Friday, November 14th

Mathematicians At Work

We began our week celebrating the first snow of the school year, and we had a wonderful day!  You can’t really celebrate snow without a snowman!  And, while we didn’t build one outside, we did create models and estimate how many “snowballs” it would take to build a snowman. We learned some strategies for estimating-making educated guesses with numbers.

 

And, this week we continued our conversations about food! We read and talked about corn!  Today, we practiced estimating by looking at a model of an ear of corn and determining how many kernels would cover the corncob.

 

          

So, what to do about those snow clothes????

I think I have found some of the pieces that were “missing”! If your first grader does not come home with what you sent, please let me know, so I can “investigate”.

Here is our procedure for the winter that seems to already be here:

Students arrive at school and come to their locker.

1. They hang their snowpants on the locker door.

2. I will let them know if they need to keep snow boots on or put on other shoes if they have them.

3. Bring  coats, hats, gloves, and mittens into the classroom for our morning walk or jog, which is determined by weather conditions.

4. Bring Take Home Folders into room and put into the Take Home Cubicle.

After our morning jog/walk, students will put snow boots in the designated area in the hall and put coats, hats, scarves, and mittens in their lockers. They will not access them again until Recess (unless we take an outdoor break in the morning).

When students come in from recess, they follow the same procedure that they follow when they come in the morning: Boots in designated area, snowpants hanging on lockers, coats, hats, and mittens, in the locker.

At the end of the day, we start this process 10 minutes earlier to help these firsties get home with the clothes they came with! :)

To celebrate our conversations about Family, Food, and Traditions, we will be “cooking” on Tuesday, November 25^th, using Lois Ehlert’s book,

Growing Vegetable Soup, as our guide.   I am in need of four crockpots and “approved volunteers” for the morning of the 25^th from 9:30 – 10:30.  Let me know if you can help with either or both of those requests.

If you haven’t sent the favorite family recipe/meal, please do so this week as we are putting together a Family, Food, Tradition Class Book.

I would like to thank you again for the time you will spend with your first grader having rich conversations about family traditions and celebrations.