100th day of school

Hello Everyone!
Can you believe it?  We just celebrated the 100th day of our 2011-2012 school year!!  On this day every year I am reminded of all the things I want to do with my VIKs still.  Better get moving!!!
But first lets take time out to truly celebrate this milestone in the year.  Kids were greeted in the morning by a reminder that they were 100 day smarter. You should have seen their eyes as they went through the door! :)
We enjoyed making some 100 day glasses with out third grade book buddies. Cute!! Cute!!
After many other fun classroom activities, it was finally time for our annual schoolwide balloon launch.  Each kiddo at our school is given a balloon with each grade level disignated a certain color of the rainbow! The balloons have tag with our school info.   We all meet outside and as we countdown to 0, we release a beautiful display of color!  This year the temps were chilly and the wind was strong.  We could tell the balloons were going to go far!
After a week, we have already had balloons found in Arkansas and Missouri!  Can't wait to see if anyone finds any of our wonderful orange balloons!!  Happy 100th day everyone!

Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek into our wonder-filled world!! Check back again soon!
Joyfully,
Nancy

Thank You Dairy Queen!

Hello Everyone!
I wanted to officially thank our friends over at the new Dairy Queen here in town for a wonderful field experience.   Our entire first grade (125 kids) got to tour the store, learn how to make waffle cones, and how the ice cream is made. We got to have a little treat and get a hug from the sweet mascot!!!  All the employees were incredibly generous, caring, and flexible!!  The kids (and teachers) had a fantastic time!!!
When we got back to school we made a giant thank you card!  Thanks again, Dairy Queen!!

Stop by again soon!  We have a tone of stuff to share!!!
Joyfully!
Nancy

Groundhog Day 2012

Hello Everyone!!
Welcome to Groundhog Day 2012!  Yes, it is a big deal for first graders!!  We began thinking and predicting yesterday with high expectations for today. We created some cute little groundhogs and arranged them according to our predictions. Some of the other first grade classes joined us!!

 Some kids even got up early to watch the news about Punxatawney Phil and whether or not he saw his shadow! Here are some of my favorite things from the day!
Our classtime this morning started with our "Think outside the box" Thursday creative expression warm up.  I am so amazed at the creativity in so many of my kids.  They pride themselves in thinking of something that no one else will think of. I am also amazed that non of the kids thought of doing a groundhog!!  :)  Enjoy these pics.

 We read several fun books about Groundhogs, both fiction and non fiction.  Did you know that a woodchuck is another name for a groundhog?  :)
Of course snack time called for something appropriate...Heads and Tails Oreos!  What a treat!

We have been working on alliteration, so of course we had to work on the tongue twister about the woodchuck!!  Have your kids recite it for you!!  So fun!

Science brought discussions of shadows and sunlight, seasons, and the earth's rotation.  Then of course we had to go out and test the shadows ideas!!!  We used a cutout of a cute little groundhog to see what caused the shadows.

Hope you all had a great day!  Can't wait for the 100th day of school tomorrow!!!
Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek into our wonder-filled first grade world!!
Joyfully!
Nancy

Sci Fri- Oil and Water

Hello Everyone,
Friday brought another opportunity to do a quick, inexpensive and fun science observation.  It seems like we've been doing a lot with water, so I thought I'd bring another element into the mix, literally! I wanted to see if the kids could observe and maybe explain what they were seeing if we tried to mix water and oil.  I gave each table group a clear bottle.  One kiddo from each group added about two table spoons of plain water to the bottle.  We then added a drop of food coloring. Each group wanted a different color. The water in each bottle turned a beautiful color and made the water more visible. The kids though this would be the end of the experiment!  But not yet!  We then added about 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil.  The kids were amazed that the oil sat on top of the water!  Next?  Shake, shake, shake!!  The kids had fun shaking the bottle, and again were amazed that the two liquids stayed mixed for such a short time.  After a few minutes we started seeing the separation again!  We talked a lot about the density of the two liquids, how water was heavier than oil, and how the particles in each wanted to stay together instead of mixing. Very simple and I think clear observation of science at work! 

Just plain Water

Adding food coloring

Adding vegetable oil. 
Can you see the layers?

Shake!

Shake!

Shake!

It doesn't stay mixed for long!

Can you see the separation??

Writing observations in our Science Journal

Colorful Science!


Thanks for stopping by to take a peek into our wonder-filled world!!  First graders are the best!!
Stop by again soon!
Have a joyful tomorrow!
Nancy

  

Sneaky E Has Struck Again!!

Hello Everyone!! Well, it's happened again! Sneaky E has struck our classroom!  That sneaky letter has been busy all day pinching short vowels and making them shout their names!  I have never seen such a comotion!!  :)
We started our day with a story about Sneaky E  and making some cute little puppets, complete with masks and mustaches! Original idea came from Ms. Gable's 2nd  Grade blog! Thanks, Ms. Gable! The kids did a great job practicing their favorite CVCe (consonant, vowel, consonant, e) words all over the puppet! We worked on several activities where Sneaky E was very helpful in changing short vowel words to long vowel words. Great Job, Sneaky!! 
Then, on the spur of the moment, we decided to break up into groups, and put on some little mini skits showing what Sneaky E does to unsuspecting short vowel words!!  Each group decided on the word, who would do each part and how they would show the process. We ended up filming all of the skits! We plan on showing the skits to the other first grade classes!!  I will try to upload them here as soon as I can figure it out! :)
Enjoy the pics for now!

I love our Sneaky E mustaches!!!  Thanks for a great day, VIK'S!!! 

Thanks for taking a peek into our wonder-filled day!!
Stop by again!
Joyfully!
Nancy

Mathemeticians

Hello Everyone!
Just had to post one more quick thing tonight.  Here's a pic of our anchor chart for "Mathemeticians..." We have been working so very hard on so many math concepts, and the kids are getting very good at problem solving and seeing past just the addition and subtraction fact memorization that, for some, is a huge part of first grade math.  We spend a lot of time talking about math and explaining how we got our answers.  For so many of my kids, solving tricky problems and finding the patterns in math is their favorite thing to do!!!  I love it when I see kids working on math at home and knowing answers to questions they know I'm going to ask the next day.  As in many first grade classrooms, we have a "number of the day."  It coincides with how many days we have been in school.The kids know that every day they are going to have to show me as many different ways as they can to get that number. That is easy to prepare for the night before!!  We just had our 90th day of school. Take it from there, kids!!!

Looking forward to a great week!!

Joyfully!

Nancy

A My Name is Alice

Hello Everyone! First of all, thanks for your patience as I am just learning how to blog and share.  I think I'm on the right track, but if you have any suggestions, please don't hesitate to holler at me! :)

 Just a quick post about alliteration.  We enjoyed that wonderful classic book "A, My Name is Alice" by Jane Bayer and illustrated by one of my favs, Steven Kellogg. We did some quick brainstorming about how we could make that important literacy connection by putting our name in the pattern and style of the author. Alliteration was an objective I needed to cover this week and this fit the bill!!!  Each kiddo had to come up with something he/she loved that began with the same letter as his/her first name.  They created a quick self portrait and an alliterative sentence to go with it!  The kids loved having fun with words like this and we cemented the concept of alliteration!!   I always love how the kids pics turn out to look like them!!! :) enjoy!
See you soon!
Joyfully!
Nancy