Field Trip Fun

We truly enjoyed ourselves Tuesday afternoon after we had the opportunity to tour through beautifully decorated Christmas trees that centered around a 'Cowboy Christmas' at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Museum.  We also enjoyed a story about a cowboy gingerbread and decorated a snowman in his cowboy gear!  Hopefully your child shared about his/her favorite part from the trip!

Herber Hoover Museum Field Trip

On Tues., Dec. 14th, both first grade classes will be visiting the Herber Hoover Museum in West Branch, Iowa.  During this special visit, students will have the opportunity to see beautifully decorated Christmas trees themed around a  'Cowboy Christmas'.  Your child does not need to bring anything for this special trip.  We will be leaving school at noon (after lunch) and returning around 2:45 p.m.

Social Studies Learning!

In first grade, Mrs. Hunter teaches the Soc. Studies to the first graders at separate times three times a week.  Some of the Big Ideas we have focused on are:
*We can be safe and responsible (bus, home, school).
*We are all part of a community and celebrate different customs (schools and neighborhoods).
*We have wants and needs.

This past quarter, we have been keeping busy focusing some of our work on the current happenings in the world.  We focused a lot of our learning time around the topic of citizenship and how people in our country practice their civic right of voting.  We learned about the role of the president and why an individual may run for this position. Students had their own idea of why they would be president as well.  Here are some of their ideas:

If I Were President....

*I would go to lots of meetings.
*I would fix the world.
*I would live in a big house.
*I would help people.
*I would make gas prices lower.
*I would make lots of animals.

(Love these statements from the mouths of 1st graders!)

Over the month of December our big idea will be 'Holidays Around the World' and focusing on  how the countries of Holland, Sweden and Germany celebrate 'Christmas'. We will also learn about the holiday of Hanukkah.

Scientists at Work!

Greetings from our first grade scientists!

Following are a few important bits of information for families regarding our science learning, directly from the mouths of first graders;) 

"Scientists are important because they find out things."
"In science we learn experiments."
"The best part of science is always thinking."
"The best part of science is finding new stuff."
"The best part of science is when we have Pam over."

In first grade, Mrs. Droll leads science for both 1A and 1B at separate times, three times weekly. So far this year we have explored the following Big Ideas:

• Trees have many important parts.
• There are parts of soil.

This week we wrapped up a health and wellness unit focusing on germs and proper handwashing. We are looking forward to starting a new unit, Balls and Ramps next week! For this unit, we will be collecting a few items from home. If you have any of the following items lying around the house we would love to take them off your hands!

• empty wrapping paper tubes
• aluminum foil
• rubber bands
• newspapers