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!