Holidays Around the World

Our third stop on our trip around the world was Germany!  We learned about some special traditions and customs that German children and families get to do.  One that our students particularly liked the idea of is St. Nikolaus Day.  On the night of December 5 German children put there shoes outside in hopes that St. Nikolaus will visit and fill their shoe with treats.  We made some shoes in our classroom and left them on the windowsill overnight. Although it wasn't December 6th, first graders were surprised to find a few treats in their shoes this morning!!!!

Literacy

A few pictures of what our classroom looks like during literacy.  We love to read!!!!

Counting to 100

Today during math we used our counting strips that we made yesterday.  The challenge was to write our numbers from 1 to 100.  Today we cut the strip apart by 10s and made our own 100 charts. We looked for and identified patterns in the numbers.  Students noticed some very interesting patterns!!

Four Winds - Animal Tracks

At our most recent Four Winds session students learned about animal tracks and the various types of "walkers" there are in the animal kingdom.  Ask your child about them!!

Holiday Express

During our theme time today students looked at a world map and found the locations of our travel destinations, as well as where we are starting out from, the U.S.A.  First graders were issued their "passports"  (after filling out applications yesterday) and made suitcases to prepare for our first "flight abroad"!!!

Subtraction Games

Today in math First Graders played 2 familiar games, but with a new twist!  They played "Roll and Record" and " Five-in-a-Row" with subtraction.  Students used two dice to play, one was a cube with numbers 7-12 on it, and the other was a regular die with dot patterns for the numbers 1-6.  After rolling the dice, they would put the larger number in their head and count backwards as they touched each dot on the other die.  They could also use a number line to "jump" backwards the amount of dots that they had rolled.  They also needed to record each of their equations as they worked.  They all did a great job with these games!!  We ended with a discussion about what strategy worked best for them, and why.  

Thankful Writing

The children have been extremely interested in the story of the first Thanksgiving!  We read a brief story about it during the week, but they had so many great questions that we didn't have time to get into that they may come to you looking for more information!!  There are some great links to some sites on this topic via the "Great sites for Kids" tab on the RES library page.  Scroll down until you see the Scial Studies section.  

Today we read a book called The Most Thankful Thing and the wrote about our own most thankful things.  Look for them to come home on Friday!!