Happy Birthday Madeline!

Today, we celebrated Madeline's birthday a little early. Her birthday is in June when we will not be in school, so she brought her birthday book in a month early. She brought in Madeline at the White House by John Bemelmans Marciano. The kids loved the title of the book and how it goes with who brought it in. There was good rhythm and rhyme to the story as well. This is our first Madeline book to add to our classroom library.

Special Visitor

On Friday, we had a special visitor. We have been talking about the ocean and the life in the ocean. My aunt is a certified scuba diver and Dive Master. She came to talk to my class about some of her adventures while scuba diving and some of her gear. The kids loved looking at the pictures and seeing some of the things she brought.

Happy Birthday Carter!

Today we also celebrated Carter's birthday. He brought in the book The Disappearing Mountain and Other Earth Mysteries. This is a great science book where the kids have to use some clues to try and figure out why some mysterious things are happening to the earth. I had to reassure the kids that many of the things could not happen where we live.

Happy Birthday Lydia!

Today we celebrated Lydia's birthday. She brought in Judy Moody and Stink: The Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Treasure Hunt by Megan McDonald. This is a chapter book, so we only read one chapter, but I can tell the kids are going to enjoy it.

New Toy in Room 2!

We have a new Smart Board in Room 2. It is taking some getting used to, but we are slowly adjusting. The kids are having a fabulous time learning all of the new things we can do with it.

Dairy Week Wrap Up

We finished Dairy Week with some activities in the classroom. We made cows out of paper plates and did a dairy search and find.

Dairy Farm Field Trip

The third day of Dairy Week was spent visiting a dairy farm. We learned all kinds of things about the way cows are milked and fed.

We visited the milk house and saw where the milk is stored.

We saw the cows being milked.

We saw where the cows live in their barns.

We got to feel the water bed that the cows have to lay on in their barn.

The baby cows did not want to be petted, but we did get to see them.

We had a small lesson on the importance of getting three servings of dairy a day.

We finished by playing a game of dairy memory.

Ice Cream Party

Our second day of Dairy Week was celebrated by having an ice cream party. We had vanilla ice cream with all the toppings. The kids loved picking out which ones they wanted.

Dairy Week!

We have been busy at work this week to celebrate Dairy Week. We started off the week by making ice cream. The kids had a great time adding the ingredients to their bags, shaking it with ice, and then of course enjoying the ice cream they made.

Cultural Day!

Today, we celebrated Cultural Day. This year, the theme was Around the World in 80 Days based on the book. Before Cultural Day, the students researched different modes of transportation or different cities around the world. We learned about the Horse and Buggy. Today, we did lots of different activities. We had a science presentation about electricity, did some activities in the room, ate lots of food from around the world, did some martial arts, yoga, and Pilates, played games in the gym and watched some Chinese dancers. Overall, it was a good day.

Mid-March Madness!

We have been keeping busy here in first grade. For St. Patrick's Day, we wore green to celebrate. We also have been celebrating Disability Awareness Month throughout the month of March. Today, we had a special presentation by ICAN. This organization helps train service dogs and match them with individuals with disabilities. The kids loved seeing the dogs.

Happy Pi Day!

We have been preparing to celebrate Pi Day coming up tomorrow. We kept things simple here in first grade. We focused on how we use symbols in math to tell us to do different things. We talked about the symbol for pi and how it relates to circles. We read a story called The Dot about a little girl who is inspired to make beautiful circles and dots. We made lots of circles to make one big circle. The kids had a great time making the dots and then putting them together to make a huge circle. We are ready for Pi Day tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Lily!

Today we celebrated Lily's birthday. She brought in the book Lilly's Big Day by Kevin Henkes. We thought the book was very appropriate for whose birthday we were celebrating. The kids loved that the book had her name in it. It is a funny story about a little mouse who wants to be the flower girl at her teacher's wedding. She becomes the flower girl assistant and ends up saving the wedding when the original flower girl gets stage freight. It is a cute story and the kids really enjoyed it.

March Activities

We are only a handful of days into March and we have been super busy. We have been working hard on our measuring and we celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday.

To practice our measuring, we have been using cubes and rulers to measure all kind of items.

We also celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday with Dr. Seuss themed reading stations. We played a Dr. Seuss board game, played Dr. Seuss games on the Smart Board, made Cat in the Hat word family hats, and played Dr. Seuss memory.

We will see what else March has in store. I know it is going to be very busy and very fun.

We made it to 100!!!

Today is the 100th day of school. We celebrated in a big way. The kids were able to wear shirts with 100 items on them. We did reading groups all about the number 100. We made words out of "one hundreds day", wrote about what we would do with $100, read books about 100 days of school, and wrote 100 words we know. We did some graphing for math. We finished the day by putting together some 100 piece puzzles and making a trail mix with ten groups of ten snacks. We had one group finish their puzzle before it was time to enjoy our snack. It was a fun filled day.