Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays! Today we had a great school wide assembly! It was fun to hear the middle and high school singers, have a sing along, listen to some 4th grade students play instruments, and watch the AR PowerPoint! We especially loved the presentation of 12 Days of December (see picture) by some Big Woods Staff! Later we enjoyed some popcorn and our holiday movie!

Wishing everyone a WONDERFUL break!!

SCAMPER

Today we had a blast at our family reading event! We did an activity called SCAMPER to help Santa modify his sleigh. The kids had many creative ideas for Santa to make his sleigh better! Thanks to all the parents who joined us for the morning!

Measuring Machines!

We have been having SO much fun in math! This unit we were measuring machines! We learned how to use a ruler and tape measure. We talked about standard and non-standard units of measurement. We also had fun playing some math fact games! Here are some pictures of us while we were practicing using a tape measure and use non-standard measurement to measure people!

3rd Grade Buddies

Every month we try to meet with our 3rd grade buddies in Mrs. Hinkemeyer's class. This month we read stories to each other and played the Dot Game! What a treat it is to make some cross-grade connections and hang out with some SUPER role-models! The 1st graders and 3rd graders really enjoy our time together! At least once a week Mrs. Hinkemeyer or I get the question "WHEN WILL WE GET TO SEE OUR BUDDIES!?!" Thanks 3rd graders for helping us read!

Everyone hard at work with their buddies reading!

So many smiles when we are with our buddies!

Can we do this every week?

M. Cochise Anderson

Last week we had the opportunity to meet M. Cochise Anderson, Native American artist in residence. Mr. Anderson is a musician, actor, poet, performance artist, playwright, story teller, and educator who originates from the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations of Oklahoma.

Mr. Anderson shared beautiful music, fun stories, and lots of Native American history with the students. His music was hauntingly beautiful! What an amazing opportunity the students had to work with him!

A special thanks to Mrs. Van Beusekom who make his visit possible by writing a grant through Central Minnesota Arts Board!

Pictures from M. Cochise Anderson's presentation to our class

The school wide assembly... the 3rd graders helped with a Stomp Dance for the finale

Fun Math Resource

This site provides fun flash games which allow the student to review basic math fact skills as well as some challenge language arts skills. Just go to the link and click on the add and subtract tab.

http://www.arcademicskillbuilders.com

Yellow For Respect

Yesterday we talked about RESPECT for Character Counts! day. We wore yellow for respect to help us remember the GOLDEN RULE. We learned that being RESPECTFUL means we treat others with respect, follow the Golden Rule, be tolerant and accepting of differences, use good manners, not bad language, be considerate of the feelings of others, don’t threaten, hit or hurt anyone, and deal peacefully with anger, insults, and disagreements. Here are some of the kids in our class sporting their YELLOW clothes!

Harvest Fun

Today we had a great time at our Harvest Party! Thanks to great volunteers, students had the opportunity to get their face painted, golf, color, do tissue paper art, get a tatoo, play pass the candy corn, bowl, play chicken toss, play BINGO, and much more! We also made Harvest Stew and graphed the items in we found in our stew. The video below features some highlights from our day! Happy Harvest!

Big Woods Carnival

Thanks to the PTO for their amazing work organizing the Big Woods Carnival! IT WAS A BLAST!! They put a lot of time and effort into the evening and it because of their hard work the evening was a huge success! I enjoyed seeing students and families of the present and past! I have to say one of my favorite events was the Pie Eating Contest! Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Getting ready for the contest!

Face first in the pie! Ms. Brown taking a break from eating.

Ms. Brown and Mr. Heil trying to get in the last bites!

The winner. Mr. Sherman!

500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins

We had an amazing time at the Children's Theater where we saw the 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins! In the play, Bartholomew is having one of those days when things go from bad to worse! The students LOVED when Bartholomew's hats magically reappeared on his head as well as the beautiful costumes, fun scenery, and catchy music! Here is a picture of our class outside the theater!

Homecoming Week!

This week was homecoming week! We had a fun time wearing our class colors, sports clothes, pj's, crazy hair, clash colors, and school colors! Today we also said good-bye to a couple of our first grade friends who will be moving to Mr. Johnson's class. We wish them lots of luck and will look forward to seeing them in the hallway! Here are a couple final class picture with all our friends! We thought the fall background in our school colors would be a nice touch!

Days of The Week!

We have started to learn some sign language at school! Below are the pictures to show YOU how to sign the days of the week. Just copy the hands in the picture and rotate your hand in a circle!

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

I Like Myself!

This week we read the book I Like Myself by Karen Beaumont. This book is a brightly drawn rhyming book where the main character knows she is different and special and that's what makes her so wonderful. The students enjoyed the funny text and pictures!

Learning to like yourself is a gift. I think it is important for all the students to know that they are great. For a classroom extension each student created a "mini me" and then shared what makes them special. Here is an example of some of the projects that are now hanging in the hallway!

We Are On Our Way To Becoming Geologists!

Today we started our Rock (Pebbles, Sand, and Silt) Unit in Science. We will be washing, sorting, and screening rocks! We will be exploring Basalt, Tuff, and Red Scoria rocks as well as River Rocks. We will learn about different layers of sand and silt when it settles in water. During our unit we will also read fun books and finish some fun projects! BEING A GEOLOGIST IS FUN!!

Alphabet Fun

School is off to a GREAT start! We have been busy in 1st grade learning how the Daily 5 works, starting math, writing our hopes and dreams, playing games, singing songs, and much more! Today we had a lot of fun celebrating the end of our alphabet review! We read stories, did the alphabet boogies, played alphabet BINGO, had an alphabet treat, and participated in alphabet races! Here are some of the books we read today! What a FUN way to end our week!

School's Out For Summer!

I can't believe the end of the year is already here!! It has been a great year! I hope you have had a great 1st grade experience! Here is our final video for the 2009-2010 school year! Have a fun and safe summer!

Make Way For Ducklings!

Our class has had a great time watching as a duck created a nest and laid eggs in one of the Big Woods courtyards! It has been exciting to watch how she cared for her nest! The most exciting thing though was watching the babies waddle around after they had hatched! Since the duck nested in the courtyard, there was no way for her and the babies to leave! Last year, they made a duckling parade through the school. It was so cute but very stressful for the mother duck. This year as they were rounding up the babies they managed to safely grab the mother duck, get the babies into a box and transport all of them safely to a local pond. Here are some pictures of the roundup! Some are a bit blurry but the babies were moving so quickly it was hard to get a good picture of them! This was perfect timing as we discussed life cycles in science!

Rounding Up The Ducks!

The Adorable Babies!

Author Tea

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO ATTENDED OUR AUTHOR TEA!!

It was a HUGE success! The kids had a great time sharing their stories! I am extremely proud of their hard work creating their stories and hope that they enjoyed our writing projects! A special thanks to the volunteers who helped set-up and take down our cafe!

Reading Our Stories

Sharing conversation, cookies, and punch!

A fun time was had by all our special guests!

Mealworms Are Marvelous

This is a picture of one of our first beetles! We have had a lot of fun with our mealworms! At first the students were confused because we started talking about insects. They caught on quickly that a worm is not an insect and many asked why we were going to take care of mealworms. What they didn't know is that they would eventually change to a beetle! The day our first beetle arrived was SO EXCITING! Here are some interesting things about meal worms and beetles....

Q: How many types of beetles are there?

A: There are more kinds of beetles on earth than kinds of anything else! Scientists have estimated that there are over 350,000 kinds of beetles. Some scientists estimate that beetles account for at least a million of the earth's six million animal species.

Q: Where do mealworms live?

A: They live in a lot of places, most of them cool and damp. Unfortunately, they also like to live in your cupboards! They can also be pesty in stored grain. The mealworm is really the larval stage of a black beetle.

Q: What eats meal worms?

A: Lots of things can prey on the larval stage of mealworms. Two examples are birds and other insects. Mealworms may also be sold in pet stores to feed to lizards and other pets.

Q: How are mealworms born?

A: Mealworms, like most insects, hatch from eggs. The adult female mealworm lays about 275 eggs, which hatch in one to two weeks. And out pop tiny mealworms!

Q: How does a mealworm turn into a beetle?

A: Beetles can be a lot like butterflies. They have a larval stage, a pupal stage, and an adult stage. In butterflies we usually call those stages "caterpillar," "chrysalis," and "butterfly." In beetles we usually call them "grub" (or larva), "pupa" and "beetle." So after a year or two as a mealworm, the mealworm will form a pupa and after a few weeks will emerge as an adult beetle. Marvelous!

Thank You PTO!

We have an amazing PTO at Big Woods! They have done many things for the students and staff at Big Woods. Some of the things they do include:

• Organizing Volunteers for Various Events


• Fundraising


• Providing Funds For Field Trip Transportation Cost


• Bringing in Speakers Like Danielle Daniel


• Helping With The Book Fair


• Collecting Box Tops


• MUCH, MUCH, MORE!!

THANK YOU TO THE PTO for all their help this year! Last week I attended a PTO meeting and as I was walking out to my car, the water tower across the street appeared to be glowing as the sunset reflected off of it! I hope you enjoy the picture!

China Presentation

This month is Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month. We kicked off this month by listening to Dr. Foucault share pictures and stories from her trip to China. Some things we found very interesting were the architecture of the temples, how cars drive on sidewalks and can only be taken out certain days of the week, the toilets, the exercise equipment in the middle of the city, and how people grow pigeons. We also enjoyed seeing what a school in China looked like! Thank you Dr. Foucault for sharing your trip with us!

We thought the pictures were really interesting!

A very interesting presentation!

2nd Grade Guest Readers

THANK YOU to some of the students in Mrs. Sukalski's class who came to perform a Reader's Theater for our class at Morning Meeting! They did a great job and we really liked their story!

Magnificent Maestros

Wow! We have a classroom of performers! The kids had a great time at the music concert last week! They did an excellent job showing off their musical skills! I recorded one of their favorite songs that night. They love the Teddy Bear song! Thanks to Mrs. Van Beusekom for all her work teaching our class about music! Hope you enjoy watching their performance!

We Are Good Citizens

This month we will be talking about being a GOOD CITIZEN! Being a GOOD CITIZEN means we do our share to make our school and community better. We cooperate and get involved in community activities. We are good neighbors, obey rules, and respect authority. We also work to protect our environment! Here are some of the kids in our class who participated in wearing purple for CITIZENSHIP!

Caring

This month our character trait is CARING. Being CARING means being kind, compassionate, showing you care, expressing gratitude, forgiving others, and helping people in need. Some of the students in our class were responsible for doing a public service announcement on the Big Woods Buzz. Here is our segment from the announcements that morning! Thanks to the students who read the caring poem!

Flat Stanley

Our Flat Stanley project is slowly coming to and end. We always get a few random Flat Stanley letters throughout the spring, but we think most of his adventures are wrapping up! It has been lots of fun seeing where Flat Stanley has traveled to! We love getting his letters, looking up where he stayed on the map, and learning about the things he has done on his journey! We are so thankful to all those who participated and helped make our Flat Stanley project a success!! To see more about his journey, please check out our classroom moodle. You can click log in as guest to see all the postcards, letters, and pictures we received! You can also check out our google map to learn a little more about where Stanley has traveled! Hope you enjoy checking out some of Stanley's adventures!

Our Flat Stanley Bulletin Board!

Letters and pictures we received from Flat Stanley!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We had a fun day today learning about Ireland, graphing Lucky Charms, and searching for gold coins! Miss Griffin's shamrock glasses were a big hit! We hope you have a great St. Patrick's Day!!

For each petal on the shamrock

This brings a wish your way

Good health, good luck, and happiness,

For today and every day.

A nice class picture!

A silly class picture!