February Fun!

February has been a very busy month in first grade!  I apologize for not getting these pictures up sooner!  

At the beginning of February, we celebrated being 100 days smarter!  It was a fun day to be in first grade.  Time sure flies, it seems like just yesterday we were celebrating our first day!

We celebrated Valentine's Day on February 13th.  We had our party in the morning so I could go to my daughters Valentine's Day party at her school.  Thank you to all the parents who helped out with our party by donating their time or snacks!

On President's Day we had Tropical Island Day.  We went to the ICF property and celebrated with a first grade luau.  The kids did the limbo, hula hooped, colored pictures and Mrs. Smallwoood even did volcanoes with them.  I was in charge of the beach ball station.  We had so much fun dancing and trying to keep the beach balls in the air!  It was fun to pretend we were some place warm for the day!

Today the Baer Mirza's came to talk to the kids about Dental Hygiene and how to take good care of their teeth.  The kids each got a free toothbrush!  

Boggle!

We have been playing Boggle in our classroom and we are having so much fun!  Each week we put up a new 9 letter Boggle board in the classroom.  When students have time, they work on their Boggle board.  I also try to set aside 10 to 15 minutes a week just for that.  

At the end of the week I tally up the points that each student earned.  They get a star on the club that they are in for the week.  If they already have a star in that club, they get a sticker on their star.  

2/3 letter words - 1 point

4 letter words = 2 points

5 letter words = 3 points

6 or more letters = 4 points

The winner of boggle each week receives a certificate and we have not had a repeat winner yet!  I blurred the letters on the boggle board in the picture above because it is our current board,  here is one of our previous boards.

We finished up unit 7 in fundations.  Our next unit will focus on words with beginning blends.  Be looking for a new word list and updated word wall list to come home soon.  You can always find the current word wall under the word wall tab on the website. 

Thanksgiving Feast

Our Thanksgiving Feast was AMAZING!  Thank you so much to everyone who donated to make it possible!  We truly are thankful for our amazing students and their wonderful parents!  We started out our Feast with Mr. Faller talking to the kids about the history of Thanksgiving and turkeys.  He always does a great job making history exciting for the kids.  At one point, he had the entire first grade class howling like a wolf.  :)  

After Mr. Faller spoke to the students we numbered them off and broke into centers where students got to make butter, feathered headbands, placemats, listen to Thanksgiving stories and participate in a Thanksgiving themed photobooth.  

After centers, each class did a small performance.  Here is a video of our class practicing Albuquerque Turkey yesterday.

We had so much fun at our feast.  I will continue to add more pictures as the other teachers send them to me.  I hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving!

Raptor's Field Trip and More...

We had so much fun at the ICF property learning about Raptors and Owls. 

We learned lots of interesting information and the students really seemed to enjoy themselves.  

Please remember to send your students with their winter gear.  It is getting very cold outside!  Student's will be outside as long as the temperature is above 5 degrees including windchill.  5 degrees is very cold.  I have a few sets of gloves here, but today I did not have enough gloves for all of the students who needed them.  If you are in need of winter gear for your child please let me know and I will see what we can do.  

Once it snows and sticks, students must have snow pants, gloves, boots and hats in order to play in the snow.  If they do not have all of their snow gear they will play on the blacktop.  If your child needs to stay in from recess, they must have a note from the doctor.  We will not allow students to stay in from recess without a note from the doctor.

Next Tuesday is our Thanksgiving Feast at the ICF.  We will be leaving around 8:30 and arriving back to school at 11:45.  Thank you so much to everyone who has donated time, money, or supplies to make this feast possible.  The kids always seem to enjoy themselves.  If you volunteered to bring warm food, please bring your crockpot to school the morning of the feast or have it to the ICF property around 8:30, that way we can get them plugged in right away and make sure that the food is all warm.  

Election Day!

We took a break from our normally scheduled activities to vote in our school election.  The students voted for their favorite breed of dog, their favorite bird and their favorite forest animal.  Yesterday the fourth graders came and gave campaign speeches.  

We also got to play a fun math game today!  We played Subtract-a-Graph where students rolled two dice and then subtracted the smaller number from the larger number.  They were very excited to play, and did a fantastic job!

Halloween Fun!

We had so much fun celebrating Halloween!

Thank you so much to everyone who volunteered to make our party a blast!  Here are some photo's from the festivities! 

I love when they ask to take pictures with me.  :)

My first grade beauties!

My wild boys! :)

I dressed up as Pete the Cat after one of my FAVORITE book characters!  I read the Pete the Cat books to my girls at home and my kids at school.

  

U.S. Cellular Presentation!

U.S. Cellular came to our classroom to present us with a certificate for our grant and flowers!