Field Trip to the Theater

A couple of weeks ago our first and second grades enjoyed a field trip to Burlington to attend a performance at the Flynn Theater.  The show was If You Give A Mouse A Cookie was a  fun and fantastical show ithat was delightfully adapted for the stage by TheatreworksUSA.  It was an awesome show.  Our kids loved the whole experience.

    Our school was treated to a workshop by two talented teachers from the Flynn Theater.  The day before the performance Suzann Olson came to Highgate to introduce our kiddos to the art of performance.  They put the kids through their paces.  Check out the video of the fun my first graders had with Suzanne.  This workshop was a perfect introduction to the theater performance.  Thank you Flynn Theater for offering this essential program to enrich our kids lives.

It's April

            We have about 50 days left to our school year.  Time is flying by and spring is in the air.  It's mud season and the sap is flowing into buckets and tubes all throughout Vermont and Northern New York.   The ice is almost out of the lake and there are still just a few patches of snow hanging around.  Soon every thing will start green up and we can leave winter behind us.  I love this time of year!

One  Fun and Crazy Class

New Fun Link and a Spring Freebie

I came across this great link that is new to me but not new for many people.  It was created for adults to use for instant feedback at conferences.  I have adapted it for use in my classroom.  It's called Today's Meet.  It's found at www.todaysmeet.com  

 I created a room with a question for my kids to answer or respond to.  Then I put a link up on my webpage for them to access the site.  It is a very simple website.  You go to the website and create a room.  Keep the name simple.  It will become your link.  Then in your first post, create a question.   I like that my kids have to type their name and then their answer to my question and it's a simple click to post their response.   And the best part is that it's FREE!  You can cut and paste all responses in one highlight to be able to save permanently.  You get to choose how long the page and responses stay up anywhere from 2 hours to 1 month.  I just love it.  Here is what my kids did with the Question: What would you do if you caught a leprechaun?

Check out Today's Meet for an easy way to tap into your students' knowledge.  Good Luck!

Also check out a post I wrote 2 years ago for a great spring freebie!

Trapping A Leprechaun

We are sure there was a leprechaun lurking around our classroom this past week.  It's a good thing my class created leprechaun traps to try to capture one.  Oh the messes he left all week long took us way too long to clean up.  I am so glad the our leprechaun has moved on to greener pastures (namely back home to Ireland).  There was green glitter sprinkled all over the carpet , books and even on the traps.  Our shoes were lost for a good part of a morning but were found in the bathroom.  We suspect that the tricky leprechaun stole them because the toilet water was green even after we flushed it.  He was kind on our last day when he left us necklaces, and candies.  He wasn't fooled by any of the fabulous traps.  Maybe next year.........
Check out how great all of our traps were!

St. Patrick's Day Videos

Erin Go Braugh..........Ireland Forever!  I love St. Patrick's Day.  Today I share some YouTube videos with you.  My students will be bringing in their leprechaun traps this week and I will share them next week with you all.

St. Patrick's day Hat

Leprechaun Hat

Leprechaun Stories and crafts  15 mins.

Song: Eat Potatoes and Cabbage

Song

Heart Stacking with our Skype Buddies

I love our skyping buddies Mrs. Hilton's First Grade from Morning Sun, Iowa.  During the month of love, we hung out together doing some estimating and stacking candy hearts.  We loved getting a chance to practice our estimating skills.  Mrs. Hilton had 3 baby food jars filled with small candy hearts.  She showed them to us and we all made our educated guess.  Next we recorded our guesses.  Mrs. Hilton counted out all the candies into groups of 10, a skill we all practice.  It was cool for my kiddos to get close to the actual totals with their estimates.
       We had a blast trying to stack candy hearts.  Our top stacker, Jessica was able to stack 19 candies.  We even took out rulers to measure how high our candy stacks were.  Of course we got to munch away at our yummy candies.  We all had a great time.  We are all looking forward to our next Skype session with both Iowa and Texas.

Science Fun

                 Have you ever wondered about the world around you?  Kids are naturally curious creatures.  My little group of kiddos is no different.  They are a very curious beast.  They are always on the look out for things out of the ordinary.  It may be a bug crawling across the carpet, or their marker bleeding through their paper, or even a pencil's ding on a metal water bottle.  Kids want to be up close and personal with why things work the way they do.  I love where their questions take me.  It's one of the reasons why I love first grade so much.  I never know what my day might bring.  I love the internet for helping us to find out more about any topic under the sun.
                    My little scientists had a great time recently discovering and writing about our five senses.  Our curriculum states that we must talk about how our five sense satisfy our needs and how they keep us safe.  My kids loved reading about them and getting a chance to touch, smell, taste, see, and listen to several objects from our classroom.  The best part for them was when I pulled out our science goggles for the first time.  Now every time we do science we wear them.  They had to take a walk around the building the first time we put them on to practice using our 5 senses.  I think they just wanted to show them off to everyone.

What are you curious about?

Check out how "Smart" we all look in our  new science goggles.