Easton Remick

This is Easton!   He is our newest student of the week.  Easton's favorite book is "Clifford and the Big Itch."   Someday he would like to visit New York City, and take in a New York Yankees game!  He is special because he is friendly to everyone.  Easton's favorite food is spaghetti and meatballs.  His favorite color is GREEN.   Easton's favorite sport is baseball.  He wants to be a model someday (and make lots of money doing it!)  He has a pet goldfish.  Easton's favorite television show is Phineas and Ferb.  Finally, Easton thinks the best thing about him is that he is friendly!

Carly Van Hoven

Carly Van Hoven is our new student of the week!   Carly's favorite food to eat is spaghetti.  Her favorite sport is soccer.  Carly's favorite book is called "I Love You Because You're You!"  She has one cat and one dog.  Carly is special because she is a good friend to everyone.  Someday when she grows up she would love to be a veterinarian.  Her favorite television show is SpongeBob Square Pants.  Carly thinks the best thing about her is that she is funny.  One day she would like to visit Alaska and finally, her favorite color is purple !

Gabe Byrne

This is Gabe Byrne.  He is this week's Student of the Week!   Gabe's favorite color is green.   He would love to visit Alaska someday when he grows up.  The best thing about Gabe is that he is a very funny kid.  Gabe's favorite television show is "Wild Kratts."  When he grows up, Gabe would like to build homes for others.  He is a special kid because God gave him a special heart!  His favorite book is "Knight at Dawn".   Gabe's favorite sport is soccer and his favorite food is french toast sticks with LOTS of syrup.   Gabe has a pet moose!   Do you believe that?   (It's really a stuffed animal - see how Gabe is funny???)

Abby Lindholm

Meet Abby Lindholm.  She is the Student of the Week!   Abby's favorite color is pink.  She would love to visit Mackinac Island again someday. Abby feels the best thing about her is that she is nice to everyone.  Her favorite television program is Wild Kratts.  Someday when she grows up, Abby would like to be an artist.  Notice her photo - her piece is one from the Art show displayed in our school!  She is special because she is a little sister to Grace.  She has a cat named Nugget.  Her favorite book is "Aliens Love Underpants."  Her favorite sport to watch and to play is basketball.  Her favorite food is vanilla ice cream (plain - nothing on it please).  

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!  We started the new year off with a bang!   You should have heard the excitement in the air on the first day back!  You'd think two weeks apart was a lifetime.  Added to the happiness of seeing each other again, there was SNOW!   We have a schedule to use the sledding hill and our days to sled are Mondays and Thursdays, but luckily, we had a chance to use the hill on Wednesday to celebrate 100% of our class meeting their reading goals for December.  By Thursday, Mr. Hoekstra had to close the hill, so at least we had one chance to sled and will hope for more snow soon.

Accomplishing lessons and activities seemed to take longer than I anticipated this week.  Probably because there was a large amount of socializing going on and we need to get back into our routine.  This week will be much better I'm sure.

In math we began chapter 6 this week.  This chapter involves telling time.  Our curriculum requires that the children know the names for the parts of a clock (face, hour hand, minute hand), and can tell time to the hour and the half hour.  I do teach the kids about how to tell time to the five minute intervals as well, but they will not be tested or do practice activities requiring it.  In the photos below, we were practicing building various analog times on mini clocks, and writing the digital time on gel boards.

We will also be starting IPals on Fridays from now until the end of the year!   Mrs. Sikma's third graders will be partnered up with a first grader.  Half of the pairs will do IPad activities while the other half works on laptops.  They will alternate weekly.  When using the IPads, they will work on various educational apps with their partner.  On the laptops, they will work on IXL activities, which are math activities specifically aligned with our curriculum.  Mrs. Sikma and I are very excited to start IPals.  Not only will it give the first graders a chance to learn how to use the IPads and practice their skills, it also gives the third graders the opportunity to 'mentor' a younger student!  Check out the photos below of our initial trial run!

This weekend I saw some friends from a neighboring district with a son in first grade.  I was so happy to hear that he has been visiting "Fabulous First Graders" regularly and trying out the links and playing various learning games!   Please allow your child to view our blog!  It is fun for them to see themselves on the blog, and the links are first grade/lower elementary specific.  The games may be fun, but they also learn from them!  If you have other suggestions for links I can add, please let me know.  

Have a great week everyone.  May 2012 be the best it can be!