Update on Valentine's Day

 Our administration provided a lovely spread for Valentine's Day fun for the teaches and staff.  It was amazing!  Hit the spot on a sweet heart of a day!  Thanks Dr. L and Becky for making us feel so special.

 What better way to celebrate Valentines' Day with our Clutter friends than a dance party and @gonoodle!  

 Thanks Ms. Amy for the laser light show because it was the best ever!

My class friends and parents are truly amazing!! Thank you so much for all the love and yummy treats.  I feel so loved and appreciated!  You guys are the best!

#mtgr1

Twitter is such an amazing place.  You get up to the minute information and can find someone for just about anything.  Our class is connected to so many other teachers and other first grade classrooms across the USA.  Each week a teacher posts a picture and we find the math.  #mtgr1 stands for math talk grade 1.  Check us out looking for math relationships.  We made videos and drew on the picture to show what we saw and then posted our thoughts to a padlet.  I posted that to Twitter for other classes to see.  The world is wide open and we are making our mark.  Check us out: http://padlet.com/WrightsRippers/kc5ihvjclzwk

YES! look at that face.  Doesn't it make you want to try Twitter and #mtgr1?

Chinese New Year

Year of the Goat

I wanted the class to see a real Dragon Dance competition to notice the music, drums, Chinese writing, the skill, the entire experience...

 My mom talked about her favorite memories of Chinese New Year and the anticipation of new clothes and red envelopes.

 We used the video to help with drawings because we working on paper lanterns.

 Thank goodness Ms. Kathleen was there to make our drawings into lanterns.

 We learned how to count to 10 and even write the numbers.

 We painted some math problems.

 At the end of the day we shared some of the things we learned on a padlet.  

It was such an exciting day filled with music, learning, and creativity.  Want to check out the padlet click here: http://padlet.com/WrightsRippers/czmcdpxs1886

Measurement Introduction

Recognizing when an object is longer, shorter, or taller than another object.  What better way than to take photos on the iPad and compare lengths.  I gave the friends a popsicle stick and sent them on their way.  The language they used was incredible and the objects they used were varied.  It promoted so much conversation and an anchor chart of words to use when describing objects.  Great job!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Yesterday was so much fun with the firsties.  We used the iPad cameras and the app Camera 360 to create some cool comic looking pictures.  Put that together with some narration and we have Someone I love… Too cute for words!

Happy 100 days smarter...

Friday was the 100th day of school and it was a day to remember.  Why do we celebrate the 100th day you might ask? We count down each day and celebrate every 10th because 10 and all the other decades are so important to greater number sense.  We worked our way up to 100 and built some incredible memories along the way.  10 friends, partners, 50s day, 80s day, and then 100th day.  We created with 100 toothpicks & 100 marshmallows, talked about our bucket list, danced to 100, sang to 100, created with 100 pattern blocks, stacked 100 cups, did a variety of things for 100 seconds.  Of course a highlight is the 100 piece trail mix. We even dressed up like we were 100 years old.  I can't help it my highlight is looking at all the the cutie centurions. The parents went all out and they sure are cute so make sure to watch the video.

Do you dream?

Do you dream?  I recently celebrated 21 years teaching and yes I do dream.  I dream about creating fun, engaging, interactive lessons where my students learn and still wonder about 50 other things so I can get going with those lessons.  I dream of my own children learning, growing, and becoming adults with a career that suits their passion.  Every year I get a new group and we talk about our dreams of careers to come and they never cease to amaze me.  We dressed the part, took pictures, and wrote about why we wanted to be those people when we grew up.  They are too cute for words so watch our video...

Firsties are so honest...I have a dream that one day I will be an ice cream worker at Disney World. So I can have some too. And I can go on rides. ~Jessie