Grandparent's Day

It was a fun filled day with our special guests here!  First graders shared a Thanksgiving poem as well as a Grandparent's song with our visitors.  As a class, students shared what he/she was thankful for and then worked with his/her visitor to assemble a thankful turkey.  In the season of gratitude we would like to express our thanks for sharing your special child with us each day.  May have you a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Math Skills

Over this next quarter students will be working hard on the following math concepts:
* Counting combinations of pennies and nickels
* Exchanging pennies for nickels
* Telling time to the hour and half-hour
* Ordering and comparing numbers
* Counting up and back on the number grid to 100
* Solving +/- problems using the number line/grid

Within the classroom, students' skills are being reinforced through playing games with partners or in small groups.  There are also many great iPad apps that we are using to allow for an interactive way to strengthen our skills.  Thank you for working alongside your child with his/her weekly math homework!

 Playing a first quarter game, Number Line Squeeze, as a whole class. (This is similar to Monster Squeeze, which students played in kindergarten!) This game provides opportunities for students to develop their number sense, including more or less.

Over the past two weeks, our young mathematicians have been challenged to add, subtract and skip count on their number grids, number lines, and with calculators. *A simple calculator would be a great stocking stuffer for the upcoming holiday season! Students love working and exploring with these tools.

50th Day!!

Well, we must say that our 50th Day celebration is definitely going to be one of our highlights from the first grade year.   We had a great looking bunch as many of the students showed up in their 50's attire! Our morning began with a special speaker, Charlotte Morgan, who shared about what life was like as a child growing up in the 1950's.  Students were also intrigued about the school life of a child in the 1950's as they were able to watch an old movie recorded in a school setting during this time.  We then challenged ourselves to see how many twists, hula hooping, bubble gum blowing and bunny hops we could do in 50 seconds.  After looking at some records on the record player, students put their math skills to work estimating how many fireballs/tootsie rolls it would take to fit around and inside different sized records.  Last, students wrote directions to prepare a rootbeer float and of course then made their own to enjoy!  Also, check with your child to see if he/she can do the 'hand jive' for you!

Halloween!

Our Halloween parties were a great success thanks to the many wonderful donations of goodies for the classrooms to enjoy.  Thank you again to the families of the Halloween committees for helping make this day extra tasty!  We also enjoyed seeing all of our Wellman Elementary friends as we paraded through the classrooms.