OH My Books...

I think I will be talking a bit about books over the next few days.  I am starting to run into web ideas about books. Books for parents, books for 1st graders, Just Right books, why Just Right Books are important and much more about the love of my life- Books. (right after my family)

Just now I found Barnes and Nobles online story telling.  This month they have the author Sam McBratney reading his book Guess How much I love you!

Online Story Telling- Barnes and Noble 

Happy Leap Year

Do you know why we have a leap year?


To be truthfully honest I think I know why every four years. 
I found this to help explain.  

Why do we need Leap Years?

http://www.timeanddate.com/date/leapyear.html

Leap Years are needed to keep our calendar in alignment with the Earth's revolutions around the sun. It takes the Earth approximately 365.242199 days – or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds (a tropical year) – to circle once around the Sun.

***Secret word for a big fuzzy- Leap Year*** (children have until March 2nd to tell me the secret word)

Note: The illustration is not to scale.

However, the Gregorian calendar has only 365 days in a year, so if we didn't add a day on February 29 nearly every 4 years, we would lose almost six hours off our calendar every year. After only 100 years, our calendar would be off by approximately 24 days!

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Could you imagine having your birthday on Leap year.  If you were in first grade you would be 2 years old tomorrow! Just thought I would give you a little lesson and hope that the secret word works for our kiddo's.

Good Morning Class

Welcome back to first grade class.

Today is going to be a very busy day!  I hope you had a great vacation.  I sure did.  I did a lot of work to make sure that we work and stay on time.

What did you do over vacation?

Jayme- went ice skating for the first time and got a fat lip yesterday when I slipped.
Gage- I played hockey in the Lions Tournament and I got to be goalie
Robert- I went ice skating at my house.
Emma- went to two sleepovers and a play-date with a friend.
Karysa- got a nerf gun and hit my brother.
Ashton- went to chucky cheese
Joey- had my last basketball game and was down at the half.  Then we won the game by 2 points.  Thanks to Johns 3 pointer practice!
Mckenna- went to New Hampshire at the water park, slept over at a hotel and went on a carriage ride.
Caleb- went skiing and twisted my ankle.
Cullen- will be going to a Pirate game in Portland and will be going to my grandpas house in two weeks.
Gabe- had a friend over and played monster trucks.
Mya- 2 friends came over and played dress up.
Olivia- on Thursday I slammed my head in the car door and I got 6 staples in my head.

Dr. Seuss Week

Hello Parents and First Graders

The week we return will be all about Dr. Seuss!  I can't wait!

Mrs. Smith

Cause and Effect Giveaway!

 Cause and Effect Giveaway

by Sunny Days in Second Grade

As I scope out the blogs and all the teacher ideas I come across so many give away!  I need a blog just to blog about the giveaways I would like to enter!  So here is one with a give away about little cute cause and effect folders.  The person who is giving this away just tried them out and loved them.  So I thought I would try them out too!  I am always trying a basic way to teach cause and effect to both my 1st grade class and my very cute 3 year old daughter.  Maybe if I will it will help with both!!!

And the winner is...

A little fairy told me that Karl Collier has won the Parent Giveaway.  Thank you to the Collier family for 12 comment entries!  I am so excited that I had a great turn out for our giveaway.  Thank you to all parents who have commented from the beginning of the school year until now.  Also a thank you to the parents who have just discovered my class blog.  It has given me hope that you are reading it out there!

If you know other parents in our class be sure to share that a lot of our classroom news is being posted.

Karl Collier has won a $10 gift certificate to Amazon!  Thanks again!  Mrs. Smith

Crayon Pictures

Crayons for Friday

Marshal- brown
Caleb- green
Isabelle- dark pink
Samantha- pink
Ryan- leaving with mrs. smith for Florida
Karysa- hot pink
Gage- blue
Carolyn-
Samuel
Mckenna- black
Olivia- purple
Ashton-
Tate- in Puerto Rico
Emma-
Kiara-
Cullen- black
Sommer light green
Ben- gray
Jayme- light blue
Joey- gray
Gabe- light blue
Keoanna- light blue
Mya-

Parent Giveaway Update!

OK Parents:

I have tallied up the comments that we have so far and the total is up to 21 comments.  I have 3 parents who are tied at 4 comments each with one parent who is at 6 comments but this parent hasn't commented since October.  I am not going to say a word to these kiddos BUT it seems like a homework assignment in the making for Thursday night for the kids (and the parents).  I am looking to see if you all can comment at other posts.  Check out the Blog Archive on the left to see different months.  Each month has posts with pictures of the children and some of the activities that the class has participated in.  Take a look at those and take post a comment on those pictures. You can post a comment anywhere on the blog.


I have looked into seeing older posts... I think what is happening is that you need to click on the each month and scroll through each of the posts to see your post. Keep me "posted" on what you can and can not do here on the blog.  


During vacation I will be working on the blog to add more features.  I would love to add a web photo album for you all to have access to (and just my class and families).  You may want to download the pictures.  If you see something that you want for your scrapbooks now just let me know and I will send you the picture.


Keep commenting... a $10 gift certificate will be coming your way!

Happy Valentines Day- Question of the Day

How do you give love?

Sommer- appreciating friends and family.

Emma- by doing something good for someone

Gage with hugs and kisses

Karysa- when you give something to somebody else, 

giving hugs and kisses, 

being kind to one another and sharing things.

 (raised her hand 4 times)

Olivia- presents and sharing and caring

Joey- being thankful for your family

Samantha- doing something for your family

Caleb- by loving and caring

Mckenna- helping someone that has cancer and 

not ignoring people when they are talking to you.

Jayme- sharing and caring, doing what parents ask, and 

give respect to others like you want to be treated. (raised her hand 3 times)

Ben-giving hugs and kisses

Carolyn-helping someone

Ashton- giving hugs and making valentines day cards

Isabelle-being kind to others

Mya- hugs and kisses

Keoanna- hugs

Marshal- give my parents hugs

Ryan- repecting your parents

Cullen- ummmm not sure

Kiara- making cards

Mrs. Smith- I give love away!

Parent Giveaway

Ok  Families of Mrs. Smith's Class.  I am still wondering how many parents are actually looking at this blog.  I type and add and type and add but I get no comments.  I am giving away a $10 gift certificate to the parent who leaves the most comments during the next week.  If you read our blog and find it useful PLEASE leave a comment.  If you would like to know when I update the blog scroll to the middle of the blog, leave your email and confirm your email address.

I am so sorry I am sounding so needy but how many of you am I really reaching!  I will count the comments and when you sent them at the end of the week.  I will announce the winners through the blog!  Please come back to the blog to check out who is the lucky winner.

Thanks so much!
Mrs. Smith

Mr Gagnons Class- Music Class

OK I am sitting here in Music class with the children while they are listening to the Grateful Dead.  Mr Gagnon is teaching the class about American History.  He has talked about the Jimmy Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Elvis, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Bill Haily and the Commits, Grateful Dead and many other great American bands.  Its always a pleasure to sit in his class to hear what he has to say!

Mr. Gagnon's music knowledge is something that I wish that I had. We all know its so important to learn about music.  We all have our favorite different types of music that we listen to  We all teach our children about the things that we like.  Its so wonderful to see the Mr. Gagnon give a taste of his knowledge to the children from singing, playing instruments, reading notes, listening to different types of music, rhythm, and dancing.

Please check out the newsletter that is going home today.  He has some information for getting music sent to you when your child sings in class.  Mr. Gagnon has the ability to send you the song that your child sang in class.  Its awesome so please check out his website for more information.

1. Go to the link below
2. Click on Classroom Recordings
3. Then click on contact form to request your child's recordings.

How awesome is this!  I am so excited to hear about this check it out!

Mr. Gagnons Class

100th Day of School on Feb 8, 2012

This school year my students have been taking charge of the calendar on their own.  Yesterday I realized that we must be getting very close to the 100th day of school.  I had one student travel to 2 classrooms to find out where we are on the counting of the 100th day.  Our calendar says 89 and today marks the 99th day of school.  Thats only 10 days off.  Last year we were stuck on 71 for weeks.  So thats an improvement.

So tomorrow is a 1/2 a day and we will be celebrating our 100th day.  Can you imagine 100th Day activities for Reading, 100th Day activities for Writing and 100th Day activities for Math all in a 1/2 day!

Can your child count by 2's on the number grid starting at a different number? Like starting at 23. (23, 25, 27, 29 etc...)
Can your child count by 5's on the number grid starting at a different number like 42. ( 42, 47, 52, 47 etc...)
Can your child count by 10's starting at 2 or 8?  Remind them down once when counting by 10's starting at a different number.

Click on this file to play a number grid game that I found on the internet.

Number Grid Game

Xtreme Athletics in Our Classroom

Xtreme Athletics 

Bobby Morissette Owner /Head Instructor came to our classroom to talk about being healthy!  Our children had a class called X-Fit.  Our class did a 8 minute workout.  This workout included 20 seconds of squats, mountain climbing, burppies, and push-ups.  In between the 20 second workout the students were able to rest for 10 seconds.  The students were extreamly tired and quiet after the workout and I Mrs. Smith have learned that I am way out of shape! ( hehehe)


Bob will be coming back to our classroom 3 more times to continue our talk about being healthy and taking good care of ourselves.  Today he talked to us about being aware of what healthy is.


Olivia added that healthy means that our body and our brains are working well. In order for this to happen the following list can help.


Sleeping the right amount of hours
Good food is good fuel for our bodies
Bathing- staying clean and germ free
Emotions- making sure that we are in control and we have the ability to express our emotions correctly!
Exercise- how many of us exercise.  Ok I know I don't and today showed me that I need to.  


As Bob and Olivia shared with us this 8 min workout that we did today can be done while watching TV during the commercials or even when we get home from school.


How many of us are healthy?  How many of our children are healthy.  I had the children write about being healthy today.  I will send it home with them this afternoon so that you can talk about what it means to be healthy!


I am very proud to stay that all our students had done a fantastic job with Bob.  They were very well mannered and they worked very hard!  You should be proud of them.  Over the weekend I will set up a photo/video gallery here on the blog of our morning!  Nice work class and a big thank you to Bob for taking the time from your school to come to ours and share about being healthy!  Thank you!