Winter Wonderland

Can you believe we have only been in school 9 days out of the last 33?? This snow is pushing us back a little in our Hooray for the U.S.A. theme. So, we are glad we sent home the research folders early. I hope they helped keep your child busy during our snow days.

During our short week we still managed to keep busy. We have been continuing to sing with Mrs. Linn on the piano in our room. Hopefully, you have heard your child singing these songs at home.

This week in centers we had two listening centers. The first one was The Magic School Bus Builds the Statue of Liberty & the second one was Abe Lincoln's Hat. The children had to draw a picture and make a connection to the story. We worked on our research this week with Mrs. Waller & Miss Fate. We read about the Statue of Liberty and answered comprehension questions. The children wrote in their journals about the Statue of Liberty. We played Coin Changer on the computers as well, to help reinforce their understanding of money.

TNT- (Try New Things) We made Marshmallow Snowmen. The children had so much fun being creative, using chocolate chips, toothpicks, icing, candy corn, cinnamon candies, sprinkles, stars, licorice, Ritz crackers, and of course marshmallows to decorate their snowmen. We hope you enjoyed them before they ate them!

Math- Mrs. Waller has been working on fact families with the children. They used a fact family house to model and show why it is important to learn about fact families. The Fact Family created by the numbers 3,4,7 is for example: 3+4=7, 4+3=7, 7-4=3, 7-3=4. We will continue to expand this concept next week. Miss Fate has been working on place value. She introduced the ones and tens place. The children used ones & tens mats to work with bars of unifix cubes as a group. The children loved working cooperatively with their team and wanted to raise their team's hands together.

Social Studies- Miss Fate discussed and read a book on the Statue of Liberty. Then the children watched a short video segment about how the Statue of Liberty was built and about what the word liberty means. This was from http://www.discoverycentereducation.com/. The lesson closed with the children drawing their own Statue of Liberty's that are hanging around the room. They turned out great!! We have some true artists in our class!

Hands on Science- Mrs. Waller and Mrs. Wiedeman are now teaching Hands On Science. This week we attempted to create our own bolt of lightning using a piece of wool fabric, an aluminum pie pan, a Styrofoam bowl, a pencil with a new eraser, and 1 metal thumbtack. The children predicted what we could make with these objects as well as what would happen when we put the aluminum pie pan on top of the pencil after rubbing the Styrofoam plate with wool. We were unsuccessful in the first class, so with the second class we removed our shoes, thinking we would be better conductors of electricity. Again we were unsuccessful. We discussed how as scientists, many times we have to try again and again until we get something to work. We have challenged the students to try this experiment at home! You are suppose to feel a SMALL (we were not trying to harm your children) shock when you touch the pie pan after the Styrofoam bowl has been rubbed for two minutes with the wool fabric. We used scarves, gloves and wool hats!

Computer Lab- We mixed up the teachers again. This time in the computer lab it will be Miss Fate & Miss Taylor. We played interactive state games on Ben's guide to U.S. Government for Kids @ http://bensguide.gpo.gov/

Click on the K-2 section of the kite. There are different games and levels. The children loved it! Try it at home especially on a snow day!

Valentine's Day- **For our class please bring in a decorated Valentine's box with your child's name on it the week before Valentine's Day. This will hold their Valentines from their peers.

We will have a party towards the end of the day from 2:00-3:00pm. The children need to bring a Valentine to school for each student in the entire first grade for a total of 42 children plus 4 teachers. You do not need to write their names on the Valentine's just have your child sign them.

NOTE: There is no spelling packet or spelling test next week since your child will be working on their research projects.

Reminders:

-Work on your Research Report due Jan. 31st

-Please return any books in a bag. We are trying to sort them out & get them out for the next time. We will wait on sending them out right now due to the research homework.

-Hooray for the U.S.A. Program---February 17th @9:15am in the Stage MPR (kids dress in costumes this day)

-Valentine's Day Box due the week before Valentine's Day no later than Feb. 11th.

-Valentine Cards & Party- Monday, February 14th.

Have a safe, cold, snowy weekend!

~Miss Fate & Mrs. Waller~