Holidays Around the World- Update

Today we learned about the holiday Diwali celebrated in India. We learned that Diwali is known as the Festival of Lights and people decorate with many lights including paper lanterns. We watched a video about Diwali, which you can check out below. We also made our own paper lanterns and recorded some of the information that we learned. 

http://youtu.be/HrrW3rO51ak

Holidays Around the World- Update

Today Globe Trot Scott sent us a package from Israel. We learned about the holiday Hanukkah. We were lucky enough to have a guest speaker, Mrs. Kravet, come in to tell us all about how her family celebrates. She even taught us how to play dreidel! 

Holidays Around the World

In first grade we are learning all about holidays and traditions from around the world. To help us learn, we are following the travels of Globe Trot Scott. Each day he sends us a package from a new part of the world that he is visiting. The package contains information about the country, a letter to our class, and a souvenir that shows how people there celebrate a December holiday. We have also been reading books, watching videos, and listening to guest speakers share about their traditions. 

So far Globe Trot Scott has sent us packages from the United States where we've learned about Christmas and Kwanzaa. Today our package was from Italy and we learned about Italian Christmas traditions.

We are excited to see where Globe Trot Scott takes us next! 

Teen Numbers and Place Value

Last week in math we worked on teen numbers and recognizing place value in numbers between 10 and 20. We looked at double ten frames that showed numbers in the teens, built the same numbers out of unifix cubes, and wrote and solved addition problems to match. This will help to begin building our understanding of place value, and our computation up to 20. 

Folktales

In reading this month we have been studying folktales. We began by reading different stories about Johnny Appleseed. We studied him by identifying his character traits and his actions during his lifetime. We have begun to explore other common folktales. Today we read one version of Jack and the Beanstalk. In the story they describe Jack as kind, hard working, and brave. We used evidence from the story to support each of these character traits. Tomorrow we will read a different version of Jack and the Beanstalk (called Kate and the Beanstalk) and use a Venn Diagram to compare the two stories. 

Fall Star Students

We've had lots of star students this fall! Each month teachers at Southeast choose 2 or 3 students who have been showing respect, responsibility, or safety. These students get to celebrate by having a special lunch with Mrs. Rodriguez. Congratulations to the following students: 

September: Brynn, Sakan

October: Max, Anna, Abigale 

November: Megan, Cordelia, Evan

Way to go! 

Perfect Attendance

The first trimester is over and today we celebrated students who had perfect attendance! In our class Jeffrey, Prakriti, Ben, Evan, Anna, and Dahlia received a perfect attendance ribbon. Great job!