Polar Express Day!

Tuesday, the elementary arrived in pajamas, with pillows and blankets, ready to experience the Polar Express.  The movie was shown on the "big screen" while kids snuggled with their blankets and a warm cup of hot chocolate. 

Thanks to our guest readers, Mrs. King and Mrs. Kibirus who shared a couple of their favorite Christmas stories with the group. 

Gingerbread Day

Today was "Gingerbread Day".  The K-2 kids assembled a gingerbread house and ornament to take home.  They also enjoyed a Gingerbread Movie, stories, and gingerbread cookies.

New Books for 1st grade!

After a very successful Book Fair, the PTO donated books to our classroom to read! 

Thank You PTO/Impact!!

Santa Claus!

Each child made their own life size Santa, and wrote their own story called, "Santa's Busy Day"

Awesome Christmas Concert!

The kids looked fantastic and felt so special all dressed up!  When they got on stage they really sang their songs.  They had so much fun with the actions too!  Thank you Mrs. Hagedorn and kids for a great musical night!

The kids always ask if they can do a "silly" photo too - so that is why we have the 2nd photo :)

AR Books

Today, the class reached 400 AR tests!!  Paul was our 400th AR test taker today.  Our next Celebration will come when we reach 500 books.  Will that be before Christmas??

Friday, December 3

"I Love Math" is a common sound in our room this week!  We have been talking a lot about geometry, flat shapes, space shapes, open & closed figures, congruent shapes, and connecting shapes!  Who wouldn't love playing with shapes and making some great discoveries!!  We have really learned some big words this week!  The kids keep saying that sounds like another word to add to the "word collector"!  We have used flat shapes: square, rectangle, circle, triangle, pentagon, hexagon, rhombus, and parallelogram.  We have counted the sides and corners (vertices).  We have used space shapes: sphere, cone, cube, cylinder, rectangular prism. With these we counted faces, curves, and corners.  Then we found shapes that were an exact match: same size and same shape (congruent).  Today, it was fun to put it all together, and connect the shapes to make a picture - we had some awesome creations!!  I wish I would have remembered to bring my camera today to take a picture!

There is a section on IXL.com on geometry.  The kids should be able to do some of that :)

Gladbrook and Reinbeck 1st Graders together for Thanksgiving

Today we went to Reinbeck for an assembly  to go along with our theme, WE ALL FIT IN.  We learned a a lot about a word, "tolerance", and sang a song. 

We enjoyed watching Reinbeck 1st graders share their Thanksgiving Play.  Great scenery and props. 

Then Gladbrook 1st Graders shared their reading of "Pilgrim, Pilgrim, What Do You See?"

Thanks to Carly's Grandma, for being a great story-teller, and sharing things she has learned about the first Thanksgiving.

It was fun to eat lunch with our Reinbeck friends.

Thanks for a GReat day!  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Thanksgiving Fun!

The Pilgrims and Indians could not go to the store to buy the food they needed for their Thanksgiving feast, they had to grow it and make it.  One of the activities we did this afternoon was to turn cream into butter.  We talked about how the Pilgrims used a butter churn.  We pretended with a jar of heavy whipping cream.  The kids took turns shaking it, and it magically changed from a liquid to a solid and we had butter!  The kids sampled their butter at a small feast of butter and crackers.

Thanksgiving Feast

We have been studying the first Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims and Indians.  Today, our cooks fixed a Thanksgiving feast for hot lunch!  The elementary decided to make placemats and "set" their table for the dinner today.  The K-2 students mixed together, like the Pilgrims and Indians did at their feast.  It was fun to sit with new friends and share things that we are thankful for.  Thank You Cooks for the wonderful feast!

Happy Veteran's Day

Today we made "Lincoln Pendants" to honor those in the military who keep us safe.

November 10 - Our Ice Cream Sundae Party

Today we celebrated with our ICE CREAM SUNDAE PARTY!  We earned this after passing 300 AR tests.  Some of the favorite toppings chosen were gummy bears and worms, a variety of sprinkles, chocolate sauce, and chocoate chips.  Everyone enjoyed making their own "creation" ( a new word on our word collector ).  Our next reward will happen at 500 points - keep up the GReat reading!

Ice Cream Sundae Party!

Congratulations
Gladbrook
First Graders!

You have successfully
passed 300 AR Tests!!

We will celebrate on
Wednesday, November 10, with an
ICE CREAM SUNDAE PARTY

Mrs. Luethje will supply
the ice cream and all the toppings!
Each child will make their own
delicious creation.

Friday, November 5

Wow, have we been reading!!!   This afternoon the kids passed 300 AR tests!!  We have completed 302 AR Tests as independant readers with 96.5% correct!!  On Monday we will discuss how we would like to CELEBRATE this accomplishment! 

Right now I am having the kids work a lot on fluency and expression.  When we have our reader of the day we talk about fluency and expression.  Do the words flow together at a rate we understand.  Make sure you have practiced your book many times so you can make the words flow with expression to keep your audience interested.

Through the Daily 5 and CAFE Menu we have introduced 2 reading strategies:  Check for Understanding and Cross-Checking.  These strategies are being modeled and practiced through Guided Reading Books, AR Books, and the Daily 5. 

Happy Halloween

What a week!  Conferences, Volleyball, Football, Halloween, and we can't forget the wind!!  After reading our TIME for KIDS magazine, we got the idea that we could carve our pumpkin and roast the seeds.  The kids each got a handful of seeds out of the pumpkin, then they were washed, and finally we brainstormed ideas about how to count them.  We quickly learned that counting them one at a time would take forever and we could probably lose track of where we were at.  Then someone suggested to skip count by 2.  Well, once again we found that it would take a long time.  Finally, a student suggested that we skip count by 10.  So, each child took turns counting out 10 seeds and placing them on an index card.  Then those could be placed with 10 in a row, to make 100.   The class was able to quickly count using our plan, and we found that we had 513 seeds to roast.  Then we worked together to decide how to carve our Jack-O-lantern.

First graders costumes for the Halloween Parade!

Friday, October 15

Thursday we had a fun time celebrating with Mrs. Creswell!  She is running a marathon on Sunday.  She has been training hard, and all the money she raises will go towards building a school in Africa.  We decorated her room with balloons, streamers, banners, and we all wore buttons.  In the afternoon we had her run through a "tunnel" of elem. kids waving streamers and cheering her on.  We wish her the best of luck, and enjoy your day, you deserve it.

Friday, the NICL Conference teachers met in Cedar Falls for a day of technology.  We heard a speaker in the morning about how fast things are changing as far as technology, and what we as teachers need to think about with our students to keep up the pace.  In the afternoon I attended a session about how to use laptops in the classroom, and a session about using a mimeo board.  Both were interesting.  Now we will have to see what new things we can "unlock" in technology in our classrooms at GR!

Friday, October 8

What a wonderful fall week of school.  This is our review week in language arts.  There was lots of review, practice, and testing that I will share with you at conferences.  There will not be as many daily papers in your child's folder this week.  In math we spent a lot of time with subtraction story problems and looking for the key words.  Next week, I will start subtraction rocket math, along with the addition.  Wednesday was an early out for inservice, the elementary teachers discussed reading strategies.  Thursday we had a wonderful afternoon with the fire fighters.  Each child got to practice with the fire extinguisher.  They also shared all the gear and what it would be like if they came into your home to rescue you from a fire. Then the first grade room was filled with smoke.  The kids learned that the smoke would rise and they needed to stay low.  Then the fire fighters helped the 1st graders out the EXIT window to safety.  Mr. Ciddio shared his dalmatian fire dog, Gracey!  This week we also got to celebrate with an ice cream treat for saving the most box tops in September.  Keep saving for October!! 

Friday, Oct. 1

Our day started with a Homecoming Assembly.  Thank you High School Cheerleaders and Football Captains!  I took a picture of the Gladbrook Elementary with the Cheerleaders and Football Players showing our REBEL Spirit.  I'm getting an error when I try to add the picture of us.  I will keep working on it.  Hopefully, I can share the picture with you soon!

Congratulations 1st graders!  We celebrated our first AR goal of passing 100 tests!  We all enjoyed a picnic lunch in the room watching cartoons.  Keep reading!!  Our next goal to celebrate will be when we reach 300 AR Books.

Friday, Sept. 24

Time to Celebrate!!  The first graders have completed 100 AR tests so far!!  Wow!  I'm so proud of their reading in such a short time!

We will celebrate by having a "picnic" lunch in the room on Friday, October 1.  Mrs. Luethje will supply the dessert.  Bring your own sack lunch and a drink ( pop, juice, milk, water)

Congratulations 1st graders!  Lets go for another 100 books in October.

Friday, Sept. 17

What a beautiful fall day!  When I ask kids what they love about 1st grade - the first 3 things they say is "Rocket Math", "Daily 5",  and "AR".  They have made so much progress in their reading and math already, it is fun to see their excitement!

This week we talked a lot about what makes up a good telling sentence. We also talked about how to read, write, and solve addition sentences.

Friday, Sept. 10

We welcomed a new student this week - Damien!  Now we have 6 boys and 4 girls.  Daily 5 is going well, we have now completed 3 - Read to Self, Work on Writing, and Read to Someone.  AR is up and running with no problems!  Our class has already passed 39 AR books.  The start of Rocket Math has been a hit this week.  It is a timed test working on adding basic facts.  They start at level A and work through level Z.  The PTO Fundraiser is underway, the kids are excited to sell and earn prizes.  Today we dressed in our favorite team colors in honor of so many great football games this weekend.  Have a safe weekend and keep reading :)

Friday, Sept. 3

Wow, where does the time go?  We have already had 13 days of school!  Tonight is the Rebel's first home football game of the season, and it finally feels like football weather!  We had a minor "flood" when some of the water from Rebel and Jackrabbit's fish tank bubbled over.  It took a day to dry out the carpet.  Don't worry, Jackrabbit and Rebel are doing fine :)  This class loves books and reading, they can't wait to share a book with the class!  It's exciting to see them growing in their confidence to read in just 13 days!  In Math we have been working on building groups of 9, 10, 11, 12,  recognizing the word names, and forming the numbers correctly.  We are wrapping up talking about our families with a discussion of how each student can give a "helping hand" at home.  Remember no school on Monday.  See you Tuesday.  Go Rebels!!

First Full Week of School

"We All Fit In" and have had a wonderful first week of school.  Daily 5, STAR testing, AR, Guided Reading, and Library  are keeping us all busy with books and loving every minute of it.  It is fun to see our spelling words and Word Wall words "fit" into sentences with a capital letter and period.  In math we have been exploring numbers and patterns.  In social studies we have enjoyed talking about our families, what we do together, and how we can help each other at home.  It was fun to meet "Jackrabbit and Rebel's" family!  Today we had a surprise visit as I introduced my family to the class.   It has been a GReat week in 1st grade!

Welcome

Welcome to the 2010 - 2011 School year!  Classes begin Wednesday, August 18th.  Our theme this year is WE ALL FIT IN!  I am looking forward to an exciting year in first grade!