Advent Program

Good job first graders on your presentation at our 2011 Advent Program. It was very exciting to see everyone dressed up for such a special program!

Getting ready for Christmas break...

Lots happened in our class before we went on break! We completed a fun mitten unit in reading where we compared and contrasted two different books. We read the stories, "The Mitten" and "The Hat." Then, we made mittens to tell the different story elements in the story, "The Mitten," created a venn digram to tell how the stories were the same and different, and made a brochure about the two stories.

The class had a lot of fun in music preparing for the Advent Program. Mr. Tilton had them marching through the halls of our school and outside on the playground singing and playing their chimes. It was a fun melody to hear around the school.

We were sad to say goodbye to Kiley Weatherwax! We made her a fun scrapbook of all her memories this year at Visitation and we wish her the best as she prepares for her new school. We will all miss the Weatherwax family!!!

For Christmas, the students made their parents holiday wreaths. Inside the center of the wreath the students cut out a poem the describes the symbol the wreath represents. We hope the families enjoyed the holiday cheer they brought as much as we enjoyed making them.

St. Nicholas Day

We celebrate St. Nicholas day on December 6th. St. Nicholas is a patron saint of children, sailors, the poor, and the innocent.

As a school, we all put one shoe outside our classroom doors and waited for St. Nicholas to come by our rooms. We heard his bells jingle as we walked past our classroom. When we opened our door, we saw goody bags from St. Nicholas inside our shoes. Then, we said the prayer below.

                                    O God,

Help us to follow the example

of Nicholas, who loved the poor, the weak, and the young,

giving, what he had to those who had little.

May we, too, walk in the

way that leads to life:

loving you with all our heart,

  and our neighbors as ourselves,

 through Jesus Christ our Lord,

Amen

Winter spelling words test on Friday, Dec. 9th.

This weeks spelling words are winter themed. A few of these words will be challenging for the students and they will need a lot of practice writing them.

1. hat
2. cold
3. sled
4. snow
5. mitten
6. tree
7. gift
8. bell

Review the study tips from our last spelling post. There is a lot of fun activities for the students to practice this weeks spelling words.

"The Mitten" and "The Hat"

I found this great idea from another first grade blogger. We read the story, "The Mitten" and discussed the story structure (characters, setting, problem, details, and solution). Then, we made big mittens to display the information we read in the story.


The next day, we read the story, "The Hat." An area we have been working on in first grade is comparing and contrasting stories. These two stories gave us the perfect opportunity to discuss how the stories are the same and different. We learned how to use a venn diagram to display the information.  We also made a fun brochure that told about the two different stories.


During reading stations on Friday, we sorted consonant clusters with l and r. The students put the word hands into the mitten clusters they belonged to.


With the cold weather we have been having lately, these were fun activities for us to do.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Spelling test friday

Don't forget to study for this weeks spelling test. We have been working on spelling words with the short /o/ sound and the word families our spelling words belong to. Below are this weeks words along with some fun activities you can do at home with your child to prepare them for their test.

Spelling test #4

Short /o/ sound

1.  on
2. not
3. got
4. box
5. hot
6. top
7. pond
8. doll

Study tips:

• Have your child write the words 3 times each
• Write sentences with each word
• Write words in shaving cream on a plate
• Write words in pencil and trace over them in markers
• Word triangles - begin with one letter and on each line add a new letter
  
• For example:
  
  box                 got
  b                     g
  bo                   go
  box                 got

We got a package in the mail from ALASKA!!!

We opened our first letters from our pen pals in Alaska yesterday. The students were thrilled to see an envelope addressed to each of them. Their pen pals shared things they like to do and what the weather is like in Alaska (lots of snow).  The class and I have started talking about how we are going to respond to our pals and what should be included in our next letter. We created a bubble chart of the question they asked us and came up with many great things to share with our pals. Each students pen pal asked them what they like to do in Washington. As a class, we came up with: camping, fishing, hiking, playing at the park, swimming, getting ice cream, shopping, playing in the sprinkler, listening to music, riding bikes, and playing with our siblings outside. We will write our first draft on Monday and have our final draft ready to mail by Friday.

First grade prays for a safe drive as our fellow classmate and his family travel to their new home.

Goodbye Benjamin, Visitation will miss you! First grade created a memory scrapbook for Ben of his first grade year at Visitation so he wouldn't forget us. Each student created one page and wrote 1 or 2 things they liked about him. I included 5-6 pages of pictures of school activities. The book turned out really cute and he loved it!

Welcome to the WILD first grade!!!

Welcome to our new classroom website. I am very excited about being able to update parents, guardians, friends, and family on a daily basis about what is happening in our classroom. I will be posting exciting news, stories, and pictures of our class. Tune in for the next post about our wild adventures in first grade!