Slime, Fire Safety and More Photos!

Hello Families!

Welcome to our First Grade blog post of the 2018-2019 school year! I apologize that it has taken me so long to get it started this year. I have a lot of photos to share with you. We have had so much fun together so far! I will update this blog once a month with any photos or important news I have for you. You will also find important dates along the right-hand side and a copy of our classroom schedule.

Below are a few photos from the very first week of school. You will see students working together on their morning tubs. Each morning students come into the classroom and work on a tub with their table group. These tubs include legos, puzzles, books, blocks, etc. This is our time to build positive relationships and get to know each other!

Independent Reading

Here are some photos of our independent reading time. In these photos we are building our Reading Stamina! That means we are sitting down and reading our books during the whole independent reading time. Students get to select 4-5 books to have in the book baggies they keep at their desks. During Daily 5 (our reading block) students can choose from: Read to Self, Read to Someone, Writing, Word Work and Listening. Each student gets to do 3 of these every day!

Fire Prevention Week

Last week we had the opportunity to go to the Kalona Fire Station, meet the Firefighters and learn how to stay safe in our homes if there is a fire. We had a lot of fun and we learned so much! The Firefighters gave us a tour of the station and also let us crawl through one of their fire trucks. If you have not already, please take time to sit down with your child and review/create your fire safety plan.

1. Where is your family meeting spot outside?

2. What does the fire alarm sound like?

3. What number do you call?

4. What is your address?

5. Check your fire alarms each month.

6. Replace fire alarms after 10 years.

Pam and Plants!

During Science, we have been learning a lot about plants and how to take care of them. So far we have planted: alfalfa, rye grass, wheat seeds and right now, we are trying to make new plants out of an old hanging plant we have in our classroom. We have had a lot of fun learning about what plants need to survive and getting a little dirty along the way. We have the awesome opportunity to have Ms. Pam Holtz come into our classroom throughout the year and teach us different Science and Social Studies topics. She recently came in and reviewed with us all of the things a plant needs to grow. We played a game and got to use magnifying glasses to take a closer look at some of the plants growing outside!

 

After we came in from meeting with Ms. Pam, we took a look at the baggies of plants we collected from outside and completed a journal entry about them! We were surprised to find that there are so many different kinds of plants just outside our school door. Below is what a typical Science Journal entry looks like. You can see that we tape our finding into our notebooks so we can keep them to look at later. The students were also very excited to tape in the grass that we "mowed" from our Alfalfa and Rye Grass Plants.

And Finally...... SLIME!

I had to laugh when I got some encouraging emails from families about making slime with all the kiddos, as I had never made it myself, but I have to say it was a very smooth project! (With the help of Ms. Jennifer, of course). We had a great time making the slime and then using it to practice Letter and Shape formation. :)