Swimming

Our first grade friends got in some extra physical activity this week with an afternoon trip to the Washington pool! Despite cool temperatures and a cloudy sky good times were shared by all!

Fossil Gorge

The first graders have been busy, busy this past week!  We kicked off the beginning of the week with our field trip to the Fossil Gorge on Monday.  The students enjoyed walking through the exhibit center, examining fossils at the Fossil Gorge, enjoying a picnic/playtime, and making a surprise stop for ice cream in North Liberty.  It was definitely a fun day!

Developmental Reading Assessments-DRA

As the school year comes to a close, we have begun our end of the year assessments with each child.  Throughout the year, we are continually monitoring and assessing your child's academic skills.  One specific assessment that we use is the Developmental Reading Assessment, also known as the DRA.  In our district, the DRA is administered to all elementary students twice a year; Fall and Spring.  As teachers, the DRA is just one tool that we use to see the overall reading development of our students in the areas of reading fluency and accuracy, making predictions using text features, retelling and interpreting the texts.  If you would like to know how your child did on this particular assessment, please feel free to contact us and we would be happy to visit with you about your child's end of the year reading skills.

Happy Mother's Day!!

Mother's Day Video

The first graders would love to wish their mothers a Happy Mother's Day to all of our special moms!  It was fun sharing about what we love about our moms this past week and reading some special Mother's Day books!  Here are some cute tidbits about the moms from Wellman Elementary!

"My mom is so smart, she even knows how to love me."

"Before my mom had kids she had to find a house."

"My mom is so smart, she even knows how to count by 100's."

"Before my mom had kids she was having fun."

"If I could give my mom anything, it would be to get her a hamster."

"My mom is the prettiest when she is at church."

"My mom is so smart, she even knows how to go mushroom hunting."

"If I could give my mom anything, it would be a nine-carat diamond."

"If I could give my mom anything, it would be a castle full of cherries."

"I know my mom loves me because she gives me kisses every night."

"My mom can do many things!  I think she is best at working with dogs."

"Before my mom had kids, she went bowling."

Have a wonderful Mother's Day!!

Froggy Fun!!

We have had a fun week studying about frogs and toads!  Arnold Lobel has been an author name that we have heard a lot throughout this week as we enjoyed the famed characters, Frog and Toad.  Looking at the life cycle of a frog and discovering new kinds of frogs in our world was another favorite part of this unit!  We wrapped up this study by making our frog hats and drinking 'froggy float'!

May Day!

On Wed., May 1st, all of the K-2 classes visited Parkview Nursing Home in Wellman.  Students prepared special May Day baskets filled with goodies for the Parkview residents.  We also enjoyed sharing some of our favorite songs!  It was a great way to spend our May Day!

Quilting Cuties!!

First graders enjoyed many colorful quilting activities this week! We started the week with one of our favorite read alouds, The Quilt Maker's Gift written by Jeff Brumbeau and Gail de Marcken. It is a beautiful story reminding us about the importance of giving and sharing!

We were excited to welcome two quilting experts from the community into our classrooms! Deb and Gail shared many of their fabulous creations with our eager listeners, who asked several thoughtful questions in return.

Our young quilters enjoyed crafting their own quilting squares from colorful paper, which were pieced together into large friendship quilts. Be sure to check out our quilts hanging in the hallway of WE if you get a chance to come visit us! A few students shared some special quilts from their own homes and told us the tales behind their special blankets. This provided us some great practice for both asking and answering questions.  We also went 'sight word' hunting, coloring in a patchwork piece on our word quilt as we noticed these words in books.

 

Pizza, Pizza!

Our pizza unit was a definite hit amongst the first grade friends this past week!  We enjoyed reading many stories on the topic of pizza and visiting about variations of the beloved food.  The students did a wonderful job writing about their favorite kind of pizza and how they like to eat it.  To wrap up our pizza fun, we grabbed our chef's hat and made our own pizza bagels.  Ask your young chef what he/she cooked up for this fun activity!

Fraction Action!

The vocabulary heard throughout first grade this past week was halves, thirds, and fourths!  We had a lot of fun working through our fractions using a Hershey bar...yum!!  Students were given story problems that had them solving how they could share their chocolate equally with others.  It was great to see the powerful thinking their brains were doing as they maneuvered their treat to show fractions!  Of course after all of the hard work, the fraction evidence was devoured!!

Graphing!

Today the first graders enjoyed recording data and reporting data! Using movie themed pictures that were spread throughout the room, students were challenged to record and visually share their information through a graph.  We then looked at our graphs and answered questions using this data.  We will continue to work hard looking at different visual representations of information for the rest of the first grade year.