Summary of our day

Our day was packed with different activities. After completing our normal morning routine of SMART and calendar we got started with our Word Journeys rotations. The kids practice identifying the headers and sorting the words into the correct place. The two other rotations were writing for the final time in their November journal and creating a strand of Christmas lights.

The Christmas lights activity required the students to spell out their name. The wrote one letter on each light bulb. Then on the opposite side of their letter they had to write a word that started with the same letter as their name. The word had to described the holiday season or winter. An example might be for the letter E some kids wrote elves. We had a very large variety of holiday words. It seemed like the kids really enjoyed this activity. They are already hanging brightly in our room. The kids thought it was so cool when they came in from recess and found their lights' hanging on the ceiling! :)

Another holiday activity that we continued to work on today was called "Sharing in Christmas Joy." We divided into groups of 4. Each student had a piece of paper and were told to draw a holiday picture. After a few minutes they passed their picture on to another member of the group. Then that person continued to add details to the picture. We continued this process until all members of the group had a chance to add to each others picture. The students then had time to add more details to their picture and color. Today we did a writing about the picture that their groups created. There are really neat pictures and very creative writings. I can't wait until we finish this project.

During math we continued to work on problem solving. Today our problem was about the Polar Express. The students had to figure out how many seats were on the train if there are two rows and ten seats in each row. It was unbelievable how the students found the answers to this question.

We also found time to start our Holiday Readers Theater! The kids are thrilled to be doing another play. We had done one for Thanksgiving and they LOVED it so I planned another one for Christmas. They do a very nice job with this!

Football Team Send Off Pep Rally

All Elementary students will be participating in a pep rally to honor the Indians Football team on Friday, November 18th at 8:30 in the High School gym. Students are encouraged to be on time as we will start walking there beginning at 8:20. Students arriving tardy may not have an opportunity to attend.

Elementary students are looking forward to showing their school spirit at this exciting time. Go Indians!

No School Monday, November 14

There will be no school on Monday, November 14th! The Spirit Lake football team will be playing in the state semifinals in the dome in Cedar Falls. Good luck to the football team and GO INDIANS!

The make up day will be on January 3rd!!

Book Fair Results

Thank you for all of the donations for the Coin Collection that we did during the book fair. Our class was the winning class out of the first grade. We get to spend $25 to get additional books for our classroom! We were also lucky enough to win the BINGO game. Our class got the book Bad Kitty Meets the Baby. What a wonderful book fair we had. Thanks to everyone who helped put it on. It was outstanding.

Bank Midwest Trip

Dear Parents,

The first grade classes will be traveling to Bank Midwest Thursday, Nov. 3rd. We will be accepting a gift of $250.00. This money will be used as a learning tool to show the benefits of saving. The money will be allowed to earn interest until they are Seniors. The class will then choose a charity to donate the money to. While there, we will tour the bank, sing songs and learn about saving money.

First Grade Teachers