Children's Museum and Como Zoo

We went on our First Grade Class Trip to the St. Paul Children's Museum and Como Park Zoo on Wednesday, May 13th! The weather was cloudy and cool, but very comfortable!

Could these smiles be any bigger? Justin and Nick were so excited!

What a great way to spend a birthday! Will wore his crown all day long!

When will we be there? The ride got kind of long for Elizabeth, Emma, and Madison.

Finally, we made it. We listened to instructions in the Big Room at the museum. There were only three main rules - stay with your helper, walk, and have fun!

Each child was assigned to a group of 3-4 kids and an adult, so the groups were free to explore the galleries on their own. This works great, but it was hard for me to get pictures of everyone in the class since I had my own group to watch. Once we split up at the museum, I didn't see some of the kids until we ate lunch! Our volunteers were fantastic, and everyone had a really good time. Creative play is encouraged in every gallery, and the following pictures show just a few of the many activities available.

Corn, anyone?

Vienna prepared a great meal of rice and vegetables.

Hannah, Julia, Madison, and Vienna were wishing this was a real boat!

Nick tried on a hard hat in the construction area.

Sanskar started a building with giant blocks.


It ended up bigger than he is!

Jack and Nick made some recycled paper out of newspaper.

Sam, Jack, and Nick hung out in the construction zone.


Madison prepared a Chinese meal for me!


The grocery store was a popular spot.

Vienna had a lot of mail to deliver.

Chase, Will, and Julia were working on being deejays.

Vienna and Madison were quite the rockers!

Madison, Julia, Hannah, and Vienna made friends with Clifford and Emily Elizabeth.

Sanskar found a great frog puppet...

And Levi made his climb a tree!

After spending almost 2 hours exploring the galleries at the museum, we ate our lunch in the Big Room, packed up everything, and boarded the buses for Como Park, where we again split up in our groups to see all of the animals.

My group thought it would be fun if this was a real turtle.

Grant, Trenton, and Justin found a comfy bench in the rainforest.

The monkeys were "hanging out."

The mother orangatan was taking good care of her new baby.

Ali, Abby, and Kaitlin were watching the sea lions.

This giraffe was actually 15 feet tall!

The zebra looked like he would rather be outside. It was pretty smelly inside!

The lion was relaxing - on a rock?

Several groups met up in the Conservatory. The flowers were beautiful!

We posed for a group shot after our return to Cannon Falls. It started to rain as soon as we got on the bus, but other than a few sprinkles as we walked around the zoo, the weather was very pleasant! The predicted high winds held off until evening - yeah!

Thanks to our great volunteers - Peggy, Emily, Stacy, Marge, Amanda, and Lynn!

Actually, Stacy and Amanda came along on another 1st grade trip with me, but they were only 7 at the time, when they were students in my class! Funny how time flies!

The kids were great on the trip, and I'm sure they all slept well on Wednesday night - I know I did!

Fun on the Farm

We got to go to the Sauter Dairy Farm last week! Before our trip, we learned about the different kinds of cows we would be seeing, and how the cows are cared for, fed, and milked. We saw a Power Point presentation about the farm, and also read lots of books. We were very excited on Farm Day!

Before we even got off the bus, we had to put plastic boots on our feet to keep our shoes from getting all yucky.
The boots came up to our knees. It was kind of hard to walk with them on, but the bus driver was sure happy at the end of the trip when we didn't drag all the smelly farm muck onto the clean bus!

Can we get going now? We're so ready!

The first animal we met was Freckles, the dog.

Then, we went to the HUGE barn and listened to Josh as he told us all about the cows.

The cows got a little nervous when all the kids arrived.

We learned about the special feed the cows get, and we even got to feed them. It was pretty smelly, though.

There were almost 300 cows in the barn, most of them Holsteins,

and a few Brown Swiss.

All of the cows have numbers for identification. It must be really hard to keep track of that many cows!

Next, we went to the milking parlor.

Mark showed us the pre-dip that is used to clean the cow's udder.

Then, he showed us the milking machine.

We even got to put our thumbs in the machine. It felt really funny!

Next, we went to the nursery to see the new-born calves. We got to pet them and let them suck our fingers. That felt funny, too!

A little kitten was all cuddled up with a calf - so cute!

This calf was only about 3 hours old!

Here's the whole crew at the end of a really great trip.

Thanks, Sauters, for letting us visit! We learned so much!

March Students of the Month

I've gotten a little behind on blog posts this month! Here are our March Students of the Month. A little late, but congratulations, just the same!

Great job, Madison and Nick! Keep up the good work.

Scroll on for pictures of our fantastic concert!

First Grade Concert

The big day of our concert finally arrived! We have been practicing for weeks, and we were all so excited to perform for our friends and families!

We met ahead of time in Mrs. Ebeling's room. It was hard to wait quietly until everyone arrived.
We each got a red, white, or blue necklace to wear to go along with this year's "Celebrate America" theme. Finally, it was time to line up and walk back-stage to the risers.

It's almost time to start, and we're ready!

Some of us had flags to hold and wave during the songs.

We wore cowboy hats and bandanas, too.

It was hard to wait while Mr. Koven was talking.

Is it time yet??

Finally, the curtain opened! Don't our t-shirts look great?

OK, here we go...

Abby, Kaitlin, Grant, and Madison had to introduce one of the songs.

Elizabeth and Sam were speakers, too.

Whew! It's all over! We waved and bowed at the very end when the audience clapped for us. The whole show was very fun, and we did an awesome job! Our teachers were sooooo proud of us!
If you would like to purchase a DVD of the whole concert, you can order one for $7.00. Get your orders in as soon as possible. Forms were available at the concert, or contact me at school and I will send you one.

Thanks for coming to the show!

Science in the Toy Box

We have been working on Physical Science during the last few weeks, and we've learned a lot about Matter, Sound, and Movement. To show the effect of gravity on an object, the kids have been constructing various slides, and then watching marbles roll downhill.

The marbles move faster with a little push.

There's no way the marbles move uphill, though, even with a push!


The steeper the hill, the faster the ride!
(Is that the sun shining in the window?? We haven't seen much of that this spring!)


We've also been learning about balance, and if things crash, they fall down, not up, due to gravity. These wooden totem blocks are very tricky to stack.

These two worked extremely hard following a stacking suggestion on the can, and they did it!


Wow! These blocks have been around for a long time, and I think this is the first time anyone in my class has been able to do this! Way to go, boys! I'm really impressed with your patience and eye-hand coordination! It's WAY harder than it looks!
The kids have been very interested in all of our activities and experiments during these units. Thanks for your help with the homework assignments!