Thank you!

Parents, thank you for coming to parent teacher conferences! I met with at least one parent for every one of my students. I loved talking with you about your child and his or her progress. Thanks for coming!

3 of our students read 100 1st grade sight words in 1 minute and 1 of our students read 100 3rd grade sight words in 1 minute. Congratulations! Keep up the great work!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Run, Run, As Fast As You Can,You Can't Catch Us...We're 1st Graders!

Our theme last week was "Favorite Stories."

One of the class' favorite stories was "The Gingerbread Man."

(Click on the story's title to read it online)

Our class has collected $17.69 to support the humanitarian efforts in Chile. 3 more of our 1st graders passed the 2nd grade sight words and they are moving on to 3rd grade words.

Nice work 1st graders!

Don't forget to come to parent teacher conferences this Thursday (March 18th). I look forward to meeting with all of the parents and students to talk about our 1st graders' progress!

We Are ALL Doing our Very Best!

Every Friday we do extra centers after lunch. The students really enjoy centers...especially store. The students earn pennies throughout the week and then they get to buy things with their pennies every Friday.

This week we learned about things that float and things that sink. The students observed how clay floats AND sinks if it's put in a baking soda, water, vinegar mixture (try it at home!). They also tried to form balls of clay into shapes that would float.

We are learning about shapes right now too. The students created their own cubes, pyramids, triangular prisms, and rectangular prisms.

Our class is participating in the school fundraiser called "Change for Chile." As many of you know, Chile recently experienced a major earthquake and many people are without clothes, food, and shelter. Our school's goal is to collect $500 by the end of March to send to the humanitarian efforts in Chile. So far our class has donated $9.35. Great work 1st graders! That is very kind of you!

Our class recently started a reading program. If students read 500 minutes in the month of March they will earn a free ice skating pass, a free activity coupon to Trafalga, and a book. We are keeping track of everyone's progress on the gameboard below.

Keep reading, all you amazing 1st graders!!!

ANOTHER student passed the 1st grade sight words this week. Congratulations! Now we have 8 students working on 2nd grade words and 1 student working on 3rd grade words. Wow! Keep practicing at home! Nice work!

Maps, Maps, and More Maps!

We learned about maps this week. The students made many observations and discoveries. Did you know that there is land on the bottom of the globe called Antarctica? Did you know that there are mountains in China? Do you know what a map key or a symbol is?

Well, our class does!

Miss Cluff showed the class some of the pictures and things that she got while she was in Mexico.

Our class looked at pictures of people and things from different countries using Culture Grams-Kids Edition onwww.pioneer.uen.org. This website has many resources and it is free for all Utah students.

E-mail Miss Cluff if you would like the username and password.

The students created their own lands and made a map using symbols.

Did you know that there is treasure hidden in our classroom? The students took turns hiding a Brazilian coin in the classroom and then they gave directions to a student so they could find it. The students used the directions you would find on a compass: north, south, east, and west.

An atlas is the name of a book filled with maps. The students went on an atlas scavenger hunt and had to find things like a map key, symbols, the country of Mexico, and a picture of a bird.

The students loved looking at all of the places on the globe and making observations.

Congratulations! Two more of the students in our class passed the 1st grade sight words! Good luck with 2nd grade words!