Filled with Gratitude!

We are so full of gratitude for the many blessings we have been given here at St. Paul's!  Especially, these wonderful first graders!!  It's amazing to think how far they've come in such a short time.  The way each one of these students has adjusted to 1st grade is amazing!  We love watching them grow every day and seeing the wonderful talents each child possesses.  We are thankful to you all for sharing your children with us and your generous support you have given to the food pantry.  We are truly blessed to be a part of such a great community.

We have been hard at work this week wrapping up our teddy bear unit. The children came back to school on Monday ready to learn! We jumped right into our integrated language arts time as we explained the new tic-tac-toe boards. Take a look at the pictures below as the students work independently as well as with their teachers:

Spelling practice with color and bubble words.

Fall scrambled words.

Phonics book practice with the short "u" sound.

Handwriting practice.

Autumn words in ABC order.

Remembering our veterans.

Guided reading...retelling important features from the story.

Bowling subtraction.  We've realized we know our friends of 10 helps us with subtraction too!

Contraction work.

 reviewing counting by 2s, 5s and 10s.

 noun, verba nd adjective sort.

Writing word book hunt.

Describing our friend's bears.

Starfall.com...reading and looking for short "u" words.

Puppet Pals app...recording bear facts.


In TNT Ms. Lorfing's class turned the lights out and read with their bears.  It was fun to cuddle up with a book or two and our favorite stuffed buddy!  Mrs. Sansale's class had the opportunity to chose different craft projects.  They could make a polar bear puppet, a leafkin character, or a turkey.

In math this week, we introduced the concept of Fact Families. There are three numbers in a fact family for example: 5, 6, & 11 and these three numbers can create four math equations: 5+6=11, 6+5=11, 11-5=6, 11-6=5.  Since the children have learned about the ability to switcheroo addition problems and that the biggest number always goes first in subtraction.....they have caught on quickly. We will continue to review subtraction as well as we build concept upon each concept.

 

 In social studies we finished up our bear unit by summarizing all the facts we have learned about all the different types of bears, their habitats and characteristics that make each type of bear special.  Ms. Lorfing's class also learned about a special president who cared deeply for animals and plants and worked hard throughout his entire life to preserve them.  We found out this president, Theodore Roosevelt, is the reason the "teddy bear" was invented and came to be a beloved toy for children throughout the world. 

 

Teddy Bear Picnic!
We had so much fun sharing our bears, jokes, riddles and facts we have learned about bears!  Then, we finished it off with a mystery bear power point. Thank you for preparing "beary" good lunches for your children! 
 

 Ms. Lorfing's Coke just happened to have the message, "Share a Coke Zero with a Polar Bear."

Hands-on-Science
We learned more characteristics of polar bears and then had a special treat.  In order to eat our treat we had to predict how many bites it would take to eat it.  Then, wrote our predictions and then the yumminess began.  As we ate, we had to tally the bites in order to compare our predictions to the actual amount.  Some found it hard to eat small bites and ended up way off their original higher count.  I can't blame them!  Klondike bars are the best!

 

In computer lab we reviewed greater than, less than and equal to on abcya.com and we also did a Thanksgiving crossword puzzle.

NO SPELLING NEXT WEEK DUE TO OUR SHORT HOLIDAY WEEK!
Look for words coming home for the following week on Tuesday.

Have a wonderful weekend and stay warm!
Carey, Melissa, Matt, Mary