Apple Experts?!

It's fall, which means it's the season of APPLES! Throughout the past 2 weeks, we have learned everything there is to know about an apple... making us apple experts! (well...almost!)

We've practiced and practiced and practiced the life cycle of an apple (I can hear the song in my head...seed, sprout, tree, blossom, apple!)

 
 

We've identified and labeled the parts of an apple.
~seeds, core, skin, flesh, leaf~


We've had an apple tasting where we tasted red, yellow, and green apples of different brands. We even graphed which one was our favorite! As you can see, the sour, green one wins again!

                    

We've made homemade applesauce! Because what's an apple unit without applesauce?! 

By the way...the applesauce was a huge hit! YUM!

 

 

We've connected our apple unit to our 5 senses and talked about what we see, taste, smell, hear and feel. 

And most importantly- we've had FUN learning about all things apple. 
Next: We take on PUMPKINS! 

BECAUSE.

Because.
One of the most important words used in the classroom.

Definition of because

1. 1:  for the reason that :  since rested because he was tired

Some of you may ask why the word because? We're here to tell you why!

Throughout the school day, students are asked an unbelievable amount of questions relating to reading, math, spelling, phonics, handwriting, music, phy-ed, every day tasks, etc. It is so exciting for them when they know the answer and it's even more exciting when they get to share that answer with the class!! BUT, the most important part of those questions is WHY. Why do they feel that way? How did they come up with their response? We want to know reasoning behind our responses.

Here enters that word because-the most important word in our classroom. We know the importance of higher level questions and it is our focus this year that when we answer a questions, we follow it up with BECAUSE and explain our reasoning. We have learned and practiced our "because clapper" and the students are total rockstars at it!

Already within the first few weeks of school I can see their minds working to come up with more detailed reasons for WHY they answered the way they did and it. is. awesome. These kiddos are great!!!


**P.S. Don't be shocked if your child is clapping at home when they use the word because! ;)
Ask your child about their *because clapper* and have them demonstrate for you!

We are totally owning this FIRST GRADE thing.

Oh, my!

Our first week was a total blur. BUT, it was a blast! Miss Weeding is still on cloud 9 knowing what a great year we have ahead of us. These children have amazed me this past week with their energy, hard work, kindness, and willingness to learn! Awesome things are to come.

I thought it was only fair that I share with you all of the wonderful things we've been up to this week. I'm having proud teacher moments, so you can have a proud parent moment too! :)

Tuesday, the jitters were in full force (even for Miss Weeding) as we came to school not knowing what the year had to bring. I'm happy to report though, by 9am our jitters were GONE... thank you Jitter Juice!!!! We spent the day getting to know each other and learning about all of the fun things we would be learning about this year! Of course we played a few games, sang a few songs, and danced a few dances. If you didn't already know, Miss Weeding really likes all of those things. We also had our first day of Phy-Ed and library! P.S. book checkout will start next week. Yay!

Wednesday, we were back for round 2 and excited for what the day had to bring. I was amazed at how well the students did already remembering rules and procedures. It made the day a total breeze! We read a few stories, reviewed our classroom rules by playing a game on Kahoot!. We showed Miss Weeding what we remembered from our kindergarten sight words and math skills, and we learned all about the twitter world and how we get to interact with parents all.day.long. FUN!

Thursday, we hit the ground running. No more reviewing rules or procedures, we were ready to show Miss Weeding that we can totally own this first grade thing! We had our first day of music with Mrs. Edevold and we showed her what fabulous singers we are. In whole group reading we started our very first story of the year...SO exciting! We read about Jack's Talent and then we got to do something really cool. We got to share our own talent's and learn about all of our classmate's talents too. We also learned about the word STAMINA (it's a big word) and practiced independent reading for a period of time without giving up. We rocked that too. Our goal is 20 minutes by the end of the year! Do you think we can do it?!? We know we can! :)

Friday, oofta! What a whirlwind of a first week, but we greeted Friday with a smile. We were ready to finish the week off strong. The beginning of the school year always brings benchmark testing, so we completed some testing and practiced our stamina once again by reading to ourselves. We made it a whole 6 minutes today without being interrupted or having to stop!!! Progress! We also became authors today. Yes, authors. We wrote our very own book titled "My First Week of First Grade!" We wrote allllll about our first week favorites. We can't wait to show our Mom's and Dad's! What's a Friday without Friday free time? Free time today was spent outside enjoying the beautiful September weather. It was a warm, sunny day and if you ask the students- sunshine makes Miss Weeding HAPPY and they are so right! Love it! We ended our day saying our peaks of the day and dancing into the weekend. 

I am so, SO, very blessed to have each of these sweet kiddos in my class this year. I can't wait to learn and grow with your children. Thank you for sharing them with me!!!

ATTENTION! Miss Weeding is going to attempt a weekly video newsletter. Yep. It might take me a few weeks to get the hang out if, but I can do it!!! Stay tuned for the very first newsletter. A link will be sent out via Remind, Twitter and email. We hope you enjoy it! :)

Happy Friday and Happy weekend! Enjoy the beautiful weather this weekend and I can't wait to come back Monday for week 2!
~Miss Weeding

WE DID IT!!!

WE DID IT!!! 

Yes, we totally rocked the first day of school! Did we have jitters? Absolutely. Were we a little unsure of what to expect? Absolutely. Was the whole day a blur? Absolutely. Did we have a FABULOUS first day? Absolutely. 

You are looking at the newest bunch of rockstars in first grade. These sweet kiddos will do amazing things all year and I am so glad that I get to be a part of it!!! Here's to day 2 and a great rest of the year! 

It's the happiest time of the year...BACK TO SCHOOL! :)

Happy August!

It's hard to believe it's already that time of year where we've started back to school shopping. Summer always seems to get away from us, BUT.... Miss Weeding could not be more excited that it's ALMOST time to be back in school! Yay!!!

I wanted to take the opportunity to welcome all students and families to our classroom! It is going to be another fabulous school year and I consider myself SO very lucky to have the opportunity to work with you this year. Each year that I teach I am blessed with kind, supportive and loving families who are as invested in their child's education as I am. It is my wish that together, this school year, we do whatever it takes to make your child successful and love learning!

A few links and reminders to make sure you stay up to date ALL year with our classroom:

Join our classroom remind to get reminder texts throughout the week: https://www.remind.com/join/missweedi

Follow us on twitter @busybees104 to see updates from your child throughout the day!

Read our weekly blog http://busybees104.blogspot.com/ to get the latest news from Miss Weeding and to read about all of the exciting things we're learning about!

Join our shutterfly site to view and print pictures of your student and their classmates. https://missweedings1stgrade201718.shutterfly.com/



One last request...It is so important to talk to your child every day about what they're learning and enjoying in school! Every day before we leave we share our peak of the day and celebrate another great day together. Our peaks are the one part of our day that we just LOVED. It's so fun to hear what the students enjoyed the most that day... often times it's hard to choose just one! :) Ask them their peak of the day on the car ride home or during dinner. It's a great way to learn about their successes!

I am looking forward to our year together and am so excited to see all of the students smiling faces on the first day of school! :) As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please call or email at anytime!

Happy last few weeks of summer!
~Miss Weeding

First Graders, Pack Your bags!

Grab those sleeping bags and flashlights............

We are headed to Camp Learned-A-Lot for a week of fun and games!

 

It's hard to believe that the school year is almost over. Yikes! To say I am proud of these kiddos would be an understatement. They have truly exceeded every expectation and I couldn't be more blessed to have had them in my class (I get a little teary just thinking of sending them on to second grade). They have worked SO hard and really pushed themselves this year. 

To celebrate all of our hard work, we packed our bags and sleeping bags and headed off to Camp Learned-A-Lot! (Ok...not really...but kind of ;))

 The start of camp included a skit saying farewell to our parents for the week and being welcomed by the Head Counselor and Positive Polly! They told us we'd spend the week reading by the campfire, playing math games, creating projects, having a "camp out" in our sleeping bags and even mixing up a few camp snacks....WE CAN'T WAIT!!! 

 

What the students didn't know was that Camp Learned-A-Lot was a great way to review and practice all we've learned this year! 

We wrote about what we would bring camping if we could ONLY bring 3 things with (and our writing skills have come a long way!!!), we practiced ABC order (which we're now pros at), we completed some camper problem solving riddles during math, and we went on a scavenger hunt to see what outdoor items we could find (the weather was just too beautiful not to). We even got to have a "cookout" around the fire and eat lunch in the classroom! :) 

One our favorite parts of the week was all the camp games we got to play. Frogger, leader of the band, pink grizzly bear, camouflage, milk duds in your tomato soup...you name it, we've probably played it! Good thing Miss Weeding was a camp counselor back in the day...she had all kinds of games up her sleeve. And we loved all of them!!!

Another highlight was making classroom s'mores. I mean, what's a campout without s'mores???? We didn't think the custodians would  be very happy with us if we started a real fire, so we "roasted" our marshmallows over a not so real flame. ;) And they were just as delicious!!!

We ended our final day of Camp Learned-A-Lot by relaxing in our sleeping bags and watching Open Season on the big screen. We felt just like we were sleeping under the stars! 

 

Overall, camp was a huge success and such a great way to celebrate another wonderful school year. Thank you for sharing your children with me. I feel so blessed!

Happy Weekend! Enjoy!!!

~Miss Weeding

We're Going on a Field Trip!!!

Itasca State Park, here we come!!!!

It was an absolute beautiful day for a field trip to Itasca State Park. We are so very fortunate to have this park just a short distance away from us, so we are able to go there and learn and explore.

We loaded the buses right away Wednesday morning all eager and excited to get to Itasca. After a short (and semi noisy) bus ride...WE ARRIVED!!!!

First stop: Visitors center. 

 
 


Next stop: Our parking spot for the day. From there we headed out to explore and rotate through 3 different stations at the park.

Third stop: Station #1- Sandra lead us in a pond activity where we got to look at all of the creatures that are living in the pond water.

Fourth stop: Station #2- We headed over to see Bob where we learned about animal tracks and what each of their prints look like. We even got to make our own prints!

Fifth stop: We were headed on a short hike to the Mississippi Headwaters. Miss Weeding's goal: to get us all there in one piece without losing anyone on the trail ;). Thank goodness for Miss Weeding's sister, Lynnsie and Allie's mom, Andria. It's always nice to have a few extra sets of eyes! We finally made it to the Headwaters and had so much fun walking around and looking at all there was to see...which was a lot!

 

At this point, we were all getting a little hungry, so it was time to head for the picnic shelter. 

Sixth stop: LUNCH! We had a picnic lunch and before you know it, we were ready to go again.

Seventh stop: Play time. We had a quick play time at the park before it was time to load the buses and head for home. I must say, the bus ride home was MUCH quieter than the bus ride there! Tired kids???

Eighth stop: HOME. We safely returned to Century after a full day of fun outdoors. 

The kids had a blast and we were so lucky to have such beautiful weather. 
I have a feeling we will all sleep very well tonight!!! Rest up, first graders! 
Side note: don't forget to check for woodticks!!!! :)

~Miss Weeding