Spring Has Sprung

   Finally tempertures are in 70's and higher here in the Northeast.  But with all this warm weather is stormy weather.  We have had terrific thunder and lightening storms this whole week.  I am amazed at all the rain.  Rain in April is a great thing.  It washes our long winter away.  You remember the old saying, April Showers bring May Flowers.  We have had so much rain in our area that it is breaking records with the National Weather Service.  Lake Champlain is at an all time high of 102.36 Feet and still could rise more.  Yesterday we couldn't have recess on the playground because it looked like we had a lake.  Today the water has receeded on the playground but I am sure the ground is pretty spongy.  We were looking for rainbows but didn't find any.  :(
     We have been working on our Mother's Day Tea projects.  We can't wait to share with our moms on Wednesday.  I hope to see most moms at 1:30 p.m. on May 4th.  Don't forget to send in a new white tee shirt for our tee shirt project.
   The flowers have started to sprout and are growing quickly.  I think this weekend I'll have to mow the lawn. Yuck!
Have a great weekend every one.  Bring on the sunshine.
Mrs. Dietsche

Need help with a caption

     I know we are all hoping that this snow will go away.  It seems to linger here in Northern VT.  I took this great picture of my class about a month ago and just love it.   I am having a hard time coming up with a great caption for the picture.  Do any of you creative friends have any ideas?  Thanks for the help.
Mrs. Dietsche

First Grade Smarties

A Happy Class!

Spring Word Baskets and Chickens

Happy Spring Everybody,
   I am loving this warmer weather that is floating our way.  It has been great to get outside and enjoy the sunshine and to clean up a bit after our long cold winter.
   I found these cute little baskets at Michael's for $1and bought a bag of matching plastic eggs.  I created a list of spring words and cut them up to stuff into the eggs.  I numbered and just happened to color match the eggs and baskets.  I also created a recording sheet for kids to record the words and create sentences using the words.  I think they came out cute.  Here are the words and recording sheet for anyone to use.  Enjoy!

I did a nice unit over the last few weeks on Chickens.  I think they are one of my favorite animals.  Chickens are so funny.  Here is my chicken wall.  The kids each created a chicken, a nest and found some "interesting" vocabulary words to write on 5 eggs for the nest.  I had them color their eggs so that we could see them on our white wall.  Don't they look adorable?

Here is a great group of smiling kids.  They all look sooooo innocent.  Next week is our spring parent conferences.  I am looking forward to sharing everyone's progress.

Have a great week.
Mrs. Dietsche

Chickens, Nesting Eagles and Brownies

        I am glad that it's the weekend and I had a few minutes to relax.  Our class has been busy studying about chickens.  We think that they are fun and very funny characters.  I've been reading all of my funny chicken  books and enjoying all the antics that chickens can get into.  A few of my favorites are Chicks and Salsa, Big Chickens and Big Chickens Fly the Coop, and Interrupting Chicken.  Our class had fun creating their own chickens and nests.  We added a few vocabulary eggs to the nests.  It is an adorable display.  I did forget to take a picture of our chicken coop but I will on Monday so that you can see how cute they are.
        On Friday we had a little time to kill so we decided to write a story together.  I had each child come up and write one word to our story.  It was hard to do.  They really had to think about what would make sense.  Some kids were itching to get up to the board to write while others struggled  for a bit.  We helped each other continue the story line.  On Monday I will have the kids finish the story on their own and we will share all of the different endings.  Here's what it looked like.

           This weekend I have been very intrigued by the nesting eagles in Iowa.  Some teachers have been watching the action with their classes.  I plan on showing my kiddos the live video next week, too. This is sooooooo cool.  One baby eaglet hatched this morning.   I just watched the Momma eagle feed fresh rabbit meat to her little eaglet.  There are 2 more eggs ready to hatch.  Daddy eagle also takes care of the eggs and is helping to keep the nest warm.  That baby eaglet is just adorable.  Check it out here .

      April Fools Day was a fun event.  I wrote up a silly morning message board that didn't fool the kids one bit.  I gave them a 4th grade fraction test first thing and stumped them all.  We ripped up the "tests" after about 2 minutes worth of trying to complete it. They loved it.  After math I asked if anyone wanted a brownie.  All hands went up.  So I passed out brown E's.  They all got the joke but were a bit disappointed that there was no treat.  As they were getting ready to go home I asked again if anyone wanted a brownie?  No, they weren't falling that joke again.  Ha I pulled out a box of real brownies and they each had one before they went home.  Happy to trick others with their brown E's.

Have a great week everyone.  I'm hoping for warmer weather soon.

Mrs. Dietsche