Dental Health Month

First graders have the greatest smiles! Some have lots of permanent teeth already, some look like little jack-o-lanterns with lots of missing teeth, and some haven't lost any teeth yet. During our February Dental Health unit, we learned about caring for our teeth, eating healthy foods, and visiting the dentist.

Aren't these smiles the best?

Keep taking care of these new teeth, and they will last for a lifetime!

100 Days of First Grade!

We celebrated the 100th day of school on Tuesday! Each day since September, we have counted the days by adding a stick to a ones box. When we got to 10, we made a bundle and added it to a tens box. Finally, we got to make a big bundle of ten tens and we put it in a hundreds box! We read stories about ways to make 100, counted our collections of 100 by making 10 groups of 10, practiced counting by twos, fives, and tens, made a book and a headband, and watched a Reading Rainbow entitled "How Much is a Million?"

Here we all are wearing our headbands.

We brought in a variety of objects to practice counting. We discovered that 100 is a really big number, but not as much as one million!

The marbles were too roly-poly to stay on the work mat.


100 pennies make a dollar!

These beads were pretty little!

So were these!

Cereal worked well.

Mmmmmm - the M&Ms were tempting!

Vienna must have worked hard cutting up 100 pieces of yarn!

Look at all those crayons!

There must be a few more sticks in the bag!

More little pieces.

It's fun to work together.

Counting 100 Legos was a challenge!

More Legos.

Well, we made it to 100 days, and we are over 1/2 way through the school year! It's going really fast, but we have lots more to learn. Keep up the good work, kids!

Valentine's Day

The Valentine pockets were ready on Friday morning, and so were the kids! They got to play mailman during Centers time as they delivered all of their valentines and goodies. Since we are learning about alphabetical order, the pockets are in order from A to Z to make delivering easier.

I meant to take a picture of the overflowing pockets after all the deliveries were completed, but somehow I forgot. Oh well...you can imagine how they looked with 20 valentines and various treats in each one. We waited until after Phy. Ed. (about 2:00) to start opening. Each child had to find his/her own spot in the room so valentines didn't get mixed together, and then the fun began!

Alison was very comfy in the beanbag chair.

Chase started out under a table, but needed more room.

What a lot of loot!

Reading all the cards is really fun!

Wow, this is great!

How did all that stuff fit in that pocket?

New pencils are good, too.

Kids could eat just one or two snacks, and then the rest was to be brought home for munching over the weekend.

Nick made a great box covered with pictures showing his family and important events in his life. He told all about it for sharing.

Hannah found a small private space by the computer.

Sanskar and Elizabeth always have great smiles!

Levi isn't sure what to do with it all!

Vienna got to celebrate her birthday on Friday, too. Her actual birthday is Monday, but we don't have school that day.

Sam has everything almost packed up.

Emma needs some new teeth to help her eat all that candy!

Justin is almost done, too.

After cleaning everything up, sorting the cards from the candy, and getting things ready to take home, we played Locomotion Memory. What a fun way to spend a Friday afternoon!

Thanks, kids, for all the valentines and treats for me, too!

February is such a busy month! Tuesday we will be celebrating the 100th day of school, so remember to bring in a collection of 100 small objects.