December Newsletter

December

"The magic of Christmas is not in the presents, but in His presence."

Dear 1^st and 2^nd Grade families,

It is the month where we remember God's wonderful gift to us, His son Jesus. We celebrate the birth of baby Jesus and remember how much God loves all of us.

This month we are doing our sock drive to keep everyone's feet warm. So far, first and second grade is in the lead. Keep bringing in those new pairs of socks to help others this season.

Please remember to send your child with a coat daily. If students do not have a winter coat, the Knights of Columbus is donating new coats to families in need. Ask the office for details and a flyer went home a few weeks ago with information. Students are able to wear winter hats, scarves and gloves to help keep them warm while at recess.

I'd also like to remind you to look over your child's homework with them before it is turned in at the end of each week. I will not correct each question. I look over each packet to ensure that it is completed. It is important that children recognize any mistakes before it is turned in because it gives them a chance to understand immediately what mistakes they've made and gives them opportunity to fix it. Please don't forget to turn in monthly homework calendar. It's due at the end of each month. The month of December is due when we get back from Winter break, January 4th.

Below is the different topics we will be covering for the month of December! 

Reading:
Coming soon!

Writing: Both first and second grade will be writing a fairy tale this month. Our topic is of course related to this season...SANTA CLAUS. Students will be writing about Santa getting stuck in a chimney. Their focus is to write with a beginning, middle, and end. I am looking for first grade students to add 2-3 details. My expectation for second grade is to write 3-5 details and to expand on them. We will continue to work on grammar, punctuation, and writing completing sentences on our daily writing.

Math: First and second grade are both learning about subtraction. First grade is learning about strategies to subtract single digit numbers while second grade is learning to subtract two digit numbers. Students are learning about missing addends and ways to problem solve.

Science: we are continuing our Project Lead the Way unit on form and function. Students have been introduced to the concepts of form and function and how each informs design. Students have learned about the form and function of plants. We are familiar with the role of pollination, the development of seeds and plants, and how animals disperse seeds. Students are looking forward to the end of the unit where they will design, build, and test a device that mimics one of the ways animals either disperse seeds or pollinate plants. This end project should be a fun way to connect all the new things they've learned about plants and form and function!

Social Studies:
Our next unit is about where people live. Students will learn how to find where they live on a map. We will learn about land and water, people and places, how people use resources, and about weather around the world. This is my favorite unit because we get to design a model showing land forms. 

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Religion:
First grade is currently learning about Advent. We are learning about ways to prepare for Jesus' birthday, Angel Gabriel telling Mary the good news, Jesus' birth in Bethlehem, and how the Advent candles help us prepare for the Lord.

Second grade is taught by Mr. Jay.

We have also been preparing for our Advent Program. We will be singing, Away in a Manger. The class chose their favorite instrumental and have been working hard to show off their amazing singing skills and to help us prepare for Christmas.

BIG NEWS:
Students at school have been very excited to find out what Baby Muller is. Every day students are coming to me at lunch asking me if it's a boy or girl. They have been suggesting the cutest names and I continue to remind them that they cannot suggest their own names :) We are ready to announce that baby Muller is......

A BOY!!!!!!!!!

Have a Merry December!
Mrs. Muller

Merry Christmas
Love,
Mr. and Mrs. Muller

We don't only get measured at the doctors office!

We are learning about measurement! First and second grade began their measurement unit by using non standard measurement. We measured classroom items using paperclips, unfix cubes, blocks, and base ten blocks. Students continued to ask when they would get to use their rulers and we officially started using them. We learned about standard measurement and why it is important that we have a standard measurement. We compared non standard measurements and students described how using non standard is not always accurate because the measurement tools are not always the same size. We used the standard measurement of inches to measure each student in our classrooms height. Each student got to measure another classmate. We wrote all our measurements on the white board and compared our heights to each other. This unit will continue throughout the year. Students have already begun using inches and feet to measure objects.

Veteran's Day

Thank you to all the Veteran's who have served our country and those who continue to serve our country! We appreciate all you do for us!

First and second grade discussed characteristics of Veteran's and about how they serve our country to keep citizens safe. Then we illustrated a poster of a Veteran and the characteristics we thought best represented them.

Technology Class #2!

We had a so much fun learning about circuits with Mr. and Mrs. Kellogg during our first session. When it was time for our second class, the students were thrilled. They continued to ask Mr. and Mrs. Kellogg if they would all get to touch the materials. This time they sure did!

First and second grade was split into groups of 4-5 students to build circuits to make light bulbs turn on, music play, and spin an object. They had to connect the circuits the correct way by following directions to the plan. When each group completed their circuit they would turn it on. Some worked the first time and some groups realized they made a mistake somewhere in their design. They went back to see if they could find their mistake and rebuild it. I was amazed at how quickly the students caught on to building the circuits and their ability to problem solve. Mr.and Mrs. Kellogg were amazed too. They said our class completed the most projects of the day and couldn't believe how quickly they developed an understanding.

We are very thrilled to have this partnership with Mr. and Mrs. Kellogg. It is neat for the students to see what a real electronic engineer does and to see what Mrs. Kellogg does during her daily profession.

Halloween Party!

Mrs. Jay read us a fun Halloween story!

Every year my class has a big Halloween party. We each bring a ziploc of a yummy snack to share. We have parent volunteers who brew us our yummy snack filled with everyone's special ingredient. Even the parents loved eating the snack. It is a mixture of sweet, salty, and healthy. While the snack is being brewed, our loved ones read us fun Halloween/Fall stories. We always enjoy listening to our parents, grandparents, and cousins reading our class stories. Thank you to everyone who came to our celebration. It was a blast!

Enjoying our yummy Halloween snack!

We're adding a new pumpkin to our patch!

On October 30th, first and second grade received some exciting news. The students came back from recess and had a special card on their desk. They were thrilled to have something special on their desk waiting for them. I let the kids read the cards to themselves and then we read them together. The card said, "We're adding a new pumpkin to our classroom patch!" On the inside it said, "Mrs. Muller is going to be a Mummy! April 2016." One student shouted out, "I knew it!"  They were all very excited. Many understood that I have a little baby in my tummy and a few thought I was going to be a mummy for Halloween. It was very cute.

For our Halloween assembly, each class had to decorate a pumpkin for a contest. We decorated our pumpkin by making it a baby. We added all our names and drawings of ourselves around the pumpkin to show that we are adding a new pumpkin to our classroom. It was a great way to share the news with the rest of the school.

The inside said, "Mrs. Muller is going to be a MUMMY!"

There surprise cards for when they arrived after recess. 

Technology Class!

We started working with Mr. and Mrs. Kellogg (Bella's grandparents) learning about circuits.  We started our first class learning the difference between electronics and electrical. Students were amazed by what a circuit looked like and that they were going to be learning how to build circuits just like the ones that are in most of their toys. Marissa and Brandon got to build the dog robot for the class. The class loved watching that once it was correctly programmed, it could do many fun things. I cannot wait for them to go to their next technology class to learn more about circuits.

Let's learn about MEASUREMENT!

First grade had a blast during this fun math lesson. We have been learning in math about measurement using non-standard measurement. We discussed that we can measure the length, width, and height of anything around us. First grade chose 5 items in our classroom that they wanted to measure using unfix cubes, paper clips, blocks, links, and base ten blocks. They had such a blast going around to the different measurement stations to measure their item using their non-standard measuring tool. They learned that no matter what measuring tool they used, the outcome of which item was the longest or shortest was the same. I cannot wait until we continue learning about measurement using standard measurement.

Improving our play dough process...

On Thursday we began our play dough process. Students reviewed their rubrics and scoring sheets to decide if their play dough is high quality or low quality. We reviewed the ingredients that we would use to make the play dough and what measurements we decided to use.  Students were very eager to get their hands on mixing these ingredients together.

At the end of the activity, about a quarter of the students made high quality play dough, a quarter made okay quality play dough, and the last half made low quality play dough. Students were shocked to see their first attempt fail. We went over the engineering design process and I explained to them that this happens often to engineers and that it doesn't stop them from trying again. We reviewed the improve step and as a class came up with some ideas of how we would improve our process. Many students came up with using less water, or more flour, or even using a different order of mixing the ingredients.

On Friday we started our activity out by discussing the changes we wanted to make in our process. We reviewed the ingredients and amounts students decided to use.  As students were making their improved play dough, I saw more smiles and lots of excitement. Many came to me with a smile from ear to ear saying, "I HAVE HIGH QUALITY PLAY DOUGH!" They were so impressed by their ability to change the ingredients and process to make good play dough.

After we created our play dough, we went back to our working station to review our play dough texture and usage test rubric. Students used their rubrics to give them a final score on their improved play dough. We had a blast doing this activity and many of the students said they wanted to go home and make an even better play dough and add color to it.

Overall, we learned about the job of a chemical engineer and using the engineering design process to create something and improve it. I cannot wait to introduce the class to their next Engineering is Elementary unit. It will be fun to see them use what they learned from this process and apply it to their next challenge.

THURSDAY PLAY DOUGH PROCESS

Brandon and Calla were sad their first attempt didn't work.

FRIDAY PLAY DOUGH DESIGN

Who doesn't like to play with good play dough?

First and second grade began a new engineering unit from the our curriculum, Engineering is Elementary. Our unit is called, "A Play Dough Process." In this series of lessons students learn about chemical engineers through a story called, "Michelle's MVP Award." The little girl in the story wants to create play dough to sell as a fundraiser and her whole hokey team is going to help make it. She works with her uncle Adam to develop a process for making play dough. Through this story the students learn about uncle Adam who is a chemical engineer and what his job as a chemical engineer is. They also learn about the engineering design process and that sometimes the process doesn't always work and we have to go back and improve our process. At the end of this unit students will use what they know about solids and liquids to develop their own play dough process.

We experimented with high quality play dough today to see what good play dough feels like. Students enjoyed rolling it, building figures, and  cutting out shapes. We discussed the properties of what good play dough texture is and what we expect out of the play dough we create. We also created  a testing rubrics with scores 3, 2, 1. Students will use this rubric to test their play dough texture when they make it. We also decided we need to test our play dough in one more way. Students wanted to make sure they could use their play dough with a cookie cutter so, we created another rubric called the usage test. In this test students will score their play dough with at 3, 2, 1 depending on how well their play dough cut out a shape.

3 = high quality play dough
2= okay quality play dough
1 = low quality play dough

Students are very eager to begin their own journey as chemical engineers and to improve our own play dough process. This should be an exciting experiment for them!

Johnny Appleseed Day!

On September 25th, we celebrate Johnny Appleseed's birthday (which is actually Saturday, September 26th). We celebrated by reading a story about the life of Johnny Appleseed. My class all love apples so, they especially loved learning about Johnny Appleseed's life. Our focus for this read aloud was to point out the main idea of the story and the details that support our main idea. After the story, first and second grade discussed what the main idea and details of the story were. We recorded them on apples and made a drawing of Johnny Appleseed. Below are some photos of some of the classes creations.