Guest Speaker

We were lucky enough to have a guest speaker yesterday.....Mrs. Caskey from the "School of the Wild" by Lake Macbride.  She came and shared many facts about birds.  She even brought wings and feet so we could touch and feel them.

I Am an Eagle

After reading about birds and watching the bald eagles circle over school, the kids decided that they would be eagles and build a nest.  Pretty creative!!!

Abraham Lincoln

A penny greeted the first graders when they came to school on Monday. They were to guess why a penny was there. The first graders had many guesses. You are paying us for being good....you are paying us to do our work.....you are paying us to be nice to each other....you are paying us to listen...were among some of the guesses. After a little discussion and the reading of several picture books, they made the connection between the penny and Abraham Lincoln's birthday on the 12th of February. We did a writing activity so they could show what they learned about Lincoln. Here are some of the facts they wrote. He was the 16th president of the United States. He was honest. He was the president who freed the slaves. He liked to read. The fact that interested them the most was that he carried his important papers in his stovepipe hat.

Here we are modeling a stove pipe hat.

Chopsticks

The first graders had a great cultural experience in Chinese today. Mrs. Hussey brought in chopsticks and Cheerios or marshmallows. The students are supposed to see how many items they could pick up with the chopsticks and get into a bowl in 2 minutes. The children had a great time.

WE HAVE BIRDS!!!

After waiting weeks, sometimes not so patiently, we finally have birds at our bird feeder. Washington Township Student Council bought bird feeders for all of the classrooms to put outside their rooms. We put them up the second week of January and have been waiting ever since. I told the kids that birds would only come to our feeder if we were quiet and in our seats. After the first few times of scaring all of the birds away when we would run to the window to see them eat, I think we have the hang of it now. We will enjoy watching and trying to identify the birds that come to our feeder.

Groundhog's Day

The first graders learned a little bit about Puxatawney Phil, the groundhog, on Thursday, February 2nd. We read several books about groundhogs....."Gregory's Shadow" by Don Freeman, "It's Groundhog Day!" by Steven Kroll, "Groundhog Gets a Say" by Pamela Curtis Swallow, and "Gretchen Groundhog, It's Your Day! by Abby Levine. After reading the books we talked a little bit more about Groundhog's Day and how some people predict how much more winter is left using a groundhog. We made groundhog puppets and took them out in the afternoon to see if we could see their shadows.

We were able to see the groundhog's shadow so unfortunately we will be having six more weeks of winter. However, if it is like the winter we have had so far, I think I can live with that!! How about you?

Day 100

February 1st was the 100th day of school. We have been counting the days of school since the very first day back in August. We started the day by making Day 100 headbands.

Spelling

We broke into groups to see if we could spell 100 words. We did this quite easily!!

Here are our 100 words

Exercising

We did 100 toe touches and 100 jumping jacks.

100 Hungry Ants

We all brought in a collection of 100 of something. We read the book "100 Hungry Ants" and tried to group our objects in the same way that the ants marched to the picnic. We came up with these combinations:

2 groups of 50

4 groups of 25

5 groups of 20

10 groups of 10

Here we are with our collections.

Red and Green M & M's

Fruit Loops

Corn kernels

Beans

Lego Pieces

Cheese Puffs

Cheerios

Honey Nut Cheerios

Twist Ties

Marshmallows

Lego Pieces

Pieces of Candy

Playing Cards