Deck the Halls

Even though our Deck the Halls was delayed because of weather, we had a great time Decking the Halls a day late in first grade! Thanks to Katy, Tyler, and Mason's moms for helping us out.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Santa Windsocks

Our class had lots of fun making Santa windsocks in December.

A Flea on Santa's Tree?

Our class has had fun working on the play, A Flea on Santa's Tree. We planned to perform for our families today but school is canceled. Hopefully school will be in session tomorrow, Thursday December 18th and we will perform at 12:30 on Thursday for our families. For now here is a preview of what we are working on.

Symmetrical Christmas Trees

Last week in math we talked about symmetry. We made symmetrical Christmas trees to help us practice our symmetry understanding. Ask your child how they know if there tree is symmetrical.

Christmas Program

We did a fantastic job on our Christmas music program. Everyone wrote a report about the program. Check out our writing at this link:

http://www.robinsonschools.com/wes/teachers/1/corn/christmas_program_08.htm

A Flea on Santa's Tree?

We hope you can join us for our Christmas play next week. Here are the details.

December Updates

Our December website has been updated with a Christmas message from the class and gingerbread and Christmas program videos. We hope you enjoy them. Click this link to go to our December page: http://www.robinsonschools.com/wes/teachers/1/corn/december_08.htm

Gingerbread Men

Our class is participating in a Gingerbread Man Exchange with about 40 classrooms from around the USA and Australia. Last week we made gingerbread men to represent our hometown and state. If you look closely you can see that the men are holding a Heath candy bar and an Illinois state flag. We also made the shirts to represent the University of Illinois. We are mailing them along with a letter about our school to our new friends and look forward to hearing from lots of other schools and getting their gingerbread men. As we get them we will add them to a bulletin board and map in our classroom.

Thanksgiving Celebration

In November we had a Thanksgiving Celebration. We got to do lots of Thanksgiving art projects. Thanks to our parents and grandparents who helped us out!

Turkey Glyphs

Our turkey glyphs tell a story about our Thanksgiving. They tell what we like to eat and where we will eat. Talk to your child about the story behind their glyph.

Marathon Diversity Project

Marathon employees visited our classroom, talked about diversity, and read the students a book. They then helped them make origami dogs. Before they left each student was excited to receive their own personal copy of the book that was read. Thanks Marathon!

Squanto

We read some books and discussed how Squanto helped the pilgrims. The boys and girls had fun making their own Squanto to hold their writing about Squanto.

Jack-O-Lantern Art

Family Fall

Some family photos from this fall.

J.I.L.G.

We are fortunate to have a group of students from the high school come a couple of times a month to share some activities with us. The J.I.L.G. class, Jobs for Illinois Graduates, prepares and leads all of the activities. Our first graders think the big kids are pretty neat!
BubbleShare: Share photos - Craft Ideas

Jack-O-Lantern Glyphs

Our jack-o-lantern glyphs tell a story. Each part of our glyph tells something about us. You can read what the boys and girls wrote about their glyphs on our October web page. Click on the picture to view the pictures with in a Halloween theme.
http://www.robinsonschools.com/wes/teachers/1/corn/jack_o_lantern_08.htm
BubbleShare: Share photos - Craft Ideas

Fire Safety Dogs

We learned how to be safe in a fire in October. After learned lots of facts we made fire safety dogs and wrote about the rules we had learned.
BubbleShare: Share photos - Craft Ideas

Learning About Columbus

In October we learned lots about Columbus. We made a rebus poem to help us remember some of the facts. Clck the picture below to see more pictures of this activity.
BubbleShare: Share photos - Play some Online Games.

Spelling City List 6

Follow the link to Spelling City. Click on List 6 to practice our words for the week of November 10-14. Click the Spelling City icon. Then click on find a list. You will be asked to search for the list. Just type in Corn and then list 6 and you are all set to practice. You will be a spelling star on Friday!!

Election Day at School

Our students voted on their choice for President today. After voting they received a sticker to show they had voted. The votes are counted as follows:
John McCain--153
Barrack Obama--228
write ins--4
Barrack Obama won at Washington School.

The Pumpkin Patch

On Tuesday we bundled up and headed for the pumpkin patch. We explored everything at the pumpkin patch and then headed back to our classroom for a picnic lunch. We had a great time! Thanks to our super parent helpers for helping us out.

Wild About Nature

The boys and girls had a great time visiting Marathon's nature conservation area. Marathon treated the students to lunch. The students also enjoyed hearing Jesse Walker, weatherman for Channel 2, speak to them. During the day we visited five different stations as we enjoyed a beautiful fall day! Thanks Marathon for treating us to a fun day!! Thanks to super parents and grandparents who spent the day helping us explore the nature area.

Fish in the Bowl

Mrs. Wiseman, our science lady, came to school on Friday to share a fun science experiment with us. The boys and girls drew a fish bowl and then on separate cards drew fish of different colors. They were able to stare at a fish for one minute and then when they quickly looked at the fish bowl saw a fish magically appear in the bowl. They were surprised to see the color of the fish in the bowl was not the same as the one they had been looking at. We can't wait for Mrs. Wiseman to come back again in a few weeks!

O.R.E.O. Project 2008

The boys and girls had a great time participating in the O.R.E.O. project. First, we each got two turns to see how many Oreos we could stack. After stacking the Oreos the boys and girls enjoyed eating Oreos along with a glass of milk. They also used the Oreos they had stacked to make Oreo sculpture. Thanks so much to all of the parents and grandparents who helped us out!!

The Apple Orchard

Kyra wrote a story about her family's trip to an apple orchard.

Wild About Nature Field Trip

On Thursday, October 16th the first grade classes will be taking a field trip to Marathon's Nature Conservation Area. If you would like to accompany us for a day of fun learning about nature please let me know by Monday, October 13th. If you would like to see some pictures of last year's trip to see what we will be doing follow this link:

http://www.robinsonschools.com/wes/teachers/1/corn/Marathon_2007.htm

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Trees

We read the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom in September. Then we used sponges to paint a coconut tree. Everyone chose something that began with the same sound as their name and then used construction paper to make themselves and the thing that begins like their name to place on their own coconut tree. Thanks to Kyra's mom for helping us record our voices on the video.

O.R.E.O. Project 2008

Our class will be participating in Technospud's Online project O.R.E.O. on Thursday, October 9th at 1:50. If you would like to help us out by counting Oreos as we stack them, please let me know before Wednesday evening. It's a lot of fun so we hope some of you can join us! Here is a link to last year's project.

http://www.robinsonschools.com/wes/teachers/1/corn/oreo_07.htm

Jack-O-Lantern Glyphs

We made jack-o-lantern glyphs today. Each part of our project tells something about us. Later this week we will write about our projects.

Thanks to Mrs. Bruce

Kyra's mom helped us record our voices for a video of our Chicka Chicka Boom trees. Everyone had painted a tree and made something at the top which begins with the same sound as their name. Look for the video on our website later this week. Thanks for helping us record, Mrs. Bruce!

Pop! Pop! Pop!

This week's story was All About Corn. We read how corn goes from the field, to the factory, the store, and then home. Like the people in the story we popped some popcorn. The class enjoyed watching it pop and loved eating it!

Apples, Apples, Apples

We learned lots of things about apples. We had fun painting the apple tree through the seasons. Thanks to Katy's mom for helping us paint our hands to make our apple trees. We made colorful apple men to hang in our room also.

Nature Walk

Last week's reading story was Todd's Box. Just like Todd we went on a walk in the park. We collected things to make a nature collage. You can read our writing about the project and see a video of our experience on our website.

http://www.robinsonschools.com/wes/teachers/1/corn/nature_collage_07.htm

All About Ants

Earlier this month our class learned lots of things about ants. We had a story in our reading book about ants and read lots of ant books. At the end of the week we worked on a project to help us remember what we had learned. The class made ants with their fingerprints for the cover. Inside each one built the ant life cycle, labeled the body parts of an ant, and made a booklet of facts they had learned about ants. You can see another video we made of our class reporting facts they learned about ants on our class website:

http://www.robinsonschools.com/wes/teachers/1/corn/august_september_2008.htm

New Playground

Our whole school gathered on our playground this morning to dedicate our new playground equipment. The boys and girls have been so excited to begin playing on the new equipment. Thanks so much to our PTO, parents who helped so much, and everyone in the community who contributed to making this possible.

Geoboards

The class used geoboards to practice shapes today.

The Star Spangled Banner

September 14, 2008 marks the 184th anniversary of the Star Spangled Banner. Mrs. Graham helped the students remember the anniversary of our national anthem by having the whole school join together to sing it before going to class on Friday morning.

Thanks to Katy's Mom!

Our story this week was a nonfiction story about ants. We have learned lots about ants this week. Today we wrote 3 things we learned that ants can do and one thing they can't. Thanks to Katy's mom for coming to tape the boys and girls reading what they wrote.

Sentences In a Bag

This week we read the story Sam and the Bag. It was about a curious cat that wanted to climb into a bag with his cat friends. The boys and girls worked with a partner or two to unscramble some sentences in a bag. They worked great together and used clues such as looking for a capital letter to begin a sentence, a punctuation at the end, and what made sense. I think they are becoming super readers!

Casey Shares Her Max and Jan Story

Casey shared her Max and Jan story with her classmates.

Jalyne's Further Adventures of Max and Jan

The class enjoyed hearing Jalyne's story about Max and Jan.

Kyra's Story

After reading a short booklet to practice the short a sound I challenged the class to write a story about what the characters might do next. Kyra wrote this story all by herself at home last night. The boys and girls enjoyed her sharing it with the class today.

Computer Class

The boys and girls had a great time experimenting with Tux Paint in computer today. It is a free download from the following site if you would like to use it at home also:
http://www.tuxpaint.org/
Casey was our Star of the Day today. In reading we practiced short a words today by highlighting them in sentences on the SMART Board and then choosing a picture that went with each sentence. We read a silly story about a mixup with a ham and a hat together. Ask your child to tell you about it. In math we graphed how we come to school and discovered that most of our students ride the bus each morning.

Art Day

Mia said,"We drew pictures in art."
Weston said, "We ran around the gym in pe."
Matthew said, "We read two chapters of Junie B. Jones Boss of Lunch."
Casey said, "We learned about squares and circles in math."
We made a glyph all about us. Katy said, "We made our faces."
Kyra said, "We talked about the letter I in phonics today."
Jalyne said, "We played catch in pe."
Andrew said, "We went outside for recess."
Mason said, "Casey and I played outside at recess together."

We've Spotted Some New First Graders