HOORAY FOR THE U.S.A.!

HOORAY FOR THE U.S.A.!

Well, it is finally here.....and the children are so excited!  We were so happy to see them walk into the room Tuesday morning.  It is such a special time of year for us. The kids always amaze us with how much the have learned and grown since the start of the year.....we are ready to soar! So much to do and learn in the second half of first grade and we are ready to hit the ground running.

We started the week together with Miss Fate and Mrs. Wyllie's class as we introduced our new theme and began learning our HOORAY FOR THE U.S.A.! songs. Your children are quite the performers! The program is going to be a hit. We have continued guided reading and our independent work with our tic-tac-toe boards.  The children have written their very first entry in their JUMBO JOURNAL and are keeping track of their entries with a TABLE OF CONTENTS.  At the end of the year, this journal will be filled with entries from their study of the U.S.A. as well as Australia. Take a look at the pictures below....we are having a blast!

The kids prepare their journals for the first entry....

Eli and Holden work on a giant US map....

Jackson listens to The Biggest, Best Snowman....

Sophie re-writes The Pledge of Allegiance in her Theme Notebook

Sophia completes her water color spelling activity

Emma is working on her FLAG spelling activity

John is working on filling out presidential facts!

In math this week we have been reviewing place value. Mrs. Waller has also introduced them to our study of money. We received a Christmas gift over break and have been playing with it all week long: a SMART BOARD! We receive this special gift from the 50 wishes program that was a part of last year's auction. WOW! We have been learning all about it and having so much fun. We have so many exciting hands-on activities planned that the children can use to study money....we are excited to get started this semester!

Elizabeth taps the number in the ONES place...

Jake creates the number 235!

John writes the number 228 in expanded form: 200+20+8

Rock 'N Learn, Money and Making Change

Counting by 5's to 100/$1.00! It takes 20 nickels to make $1.00

In social studies, Ms. Lorfing has introduced the study of America. The children are learning about the first 13 colonies any how they became states.  They will learn about the Revolutionary War, westward expansion, the many monuments of the United States and much, much more! 

Ms. Lorfing reads a story explaining to the children the reason the first colonies were formed

Jake identifies the first 13 colonies on a map

With the cold weather comes many times when we need to get our wiggles out. Ms. Lorfing found a great resource for teachers to use in the classroom. It is like having our very own xBox 360, without actual avatars. We can ZUMBA, dance and even race each other in the 100 m dash. Take a look below....if it doesn't get warmer any time soon, we may be visiting this resource often!

BEAUTY AND A BEAT, Zumba!

Your children have got some great moves!

TNT was such a fun time for us this week. We used this time for the big reveal of the famous Americans. We presented each famous American on the projector and then revealed the famous first grader who would represent this person in the program and research this person over the next few weeks.  It was like Christmas all over again. WOW! Each child was so excited for their peers and so grateful for the famous American they received.  What amazing children!

Jesse Owens

Sacagawea

Eli awaits the big reveal!

In Hands-On Science the children learned about what it means to be an inventor! This will set us up as we explore roto-coptors and other great inventions over the next several weeks of our U.S.A. unit.  In computer lab we continued to introduced the children to money using one of our favorite websites: ABCya!

SPELLING WORDS

Phonics Skills: long vowel "e" and "i" with silent e

Words: like, twice, kite, nine, time, side, theme, eve, these, here

Challenge Words: country, stripes, colonies, scene
Don't forget to surprise your teachers!

REMINDERS

Friday, January 10th-end of the 2nd quarter

Friday, January 10th-paper doll project will come home-please see the pictures below for examples of some of the past famous American dolls!

Monday, January 20th-NO SCHOOL in honor of MLK

Wednesday, January 22nd-paper dolls are due back at school

Thursday, February 6th-HOORAY for the USA! program @ 9:15 in the north MPR

****OPTIONAL: if you have any spare change that we could use here at school we would love it if you could send it in with your child. We have a lot of plastic money to use, but it is always better to have the real thing! Pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters!
 

We are so happy to be back with your children. We will be very busy over the next few weeks. Rest up and we will see you on Monday. Have a great weekend!
Sara and Carey