words Mrs. Stites made using American sign language. The children also watched 3 short videos on 'Brainpop' about Thanksgiving, Pocahontas, and Native Americans. They had to put Native American words in alphabetical order. Mrs. Stites' dad came to help the children read stories about the Little Red Hen, (because we ground the wheat and made bread.) Mrs. Stites' mom came and helped the children play Pilgrim Bingo. The children learned a lot.

Making Bread and Butter

We used the wheat that we ground in our Pilgrim centers to make bread. We read and followed a recipe for a No-Knead bread. We learned what yeast was, how to measure using 1 cup, 1/2 cup, 1/3 cup, and 1/4 cup. After the bread was cooked we shook whole cream which was room temperature in baby food jars and after lots of shaking... butter appeared! We drank the buttermilk that came off of the butter. Then we buttered our own bread. Yum! We are really good cooks!

Pilgrim and Pioneer Learning Centers

The children in Mrs. Dye's and Mrs. Stites' class joined together for Native American Indian centers in Mrs. Dye's class... and Pioneer Centers in Mrs. Stites' class. In Mrs. Stites' class the children dyed yarn using onion skins to make brown yarn, and blueberries to make purple yarn. They also made a button yo-yo toy, and a ball and cup toy. Each child ground wheat. We will use the wheat to make bread next week. What a lot of learning and fun!

Fun with Native American Indian Centers

Mrs. Stites' class joined with Mrs. Dye's class for Pilgrim and Indian centers. The first graders experienced Native American Indian centers while in Mrs. Dye's class, and Pilgrim/Pioneer Centers while in Mrs. Stites' class. In Mrs. Dye's class the children made a feather headband, a bead necklace, and played a corn cob toss game similar to Horse shoes. They also played an Indian snake game... where they had to keep score by adding up points after throwing the sticks down. Now they can have fun dressing like a Native American Indian during the days until Thanksgiving. What fun!

Learning Center Fun in November

During our learning centers, we worked with American sign language. Mrs. Stites made cards with our reading vocabulary. The words were spelled with hand signs for the deaf. So we had to match and figure out the words. We played SLAP! using words with blends, read a book about Thanksgiving in another center, and played Turkey Trot Bingo using blends. We made beautiful designs by weaving paper. We have been learning about how Native Americans weave beautiful blankets. We are learning a lot!