50th Day of School - 50's Style

Looking way too cute for the 50th day of school!!

Perfect doll for the 50th day!

Ready for a day of fun!

Enjoying an ice cream float.

Looking so 50ish!

All the trimmings for a rootbeer or coke float!

Happy memories in first grade!

:Looks like they like this 50ish treat!!

Capping off a great day!

Can we do this again?

Happy 50th Day from Mrs. Dillard and Mrs. Mallon!!!

Literary Character Parade & Festivities 2012

Thursday was a very exciting day for our first graders. We started the day with the Literary Parade around the first floor of the school. When we came back to the classroom the morning was spent making crafts. These included: finger pens, owls in a tree, bat hats, and pasta skeletons. At 6:00 at night the children returned to school in their costumes to trick or treat and teachers gave out candy at their classroom doors. Afterwards, they went outside to the school carnival. Our booth was the Lollipop Tree - a picture is included in the slideshow below. It was a great day to be a student at Chets Creek!!

Literary Costumes and Crafts on PhotoPeach

Diners, Drive Ins and Dives Completed Pumpkins

Our pumpkins are completed and what a hit they are. Our inspiration was the book "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives: An All-American Road Trip...with Recipes." by the Food Network Channel's Guy Fieri. We chose this book for a few reasons: Our school theme this year is  "Recipe for Success"; our class name "The Mall-ard Diner"; and the children's excitement when we talked about the book and how many of them watched the show!!  We knew then that it had to be that book for our pumpkin display.  Kind of gets us in the mood for a big juicy burger...how about you?

Diners, Drive Ins, and Pumpkins

 Every year, our school celebrates the Fall season with a Pumpkin Decorating display for the front lobby. Every class submits a book with pumpkins that are decorated to represent the book that was used.  This year we are celebrating the "Mall-ard Diner" by using the book "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives: An All-American Road Trip...with Recipes!" by  the Food Network Channel's Guy Fieri.  The students decorated pumpkins to look like hamburgers. You can catch a glimpse of Mr. Fieri along the back of the table (not yet completed).  Thank you parents for working with the children on this very special assignment. We will have the pumpkins completed by Monday...stay tuned!!

First Grade Fractions - Common Core

 The Common Core Standards in Math for First Grade state that students should be able to "Partition circles and rectangles into two and four equal shares, describe the shares using the words halves, fourths, and quarters, and use the phrases half of, fourth of, and quarter of." So this week was the start of children recognizing what a half means. Using  a paper plate to represent their pizza, students were invited to create a half and half pizza with the toppings of their choice. They drew a line down the center with the help of a straight edge and center dot and made some beautiful pepperoni, sausage, and green pepper pizza pies.

 

Students had the opportunity to share their work and explain how they knew that it was "half of" the pizza.

Today it was "Cookin' Wednesday" and children made their own real pizzas using English muffins, sauce and cheese. They ate half - then the other half. Some said it was the best pizza ever...who could argue with that!!

Ladybug Girl and the Bug Squad-Jumpstart Read for the Record!

Today our class was counted in a world record number of students reading  "Ladybug Girl and the Bug Squad" by Jacky Davis and David Soman. This book was about a play date that had a few bumps in the road when things didn't go according to the plan. "Jumpstart's Read for the Record is a call to action to Americans to recognize the importance of quality early education, especially for our most vulnerable children,” said Jumpstart’s president and CEO, Naila Bolus. “When children start behind, they tend to stay behind. The language and literacy skills instilled in preschool children by the Jumpstart program help set them on a successful path in both school and life.”  Jumpstart has raised more that $7 million for this cause together with the Pearson Foundation which has donated nearly one million books.

We are anxious to hear how many children around the world read "Ladybug Girl and the Bug Squad" as we did today.  To learn more about this organization, you can visit http://www.jstart.org/.

Common Core Based Bulletin Board

This is our first official bulletin board of the year. With "Mixing in the 'Write' Ingredients", we thought it would be a good idea to showcase student's writing from the initial writing piece and compare it to being in school for a few weeks. The results were amazing. Mixed in were mini lessons of great beginnings, remembering details, and staying in the moment when telling a story (not saying they went to bed or went home at the end). Our writers are getting the "write" ingredients everyday to make each story better than the last one!! (And, yes, that is us at the table preparing the next menu item!) :)