Reading Celebration and Assembly

Today was the end of our school wide reading celebration. A number of activities took place during this very special week. All students were invited to make a bookmark and enter the bookmark contest. Every child in our class made a bookmark and they were BEAUTIFUL! When we went to the afternoon assembly, Ms. Stanley (school librarian) announced the winners...our very own Shaunna won for all first graders! Yeah, Shaunna! All week children were encouraged to fill out a reading graph and enter into a drawing to win prizes! Our class read for nearly 2,000 minutes! Wow! While I can't remember the name of the duo who performed at today's assembly, they were very funny using physical comedy to make us laugh! At the end they invited our very own Mr. Lasher to play the part of their evil enemy...you may not recognize him in the blaze orange "tuque" and the bushy, black moustache!

Poetry and Reading Celebrations!

We've had a surprisingly busy week! Our math penguin unit is coming to a close and this week everyone drew, painted and cut out a life-size penguin! Many are hanging in the hall outside our classroom and several are hanging in our classroom. Ask your child to tell you about his/her penguin!

Today we had a school-wide assembly to kick off our "I Love to Read" reading celebration. February is "I Love to Read" month and HCS has an annual celebration with a variety of activities. Today I sent home a reading log to be filled in each day until the 24th when all forms are due back at school. During an afternoon assembly, all entries will be in a huge box and a winner will be chosen and given a prize! Each day next week, a book trivia question will be asked during morning announcements and students may enter their answer and a winner will be chosen from all correct answers. As well, each child will have the opportunity to design a bookmark. The winning bookmark at each grade level will be copied and distributed in the library! It's a very exciting week to celebrate books and reading!

One special highlight from our week was a Thursday visit from a group of public speaking students at CVU. Their first assignment was to learn a poem and then perform it for our class! The poems were silly, children's poems and our class LOVED them! They loved them so much, that after a little encouragement from me, several students memorized a poem to perform for our class! I will videotape them and then post them for you to see! The first poet performance is Griffin and his video link is below! Very exciting!



Have a great weekend!

Happy Valentines Day!

What a loving, happy Valentines we had in our classroom! First thing in the morning as children arrived they filled each other's collection envelopes with love...and valentines and candy! They had to wait until the end of the day to open the treats and declarations of friendship and love! Knowing there would likely be candy to eat, I made each child one sugar cookie! You'd be happy to hear that the words heard most frequently that afternoon were "Thank you" as children opened valentines!

100th Day of School!

Wow! What a great day we had on the 100th day of school! Our day began when we put 100 children and a few adults in the conference with the principal...who was having a "public safety" meeting! Hee! Not sure how "safe" it was, but it sure was fun! Later, we shared our 100th day projects and then we took a walk around the wing checking out projects by kindergarten, first and second graders! Fun, fun, fun! 100 days of fun!

Happy Valentines Day (Almost!)

I'm sending an email with the class list so your child can fill out Valentines for the class! We will not have a big party. I'll make cookies and we'll open Valentines and just...feel the love!

Weighing Penguins

During this penguin unit, children have had the opportunity to experiment with weight. Several of the penguins weight less than 30 pounds. We have two bathroom scales and many, many cans and boxes of food with letters on them...in small groups, students put cans and boxes of food on the scale until it equals the penguins weight. They were very serious about the weighing and so curious that they spent their before school free time experimenting with the scales.

Writing Sharing

As we finished a writing unit called "Small Moments", each child chose a piece of writing to fancy up and share! Our kindergarten buddies from Mrs. Johnson's class joined us in celebrating several weeks of learning and work! Before their arrival, first graders spent a few minutes practicing on each other. They brainstormed ways to help make this event fun for their kindergarten buddies! Then...they arrived! Mrs. Johnson chose partners and they began! Each first grader read to their kindergarten buddy and then we had a ginger ale toast. Check out the pictures below!