The 12 Days of Christmas continues!!!

Last Thursday as we continued to "visit" places all over North Carolina, we learned about the National Gingerbread contest that takes place each year at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC.

We learned that people work for months and months preparing their houses. We also learned that each house has to be made completely out of edible, unwrapped materials. We got to look at several different videos that people had taken from the contest and some of those houses were amazing! We also took a little peak at the gingerbread replica of the Biltmore House that is displayed each year in the kitchen. We learned that the Biltmore House is the biggest house in the United States and the children thought the pictures were really neat, especially when they got to see the HUGE Christmas tree that is placed in the dining hall each year.

In honor of the Gingerbread contest, we made our own gingerbread houses on Friday. The kids had a ball.

Everyone got a little sticky!

The houses turned out fantastic! It took a little work to get the houses together, but once they finally got them ready they decorated them with all kinds of candy and they looked amazing! The children had lots of good ideas as to how to decorate and where things should go.

The Twelve Days of Christmas in North Carolina

I received this book as a Christmas gift last year and I have been waiting anxiously to share it with my class this year. It is a phenomenal tour all over North Carolina, highlighting 12 neat and exciting places and things that are unique or special to our own home state. In the story Abby is visiting her cousin for Christmas in North Carolina and sends a letter home to her parents each day describing where they have been.

Each day we are exploring a new part of our state by taking virtual field trips to the different places that are described. So far we have learned about the cardinal and dogwood tree, two of our state symbols, Christmas Town, U.S.A, the Wooly Worm Festival, Grandfather Mountain, Black Bears, and Whitewater Falls. The children have loved getting to read the letters that Abby sends and then going online to look at pictures or watch videos of the different places. After we learn about the place, the children are writing in their very own "12 Days of Christmas in North Carolina" books about what they learned.

This is a neat way for us to experience cool things that our state has to offer, even though we can't physically go visit. It also gives the students information about places that they may be able to go visit one day if they are interested in them.

It is a great way for us to incorporate social studies and language arts into our curriculum.

This book also gives us a look at letter writing, which we will be spending some time on next week as we write our letters to Santa!

This is by far one of the best gifts I have ever received as a teacher! I couldn't ask for a more informative and fun book to share with my class over the holiday season!

Where did November go?!

November has flown by and I have not had a minute to update! We have been really busy in First Grade!

This month we spent a lot of time learning about habitats in science. We looked at lots of different animals and where they live. We learned why some animals are able to live in some places that others aren't and what the different characteristics of animals in each habitat are. We also learned that we are animals and that we need the same kinds of things to survive as most of those animals! We learned that we all need food, water, air, and shelter to survive.

We have also begun studying the Solar System in Science. We have learned about the Earth's rotation around the sun and why the sun is important to us. Yesterday we had a great conversation after we talked about the sun's energy. We brainstormed why we need the sun and the children came up with really great ideas ! If we didn't have the sun, plants wouldn't grow and then we wouldn't have any food to eat. They also realized that without the sun's energy there would be no trees, which produce oxygen for us to breathe. I was really impressed at the children's thought processes while they were thinking about this.

We also learned about the First Thanksgiving and how it was different for the pilgrims than it is for us. In reading center the children read a book and complete a graphic organizer about a very important man named Squanto who helped the pilgrims out a great deal. We watched Charlie Brown's Mayflower Voyagers, which gives a very accurate representation of the first Thanksgiving and all of the trials that the pilgrims faced. We also spent some time thinking about what we are thankful for. Answers included friends, family, pets, our homes, food, and toys. It is always good for us to stop and think about the things that we are thankful for, especially since we have so much!

First Grade Rocks!

Today our Mrs. Mangum took our class on a field trip to Martin Marietta Rock Quarry. A recent rock slide (see above) kept us from being able to go all the way down into the Quarry, but it didn't stop us from having a great time!

We began our visit by looking down into the quarry. We learned about erosion and how the water can cause the rocks to change over time. We also learned that the quarry is 500 feet deep at this point and they are planning to dig out another 400 feet in the future. We figured out that once this quarry is completely finished, the Empire State Building will fit inside and only a few stories of it will stick out!

We got to drive around and see many of the different kinds of rocks that come out of the quarry. We watched rocks go through the crusher to go from being medium sized rocks to small rocks, sand, or gravel. We also got to see some of the machinery moving and dumping rocks. One student pointed out "They are sorting!" when they were moving rocks from pile to pile based on size. You have to love that math really is all around us!

We got to look at some of the machinery up close. We found that one of the scoops can hold our whole class!

Then we found that it can actually hold our class AND Mrs. Shaginaw's class!

Mr. Thomas commented that we were a little bit like Mrs. Frizzle on the Magic School Bus as we drove down into the quarry surrounded by huge rocks and huge machinery that made our bus seem so tiny! If you know anything about Magic School Bus books, you would know that this really was true! We were traveling down in the earth ,ultimately, just like they do!

After our tour, we got to go and watch some videos of the people working at the quarry using explosives to blow up some of the rock. The children thought that was really neat. We also got to look at some maps of what the quarry looks like from a bird's eye view and could compare different years and different amounts of rocks that had been taken out. This helped it to tie in not only our science curriculum, but also our social studies because we have been learning about maps!

Thank you Martin Marietta! We had a great time!!

Busy Fall Week

Last week was a very busy week for us!

We started out the week by presenting our version of The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything at the RAP meeting.

I was afraid that when I suggested that we get up in front of our parents and other parents that the children would probably be a little nervous, but boy these kids were not afraid of anything either! They jumped at the chance to get to do it. It was a huge success!! The children did a fantastic job acting out this cute spooky story and the parents loved it! This was a great way for us to turn a book into something fun that we could share with others. We also got to practice our fine arts skills of role playing and acting out stories!

Friday was our school's book fair kick off and dress like your favorite character day. We love to read and I was excited to see the characters that the children chose.

We had a skeleton from one of our favorite new books, The Haunted House That Jack Built. We were definitely safe here at school because we had Bumblebee nad Optimus Prime from transformers. We also had Jango Fett from Star Wars. Then we had our beautiful princesses Cleopatra, Snow White, and Rapunzel from Tangled. We also had an airplane pilot! The children did a fantastic job. I love that characters like Snow White, Rapunzel, and Star Wars are still popular today. When someone comes up with characters so loveable that they can stand the test of time, you know that they are really something!

At the end of the day we had our fall party.

We started out by painting pretty fall pumpkins! The children worked very hard and they turned out fantastic!

Then we had some snacks. Spider cake! Yum!

And finally we had a little dance party. They did the mash...they did the Monster Mash!



It was a fun filled day for everyone!

Fire Safety

Yesterday we took a field trip to our local fire station. We have been learning about fire safety and this was a fun way for us to get the inside scoop!

The children got to take a tour of the station and found out that the firemen actually live there when it is their shift. They thought this was really neat! We got to see their bedroom, kitchen, and living room (complete with big screen tv and wii! I had a child tell me today they wanted to be a fireman so they could play video games!). The firemen explained to us that they have to do chores and keep the station clean because that is like their house when they are on duty! We asked the children if they keep their rooms as neat...I bet you can guess the answer!

We got to see the fire pole, which several of the children volunteered to go down, although we wouldn't let them! Then we got to get a tour of the fire truck and all of the cool things that they have to fight fires with on there.

We also learned about the different gear that firefighters wear.

They showed us each piece and explained why it was important for them to have it. They also showed us what a fireman would look like and sound like if he came to your house so that the children wouldn't be afraid. It is important that they know that the fireman is still the fireman underneath all of that safety stuff! They told us that inside a fire it can get to 500 degrees! I explained to the children that that is FIVE times as hot as those summer days on the playground that they thought were too hot! WOW!! They also told us that when the alarm goes off they only have ONE minute to get ready. That is very QUICK! Especially considering all of that gear!

Thank you Statesville Fire Department for showing us around!!!

Learning Outside of Our Classroom

Last week was a great week for us to do lots of learning outside of our classroom. Since we are a "Downtown Community School", we love to go out and do things around town. We can learn anywhere, not just in our classroom or school!

On Thursday we were invited to see the VPAC children at SHS put on a few plays for us. They did lots of funny skits including Sleeping Beauty and a parody to go with it called Beeping Sleuty! This was a great opportunity for our children to explore a place and an opportunity in our community. Many of the children remembered visiting SHS last year to see Peter and the Wolf. Others told me about friends or siblings who attend SHS. This is a great way for them to learn to recognize important landmarks in our community. We love getting to go see VPAC performances! We had several former ARS children up on stage this time and I imagine some of our own children will be performing there in the future!

On Friday we got to go to the Iredell County Library to hear storytelling legend, Gran'Daddy Junebug. He told lots of fun stories. The children loved the one about the ghost in the attic! He also had the children come up and participate in several stories. He had many instruments to play and the children had a great time with him. We are so fortunate to have the public library right in our own backyard!!

We also did a little learning inside our classroom. Don't worry, it was still fun!

This week at munchie math we worked on ordinal position. We have been practicing this in our math lessons and this was a fun way to do a little review and for me to assess the children in a different way. The children had baggies that contained several animal crackers, pretzels, and pieces of popcorn. I told which position they needed to put each treat in and then we checked our answers!

Happy Fall Everyone!

We have had a fun week writing about our favorite fall things and reading lots of fall books. Their favorite is There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Leaves. The children are ready for Halloween and have been picking out lots of spooky stories like The Haunted House that Jack Built andThe Skeleton and the Mummy.

This week we have continued our study of maps by adding a new term: key. We learned all about the map key and how to use it to find things that we needed. Then we practiced on a real map finding things like the restroom, gift shop, and restaurants at Sea World.

We have also continued our study of animals. This week we discussed several different animal habitats. Now that we know the needs of animals, we are learning about how places meet those needs. We watched a really neat video on discovery education that showed us a desert, rainforest, forest, and ocean habitat. We got to see all of the different animals and plants that live in each place and how each one survives in these very different conditions!

In math, we have been practicing our doubles facts. This is the first part of addition for us. We have been having addition problems in our classroom work as well as our homework and are learning how to write number sentences. We incorporated this into munchie math this week. The children had to group popcorn pieces into groups and then count to see how many they had all together and write the number sentence for each one.

Mapping Our World

Over the past few weeks we have been learning about maps. Each week we have a map packet that shows us a kind of map or a part of a map and has questions to go along with it. To go along with these maps, we have been looking at all different kinds of "real" maps as well. I brought out a big stack of maps from states, towns, tourist attractions, amusement parks, zoos, and aquariums. The children loved passing them around and looking at all the different things that they could find on these maps. They especially liked the kid-friendly ones that have lots of pictures.

Last week I gave them a challenge. I challenged each of them to find a map at home and bring it in to share. Several of them were up for the challenge and brought in some really cool maps of places they had visited and they had the opoprtunity to share these with the class. After the first day, several more brought them in and some even a week later because they all wanted to be a part of this.

While visiting our classroom last week, Dr. Frey heard about our map challenge and this week surprised us by bringing one of her own!

Dr. Frey brought in a very special kind of map that none of the children had seen before. They LOVED it! Dr. Frey explained that it was called a topographical map and then gave the children the chance to not only look at it, but feel the difference in this cool map! She even showed us where her cabin in the mountains is. While we were talking about the map, we came up with our own idea of what topographical means...the "top". The children pointed out that it showed the tops of the mountains and you could see which ones were taller. I was really impressed that they used their own ideas to come up with a first grade friendly way to think of this map.

Thanks, Dr. Frey!!

This week we learned about the different directions on the compass rose. To have a little hands on experience with this each child was able to have their own map of the zoo and we navigated them with matchbox cars. I chose a place and then each child was able to navigate to a place that was either North, South, East, or West of it. This was a great way for the children to be able to interact with the cardinal directions.

Recycle of the week!

I received our scholastic book order today and had broken the box down to take it to the trash. I went about sorting papers and when I turned around this is what I found! My box had turned into a hideaway! Way to use something that was going to go in the trash! In fact, two boys actually wanted to use it! They decided that one could use it now and the other would take it home to make a fort.

Way to recycle!!!

Gummy Worm Dividing

This week we started working on dividing/sharing in math. This is the beginning of what we grown ups know as fractions!

During the week we did an activity with m&m's where the children had to share them between them and a friend. Today I posed the question "How would we share if we only had one thing?" We did a few examples on the smart board where we drew some lines to divide apples into halves, thirds, and fourths.

Then we did some dividing of our own! First, we talked about the word "whole". We discussed that that means when something is all in one piece. Then the children took gummy worms and cut them into halves, thirds, and fourths. They love to use knives and this was the perfect time to do it! We talked about knife safety and how to use them appropriately and they did an excellent job!

I gave the students a scenario like "What would we need to do to share with one friend", "What would we need to do to share with two friends" and then they thought about ways we could divide.

They did a fantastic job and I am SURE they will remember halves, thirds, and fourths because we did it in such a tasty way!

Here are a few showing off some halves and fourths!

Way to Respect!

Today our class got to have pajama day as a reward for reaching our first 25 coin PBIS goal! Go River Keepers!!

What is PBIS you ask? This is our school's Positive Behavior Intervention System. We have spent the year thus far talking about "Respect Yourself", "Respect Others", and "Respect Your School". Each area of our school has different ways that we do this. Whenever you get caught doing a good job by another teacher you can earn a coin. For every 25 coins you earn a little reward!

At the beginning of the year we looked at each area of our school: hallways, bathrooms, classrooms, and the playground. We talked about how we respect ourselves, others, and our school in those areas.

Yesterday we earned our 25th coin. I am pretty impressed that our class earned 25 already and it is only day 22! We made a list of little fun things that the children would like to do for a reward. We voted and Pj day won! Who doesn't love a good Pj day? We saved our list so we will have some things to pick from for next time we earn one, which will hopefully be soon! We already have a new coin today :)

This system is a great way for our children to learn how to behave and follow rules and also to learn about respect. I find myself asking them daily "Is that respectful" or "How do we respect each other" and it is a great reminder of how we should be treating each other and our school!

Go Fly A Kite!

This week we spent some time learning about the Chinese Kite Festival, which is honored on September 9th. This festival remembers China's history in creating and flying kites and is very fun! We watched some videos on youtube of people celebrating the Kite Festival and we saw all different kinds of kites! There were mermaids, an octopus, dragons, and some that were just pretty designs. We also saw some kite competitions where the kites flew in choreographed routines. It was very cool!

On Thursday we made our very own kites using grocery bags and other craft supplies. We have talked a lot about recycling since our theme this year is "Go Green, Go Blue" and this was a fun way for us to put this into practice! The children had great ideas for their kites. Some of them used some of the ideas we had seen in the video. I know for certain we had an octopus and a monster truck kite! Many of them just decorated and made pretty kites!

On Friday, we had our own kite festival with Mrs. Reece's class. The children had a wonderful time in the cool weather flying their kites. The almost fall temperatures and breeze made it a perfect kite-flying day!