1st Grade

 On November 20th Bethlehem celebrated special friends day. Students are encouraged to invite someone special to them to attend chapel, do a craft and have a snack together.  During chapel I was reminded how special Bethlehem is through watching many students use their talents that God has given them. Back in the the classroom I watched as the First graders and their special friend made Pilgrim hats, worked on a Thanksgiving word search, enjoyed snack and most of all laughed. Thank you to all who attended it means a lot to these little people and to me.

This is what I see when I walk into my living room. I love the reminder each one provides. The cross to remind me of Jesus and his love for me. The candle that Jesus is the light of the world. The words reminding me that God is always with me.

Rally Coach is a Kagan cooperative learning strategy that I taught to my students. During a Math lesson students were placed in pairs. One student worked on the problem while the other student listened, checked and coached if necessary and praised. The students then switch roles and did the next problem. Our math lesson was on subtraction with the number 8. Each student was given an index card with a math problem and a strip of stickers. The student doing the problem used the stickers to show the subtraction number sentence and the coach had to check to make sure they had the correct number of stickers and that they crossed out the correct number of stickers to match the subtraction number sentence on the card. I love their faces in these pictures......

1st graders have been learning about light. This lab was about how light interacts with different materials. We used the following materials; flashlight, clear plastic, waxed paper and cardboard. The students experimented with the different materials and then we discussed their observations as a whole class. The students were introduced to the vocabulary words opaque, transparent and translucent. As I was walking around the room I noticed each group had their own technique for conducting the experiment.

The first graders had some fun on Friday with a game called Subtraction smash. It may have been the fact that they got to use play dough but every student in class had smiles on their faces. It filled my heart when I had a student as "can I take this home" meaning the game mat :) and then many more said "me too".  The way the game works is each student gets a game mat which had boxes at the top and two circles at the bottom. Each circle was broke up with numbers in and the students used a paperclip and pencil to create a spinner. They would spin in the first circle and make that number of play dough balls and put in the boxes at the top. Then move on to the second circle and spin, this told them how many play-dough balls to smash. I get just as excited watching and listening to the students that many times I forget to take pictures. I did capture a few pictures during this activity.