It was a busy December in Grade One!

Do you want to build a snowman?

We combined our money unit and a little art to create some snowmen. First, the students went to the Snowman Store and purchased the decorating details for their snowman. They had 10 cents to spend and needed to add and subtract in order to make sure they could buy what they wanted.  Once the "buying" was complete, they recorded their thinking and built their snowman.  Fun!

In Science, we did an experiment testing out the ways we could use energy to save "Santa" - a toy frozen in ice.  Most of us thought using our own heat energy would work at school.  

We read several different versions of the "Gingerbread Man" and compared the characters, setting, problem and solution in each.  The students loved reading along and saying the "catch me if you can" phrases that changed slightly depending on the character. 

We sequenced the order of events and re-told the story to some of our kindergarten friends across the hall. 

And what is a study of Gingerbread stories without a little cookie decorating? Mrs. Fehrman joined us too!

Jacob thinks his smells yummy!!!

Mrs. Fehrman asked the girls for help putting the candy on in a pattern. 

We love visits from Mrs. Fehrman!

Can I just point out how cute we are in our pjs? 

Thanks for checking out just a little of what we did in December.  

I hope you all have a restful break.  

Merry Christmas and see you in the New Year!

Kids Teaching Kids

A and T showing the class how to trade coins for a dime AND using the document camera like pros!

A Lifetime Of Christmas Cards

Today we talked about a little 6 year old girl named Addie who is very sick. She loves cards...especially homemade.

Our class decided that they would like to join in and make cards. 

One small act...that will make a huge difference. 

Here is her story:

Addie's Story 6-year-old-girl-asks-holiday-cards


Stay tuned for pictures and updates. 

And they are off...sending our cards and our love! 

Here it is...

Our video- Grade Ones Respond To Bullying.  

http://youtu.be/lrVIaFJMGW4

Thank you to our talented student teacher, Miss Cosgrove for putting it all together.  

Hairy Money- Oh My!

In order to help students understand the value of different coins we use "Hairy Money".  We assign one strand of hair to represent a group of 5 in each coin. The more groups of 5 in a coin, the more hair.  For example, the nickel has one strand of hair (one group of 5) and the dime has 2 strands of hair (two groups of 5).  

Today we played a game that we like to call, Hairy Money Relay. Students worked in a small group and one at a time identified a coin and recorded how much hair (or the value) that coin has on the whiteboard.  The next person would get the marker and identify and record a different coin. Once everyone has had a turn, the game is over.  The team that finishes first and has all the correct amount of hair wins. 

We are a class that loves learning and playing!

Procedural Writing

We are learning all about Procedural Writing.  Procedural Writing (also called How To writing) involves writing simple and clear steps to follow in order to do something.  

Some of the topics we like to write about are:

How To Play Soccer

How To Brush Your Teeth

How To Make A Rainbow Loom Bracelet

How To Plant A Garden

Here are a couple of samples of our work: