50's Day

We enjoyed the 50th day of school. The kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade classes joined together for centers. We played Pick up Sticks, Jacks, put together 50 piece puzzles of the United States, went to a pretend drive-in movie and had hotdogs, potato chips and root beer floats, read Dick and Jane books in the Library, jumped rope to different rhymes, played Hop scotch, and with hoola hoops. At the end of the day we all gathered in the cafeteria for an old-fashioned sock hop. We did the Twist, the Bunny hop, Hand Jive, and lots more dancing. Fun times for all!

Grandparents' Day

Grandparents' Day was a lot of fun. Our room was filled to the rim with grandparents. We read from our reader, did a math rap, a math wrap, and did a math lesson with shape patterns. We recited our parts for our pumpkin play, and played vocabulary Bingo. Then the grandparents ate lunch with us. A fun time was had by all. There was lots of fun and lots of love all around.

Our Superintendent Read to Us

Mr. Snoddy, our superintendent came to our class and read "The Little Engine Who Could" to both first grade classes. He explained there were several lessons within the book. One about helping others, and another about when something feels difficult to do... to just think ..."I think I can, I think I can... " And you may surprise yourself and actually accomplish it! We enjoyed his visit to the first grade!

Our Pumpkin Play

Pumpkins here, pumpkins there. Pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere! Those were some of the words from our pumpkin play. We performed for the kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade classes. We memorized our parts really well. We also had to learn to know exactly when to say our part. Lots of work... but lots of fun!

Person of the Week

The person of the week lives with her mom and dad in a red-brick home. She has one rabbit. Her favorite color is pink because it is pretty. Her favorite subject is art because she wants to be an artist. Her favorite TV show is ‘Camp Rock’, and her favorite book is Green Eggs and Ham. She likes to eat ice-cream. She feels happy when her friends visit, and she likes to play with Alissa. When she grows up, she wants to be a teacher because she wants to teach children. If she could go anywhere in the world, she would go to Disney World. She feels she is special because her family loves her. She feels the best thing about her is her smile. She would also like you to know she likes to sing, and her mom calls her ‘Boo’.

More Center Fun

Our class went to Mrs. Irwin's 2nd grade class for centers and made our own apple pancakes... which, by the way, were DELICIOUS! We also made Johnny Appleseed pot hats, and worked on the computer on an interactive site. We all had lots of fun and experienced many different activities all having something to do with apples.

Fun times... happy children!

Apple Centers

We painted apple trees, played an apple memory game, and ate 'Apple smiles' in Mrs. Dye's classroom.

We spent time in both first grade and the second grade classrooms participating in apple centers. We made apple prints, played 'Hot Apple', and 'Apple, Apple, Pie', and also played Bingo using our new vocabulary words. Lots of smiles. Lots of fun!

We had fun making applesauce this week. We graphed the apples by color, size, and stem or no stem. Then we peeled, cored, sliced, chopped and separated our apples into two crock pots. One we left plain, and one we added red hots. We are good cooks! The applesauce was delicious.

Some of our apple skins stayed all in one long piece. And some of our apples did too! What fun!

We had lots of fun during our leaf centers. We ironed leaves, did leaf rubbings, matched letter tiles to vocabulary words dealing with leaves and trees, participated in an interactive computer brainpop movie about plants, added and subtracted using a matching leaf game, cut out words from the newspaper and glued them onto a paper using the letters L, E, A, V, E, S, and painted positive and negative images of various kinds of leaves.

Summer Packet Reward

Fun during the rewards day.

Sept. 12

We had a great week! We are half way through the 9 weeks!
We've been reading the stories..I Like To Do That! and Do That! We wrote sentences that described what we like to do and what we do not like to do. The children enjoyed sharing their stories with the class. The children have made great improvements with their reading vocabulary. I'm sure you have noticed the improvement on their reading homework. We've also been learning to sequence stories.
In phonics, we have continued reviewing the alphabet and sounds. We have been reviewing short o and learning how to read words that end with -ot and -op, (such as pot and hop). This week we introduced 'Bossy e'... When he is at the end of a word, he gets bossy and tells the vowel to say it's name.
We are beginning to do addition, (some, some more) and subtraction, (some, some went away) stories in math. We are also working on first, second, third and sequential order.
We are continuing our study of leaves in Science. Several children have started noticing the different leaves in their neighborhood. They are starting to realize that you can tell what kind of tree it is by looking at the leaves. We have learned that the green in the leaves is called chlorophyll. And that the pretty fall colors are always present, the green chlorophyll just covers the colors up until it get cold out.
I hope you have a fun weekend, and get to do something fun as a family.

March 21, 2008

Dear Parents,
What a fun and hectic week we have had! We made Easter eggs that turned out beautifully… They are so sparkly! And several of the children said they still have the ones their older brother or sister made. How fun! We made several Easter baskets, and put a page of Easter words in alphabetical order.
We had an Easter egg hunt, and lots of fun activities.
In math we have been counting money, learning about a dozen and half dozen, adding 10 to a number, adding 9 to a number (add ten and subtract one), fractional parts and the basic math facts. I can not stress enough the importance of practicing the basic facts at home. Your child will benefit greatly by knowing the facts by memory before 2nd grade.
We have continued studying the solar system. Each child is writing a list of several facts about the planets they chose. We will have to tell what we know at our Distance Learning with Captain Cosmic in April.
Our Reading for Ribbons program is progressing nicely. The children should be trying to read books at a more difficult level. This will help their word attack skills. Many are continuing to receive ribbons. The program will end in May.
This spring we will be studying the parts of a plant, birds, butterflies, and magnets as part of our science unit.
Swimming is the week of March 31 – April 4. Your child will need a bathing suit, towel, and a bag to hold them.
Spring Break is April 7th – April 11th. No School that week.
We only have 9 more weeks to get prepared for 2nd grade. Our work load will be harder, and the expectations will be higher also.
We hope you have a wonderful Easter, and are able to spend lots of fun time with your family.
Judy Dye and Joi Stites

November

November has been a very busy and exciting month.
We’ve centered our attention on Pilgrims and Indians and the importance of Thanksgiving. Our Social Studies unit has taught us that Indians are alive today. They do not dress in the traditional outfits except on special occasions. They live on reservations all over the United States. Some tribes have jobs in the cities along with white men. Some are very poor. Each tribe lives in different kinds of houses, according to what part of the country they live in.
We learned about Indian sign language and also American signing – ( the hand signals deaf people use to communicate.)
We have been talking about things we have and what we should be thankful for.
We had Pioneer centers in Mrs. Stites’ room.
We studied pioneer life and dyed yarn using onion skins and blueberries. Then we will use the yarn to make shell necklaces like the Indian’s wampum (money).
We ground up wheat by hand, and will follow directions to make bread. We will make our own butter for our bread also!
We made an old-fashioned yo-yo out of a string and a button. And we also made a ball and cup toy. They were both fun to play with.
In Mrs. Dye’s room we had Native American - Indian Centers. We played a Snake and Indian snake game, made a bead necklace and we also decorated a headband.
We learned that the Pilgrims stayed on the ship for 2 months and 5 days. (That’s a long time to wear the same outfit – day and night!)
In reading, we read Animal Park. We have been learning a lot of new words.
In math, we have been counting pennies and dimes, telling time by the hour, writing numbers, practicing our addition and subtraction facts, and counting by two's.

Weekly review with spelling words and reading lists are needed as our skills on both are getting more difficult. With the shortened week next week, we will have a review list for next week.

*** A reminder about dressing for outdoors*** Please make sure your child has a warm coat, mittens, hat and boots if it’s snowing, as we will be going out as many days as possible.

******Looking to December****
We will be studying Christmas Customs Around the World. We will also be practicing our Christmas Play.

Enjoy the weekend.
First Grade Teachers

April -May 2007

April is a very exciting month. We will be learning about 10 different types of birds. We will be studying the sounds they make, the nests they build, the food they eat, and the size and color of their eggs.

The week after spring break we will be traveling over to the Northwestern pool to learn water safety. Mrs. Britten will be teaching the children basic swimming strokes, and how to keep their head above water in case they would fall in.

We will be learning about insects this month, and actually growing six Painted Lady butterflies! We will learn the parts of an insect, along with interesting facts. The children will learn that butterflies hatch from a chrysalis, and moths hatch from a cocoon.

We will be planting peanut seeds, and watching them grow into full plants. We will study the parts of a plant, and what plants need to grow and live.

We will be reading the chapter book Charlotte's Web, and will be learning about Spiders.

We will be taking a field trip to the Children's Museum in Indianapolis. This will reinforce concepts we have studied throughout the year.

The children will be involved in a Jr. Olympics. They will participate in various track events and will be learning the basic concepts of track and field.