Dashing into December!

Buckle up, it's December and things are about to get B-U-S-Y, busy! Please be sure to check the calendar on the main page of this blog/website for classroom event dates, as well as school happenings. You can also keep up to date on district things via Vikingnet.org . You won't want to miss anything! Here are a few housekeeping items before we get to the really good stuff!

For Christmas, we do not do a classroom gift exchange, but we will be doing a BOOK exchange! Please be on the look out for more information in your child's folder sometime this week. The book exchange will take place on December 22. Your child will need to bring one NEW paperback book (try to spend $5 or less). The book will need to be wrapped ahead of time. No gift bags, please! Half the fun is unwrapping a gift! Mrs. Powell will send home a gift tag for your wrapped book. We will play a game that goes with the exchange, in which anyone could end up with any book, so you may want to choose something that boys or girls would like!

Please be sure to check the classroom party calendar to see if you are on for this month's holiday party! It can be found in the snack section of our classroom website! Please remember to keep snacks as healthy as possible throughout the school year unless it is a birthday or party treat. When we have snack at school, we need foods that keep our minds and bodies fueled for learning, lots of thinking, and keep our energy up in a good way. We go right from Language arts activities to snack, then to math and then P.E./Music/Art (depending on the day). This leads us up to a little more math, then lunch! Sugary foods do not help a room full of first graders stay focused on the learning, or tummies satisfied until lunch! Thank you for understanding!! Speaking of snack, we are completely out of extras. Please be sure to send snack on your child's day, or send extras if you forget. If anyone is able to send in extras to have on hand, that would be awesome! Thank you in advance!

We are accepting change for project Christmas for the rest of the week! The classroom with the most money raised will earn a pizza party, and 2nd-3rd place winners get an extra recess! The 3rd-4th graders will be taking the money raised and shopping at Meijer for gifts and hats, gloves, etc. We also have project Christmas donation boxes for any toy or other gift items! Thank you!

Now....here's what we have been up to!

SeeSaw! The time has finally come for us to be ready to post about our 'BIG LEARNING'! Each student has their own SeeSaw page to post pictures, videos, journals, and drawings to demonstrate something that they have learned each week, or something that they have been working hard to master! Students are encouraged to post extraordinary things - not just routine things from our classroom/schedule. Soon, I will send home a code for you to scan with your phone that will take you directly to your child's SeeSaw page so you can see their learning! You will need to download a QR code reader from your app store. Any QR code reader will do. They are free! No worries, I will also send instructions, and it is so easy! You will love seeing videos from YOUR child every week! In class, students are able to review other kids' posts and comment or hit a 'like' button. It is so fun showing what we know and having an audience to share with! Once you get the instructions for your child's SeeSaw account, feel free to check in often. Here are a few videos that students have created so far. The kids definitely look forward to Genius Hour Fridays!

In science, we joined with Mrs. Quists class for an experiment to see if sound can make objects move. Using a loud speaker, and the Kidz Bop version of Boom, Boom, Pow, we put a glass of water on the speaker to watch the vibrations. We also tested some flat paper, wrinkled up paper, staples, and a pencil on the speaker. Ask your child about their observations. What happened to these objects when the music was playing?

Of course, we had to end the observation with a little dance party, because you simply cannot play Boom, Boom, Pow at the highest volume and expect first graders to not want to get up and DANCE! This week we will record our observations in our science notebooks, and continue our work with light and sound.

We are working on our first procedural (How-To) writing! We are learning and writing about "How to Blow a Bubble"! It was SO MUCH FUN to practice blowing bubbles and really thinking about all of the details to explain how to do this. We took time to do a whole group interactive writing for "How To Blow a Bubble" before students gave it a whirl on their own.

Their details were amazing! We included ordinal words such as: Step 1, Step 2, Step 3...., and really descriptive sentences.

Step 1: You need to buy some gum, and un-wrap it. Then, put it in your mouth.

Step 2: Chew it until it is really soft.

Step 3: Flatten your gum between your tongue and the roof of your mouth.

(Emmy says we should flatten it like a penny!)----great detail and visual!

Step 4: Hold the gum behind your teeth, push your tongue through the middle of it, and blow air out.

Step 5: You can pop your bubble when you are done. It is so much fun!

We will finish writing and art work to go with it, and it will be on display in the hallway this week! Stop in and see it after Wednesday!

We are also getting really good at adding vocabulary words to our interactive reading journals! We love learning new words and then using them in conversations!

We found these words in our story, Once Upon An Ordinary School Day. Check out this story from across the pond! :)

Once the words are placed in the notebooks, students lift the flap and write one or more definitions in their own words to make sense of the new word.