Pre-Holiday Photo Fun!

Painting Christmas trees to learn about Symmetry.  The children drew half a Christmas tree, painted it, folded it in half, then opened it up to a beautiful

symmetrical Christmas tree!

Voila!

Elf on the Shelf Party!

Averie's mother, Julie, made us some adorable (and delicious) reindeer cookies

and some white chocolate popcorn to eat as we read a story and watched a 

short DVD about our Elf on the Shelf.

I'm sure you heard all about our little elf named "Burt Ray"!  He watched over our classroom for about two weeks before the Christmas break.

He sure showed up in some funny places!  Take a look!

Averie and Jadon enjoying cookies and a drink.

Can you see the mischief Burt Ray is making??

 

The play:

"Bob Humbug, The Christmas Grump!"

Thank you to all those who were in attendance.  

It was a complete success and the children 

learned a lot about 

putting on a performance for other people.

What a blast!

And, finally...

Our little class party was so much fun.

We had a fun little game of choose, unwrap, steal, or trade the gift.

Each child was happy with the gift he or she ended up with.

Once again, Mrs. Nixon organized the treats for our fun

pre-Christmas party.

So much fun!

I hope your Christmas was the best yet!!

See you all soon...

Oh What Fun It Is To READ!

This past Thursday was Amelia Earhart's anual Read-A-Thon!  This is NOT your regular old run of the mill read-a-thon.  Oh no!  It is an all out EVENT!  Each and every child in the school was (or should have  had) accompanied by an adult member of his/her family.  Once at the school, we all stood and sang the national anthem and said the Pledge of Allegiance followed by a short welcome announcement by Principal Cox.

Then, I had the wonderful opportunity to talk to the parents (you) about one of my favorite topics...Read Aloud!  I have some of the most amazing parents in my classroom and was probably "preaching to the choir" but I still went ahead and gave my testimonial about the importance of spending at least 10 wildly happy minutes with children during read aloud.    I gave everyone the 10 Commandments For Read Aloud which Mem Fox (amazing, amazing children's author and Read Aloud advocate) developed.  She is the woman I want to be when I grow up!

What a great sport our Provo mayor is!  We love him.  He even bought
a new pair of jammies just for our read-a-thon!

So, even though we had the State Superintendent of Schools for Utah, the Mayor of Provo, dignitaries from the state legislature, and district, and even had several of our Provo Police Force in attendance...our most important visitors were YOU, the parents.  Thank you to everyone who came.  Here are some absolutely adorable pictures from the day.  Enjoy!

I am so embarrassed by my lack of posting.  Please forgive me.  First Grade is a very exciting place where there is a lot of activity going on every single day.  From singing, to reading, to running, jumping and computing.  From friends to fighting (uh oh!) and from tears to puke (!), there is never a dull moment in our Room 6.  So, I'm begging forgiveness for falling behind in the posting.


Here are pictures of one of my favorite anual activity.  It's called:  "Who's Who"  Each child wrote a sentence on a sentence strip about themselves that was unique just to them.  It was adorable and the mask made it even more special.  Can you guess who without looking at the name???

 (Hey!  How did THAT get in here?  *wink wink*...

It's my little grand daughter Ellee!)

AND...here is another cute little Ellee with her

amazing torn jack o-lantern.

We were so lucky to have Luke's 93 year old grandpa who is a wonderful

vet who served in WWI.

We love him for his service and even more with his

great personality!

REFLECTIONS!

I am so proud of my little ones who entered the PTA Reflections.

Here they are with their projects:

 Beautiful, inside and out, Imani.

 Gorgeous little Shelby!

 And look at adorable Averie with her project!

I heard that some of these gals may or may not have kissed their metals and slept

with them under their pillow! 

So special!

The Big Fun Run

1.     Madison, Ellee, and Mia

2.     Grandma Ellie...boy, we love her!

3.     Ben and his dad

4.     Ellee, Averie, and Mia

5.     Leonardo and Eddie (I really love this picture!)

6.     PRIZES!

7.     Some of the gang

8.     More PRIZES!

9.     Our Shelby won this enormous remote control sports car...lucky duck!

September Lunch Bunch

The goal of each child, everyday is to earn as many blue tickets as possible.  Tickets are earned by doing your best in everything you do. The more you earn, the more chances you have of getting your name picked and then you have the privilege of choosing a prize out of the prize  box.  Two of those puppies are chosen every day.  It's a big deal around here.


As an added incentive, I save all of the tickets and then I draw FIVE names from the collection of tickets accumulated throughout the month. These five names meet together in the classroom around the "teacher table" to eat lunch with each other and with me.  It is affectionately called "The Lunch Bunch"!  I love this time.  The children really let down their hair and we get sort of silly and giggly as we eat our lunches and visit in the classroom.  What sweet little children you all have!  


Our SEPTEMBER winners were:

CHRISTOPHER!

ESHER!

LOVELY LITTLE IMANI!

LEONARDO!

JACOB!

All finished and headed back to the lunchroom. 

Such a fun time to spend together.

You may have wondered why we were all in pajamas.  Well, it just so happened to be our PJ day during the annual Red Ribbon Week.

Cute aren't they??

I wonder who the lucky five will be for last month...October!

I'll be sure to let you all know.