Johnny Appleseed Day-Sept. 26th

Sorry this post didn't make it over the weekend. I had a FABULOUS time at the FSU vs. Colorado game in Jacksonville this past weekend. It was a good day to be a Nole! Our class had an awesome day eating apples and learning about Johnny Appleseed. Yes we share the same birthday but like your children came home to tell you I turned 29 on Friday-for the 8th year in a row :) Seriously we started the day with an apple tasting. Which apple tastes better-red, yellow, or green? A HUGE thank you to the cafeteria, they were gracious enough to donate an entire case of apples! The green apple won by 1 vote! They like the sour apples. Later in the afternoon we had another apple tasting but this time we sampled apple chips, dried apples, freeze dried apples, Apple Jacks, apple cider, apple juice, and apple pastry. The kids loved it! The BEST part of the day was the smell from the back of the room as we let apples, cinnamon, and sugar cook in the crock pot. It smelled so yummy people stopped into our room to take a whiff that leaked out into the hallway. They tasted as yummy as they smelled. We had a wonderful day and look forward to the next learning experience-maybe Johnny Broccoli day? :)

Famous Authors!

This summer I watched a teaching video about motivating students to write. We write every day (almost everyday) in Writer's Workshop. I spend about 5-10 modeling writing out loud. I talk to the class about what is running through my head while writing and things good writers do. They have to give me a topic they want to write about before I hand them paper to write. I have pulled aside some students and "published" their writing. I help with the spelling. Amazingly enough I have not had to talk to them about staying on topic. They are really loving the writing. Here is a slide show of the 1st 5 famous authors. I will post more as we "publish" more. Stay tuned because Ivy Grace went to the Nick hotel on Friday and we are anxiously awaiting her story. Enjoy. :)

Open House

Open House was awesome! Thank you to all the parents that came out for the special event. We had 16 out of 17 families represented! From your checklists you completed a lucky family won the big prize. The big winner was Jacob's family. Enjoy your gift bag filled with goodies. I hope you enjoyed the Promethean ActivBoard demonstration. As you can see the class is up to date with the latest technology and your kids love it! We are right at 50% for parents that have joined PTA. We are trying to be the 1st class with 100% so we can earn the TOP prize of $100 for the classroom budget. Maybe you want to sponsor a family in these hard times. We would welcome the offer. Contact me and we will work it out. Johnny Appleseed celebrates a birthday on Friday so check back for the festivities I have planned for all my chickens.:)

FABULOUS US!

OK so think back to the first art class and how impressive our self-portraits were... Well, we have outdone ourselves and Mrs. Francis too. With a lot of love and patience here are our completed self-portraits. Aren't we the most talented 1st graders you ever saw? I am so proud of all of you. Last time Nick's picture did not make it to the slideshow and so I made sure to put it as the very 1st picture. Way to go kids! This is just a sneak peek into our Open House that will be this Thursday, September 18 starting at 6 pm. Please come by and see your child's home away from home. I look forward to seeing you all on Thursday evening. :)

Remember September 11

I want to take a moment to let you know we discussed the importance of September 11th today. We watched a Reading Rainbow and watched some children from PS 232 that experienced 1st hand the love and generosity from others around the world. The kids made a music video singing a song of how thankful they are for the support and love they felt through such a tragedy. I hope you too feel thankful today for all those before us that helped make America what it is today. My father was in the Air Force for 22 years and I feel a sense of pride when I share with the class the importance of our Armed Forces. Last week we talked about freedom and your child completed the sentence "Freedom means..." I am oh so proud to let you know that our very own Brianna placed 2nd in the AM VETS post 911's Freedom Walk Essay contest. Way to go! We are so proud of you! Talk to your child about what they learned-you might be surprised. Thank you for all you do!

Check out our cool puzzles!

Did you see the numbered envelope in the take home folder? Your child made a 100 chart puzzle for the family. Each child took a chart and cut it into pieces to see if you could put it back together. I hope you found the task easy. We had a lot of fun making them. Some of the children really got into cutting the charts into several pieces. :) Please make sure to put all the pieces in the envelope and send it back tomorrow because we are going to trade envelopes and put each other's puzzle together over the weekend. Watch the video to see Alex and Tymothe put a puzzle together. This class is fabulous! :) By the way, I updated www.spellingcity.com with week 3, 4 and 5 words. Make sure to find the list by using my name. Starting Monday, September 15 we will use week 4 words. Thank you so much for all your lovely comments! I have shared them with the class and we love hearing from you! Have a great weekend. See you on Thursday night for Open House from 6-6:30 in our classroom.

End of week 2 already! :0)

Hello all! I hope the Golden Folders made it home. We had a fabulous week working with the -ad, -an, and -ack family in phonics. We are still working on counting forward and backward starting with different numbers. We did some work with greater than (>) and less than (<) this week. So if your kids start talking about the alligator eating the bigger number of M&MS you will know where it came from. Please know it takes a lot for a Seminole fan like me to use a gator positively in the classroom. HAHA Just kidding. Your kids were begging for harder math and bigger numbers! You would have been proud! :) We learned and even touched all kinds of science lab equipment. We talked about the technical names of things and their purpose. Ask you kid what they learned because there will be a quiz next week.
Remember Sunday is Grandparent's Day so make sure to call the grandparents and wish them a happy day. I hope you enjoy our slideshow of our favorite things to do with our grandparents. It was a joy to make and put together. Do you enjoy the blog? Add a comment. I changed the options so anyone can add a comment and I will share them with the class. We love to hear how well we are doing. Have a great weekend and next week it is the short i that we will work with.:)