Our Trip to Farmers Branch Historical Park

We had a fun educational trip to the Farmers Branch Historical Park.  We visited the schoolhouse, the garden, the loghouse and we played with old time toys and games in the gazebo. Before we left, we enjoyed our lunch.

In the garden, the students learned how people had to grow all of their own crops, use compost to fertilize them and haul water since there was not a faucet to turn on.  They visited the "medicine chest" herb garden and got to sample some of the herbs and vegetables that were grown.

The children learned that in the 1800's, kids had to help with many household chores.  They learned how to wash clothes using a bar of soap and a washboard and they learned how to remove the seeds from cotton to separate the fiber to be used for cloth-making.

We had fun playing with wooden toys like Lincoln Logs and wooden hoops!

We learned that school was a little different in the one room school house.  If you had to use the bathroom you needed to go outside to the outhouse and lunches were brought in little metal pails.  You had to stand on the right side of your desk to talk and the writing was done on a slate with chalk!  Don't misbehave!  You might have to wear a dunce cap and stand with your nose against the wall!

We had a great day!!!!!

Contraction Surgery

I forgot to include these cute pictures of "contraction surgery."  The kids were so excited to wear doctor's masks and use many band-aids to help make contractions.  The words wanted to be joined as contractions but they needed some letters removed surgically.  Your little ones did a fantastic job!

A Winter Update

Here's an update of some of the fun learning tmes we've been having in 1C...

It's been so enjoyable to see the amazing job your children have done being the Super Scientist of the day!  After each experiment, the other children write a reflection about it in their Science Notebooks.  They can write sentences, draw and label a picture or make a thinking map.  Here are some of our smart (and adorable) Super Scientists:

We studied measurement as one of our math units.  We had great fun measuring with non-standard units like paper clips, Unifix cubes and tiles.  One day, we used the iTouches to scan QR codes.  After scanning the QR code, the students could read their measurement job on the iTouch.  We also measured with "basketball player feet" and "baby feet."  We used cut outs of these feet to measure tapes that were on the floor of our classroom. :

We loved our Valentine's Day Party!  We had a great time playing games, making crafts, decorating and eating cookies and opening our Valentines from all of our sweet friends!  Thank you to our room mom Brooke Scheurich for planning it all and to the other parents who helped out!!!!