Autumn Traditions

The students have been exploring seasonal changes and writing about their favorite things about fall. A definite theme evolved in that 1st graders love to observe, pile up, and jump in the leaves. They like carving pumpkins, collecting Halloween candy, and watching for squirrels as they collect nuts. Now, we are sharing our Thanksgiving traditions in our writing and preparing for our Literature Feast. Looking at the stories the students are reading, I think it is going to be delicious. Also, we are having a fantastic time reading fairy tales. The fractured versions get us laughing out loud. Ask the students about the big bad wolf and the house of flowers. See if they can keep a straight face when they tell you about his attitude adjustment. What is your favorite fairy tale? Have you ever wondered what happened after the "happily ever after"? How would the story be different if the main characters traded places or were different? The imagination just never stops if you think about it.

Pumpkin Exploration

Friday was pumpkin exploration and it was fantastic. We compared, sorted, sequenced, weighed, measured, and tasted pumpkins. Well, we tasted pumpkin seeds and pumpkin bread. It was Crazy Hat and Hair Day, too. Boy, we looked silly, but we had fun. What was your favorite pumpkin exploration activity?

Fall Festival Sightings

Did you see the Green Queen or Raggedy Anne and Andy at the Fall Festival? That was Mrs. Marx and Mr. Andy with his girlfriend, Anne. I am happy to say that 13 students from our class attended the Fall Festival. It is always a great time. I get to see current students and students from the past. I enjoy talking to parents and seeing everyone having a good time. This year my daughter, Amber, brought a friend with her and showed off the Frog Bog. In addition, this year was memorable because I won 2 prizes in the basket raffles. The only disappointment was that when I passed by the recycle bins, I saw styrofoam and food instead of recyclable items and in the trash can I saw recyclable bottles and cans and Capri Sun pouches. It made me think about how much further we have to go to educate our community about conservation. Do you think we can have everyone recycling by next Fall Festival?

Diligence

We are studying the 1st grade biographies and we have found a characteristic that is common among all of the famous Americans we have studied. What is that characteristic you may ask? Well, it is quite coincidental that it is the characteristic of the month that Mrs. Lehman is teaching...diligence. Ben Franklin, Betsy Ross, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Christopher Columbus are all known for sticking with whatever it was that they were focused on be it a sail across the Atlantic, freedom for all, the study of the elements, or a job well done. We still have George Washington Carver, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King to discuss. Do you think we will find that they are diligent, too?

Farm Days at the Farmers' Market

What a wonderful day we had at the Farmers' Market. The weather was perfect, the livestock interesting, and the sponsors knowledgable. The children had a fantastic time. They couldn't decide on a "favorite" they had so much fun, but some of their favorites were the hayride and pumpkin patch, the magic show, and the animals. What was one thing you learned on our field trip?

What a Great Start

We have had a great start to the year. We were amazed by comparisons with long ago and today and the possibilities of the future. "Being a Scientist" was exciting and we discovered that we use our "scientist" skills in other areas like reading and math. We are almost always observing, comparing, sequencing, predicting, measuring, inferring, and communicating in one way or another. Now, we are learning all about important people in history who have done spectacular things. We are using a timeline to follow them through history in sequence of their birth. I wonder if one of you will one day be displayed on a timeline for some outstanding accomplishment you have made.

It's August!

Who would have known that the summer would fly by so quickly? In July, I went to Key West with my family. It was fun. I tried conch fritters and sampled their key lime pie (Mrs. Jones' pie is just as good.) Eventhough it is an tropical island, there weren't alot of beaches like we are familiar with here. They are mostly shallow far out in the water and rocky and covered with seaweed. It was interesting. They have recycle bins almost everywhere that they have trash cans on the street.
I have also done a bit of yard work at my house including helping my husband take down a dead tree so that we can prepare the soil for a new tree next spring. In the process, we accidently knocked the birds out of a nearby tree. I put the babies back in the nest and the mama joined them later after closely observing the rest of our work. From a distance, I watched her feed them later. We also saw a black widow spider at the trunk where it meets the ground. I am all for leaving nature be, but I did say it was a BLACK WIDOW SPIDER. I didn't want to run into later. You know I'm allergic to insect bites and black widow bites are poisonous. I just didn't see any good coming from letting that spider live. Sorry.
So I have heard from Liam and Judy. What are the rest of you up to this summer?