The A to Z countdown is on. We had a blast on Hawaii Day. We learned all about the island state. We even learned about the Hawaiian alphabet which only has 12 letters. Maholo!
We turned Earth Day into Earth Week and have been learning about ways to help the environment. We will end the week learning about Arbor Day when we begin our A to Z countdown to the end of the year!
We always enjoy art on Wednesdays. This week we made butterflies with symmetrical patterns. Check out Itzel's amazing art!
April 8th-It's Butterfly Week in first grade. We will be learning all about the life cycle of a butterfly this week. We will be reading fiction and nonfiction stores about butterflies. We will be making a butterfly life cycle model in science. We'll be doing butterfly symmetry projects in math and art. We'll also be learning some butterfly poems since April is National Poetry Month.
It is always a treat when our technology teacher, Mrs. Kasa comes to our classroom. This month she did a Nearpod activity with out students about how to deal with stress. We had lots of fun and learned a lot!
We had some fun on Leap Day! We have been learning about the phases of the moon in science so we made little moon phase models with Oreo cookies.
Way to go! Our attendance assembly was on March 1st. Here are our students with perfect attendance in February.
Congratulations to Mi'Anjyl for being our student of the month for February.
We filled our Star Jar! In class, we add a star to a jar every time we have perfect attendance in the classroom. We finally filled the jar and earned an attendance reward. On February 22nd, we had an afternoon game day. Students were able to play board games, build with blocks and magnets, operate a mini store, and play with dinosaurs. We had a great time and hope to get to do it again!
We have been celebrating Black History Month and learning about many famous people. Last week, we learned about Garrett Morgan, the man who invented the traffic light.
First grade was treated to popsicles with Principal P. It was a reward for every student in class meeting their math goal on our winter MAP test.
Valentine's Day was a blast. Thank you to everyone for bringing all the treats and cards!
Congratulations to Felipe. He was our January student of the month.
First grade earned 25 "Classroom Compliments" from various teachers who have observed their good behavior in class and in the halls. As a reward, Principal P. will be providing a special lunch from McDonalds. Every student in class will get a happy meal on Friday, February 2nd. Our class is determined to earn another 25 compliments so we can have an ice cream party.
Happy New Year. We have started off the year with an author study on Kevin Henkes. Ask your students to tell you about some of the stories we've been reading.
Congratulations to Itzel, our December student of the month.
Our technology coach, Mrs. Kasa brought Finchbots to our classroom. Students were given a lesson in block chain coding and learned to program their robot to move in different directions. We had some help from the 4th graders as well. The students are excited to try this again in January.
On December 19th, we completed our first STEM challenge. Mi'Anjyl was the student who created the tallest freestanding structure using only toothpicks and gum drops.
A special visitor arrived from the North Pole. The class has named our Elf on the Shelf, Snowball Kevin December. We have enjoyed finding him every morning and are keeping a journal of the elf antics.
On December 18th, we started reading our first chapter book. Ask your kids to tell you about the adventures of Junie B. and May. Every day we are reading two chapters then answering comprehension questions and drawing some visualizations. We will finish the book on Friday.
As we approach our winter break, we will be working on lots of fun activities. Last week, we learned how to draw a reindeer and wrote a full paragraph called "Rudolph's Cousin."
Our current science unit is on light. We did an experiment in class to see how light can bend to create a rainbow. First we tried with direct sunlight and had some success. Then we used flashlights and had some really great results. I sent home the experiment directions so you can try again.
Congratulations to Kennedy for being our November student of the month.
All the students in kindergarten through third grade gathered together in the gym for a picnic lunch on November 21st. We enjoyed our food and watched some Thanksgiving themed videos. We are thankful for such a wonderful school community.
We made pumpkin pie in a bag before Thanksgiving break. The whole class helped prepare our dessert and it was almost unanimously a success. We did have a few non pumpkin fans in class but everyone still had fun.
On November 16th, we had a visit by some nursing students from Prairie State College. They taught the class about things that can be poisonous.
Congratulation Elijah on being the student of the month in October.
October 20th was Community Unity Day. Thank you to Mateo's aunt for coming in and reading to our class. The kids loved the story about bullying called Recess Queen.
On October 13th, we went to Moraine Valley Community College to see Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. Thank you to everyone who volunteered to chaperone the trip. Our class had a great day. We look forward to our next field trip in the spring!
We are excited to start our social group lessons twice per month with our new virtual social worker, Mrs. Payne. Our first visit was on October 5th.
Congratulations to Mariyanna for being the student of the month in September.
Every day we get a short visit from our Speech and Language Pathologist, Miss Barajas. This week she has been teaching us about counting syllables in words. We learned that when we say a word, we can count the syllables by seeing how many times our mouth opens.
We have been learning about sound in science. We made pan flutes and discovered that we could create high and low pitched sounds with our straws of different lengths.
Click on the link below to listen to some music that our class created with Mrs. Kasa our technology teacher.
First Grade Music Creations
I loved seeing all the red, white, and blue for Patriot Day on September 11th. We watched a story about a man who actually walked a tight rope between the twin towers in New York City when they were first being built. It was called, "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers."
Our first full week of school has been action packed. We are still learning our school rules and procedures. We are also learning how to use our Chromebooks. We had a visit from our tech teacher, Mrs. Kasa, who showed the class how to use a cool program called Nearpod. We also finished our school wide MAP Testing this week.
Welcome back!
Our first week of school we will be doing a lot of fun activities and getting to know each other. We will be practicing being safe in school as well. There will not be any homework the first week of school.