Merry Christmas

I hope all my sweet firsties and their families are having an awesome Christmas. Before we left for Christmas break we celebrated with a little party in class. Here are some captured moments! Thanks to all the moms and dads who helped make this party a great one! I couldn't do it without you!

Swing Time!

Last week the weather was perfect and was cause for Mrs. Millican and I to take our turn to swing. One student urged us to get off since the bar was bending....it really wasn't!

Here I am getting ready to jump....



Check Out Jackson's face in the second picture. I had just jumped. He just can't believe it!


I landed a little rough, but no broken bones. This is what teaching is all about. Being able to be a kid sometimes!

PJs, Movies, and Hot Coco

Today was Pajama Day. We watched the Polar Express with the rest of the first grade. Then after lunch I shared my favorite childhood movie, The Fox and the Hound with the class. I also brought out the Pinterest in me and made homemade crock pot hot chocolate. It was super yummy!

Craft Time Goes Wild

We spent part of the morning making a Santa picture from construction paper. I showed them an example and they had to cut and tear paper to make a Santa head. Well of course my class is not one to waste paper and if you add that to their wonderful personalities you get this.......
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Millitary Action

First, let us not acknowledge that I have not blogged in FOREVER!!!!  The most important thing here is that I am blogging now! With that being said, I have many many things to blog about.  But, I am taking things one at a time. 

 

Recently, Mrs. Littlejohn asked if my class could write her cousins (SPL Cardwell..Grant and SPC Townsend…Timothy) who have been deployed to Afghanistan.  Being a teacher who loves a good writing opportunity, we decided to first write Grant and his unit.  This was back before Thanksgiving and we made his unit a Fall “hand” wreath!  We discussed adjectives and ways to describe the Marines.  Some popular adjectives were: brave, fast, strong, smart, and kind.  We used those adjectives on the hand wreath.  I was told the Marines loved it!  The kiddos wrote them some wonderful letters. 

The other first grade teachers and I decided not to stop there.  With the help of MANY wonderful donations and assistance from students and parents of OC Elementary we were able to collect items for a care package for BOTH units!  I was so excited.  The items filled the back of Mrs. Littlejohn’s SUV!  Mrs. Littlejohn also arranged for the packages to be boxed and mailed.

A few days ago, Mrs. Littlejohn let me know that both Grant and Timothy received the packages.  They were a HUGE hit! We were surprised and excited when Timothy asked if he could Skype with the first grade and thank them!  What an amazing experience that was.  We all were super excited.  I didn’t get pictures, but we Skyped with him yesterday morning.  They are about 9 hours difference in time, so it was night time in Afghanistan.  SPC Townsend, who is a medic in the Army, told the children about his job there and his family.  He has three children, one being 6 like most of the kids!  They loved learning about him and talking to him.   They all later agreed that he was the most AWESOME!! 

Below is a picture of his Squad the “Eagle Squad”.  SPC Townsend it on the back row all the way to the right!!

 

 

We will continue to write these fine young men and women.  We are hoping to be able to collect more items for a care package in the spring!

A Celebrity Visit

Today we got to meet the famous Bolt.  Bolt is Joseph Scott's diabetic alert dog.  Joseph is our classmate Jackson's brother.  Mrs. Scott came to read to us and brought Bolt with her.  Bolt stays with Joseph during the day at school but gets to take a break around lunchtime.  We couldn't pet Bolt because he was on duty, but we were still pretty excited to meet him!

Author's Purpose

In class this past week we have been learning about why Author's write.  We learned they write to entertain us and to inform us.  In groups the kids looked through baskets of books and decided the Author's purpose.  We then filled out a anchor chart using the information.

We Love Our Rebel!!

Today our class football came by for a visit.  Steven #65 danced a little and read us a book.  We are so proud of Steven and his dedication to his team and his education.  Congratulations Steven on being an amazing example for our class!!!

Test

I am having issues with a post posting.  This is just a test post!!

Week in Pictures

Parents, Aunts and kids both had fun decorating the Yams!!

 

Mr. Cody Barton came and talked to us about fire safety!!  Thanks Mr. Barton!!!

 The NED show came and taught us to NEVER give up!!!

 Past Yam Queen Nan and her beautiful daughter Princess Maddie came and talked to us about being Yam Queen and Princess!!!  They also showed us the official Yamboree Queen wave!  I didn't capture one perfect picture, but alot of ones that made me smile!

I have to end on giving a HUGE thanks to some people......

First, Cody for taking time out of his busy day to come and talk to us.  Second, to my wonderful classroom parents for all the time you give to help us out.  I couldn't do it without you!!  Last, but not least....Nan and Maddie!!!!  Maddie came home to visit and took time to come see us!  Thank you so much!  Nan...you are my hero! 

Snails and Help!

I’m stressed.  These class pets are stressing me out!!  Our little Gold Snail is a fickle thing.  On Monday morning he appeared to be dead.  We kept a close eye on him and still nothing.  He didn’t float, so Mrs. Harris assured me if he was dead he would be floating.  But, I still wasn’t convinced he hadn’t kicked the bucket.   I told myself I would wait until I left that afternoon before I disposed of him.    Well, before I walked out at 5:30 on Monday, he was moving around the glass!  Whew!  I really felt that was a close one.  All day Tuesday, the little sweetie was good to go.  On Wednesday, after car pick-up I entered my classroom to a frantic Brynn.  She was screaming that the snail had died.  I proceeded to check on the snail and there it was floating.  Great, the thing is gone.  Well, after debating with my fellow teachers, I decided to wait until the morning to take care of the situation.  I mean, I know nothing about these little snails, so I had no idea if floating was an appropriate behavior.  This morning the girls and I were all ready to have a quick snail funeral when we discovered the snail was ALIVE!!!!!  Man, this snail is sneaky, or lucky, or I just plain don’t understand snails!  I Googled Gold Snails and found that I should have been feeding it lettuce or algae wafers.  I felt horrible for the darling.  It was probably weak from lack of nutrients.   So, I found a small piece of lettuce and now we are all hoping for the best!  Here is the little sweetie.  It was suggested by another teacher I call him Lazarus!  J 

 

This week I have been blessed with lots of amazing parent volunteers.   Mr. Brannon (I didn’t get his picture) came and read Where The Wild Things Are.  The kids really enjoyed his visit.

Later that day we had a visit from Gracie’s mom (and OC 2^nd grade teacher) Mrs. Wilson.  She came by and read a great fall book Pumpkin Soup.

 

 

Then, on Thursday our class and football player received this amazing sign for the pep rally tomorrow from Mrs. Boyd!  Thank you so much!  It was awesome.  After I took this picture we signed our names!

 

 

I want to thank Mrs. Lopez, Mrs. Ryan and Mrs. Littlejohn for helping put together our A to Z reading books.  You guys ROCK!!!

 

I got another surprise in the mail today.  Our latest Donor’s Choose project was funded a few weeks back and I got our books and cd’s from Lakeshore!  I am so excited to download those to the IPODS! 

 

Each book set comes with four books and a CD.  I love this because now each student at the listening center can listen to the same book at the same time! 

We had an amazing week and I got some pretty good pictures of the kids at centers.    Below are those!