Today during social skills we learned about Body Snatcher. Body Snatcher is an unthinkable who snatches your body away from the group. For example, when he strikes, you may tempted to fidget with your shoelaces, something you found on the floor, etc. Body Snatcher also causes us to get up and go before all of the directions have been given. Today we talked about these things and how we can defeat Body Snatcher with our SuperFlex strategies. See the poster to the right for our strategies.

In math we have been talking about attributes such as size, shape, and color.  We learned how to play a game called, The Attribute Train Game. Groups of 3 or 4 had to work together on the SMARTboard to add a block to the train but they could only change one attribute from the previous block. This really made the groups think and problem solve together. It was fun to watch the wheels turn.

Have a great weekend everyone!!!!

Rainbow Drawers

Did you know that we do Rainbow Drawers? They are fun because we learn from them. We learn how to spell new words. One of the drawers has smelly pencils. One drawer has popsicle sticks in it. We build our words with the popsicle sticks (see Dylan's picture above).The playdough is fun. It is mushy and it's fun to make words out of. We really like Rainbow Drawers.

This blog post was written by the first graders using a Step Up to Writing stoplight plan. Green=topic sentence, yellow=details, red=elaborations

A Bowling we will go

On Tuesday of this week, we walked to Woods Lanes for a few games of bowling. This was one of our culminating activites for our balls and ramps unit. We've learned a lot over the past few weeks about force, energy, friction, momentum, inclined planes, the characteristics of balls, and gravity. This was an opportunity for us to use some of what we learned in a real life and fun scenario.

Indoor Recess

Cold, cold go away- we had indoor recess AGAIN today!

This is what we think of indoor recess....

Luke says, " I love to use the Playdough at indoor recess."

Paige says, "It's really fun!"

Myckenna says, "I think indoor recess is awesome."

Emily says, "Me, Paige and Brooklyn used the writing area."

Sam said, "I like writing!"

Brooklyn said, " It is very, very, very, very fun!"

Tiffany said, "We had lots of fun during inside recess."

Evan said, "I like playing with the Playdough."

Miguel said, "Indoor recess is cool just like recess."

Angel said, "Inside recess is fun."



Packer Day!

In the spirit of a Packer Victory, here are a few pics from our Packer Day on Friday. Go, Pack, Go!!!!



Evan and Lukas with their Cheeseheads

 

Paige and Barbara making their Cheesehead hats



Enjoying a Packer donut for snack



Mason playing Packer Jersey Bingo



Angel making her Super Bowl prediction- Go Pack!!



Packer Bingo



Hip, Hip, Hooray! It's the 100th day!!

WoW! What an exciting day of fun and learning! We celebrated our 100th day of school today!!! We started our day by writing about what we would do if I gave them each a crisp, new $100 bill? We had lots of creative ideas but the intersting thing was that almost everyone said that they would save their money in order to do something bigger and better. After they wrote their ideas, they each got a $100 bill... see the pics for their great work!

Slideshow design created with Smilebox

Next we talked about what we might look like in 100 years and did a project to show ourselves. These turned out absolutely precious and will be up for you to enjoy at conference time.

Personalize your own digital slideshow

In the afternoon we had a 100th day scavenger hunt. I hid 100 Hershey kisses around the room and as the kiddos found them they needed to find the number on the bottom of their kiss and flip the corresponding number on the smartboard 100 grid. We had lots of fun with this one and I learned that I need to find better hiding spots next year!

Last, we ate our 100th day snack, and played a game called race to $100 in which the kids practiced their money identification and nickel exchanges.

Groudhog Day 2011

 We have been reading and researching about Groundhogs this week. Yesterday we created a graph predicting whether or not we thought the groundhog would see his shadow. We also brainstormed a list of teachers in the building that we wanted to survey. The kids set out in teams of 2 or 3 to collect the data and then came back to complete our graph. We even had Dr. Lightner come over and give us his prediction. Overwhelmingly, the vote was that the groundhog would not see his shadow which would mean that we would have an early spring. If you look below to the left, you will see Punxsatawney Phil's prediction. Jimmy the Groundhog's prediction was the same. There's also a special message from Jimmy below. What do you think of the results? Let us know in the comment section below.

Today, we used Google Earth to locate Punxsatwney Phil's home in Pennsylvania and Jimmy's home in Sun Prarie, WI (did you know that we had a famous groundhog right here in WI?). We also went onto both groundhog's websites to find out how their predictions turned out. If you'd like to check out Punxsatawney Phil's website, click here.

It was a battle of the groundhog's today- PA vs. WI just like the big game on Sunday!!

Stay tuned for more information about groundhogs in the next couple of days as we will be recording some interesting facts as well.

Happy Groundhog Day!!!!!