I've got my thinking cap on...

Last Friday, our principal declared it "Put Your Thinking Cap On" day. Kids wore hats to school, and when the principal came around to observe the learning taking place in the classrooms, the teachers signed Ms. Shaw's baseball hat. The kids thought that was way cool!

 

Nature Center

Our district is lucky enough to have the Kirby Creek Natural Science Education Center.  Every year, each class is able to go spend half a day, and work on activities that tie in with our curriculum.  The Nature Center just got a HUGE makeover, and it is AWESOME! We had so much fun!  We went on a nature walk and used our senses to record what we saw, heard, smelled, and touched.  (I tried to limit the touching! ;-) ) We observed a pond and they illustrated what they saw in the pond.  We explored a huge garden and went on a hunt for vegetables and flowers that started with each letter of the alphabet.  We also discussed the butterfly life cycle and made a paper plate craft to show the different stages of the life cycle.  Overall, beautiful weather, well behaved kids, awesome place, we learned a few things, and nobody fell in the pond! Success!

 

50s Fun

Oh my goodness! Yesterday was our 50th day of school and we celebrated 1950s style. So much fun! We even dressed like they did in the 50s! We counted to 50 by 1s, 2s, 5s, and 10s. We listed numbers greater than 50 and less than 50. My sweet teammate, Miss Martinez, made a PowerPoint to show the kids pictures of clothes and toys. We compared and contrasted how people lived in the 1950s to how we live today. The kids were shocked they didn't have cell phones, or color TV, or Wii! Here are a few pics of our wild and crazy, but educational day! ;-)

After we discussed the differences from the 50s to today, the students wrote a few sentences about what they learned! Super cute, huh?

After lunch, we enjoyed root beer floats! It was YUMMY!  Then, we graphed how many students liked their treat, and how many did not! Ice cream outside on a beautiful day? What's not to love?

 

 

In the afternoon, we had a sock hop! The kids loved dancing to 50s music!  We also showed clips of I Love Lucy so they could see what TV shows looked like in the 50s!

Just an FYI for teacher friends, I purchased Cara Carroll's unit: “Cruisin’ Through the 50 First Days of School”. All of our activities came from her unit.  I would highly recommend it! 

Character Dress Up Day

Today, we dressed up like a storybook character! Each student brought a book that their character is in. They were CRAZY wild, but we had so much fun! At the end of the day, the whole school had a parade to see everyone's costumes!

The First Grade Teachers dressed up like Fancy Nancy! Ohhhh Lala! I was more the mismatched Fancy Nancy! We had so much fun!

 

It's Fall!

One of my sweet parents was kind enough to donate a pumpkin for each student to decorate! They had soooo much fun! 

Then, we wrote about our pumpkins and practiced using adjectives to describe!

Class Promise

Our district has adopted the Capturing Kids' Hearts program.  Every year we make a social contract in my class during the first couple weeks of school.  In first grade terms, we make a class promise.  We discuss what a contract means and then what a promise means to us.  The kids list how they want to be treated by their peers and me.  Once we all agree, we each sign it like an adult would sign a contract.  The kids think this is very cool and take it so seriously! By this point in the year, I hear students make comments to each other like "that's not acting like our social contract says." I love it! When kids start to self-mange, it makes me proud!  The orange did not show up well in the picture.  Those things say- treat others the way you want to be treated and keep hands and feet to yourself!

Pennies Please!

In our classroom, we use pennies as an incentive.  Each child has their own drawer where they keep their pennies until they are ready to spend them at the class store.  The drawers look like this:

The kids can earn pennies several different ways.  If they get their homework folder signed Monday- Thursday night, they get 1 penny on Friday morning.  They also get a penny if their homework is turned in on time and complete!  At the end of each day, if a student has moved their clip up to orange, they get 1 penny, and if they've moved to yellow (wow!!) then they get 2 pennies! 

I also randomly give out pennies to good behavior!  However... if they make poor choices, sometimes they owe me a penny.  This does not happen very often because they want as many pennies as they can get!  I try to make the focus of the class store to be privileges rather than toys.  For instance, they can buy the chance to eat lunch with me, or sit at my desk, or sit by a friend for a day! They are really enjoying this system and their behavior is rockin'!  Plus, it helps when we get to money in our math curriculum.  They can trade their pennies in for nickels, dimes, and quarters.

New Parent Resource!!

GPISD uses CSCOPE as it's curriculum.  They now have a Parent Portal available!  You can see what your child is learning each nine weeks in Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies.  It also has fabulous resources for parents to use at home that correlate with what we are working on in class.  There is no login requirement! Click on the link to check it out. Let me know if you have any questions!

http://www.cscope.us/parentportal/

Updated Calendar!

Parents, please notice the calendar to the left has been updated! Red Ribbon Week is October 24-28.  More info will be coming home about dress up days and activities.  We will be attending the Nature Center on November 4th.  Because this is part of our science curriculum, we do not take parent volunteers on this trip.  We will be asking for volunteers on our next field trip though!  More info will be coming in regards to the Nature Center!  Please let me know if you have any questions!

Online Scholatic Book Fair

The online book fair begins today!  It will run for 2 weeks!  You can see the books by visiting this website:

http://onlinebookfairs.scholastic.com/

You will click on the state, city, and school and it will take you to Whitt's page.  There are more books available than were at school.  This is an excellent resource for parents who work and were unable to come visit last week.  Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends who live far away can also purchase your child a book if they wish!  Whitt PTA will still receive the profit for the online book fair just like the one at Whitt last week!  Please let me know if you have any questions!

Also, teachers have created a wish list online. Simply click on 'Classroom Wish Lists' in the orange bar, click the grade level, then teacher!  You can purchase online! Have fun shopping and reading!!