Famous African Acrobats

We enjoyed a great lyceum today put on by the Famous African Acrobats. The group was founded in 1997 in Mombasa, Kenya, by Abdul Maluzi, and they are currently based in St. Louis, Missouri. They have performed in schools, circuses, theme parks, resorts, and cruises. The kids were amazed at their skills in gymnastics, jump roping, juggling, limbo, balancing, and human pyramids. What a great show!

How do they do that??
How low can he go? Actually, they lowered the bar even further than this!


Jumping rope looks pretty easy....

But try it again on your hands! One performer actually jumped rope sitting down with his legs straight out in front of him. The rope is going so fast you can hardly see it.

Again, balancing these block looks easy...

Now try doing a hand-stand on the blocks! Next, he balanced on just one hand.

The somersaults through a hoop were great. They went so fast that several of my pictures were blank - I couldn't snap fast enough!

Ever try balancing head-to-head?

Wow - what strength!

The kids sat in awe during the whole performance, and hopefully, they all heard the last comment by one of the acrobats -

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!

December Students of the Month

Mr. K. came in today to present the December Student of the Month awards, and also to give pencils to everyone who has a January birthday.

Congratulations to this month's winners!

Back to Art Class

We went back to the Art Room on Friday to work more on our painting projects from last week. Today, we learned how artists mix colors to get the exact shades they want. We only got the primary colors (red, blue, and yellow), plus black and white, to paint our pictures, and then we had to mix the colors ourselves.

Some of us were still working on the transfer process.

Ready to paint.

We have to put on a paint shirt to protect our clothes, and then, finally, it's time to add color!
We use ice cream bucket covers to mix the paint.

Look! I made green!
We had to leave our finished paintings in the Art Room to dry over the weekend. They will be on display next week for everyone to see!

Snowflake Snowmen

It's winter and snow is everywhere! It's even been snowing inside, but the snowflakes in our classroom are made of paper instead of water. We have been learning how to cut snowflakes this week, so by the end of the day our floor has been covered with little scraps. We've spent lots of time picking up!

To make our snowmen, we cut out three circles, folded them, and then cut little snippets to make snowflakes.

Next, we stacked them up, glued them to blue paper, and added details.

These glue sticks work pretty well, and they aren't as messy as regular glue.

Don't they look cute?

Art Class

One of our special classes each week is Art. We go to the Art room for a 50 minute period and work on lots of neat projects, using a variety of materials. This week, we started a new project that involved drawing a picture using pencil, and then tracing over it with a sharpie marker. Next, we taped the picture up to the window and transferred the image to special paper for painting. Next week, we will paint our pictures. Watch for next week's post to see the final projects!

This is fun!

Mrs. S. gives us directions, and also suggestions as to how to make our pictures better.

We could use magazines for ideas for animals and outdoor scenes.

It takes a lot of concentration!

We sometimes share ideas.

Sometimes we need an eraser, too.

This underwater scene should look really neat when it's painted.

We add lots of details to our pictures.

Good think the pencil is nice and sharp!

Almost ready for the marker.

The newspaper protects the table from marker soaking through the paper.

It's fun to use markers.

All done with the drawing and tracing steps.

Now to the window for the transfer step.

The light makes the marker show up really well!

We're all looking forward to next Friday when we can paint our pictures!

Happy New Year!

Here's the whole crew right before vacation.

Hopefully, everyone will make a New Year's resolution to read 15-30 minutes every day in 2008! Remember, kids, the more you read, the better you read!

Happy Holidays!

The last day of school before vacation is always a very busy one! We all dressed in our favorite red and green clothes, and we even got to wear Santa hats, reindeer antlers, and bells.
We started off the day by listening to the high school choir as they caroled in the commons area outside our classroom. They sounded really good!

We got to sing along on "Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."


Then, our 4th grade buddies came to play a math game with us.

It was fun to practice the addition strategies we have been learning.

We brought the game home so we can play it with our families during vacation!

After playing the game, we shared stories with our buddies.

The lunchroom was full of red and green!

What a good lunch! We even had Christmas cookies!

Thanks to everyone who contributed this week to the food drive. We took a walk through the office to see the huge pile of food. Our class didn't win the prize for bringing in the most food, but we sure helped.

Have a GREAT vacation, and come back to school in January all ready to begin a new year of fun activities in First Grade!