Penguins Penguins Everywhere!

We started off 2015 by writing down some goals we had for ourselves. These really turned out great! 

We are also learning about Penguins and last week we worked in small groups to research a particular penguin. The students had to create a fact poster and a "life-sized" penguin. These also turned out great! 

Field Trip Fun

In December we had a fabulous field trip to MOCA and the Main Library! 

October Adventures in 1st Grade

We have been continuing to learn about the 7 Habits each week. Here is what we have done so far...

Today we talked about Sharpening the Saw and what it means and how we take care of our mind, our heart, our body, and our soul. 

We are still learning a lot about bats, we are finishing up our Batty Reports. Today we worked on these bat poems to go with the artwork from last week.

We also had a lot of fun learning how small the smallest mammal the bumblebee bat is(1 inch) compared to how large the largest mammal the blue whale is(100 feet.) We measured our classroom(41 feet) and we measured out 100 ft on the playground and we surprised at just how enormous that must be! 

Spooky Science was fun too!! We learned about how we can ask questions and do experiments with things from our own kitchen. Ask your child what happened to the candy corn.

First Grade Puts First Things First

Today we talked about Habit 3 from The 7 Habits of Happy Kids. 

Ask your child how they are going to put the habit to work. 

We were busy Putting First Things First today researching bats.

Be sure to check out your child's work and ask them what they know about bats. They are becoming experts. 

We did manage to save time for some fun. Guesstures is a great game we use for non-verbal expression and getting the students to be comfortable in front of their peers. Our poor game has seen its share of use and the timer is not working correctly, if anyone would like to donate a new one we would love it!!

It was another Oz-some day!!

1st Graders are Following the Yellow Brick Road

We had another fabulous 1st grade day today! Today we talked about Habit #2 from The 7 Habits of a Happy Kids which is Begin With the End in Mind. When you do this you have a plan, you set goals, you are prepared, you think about how your choices will affect you and you think about the positive or negative consequences of your actions before you act. 

Here is one student's goal sheet:

We talk about goals every week. Talk about this with your child and look at the goals they set for themselves on their road map each week. 

1st graders are starting a unit on Bats. Today we shared what we already knew and questions that we had. We also read Stellaluna 

And we compared bats and birds. 

It was a rainy day so we had some Think Fun time as well. 

First Grade 2014

We had a great 1st day of First Grade gifted on Tuesday! We started out with a few rituals and routines. We will begin each Tuesday with our Yellow Brick Road Map:

 Please look this over each week and talk about what your child did in gifted. Please sign the top of the sheet so that I will know that you have seen it. 

Every week we also begin with a "Think" sheet to get us thinking in different ways. 

We will also be putting The 7 Habits of Happy Kids into action this year.

Talk to your child about Habit #1 and ask them what they are going to do to make "Be Proactive" a habit. 

We got to know each other and created unique covers for our binders.

We even had time for a little bit of science. Ask your child how to "Catch a Rainbow." 

"Think Fun" is one of our most favorite times of the day. If you can donate a Think Fun type of game, we would love it! 

It was a great day in Room 226!

 

Anansi and the Magic Stick

We have enjoyed reading about Anansi the spider. We turned one of our favorites, Anansi and the Magic Stick, into a readers theatre.