Day 100!

Well, we are officially 100 days smarter in first grade!  We had a blast celebrating this day with everything the 100 way on Wednesday!  It was awesome to see the 'young spirit' of the age 100 shine through in the awesome costumes.  We made sure we were fashionably dressed on this day, constructing headbands, badges, and glasses to wear.  Putting our counting skills to the test, we worked in small groups to count to 100 by 1's, 2's, 5's and 10's.  We then challenged ourselves to have some fun with movement activities to 100 (not too challenging for our 100 age;)  and putting together a necklace of 100 Froot Loops.  Last, the students enjoyed the classic commercial of 'How Many Licks to the Center of the Tootsie Pop?'  Since we are an inquisitive bunch, we thought we would give it a try with at least 100 licks!  Ask your child how many licks it took for him/her!  We also enjoyed a 100 snack and received our certificates of achievement for our hard work in first grade so far to date!

The 1A Counting by 1's Group!

 1B Friends Counting by 1's!
  

 The 1A Counting by 10's Group!

1B Friends Counting by 10's!

The 1A Counting by 2's Group!

1B Friends Counting by 2's!

The 1A Counting by 5's Group! 

1B Friends Counting by 5's!

Here is 1A all adorned in their Day 100 homemade attire!

 

1B All Geared Up for 100 Fun!

Stringing 100 Froot Loops and not eating them, yet;)

 

 Oh my....100 can make us grumpy!

How many licks to the center of a Tootsie Pop?

 YIKES.....our teachers.....100 and counting!

Explorations with Balls

Our first grade scientists have recently begun exploring how different balls move when they are blown on, rolled, and bounced. Students were challenged to move or knock over different items using a straw paired with their own wind power and a variety of balls.

We will continue our learning with balls over the next several weeks, and expand our explorations to include ramp building! Students love this fun, hands on science unit and it provides great early encounters with physical science! 

We are One and the Same!

This week in Social Studies, we enjoyed learning more about the historical figure, Martin Luther King Jr.  Students were introduced to his life as a young boy and adult and how his courage to speak up helped changed many things for our country.  Some of the 'big' words that we discussed were segregation, racism and courage.  First Graders were very involved in our classroom discussions as we centered much of our great conversations on how there are differences amongst us, but more similarities between us.  Here are some of the great ideas of similarities that were brainstormed:

WE ALL:

-want to be loved

-need air

-can be a friend

-want to help

-have feelings

-are special

-have a heart

Students showcased their idea through a self-portrait of themselves, visually portraying our uniqueness, but how we are united.  Ask your child to share his/her idea with you!

Little Bird Tales

As we develop our writing skills in First Grade, students have been introduced a little more to Writer's Workshop and how to work as editors.  Students were challenged to add details to their stories and check for punctuation/capitalization errors, as well as focus on spelling the word wall words correctly.  With the help of our Literacy Design Coach, Mr. Slabaugh, students were able to publish their writings with an online program called Little Bird Tales.  This fun publishing tool allows students to type, illustrate and record them reading their stories to you!!  You will find these great writings under your child's blog in the 1A or 1B Kidblog Link above.  Please feel free to post a comment to your child and show off their hard work to family members or friends who may also want to leave some words of encouragement.  They love the feedback!!! 

Grinch Fun

Students enjoyed our thematic fun with activities from the story of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.  This is a great story that lent itself to lots of great conversation on many things that can be gifted without having to purchase it in a store to help warm someone's heart.  Some of the great examples students shared were spending time with someone, sharing a toy and making something special as a gift to give.  We challenged ourselves to exhibit random acts of kindness and also to recognize others showing kindness.  Last, in the classroom, we had fun brainstorming ways we could get the Grinch to grin as well!

 Here are some of the ways a First Grader could get the Grinch to grin:
*Make him a Christmas meal
*Sing him a song and act out a puppet show
*Give him a candy cane to eat
*Read him his favorite story
*Clean his house

 Grinch faces completed by First Graders!

Students worked hard to add a heart to the Grinch door as they noticed someone showing an act of kindness to another friend!

Herbert Hoover Field Trip

On Tuesday, December 10th, the first grade classes at Wellman Elementary traveled to West Branch to enjoy the Herbert Hoover museum's annual holiday display highlighting Christmas trees from the Heartland. Students enjoyed the wide variety of Iowa themed Christmas trees, but some of the favorites included a tree featuring the state universities, a Star Trek tree, and a tree featuring the Iowa State Fair. Our learners also enjoyed some winter stories featuring Laura Ingalls Wilder, a young pioneer girl.  Ask your first grader what tree he/she enjoyed the most!

 First Graders enjoying the story time!

 Christmas tree tour!

Having some fun in the Heartland!

 Thank you Herbert Hoover Museum for the experience 

of seeing beautifully decorated Christmas trees!

Healthy Eating in Science!

We have spent a little more than two weeks in science discussing healthy eating habits. Students have enjoyed learning about balanced eating from their friend Moby on Brainpop! Students were challenged to create their own healthy and balanced meals. Encourage your child to plan a meal or two this month and see how he/she can incorporate the different food groups! After discussing the food pyramid, students had an opportunity to work together to create their own posters displaying foods from all 6 food groups. 

Native American Games

Pam Holz, our Washington County Conservationist visited our classroom yesterday to show students that you can have lots of fun without much equipment during the Thanksgiving season.  Students enjoyed playing 3 different Native American games: Shoulder Wrestle, Pebble Drop and One Pebble Game.  Students were challenged in their strength, patience, and cleverness to win these games.  These fun games tied in well with our Social Studies work as first graders have been learning about the First Thanksgiving and how young pilgrim and Native American boys and girls were creative in making up games.

Pam showing the students how to play Pebble Drop!

First Graders trying to 'trick' their partners with the One Pebble game!

 

Students using the upper body strength for Shoulder Wrestle!

Authors at Work!

Over the course of this school year, we have been encouraging writing through the use of free write journals during work on writing as a center. We also plan weekly mini lessons focused on writing in our classrooms.  This week, students had their first experiences with one-on-one writing conferences. We were excited to hear all of our students' ideas and see the growth they have made in their writing already! Our writing this year has focused around the philosophy of 6 + 1 Traits for Writing.  Through a lot of discussion and modeling, we have elaborated on the traits that you would find in pieces of good writing.  We have slowly covered the writing traits of: ideas, organization, and conventions. We will be teaching the traits of voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and presentation throughout the remainder of the school year.

Short definitions of the writing traits are listed below:

Ideas (the meaning and development of the message)
Organization (the structure of the piece)
Voice (the tone of the piece-the personal stamp the writer leaves)
Word Choice (the vocabulary a writer chooses to use to make the piece interesting)
Sentence Fluency (how words and phrases flow together)
Conventions (the correct usage of grammar)
Presentation (the overall appearance of the work)

We are moving towards publishing a new piece of writing to be posted on KidBlog when they are complete. We will let you know when these pieces are posted on the blog!

Veteran's Day!

During our work in Social Studies this week, the students have had the opportunity to learn more about the national holiday of Veteran's Day.  We discussed the importance of our military and how soldiers help our country every day.  We also enjoyed the story, Saluting Grandpa (an explanation of the Honor Flights).  Students then brainstormed describing words for soldiers (e.g. protector, brave, strong, caring, amazing, nice, helpful).  Our school-wide morning assembly also allowed us the opportunity to see and hear about military artifacts.  Thank you again to the American Legion Veterans who came to share about this honoring day and a big thank you to our Veterans worldwide!

Happy Halloween!

Hoping your Halloween was full of more 'treats' than 'tricks'!  Thank you again to the first grade families for sending in paper products and goodies for this special day!!