"Knock, knock." "Who's there?" "Joke" "Joke who?" "Onion!"

Since it's I love to Read month we are enjoying reading all different kinds of books-short ones, long ones, poems, and today, jokes! We had a blast reading books that were full of jokes, but also sharing some of our original jokes. (Ok, most of them didn't make sense, but still made us all roar with laughter.) It has been a busy week full of laughter (even not on "joke day"), hard work, and cooperation.

We have finally finished re-writing our hopes and dreams for the rest of the 1st grade year! It is always so heartwarming to listen to the things our kiddos want to do. Some are very serious (I want to be a kind friend.) and some are very outrageous (I want to become a shark.) but are all very heartfelt and sincere. We will keep these new dreams up for the rest of the year as we finish up 1st grade. (CAN YOU BELIEVE WE ONLY HAVE A HALF OF A YEAR LEFT?!)

This week we continued learning about how to measure using different tools. We realized that using our feet is not only stinky, but also not very consistent because we all have different sized feet. So we started using cubes, which worked really well until we realized that not everyone has cubes. So, we started using inches as our unit of measurement. We began using rulers to measure objects in our classroom. We are also still working on our math facts and are getting better everyday!

We learned how to play a new game this week called, Titanic. This is not only fun, but has helped us practice our listening skills. In this game students have to listen to certain directions and then do a certain action for each different direction. It's a game that uses all of our C.A.R.E.S. values. (Cooperation, Assertion, Responsibility, Empathy, and Self Control). Here are a few pictures of this silly game:

We read the book, Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, and learned about "The Ripple Effect". Just like water in a puddle, our actions affect other people around us. We realized that just like Lilly when she made a bad choice, our choices not only hurt ourselves, but other students, teachers, and our families. We are going to keep this in mind as we work in our classroom...

Thanks to everyone for coming to conferences! It was fun and exciting to chat with you and share informaiton about your great students! (If you didn't make it, don't worry we will find a time to catch up too!)