Polar Express Day

We had fun dressing up in pajamas for Polar Express Day! We read the book, colored a train, watched the movie, drank hot chocolate, ate cookies, and completed several activities about the book together. Whew! It was a busy day!

Happy St. Lucia Day

Last Monday, December 14, Mrs. Stark, Linnea's mom, came to visit our classroom and talk about St. Lucia Day. She knows all about this Swedish holiday because she was born in Sweden and lived there until she was a little girl of 8 or 9.

She came into the room wearing a long white dress with a red sash and candles in her hair. She then explained what each of those meant and told us what the candles represented. St. Lucia Day is held to celebrate the light that is forthcoming after the long, dark winter nights. It was so neat to hear her explain what all they do. We even got to sample a Swedish gingerbread cookie--Yummy!

Here is the class with their own St. Lucia headwreaths on.

Thank you Mrs. Stark for sharing your traditions with us!

Jumping Fun

Thanks to all the donations of canned food items, our class earned the honor of jumping in the Moon Bounce!!! Here are a few shots of them having fun...

Kermit with Cooper and Bradley in the back

Julieanne and Linnea

Chloe, Linnea, and Autum (our new friend)

India, Kayla, Julieanne
It was really hard to get their picture because all they wanted to do was jump around!

Pumpkin Patch Field Trip

Right before Halloween, we went on our first Field Trip to the Lyon Family Farms Pumpkin Patch in Taft, Tennessee. It had been raining a few days before our trip, but thankfully we picked a dry day for our adventure! It was awfully muddy, though!
First we went on a hayride.

Linnea and Heaven waiting for the ride to begin.

More of our class waits for the start of the hayride.

Then we stopped in the pumpkin field and got to pick our very own pumpkin.

Kermit and Cooper with their prized pumpkins.

Coleman, his Mom, and Bradley walk back to the tractor with their pumpkins.

Afterwards we headed to the barn where Ms. Martha read us a story about pumpkins.

Then we walked over to the second barn where we got to pet some animals.

Cooper and the pig. It took the farmer a while to catch this little, squeally guy!

Ty and the calf

There were also goats that needed some attention.

Next we were let loose in the corn maze and had to find our own way out!

Cameron and Linnea laughing as we got lost AGAIN!!

The exit led to a great playground!

Ty going down the BIG slide.

Cooper was bouncing so high on the inflatable slide, I couldn't get his head in the picture!

By this time, we were extremely hungry! So we sat down to eat a picnic lunch.

The boys table

The girls table

And that was our adventure at the Pumpkin Patch!

Halloween Fun

We had fun celebrating an early Halloween yesterday. We did some fun activities like graphing Halloween M & M's, making a haunted house, and writing a pumpkin poem. Then after P.E., we did our most fun thing of all....we carved our class pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern! The children voted on the face we ended up carving. Some of the children loved getting their hands all sticky from pulling out the pumpkin goop, but others didn't want to have anything to do with it!! In fact, one said he was going to be sick just from looking at it and smelling it! (Thankfully that didn't happen) It was a fun day together!!
Here is our class with the vampire cat jack-o-lantern.

A close-up of the vampire cat

I hope they all have a happy and safe Halloween and get lots and lots of candy!!

Firefighter Visit

Last week for Fire Safety Week, we had a firefighter from Huntsville City come and visit our class along with Mrs. Mitchell's and Ms. Adams' classes. He was the dad of Abigail in Mrs. Mitchell's class. He gave us lots of fire safety tips and even showed us what firefighters look like when they are dressed in all their gear.

We are so thankful that he took time out of his busy schedule to come and visit us!

Welcome Back!

I was so very glad to see your children this morning! I thoroughly enjoyed my week off with my family, but I missed their smiling faces. We had a great first day back, and I just know that we are going to have a great week.
Just to share, this was my view over Fall Break:

Johnny Appleseed Day

Today we celebrated Johnny Appleseed's Birthday. It started with a visit from the Apple Man himself! It was very exciting to hear of his tales especially of wearing just one shoe. We then made necklaces out of Apple Jacks right before going to lunch. Finally we had an Apple Tasting Fair where we sampled all different kinds of apples: applesauce, dried apples, whole red and yellow apples, apple pies, and apple juice to wash it all down. We had a great "applicious" day!

Here is the class wearing their Apple Jacks necklaces along with some great apple smiles!

At Work

After the long, restful Labor Day weekend, the students came back to school ready to work! Here they are in action during our Center Time.

Kayla read a book in the classroom library.

India played a short vowel game with a visitor from Ms. Adams' class.

Elicia and Saana worked on their writing skills in the Writing Center.

Bradley and Ty played a game on the computers.

Heaven and Linnea watched a book on video during their Listening Center time.

We had a great day back at school and hope for many more fun days in First Grade like this one!

Fun Run

We had soooooo much fun at the Boosterthon Fun Run on Thursday!! Your child ran and ran and ran! Most of the kids completed their 35 laps and went on to run a few more. Here are a few pictures of our fun day.

Booster Andy gets everyone pumped up about running.

The "Pace Car" lap

Coach Roberson even got in on the fun!

Don't forget to send in the money you collect on those pledges! All the donation money is due August 27.

Welcome to First Grade!

I am so very happy to have your child in my class! We will be learning lots this year as well as having a LOT of fun together.
We have had 2 busy weeks so far in First Grade! Next week will be even busier as we start our studies, Homework, and Spelling Tests. Please be looking for the newsletter on Monday that will come home with your child's graded papers.