Happy (Chinese) New Year!

Monday was the Chinese New Year holiday. We looked at this holiday as an opportunity to learn about what people who are of a different culture do to celebrate holidays.

We watched a Reading Rainbow episode that showed us the ancient Chinese art of chinese writing. The children were all really impressed that each character was like its very own piece of artwork. We discussed how their letters are different than ours and how they write differently than us.

We also got to watch a video on discovery education that taught us about the Chinese New Year celebration. We learned that it is really not that different than many of the holidays that we celebrate. One of the most important similarities that we noted was that this is a holiday celebrated with family. We all can relate this to a holiday that we celebrate with our families.

We learned that the Dragon is a symbol of power and excellence and that they use this in their celebration as a hope for the year to come.

After watching the video, we made our very own dragons using our knowledge of lines.

Then we had our very own dragon dance to celebrate the new year!

Munchie Measuring

We have measured using a lot of different nonstandard units in our classroom. We have measured using linking cubes, teddy bears, pennies, rainbow links, and even our own feet!

We have recently started measuring using standard units of measure. In order to help the children understand why it is important to have units of measure we have read the story How Big Is A Foot. In this story, no one can get the measurements correct because they all have different sized feet. This leads us in to the discussion of why we have to have standard units.

This week we decided to measure twizzlers using inches. We have been using rulers to draw line segments and measure, so this was a great reminder of how to do this.

First the students were given a length to measure. I reminded them that you have to start in the same place as everyone else in order to get the correct answer and we discussed where you start when you look at a ruler. Children always seem to get confused as to whether to start at the number 1 or the end, so this was a great way for us to reinforce that concept.

After students were given the length that they needed to measure, they were asked to use plastic knives to cut their twizzlers to that particular size. This was a great way for us to talk about safety when using knives and how to use them.

Once we finished cutting several different lengths of twizzlers, I asked the students to put them in order from the longest to the shortest.

Who knew that you could cover so much with just a few twizzlers?!

A busy start to a new year!

We are always busy, but we have been especially busy since I last updated.

Over the Christmas break all of the Kindergarten and First grade classes moved upstairs into our new K-1 Learning Center. We have wanted to add this part of our building to our school for a long time and everyone was thrilled when we were able to acquire it earlier on in the year! It tooks months of planning and renovating, but we were finally read to move on up on the last day of school before Christmas break. We had a ton of great parents helping us out and we were able to get everyone out of their old rooms and into their new rooms in less than 2 hours! I owe the dedicated parents who helped me move upstairs in the rain a HUGE HUGE HUGE thank you!!!

Over the break I got our classroom all ready for us to come right in in January and get started! We love our new space. We have lots of windows that let in lots of natural light. We have a great little corner where we can have our group time and then we have a large open area where the children can play centers like blocks or kinex! It is fantastic. The kids seem to really like our new space as well.

Our first week back at school I was called to a conference at the last minute so I missed being with the kids for two days. I hated leaving them since we were in a new place, but they adapted really quickly and did fantastic without me!

In between all of this, we have been learning lots. We started Accelerated Reader last week. This gives the students a chance to choose a book on their level and then take a quick test about it to check their comprehension. So far, everyone has had great scores and I am very proud of the students because comprehension is a higher level skill!

We have also been learning about the seasons. Mother nature has not given us a lot to work with this year, but we are gaining an understanding all the same!

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!!