Sunday, November 4, 2012

What a Week!

We had a very busy week!  Here are some pictures from some of our activities!
Our door was decorated for the week!  
On Tuesday we had Super Science Spooktacular Day!  We traveled to each first grade classroom for a fun science investigation.

In Mrs. Szlosek's room we learned about dry ice.





And even had a spooky treat!
Not only is dry ice very cool to use, it helped us understand many science concepts.  For example, the fog went to the ground, so we learned that air is lighter than fog!

In Mrs. Treur's room we investigated how to make a boat that would float.  After we made a boat that could float, we tried to see how many ghosts (marshmallows) could be in the boat before it would sink.


In our classroom we investigated why spiders do not stick to their own webs and how spiders eat their prey!

Spiders have oil on their legs.  That's why they don't stick to their own webs!


We got to squirt "venom" on our "prey" to liquify it just like real spiders!  Ask your student how it works!

In Mrs. Fischer's class we learned about fire safety.  October is Fire Safety month!  Ask your student what fire needs to burn.


That afternoon we started our Pumpkin Math and Science activities.  We spent the afternoon and next morning predicting, weighing, measuring and counting.  We learned that big and little pumpkins float.  Most of us predicted they would sink!








Look at all of those seeds!  Together our two pumpkins had over 1000 seeds.  Good thing we knew to put them into groups of 10 to make counting them easier!

Ms. Tina and Ms. Cathy helped us with our pumpkins.  Thank you ladies!
The next day we did another investigation to see if pumpkin seeds sink or float.  What do you predict?  Ask your student the answer!
I hope you enjoyed our pictures!
Miss Gilbert

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Storybook Character Pumpkin Pictures

Here are the pictures from our 2nd Annual Storybook Character Pumpkin Contest!  The first graders and their families did a FANTASTIC job!  Voting is taking place in the Media Center this week.

 
Mixbook - Create Beautiful Photo Books and Scrapbooks! | Start your own Photo Books | Create custom Christmas Cards

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Red Ribbon Week

 Osceola will celebrate Red Ribbon Week from October 25th-31st.  Our theme is Making Good Choices.  Here are the daily activities from Mrs. Sullinger:

Thursday, Oct. 25th:  "Red-y to Make Good Choices"
Wear RED to school.

Friday, Oct. 26:  "Hats On to Good Choices"
Wear your favorite hat to school.

Monday, Oct. 29:  "Choose for No Blues"
Wear blue jeans to school.

Tuesday, Oct. 30:  "Team Up with Good Choices"
Wear clothing with team names or team logos. Teams can be recreation, high school, college or professional.

Wednesday, Oct. 31:  "Boo to Bad Choices"
Wear orange and black to school or a Halloween shirt.  No costumes, please.

Miss Gilbert

Monday, October 22, 2012

Storybook Character Pumpkins

The storybook character pumpkins were SOOO cute and very creative!  A big thanks goes to the families who helped make this project so successful.   An EXTRA thanks to those who helped us transport the pumpkins all the way to the Media Center this morning.  I am happy to report that all pumpkins made the long trek safely:-).  Classes will be voting for their favorite during their Media Center time this week.  
I will post pictures of all of the entries and other fun classroom stuff soon!  

Miss Gilbert

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Another Scientific Investigation

In Science we are learning about the scientific process.  Here is a video of our most recent investigation!

Miss Gilbert



Thursday, October 4, 2012

2nd Annual Storybook Character Pumpkin Contest


We are so excited to be holding our 2nd Annual Storybook Character Pumpkin Contest.  
Remember this is an optional project!  Here is a copy of the letter we sent home if you missed it:
Follow the links below for some ideas:


Take a look at a video from last year's entries!



Miss Gilbert

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

So Close!

We are sooooooo close to getting another project funded on Donor's Choose thanks to a matching funding from KIA.  Click the picture below if you can donate.  Any little bit helps.  Feel free to share it with others!  This one is for math manipulatives!
Great job bringing back your reading homework today!

This week is a review week in Reading.  Each Reading Group is working on reviewing lots of reading skills through fiction and non-fiction books.  My group is using on a Johnny Appleseed story that has great vocabulary.  (Do you remember what boisterous and tranquil mean?)  Mrs. Fischer's group is reading all sorts of stories about spiders!

In science we are learning about inquiry skills.  We will be conducting a paint investigation soon!

Zero the Hero visited again today!  It was the 30th day of school.....wow!  Brittany got to be the helper and wear the cape!

Here is our October newsletter.  It can also be found on the back of your binder!


It is exciting how many views our blog is getting.  Make sure to become a follower and leave us comments:-).
Miss Gilbert

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Apples, Apples Everywhere!

Since Wednesday was Johnny Appleseed's birthday we did a lot of apple activities last week!  (They will continue into this week, too.)  We leaned that Johnny Appleseed was a real man named John Chapman.  There are a lot of stories about him.  Since many of them are Tall Tales we discussed which stories were true and which ones were exaggerated!

We also did science investigations with apples!  On Monday I cut a delicious looking apple for breakfast but didn't have time to eat it.  It sat on my table until lunch time.  The students noticed that it turned brown and we decided it didn't look very yummy anymore.  Using the Scientific Process we tried to figure out how we could prevent this from happening again.  After forming a hypothesis (prediction), conducting an investigation, and recording our results we learned that if you put lemon juice on apples, they will not turn brown as fast.  (We also tried milk, water, and soda.  The soda was Sprite and it "kind of" worked.  We think it was because it has lemon in it....Aren't we super smart!?!?!!)

We also listened to a story about a little red house with no doors, no windows, and a star inside.  We guessed and guessed what kind of house this was.  (There were no pictures in our story so this was really hard.)  At the end of the story we found out it was an APPLE!  Did you know there was a star inside apples?
After this we each got half of an apple to see our own stars.  Then we used our 5 senses just like real scientists to investigate apples.
 Here are some pictures of us enjoying our apples......Eating apples is tricky for first graders since a lot of us our missing teeth:-)




News and Notes:

  • Homework will begin coming home with all students this week.  It is provided by their reading teacher.
  • Keep bringing your binder to school daily and remember to check it each night!
  • Please encourage your child to only bring necessary items to school.  Toys and items that are being brought from home are becoming a distraction/lost/misplaced.  This includes silly bands and trading cards:-).
  • Our 2nd Annual Storybook Pumpkin Contest is coming up.  Look for information to come home soon!  

Miss Gilbert

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Lots of News and Lots of Pictures!

I have a lot to share with you!  Sorry for the lack of blogs this past week, but I have been B.U.S.Y!  First I want to welcome Zealand and Trenton to our class!  We are now up to 19 friends.
Second, Interims went home on Thursday.  Please sign and return them to school next week.
Third, I want to thank all of you who came to Open House!  Here are our family pictures:


For those of you who could not make it, here are some pictures of what we shared with our families:
Our hallway was lined with Pete the Cat!

Close up picture of Pete!  We LOVE Pete the Cat!!!!

Fall Apple Story

Fall Tree Paintings.
Thank You Ms. Cathy for coming in to help us with this!

Fall Leaf Story

Who Lives in our House Glyph
Parents had to use the "key" to figure out which house was ours!

Guessing Jar....the most popular spot in our classroom during Open House!  Families got to
make a guess about how many tootsie rolls were in the jar.  
On Thursday we put our guesses in order from least to greatest.  Then we counted the
tootsie rolls by making groups of 10.  There were 50 exactly!  (That is the first time
that has happened in my 9 years of doing this!)


Mae and Brittany both guessed correctly and each got a GIANT tootsie roll!  
Zero the Hero also visited last week!  Vanessa was our Terrific Kid, so she got to be his helper and wear the cape for the day!


Finally here are a few pictures of our reading centers last week. My reading group is doing so great with centers!  On Monday Ms. Stratton along with 5 other teachers and administrators walked in with flowers, cameras and an award during centers.  The students were so actively engaged that they looked up for a second then got back to work!  Wow, wow, wow!  I was very proud of them!
At Technology students practice words with our phonics pattern rule of the week in an App, then email their results to me!

Independent Work

Independent Reading

Independent Reading

Word Work.  These girls are "writing the room".  This week it was looking at pictures and writing the plurals.

More Technology!  Reading a nonfiction story all about animals.

Wow that was  a lot to share!  I am glad so many of you are enjoying our blog.  We had over 300 views last month.  I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE for you to leave us comments!
Miss Gilbert