Fifty, Nifty, United States

This week we had 2 opportunities to practice our program with the piano player, Mr. Lamar Simms.  It helps so much to have the live music playing as we sing!!  These first graders sound so good and are almost ready to show off their hard work to you!

Mrs. Waller taught the class in small groups how to do Mountain Language.  This is a nice way to review the many different language arts skills that have been taught so far this year. Next week they will be doing this activity independently.

Page is unscrambling USA sentences and then writing them using correct capitalization and punctuation and her best handwriting.

Campbell is practicing her spelling words and coding each word with numbers according to the numbers on the phone pad.

Maddie wrote in her jumbo journal about the Great Seal and then illustrated a very detailed picture.

USA monument match.

When 2 vowels go walking, the first one does the talking". In this activity we sorted out the words according to their vowels.

We also listened to a story about another important female American, Ruby Bridges. 

Raquel drawing a beautiful Statue of Liberty in her theme notebook.

Listening center on Magic School Bus and the Statue of Liberty.

Page's number scroll.  Way to go! All the way to the 600s so far!

A fun poem to learn about the long "e" vowel.

Mrs. Waller read Flat Stanley to the class.  She uses this book to explore the concept of graphs.  After reading the book we made our own "flat self" to use to graph out different attributes of ourselves. Be on the look out next week for your child's very own flat self on a life size graph!

 Mrs. Waller also worked with small groups to review counting change!

....and we reviewed double digit addition and double digit subtraction!

In social studies we started sharing our research over each of our famous Americans.  We stand up one at a time and share facts we've researched such as when and where they were born, childhood and adulthood interesting facts, why they are famous and why we admire them.  Then, we share our famous American doll with the class.  We share things like who helped us and how we made it.  Before we shared with the class we took time to practice with a friend.

Babe Ruth, Sacagawea and Martin Luther King Jr.

Henry Ford, George Washington and Ronald Reagan

We learned about Groundhog Day and when and why we have this "holiday".  We predicted if the groundhog would or would not see his shadow on Monday.  You'll see by the bar graph our results...more of us are thinking EARLY SPRING!!
 



In computer lab we used our famous American dolls and practiced reciting our speeches with an app called "Puppet Pals".  This was great practice and they all had fun taking pictures of their dolls and creating neat backgrounds to go along with their American.

In hands-on-science we made snowflakes using pipe cleaners, hot water and Borax laundry soap. We discussed the definition of matter and what happens in a chemical reaction. We had a blast!

Spelling Words- Week #14  February 2-6, 2015

Phonics Skills: long vowels “ai” and “oa”

1.       saint

2.       paid

3.       trail

4.       chain

5.       brain

6.       coast

7.       soap

8.       throat

9.       load

10.    float

Challenge Words

11. Kansas

12. program

13. symbol

14. groundhog

“Surprise the Teacher Word”

15. ???

REMINDERS:

WEEK OF FEBRUARY 9TH....YOU CAN START BRINGING IN YOUR VALENTINE'S DAY BOXES (NOTE CAME HOME TODAY)

HOORAY FOR THE U.S.A. Program: Thursday, February 5th @ 9:15am--Come to our room after the program to see your child's Famous American Research Report & all of the Paper Dolls.

***Please continue to help your child practice their speeches (& their extra parts if they have one) for the big day! We appreciate it. If you need another copy of it just email us.

VALENTINE'S DAY PARTY: Friday, February 13th from 2:00-3:00 in the first grade classrooms.

Stay warm and dry this weekend!
Sara and Carey