Weekly Update, November 28 - December 2

Hello Awesome First Graders and Amazing First Grade Families!

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing Thanksgiving break! Parents - I hope you enjoyed your child's Thanksgiving decorations!

This week and for the rest of December, we will study holidays for social studies, guided reading and writing. This week we began a unit on Kwanzaa and Hanukkah. Today we learned about the celebrations, traditions, and symbols of Kwanzaa. The children wrote about their favorite family holiday tradition. Tomorrow we will learn about a special Kwanzaa symbol, the mkeka (a placemat) and the children will write Kwanzaa facts and create their own mkekas. On Wednesday we will learn about how some holidays share similar symbols and transition to our Hanukkah study. The children will create a menorah. On Thursday and Friday, we will learn about the history and symbols of Hanukkah and the children will write a Hanukkah fact on each of the candles of the menorah.

In reading we are learning about different holiday traditions. We reviewed the words compare and contrast and we are comparing and contrasting different holiday celebrations.

The children enjoyed our holiday centers today! The centers for the week include:
1. Listening - The children listened to "The Magic Dreidels," and they wrote about their favorite part of the story. After they wrote they created their own dreidel.
2. Science - The children enjoyed making their own butter last week and this week they got to do even more! The children followed a recipe to make their own potato latkes! The children measured, mixed and shaped the pancakes and the parent helper cooked it so they could try it.
3. Writing - The children practiced writing an acrostic poem with the word Hanukkah. This was a challenging activity and the kids did a great job!
4. Math - The children practiced counting by 10s into the hundreds in the shape of a dreidel.  The children followed directions to play a dreidel counting game. This was a lot of fun for the kids!
5. Reading - The children read in small groups with me. We focused on sequencing and retelling with detail. 

The children came home with Rainbow Words and they are due tomorrow.  There are some challenging holiday words this week!  Kids - be sure to tell your parents about high-medium-low and grapevine.  Practice these at home; they will really help you!  In making words we are working on spelling words with the long i (as in both ride and high).

We created a gingerbread glyph in math today. We collected data in a new way today; we worked collaboratively as a whole class to collect our data and record it in the form of a bar graph. This was a challenging activity and the kids did well!

We are working in chapter 10 in math. This is a very challenging chapter focused on greater than, less than and equals. The children are working with their greater than and less than signs with pipe cleaners and practiced comparing numbers with their pipe cleaners.

There is a fun activity planned for computers on Friday. If you’d like to see what we’ll do, check back on Friday for the blog post called “Computers, 12/2.”

Have an A+ week!
Mrs. Johnston

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! The kids had so much fun today! THANK YOU so much to all the parents who donated their time and supplies to help make our day special for the kids. The kids and I appreciate you!

This morning we heard a great story called, "The Night Before Thanksgiving," and then it was time to get our Thanksgiving Party Centers started! The Thanksgiving centers were:
1. I Am Thankful Turkey - The kids colored and cut a turkey body. They took colored paper feathers and wrote different things they were thankful for this Thanksgiving.
2. Potato Turkey - The kids colored and cut a turkey head, wings and tail feathers. I helped them attach the pieces to toothpicks and stick the toothpicks in the potato to make a darling turkey decoration.
3. Tabletop Turkey - The kids measured rice to fill a plastic bag. They put the plastic bag in a paper bag and used pieces of the paper bag and other papers to make a head, wings, a tail feather, and legs for the turkey. They finished their turkeys with a recipe to use with your leftover turkey!
4. Butter Making - The kids made their own butter using just heavy cream and arm strength! The kids were amazed that butter could be made by simply shaking a jar of cream! They topped cornbread muffins with butter and honey.

After lunch the kids used Greedy The Greater Gator to compare turkeys, counted Pilgrims and Indians with the book "One Little, Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims" and made a movable scarecrow.

The kids had a great day!

Enjoy your time off and have a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends! I am cooking my first Thanksgiving dinner; I anticipate that it will be quite an adventure!

Happy Thanksgiving!
Mrs. Johnston