Literacy Day and Other Holiday Projects!

Literacy Day was such an amazing day this year! It was due to my amazing parents that came out! We started out by performing our play The Snowman. It was based on the book by Raymond Briggs. (It is one of my favorite childhood books!) Here is a photo of us in our amazing costumes!

After the play we performed our IPICK rap! The kids did a great job, showing everyone how we pick good fit books in first grade! 

The best part of the whole day was when our parents had a chance to participate in read to self time. The kids are doing such a good job being able to build their stamina for reading. We are up to ten minutes now! I could not be more excited! Here are some photos of the read to self time:

It was such a great day! Thank you to those that came to see our show!

We also have been doing some other fun holiday activities that I wanted to share with all of you too! We read the book "If You Take a Mouse to the Movies" by Laura Numeroff. We enjoyed this book since we had seen the play just a little bit ago about her other books. The book is a funny cause and effect of what happens if you take a mouse to the movies. We made a cause and effect wheel to show the order. Thanks to Mrs. Carroll at The First Grade Parade for this awesome idea!

After, we made a film strip that showed two of the events in order. They did a great job seeing how cause and effect works. 

We finished off the holiday season with our very own job application to be one of Santa's reindeer! We had to explain why we would make a good reindeer and how much we would want to get paid. We then made ourselves look like reindeer with the red nose so we could impress Rudolph!

So cute!

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season! See you in January!

-Ms. Thomas :)

Run, run as fast you can!

To close out the year we did an entire week of fun gingerbread activities. Babbling Abby had amazing ideas about gingerbread so I knew I had to use them.
We started out by reading all the different kinds of gingerbread man stories there were. We read "The Gingerbread Man" by Jan Brett, "The Cajun Gingerbread Boy" and "Gingerbread Man Superhero!". We enjoyed every single book! After we discussed how they were alike and different. This is what we came up with:

All around we noticed there was always that famous rhyme" "Run, run as fast as you can! You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!" 

Once we had some background we made our very own gingerbread boy and girl. We used all different materials to make them. After, we made our boys and girls we wrote a story about how they looked. We made sure to use juicy describing words!

They turned out very cute! :)

Of course to finish out the week, I made us some REAL gingerbread men to decorate and eat! We had such a fun time at our party making them. Here are some pictures:

As you can see it was very yummy!! 

-Ms. Thomas :)

REAL Men Read!

Today, we had the pleasure of having Trooper Dan from the Louisiana State Police come in and read to our class! It was great to see a man showing that real men really do read! We also got to hear all about how to stay safe when we ride in the car, and ride on a bike. He also showed us all of the cool things on his belt! :)

Thanks for coming Trooper Dan, and we loved the stickers!

-Ms. Thomas :)

The Holiday Season has Begun!

So, we gave ourselves a break before we jumped into holiday decorating after all the gobble gobble! We started to make our costumes for Thursday today, and boy are they going to look adorable! I am so impressed, all of my readers have their lines memorized! I hope to see all my parents on Thursday! :)

I decorated the classroom with some festive holidays around the world symbols. We have a menorah for Hanukkah, a kinara for Kwanzaa, and a tree for Christmas. We have been discussing all about these holidays, and how it is important to know about different cultural celebrations.

Today, we discussed all about their favorite Christmas topic...GIFTS! Instead of talking about toys, games, and bikes we talked about the things we sometimes forget about during the holidays. I gave them the sentence "The best gift of all is.." I was so happy to hear of all the things they are thankful for and think is the best gift. We then wrapped them up in a bow and this is what they looked like:

It was so sweet to see what they hold dear! Thank to Mrs. Carroll at The First Grade Parade for your inspiration!

After we put them all together, we made a beautiful Christmas tree out of our handprints! 

Stay tuned...there is more to come! 

-Ms. Thomas :)

Oh the Fish!

The fish have all found new homes now! Ms. Thomas has four new pets now actually! :) I know D'Corian, Raveon, and Rashauna are taking good care of those little guys!

Here are a few of the pictures I took throughout our study of their amazing ecosystems!

It was such a treat to have a living ecosystem in the classroom!

Ms. Thomas :)