Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Starfish!

Our Little Baby Crickets

We are parents! Our baby crickets have hatched! They like to play on the warm sunny side of the terrarium. We give them water on a paper towel. When we bring grapes for snack, we bite them in half and feed them to the baby crickets. They can't chew through the grape skin yet. They are about 1/4 inch long. They are hard to see because they blend in with the soil. They don't chirp yet, but they will when they are bigger. We really like watching them.

We won a gingerbread house!

Mr. Chouinard made a big, beautiful gingerbread house. He gave it to our school. Mrs. McGee did a lottery and our class won! OH YEAH! 

THANK YOU SO MUCH, MR. CHOUINARD! It's so beautiful we can't decide if we should eat it or not. What would you do if you were us?

Our Christmas Traditions

Traditions are things we do every year. Here are some of our Christmas traditions.

Emma - My dad lifts me up so I can put the angel on top of our tree.

Nathan - I go Kringleville every year.

Brooke - My cousins and grandparents come to my house every year. 

Dana - I go Grammy's and my cousins to celebrate.

Rory - We open our presents on Christmas morning, but I have to wait for Mom to get up.

Dylan - I go to sleep earlier than usual so Santa will come faster.

Joddi - I go to my grandparents and we go to church, and we sing songs together.

Jase - I go to my grandparents and open presents at night.

Laney - I go to my grandparents to celebrate the day before and we unwrap those presents after supper.

Coty - My mom decorates our Christmas tree so it's a surprise.

Jaidyn - I get up with my family on Christmas day and we unwrap our presents together. 

Hunter - I have to wait until after breakfast to open presents. That's hard!

Lillian - We sing songs before we open presents.

Dakota - Me and my mom and Harley decorate our tree.

Daniel - We get our tree around Thanksgiving.

Natasha - I light up our tree and then sing songs.

Alanna - We put up lots of decorations in my room.

Most of us leave cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. We bake special cookies. We decorate Christmas trees and hang wreaths. AND - we decorate our classroom. Our teacher puts up one new decoration every day, and we have to find it. It's fun!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is about giving thanks. Here is what we are thankful for:

Natasha - I'm thankful for my mom, my couch, my cat, my school, going places, and my bed.
Laney - I'm thankful for our friends in Europe, my family, God, and everything.
Dana - I'm thankful for my dog, my cat, the weather, and my family.
Nathan - I'm thankful for my family, God, and my house.
Lillian - I'm thankful for all my friends, my family, my food, my bed, and all the gorgeous creatures, and the kids in my class and my teacher.
Hunter - I'm thankful for my family, sleeping in a warm bed, and my food.
Dan - I'm thankful for the Pilgrims and the veterans, my family and my warm bed.
Emma - I'm thankful for my food, my family, God and everything!
Coty - I'm thankful for my house, my food, and my family.
Dylan - I'm thankful for my mom, my food, and that I'm healthy.
Joddi - I'm thankful for my family, my cats, and my dog, and my bed.
Jase - I'm thankful for my family, my food, my warm bed, and everything!
Brooke - I'm thankful for my family and my friends.
Alanna - I'm thankful for my family, and other people who I love and love me.
Rory - I'm thankful for my mom and my family and my daddy, and my cats.
Dakota - I'm thankful for food and friends.
Jaidyn - I'm thankful that I can give food to the Food Bank, that I can help other kids who don't have anything, and for drawing pictures. 

We're all thankful for books and stories, food, God creating our world, teachers that teach us all kinds of new stuff and love us, Santa, Mrs. McGee, sunshine, flowers, animals, art, songs, school, all of us together, and for being safe and healthy.

Our Friends in New Zealand

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Even and Odd Numbers

We learned about even and odd numbers. Even numbers end in 0,2,4,6, and 8. Odd numbers end in 1,3,5,7, and 9. We picked things in our classroom to show the numbers. We took our own pictures. We showed how the numbers are even and odd. We really like taking pictures.

It's Halloween Night by Rory

Hi, come into my haunted house. You will see a pumpkin. You will see a spooky cat. You will see eyes blinking at you. Come out. BOO!

Virtual Jack-o-lanterns

We loved it!

Haunted House by Nathan

This is the haunted house and there are monsters in it. We went in it and something was behind us and said, "Boo!"

Spooky and Boo-y by Alanna

One day the best jack-o-lantern was Jaidyn the pumpkin. A black dog came out and a ghost shouted, "BOO!" And the skeletons ran away.

Spooky Haunted House by Lillian

Once there was a creepy haunted house which was full of monsters. There was a spooky pumpkin and the ghost went, "Boo!" The pumpkin went behind the ghost and made him BOO again.

A Spooky Night by Jaidyn

The bat is awake. 
Well, the ghost waits.
The cat has a tummy ache.
And the haunted house bakes.

A Haunted House by Emma

Once there was a haunted house, a spooky pumpkin and a black cat. There was something wrong with that black cat. Then a ghost popped his head out of the window and shouted, "BOO!" The ghost shook the haunted house and the pumpkin went rolling and rolling and rolling. The cat screamed, "MEOW!" Then the haunted house jumped. The cat landed safely on a hill. Then then haunted house fell down.

The 3 Bats and the Haunted House by Hunter

There is a haunted house. There is nobody there but three bats. There is a king bat in the middle. There is a spider spinning a web.

Halloween by Natasha

The haunted house is scary. It is really scary. My house is haunted. The ghost is screaming, "Boo!" The jack-o-lantern is smiling at the haunted house to let the ghost in. But the ghost just keeps screaming, "Boo!"

Spooky Stuff by Dan

There is a ghost that shouted, "Boo!" There is a very spooky skull. There is a trick-or-treater at the haunted house. They give him a bag with candy and the ghost comes out and shouts, "BOO!" again.

The Spooky Day by Jase

The spooky day was here. It was scary. But it was bats and spiders and all more spooky. I can't know when it is being a spooky day again.

Haunted House by Joddi

I love to go down to the haunted house! Do you like to go down to the haunted house? You will see ghosts and a cat and probably a witch and a jack-o-lantern.

At Halloween by Dylan

It's Halloween night. The ghost is going to the house to scare everyone. The bats are on the roof and the pumpkins are glowing. Everyone got scared!

The Funny Spooky Story by Brooke

It was Halloween night. It was dark and creepy. There is a jack-o-lantern on a hill and a bat and a skull saying, "Boo!" It was a haunted house and everybody got scared.

On Halloween by Laney

On Halloween night I went for a walk. I saw a haunted house, a skeleton and a ghost that said, "Boo", and a pumpkin head that was scary. I yelled, "AHH!" and then I went home safely and dressed up in my princess costume to go trick-or-treating.

Three Cats and One Ghost by Dana

 Once upon a time, there were three cats and one ghost.  I saw that the ghost told the cats something. I don't know what. Maybe the ghost told the cats to go to a haunted house. The cats went to the haunted house and then they had a party with the ghost.

Halloween Night by Coty

In the woods a ghost said, "Boo". A skeleton said, "Ha, ha!" The cat was frightened and went into the woods.

Skeletons! by Dakota

 Skeletons scare people because they run around. He is running away from the skeleton.

Apple Tasting Party!

 

Our teacher brought in 8 different kinds of apples. We took pictures of the apples, then we observed them carefully and we talked about how each apple looked. We wrote its name on our Apple Expert paper. We predicted what color the apples would be on the inside. Some were white and some were yellow. We cut them up and put them on a plate. We passed them around and we each took a piece. We smelled them and predicted if they would taste juicy, tart, sweet or sour. Then we ate them and circled what we liked on our Apple Expert paper. We voted the Winter Banana our class' favorite apple. Then we ate the extra pieces. Yummy!

OUR PUMPKINLAND TRIP

 

An anonymous donor gave our school money for a field trip. We decided to go to Pumpkinland. We all had a snack in the big white tent, then we went on a hayride. We sat on hay and the tractor pulled the wagon. Next we picked pumpkins. We each got our own. We got back on the hayride and went back to the white tent for lunch. Then we went on the Frankenslide lots of times! We sat on carpets and they made you go really, smokin' fast! The slide was very, very big and very high. It was FUN! We went in the short corn maze too. It was a little bit tricky to find your way out. We liked it. We saw bunnies, goats, donkeys and horses to pet. Then we got back on the bus and came back to school. 

THANK YOU to the person who gave us this trip. It was wonderful! 

by Brooke, Dakota & Jase

"Think Different"

Steve Jobs was the CEO (person in charge of everyone) at Apple computers. He was one of the most creative and innovative minds of our time. He helped to invent Apple computers, the iPod, iPhone and iPad. Our school district is full of Apple computers. He always said, "Think different". What does "Think different" mean to you?

PURPLE DAY!

Today was Purple Day! We wore all the purple we had. We brought purple surprises. One was a lizard. Our teacher brought a purple stretchie. We counted our purple clothes and tallied them. We read purple stories. We wrote our own purple story. We took pictures. We learned to spell purple. We laughed a lot. We love purple!

We have read lots of Worm stories by Kathy Caple. We LOVE Worm stories! We wrote our own Worm story:

Worm at School

by The Starfish

 Worm walks to school. Worm met his teacher when he got to school. Worm started to play with blocks. The teacher said, "You aren't supposed to play yet." Worm went outside. The teacher said, "It's not recess time." Worm took all the books from the bookshelf. The teacher said, "No, Worm, it's not story time. Don't take out all of our books." Worm drew on the board. The teacher said, "It's not Choice Time yet." Worm played with his food at snack time. The teacher said, "Don't play with your food. You are supposed to eat it." Worm drew on the walls at Choice Time. The teacher said, "Don't draw on the walls. Here is some paper." Worm drew on the paper. He drew a picture of everybody hugging. The teacher said, "Nice job, Worm." She put Worm's picture on the wall. Worm likes school.

Crickets in our Classroom

We have crickets in a tank in our classroom. Our tank is filled with soil and grass. The crickets like to eat plums, grapes, oranges, and tomatoes. They don't like apples. We put in a wet paper towel so they have water. 
There are boy crickets and girl crickets. The girls have a long ovipositor to lay their eggs.  They lay their eggs in the ground.The eggs are too small to see. They will hatch around January. Baby crickets are smaller than ants. They are the size of a pinhead. 
 We have some big crickets and little crickets. The small ones are black and brown. The big ones are black. The little ones jump around a lot. It's fun to watch them eat. We like listening to them chirp. Do you know how crickets chirp?

TEN DAYS IN FIRST GRADE!

Lillian - I like it when we do math and Choice Time, and reading books and when we sing.
Daniel - I like being Head Starfish, and working on the COWS.
Jaidyn - I like Choice Time.
Dana - I like spending time with my teachers.
Hunter - I like doing Challenges and math.
Tasha - I like everything!
Aurora - I like singing songs together.
Dakota -  I like working on our interactive whiteboard.
Jase - I like Choice Time and math and being Head Starfish.
Coty - I like learning French.
Brooke - I like learning French too, and doing math.
Emma - I like speaking French, and working on our interactive whiteboard and being Name Star.
Nathan - I like doing our interactive whiteboard.
Alanna - I like being Word Wizards.
Laney - I like Choice Time and story time, and making books.


We all love working on our Polyvision interactive whiteboard! Thank you Polyvision!

Tomato Horn Worms

These are Tomato Horn Worms. They are mostly green with a white stripe and they have a spike. You shouldn't touch the spike. On the side of them it looks like eyes. They feel comfortable and soft when you hold them. They eat tomato plants. I went to my friend's garden to catch them. One was making a cocoon. It will hatch into a hummingbird moth.  I just found a baby one too. My baby one doesn't have a spike yet.

A NEW SCHOOL YEAR!

Our class name is The Starfish. Here we are on the first day of school!

HAPPY SUMMER!

The Stars took these pictures themselves, and wrote the captions too!

Games & Friends

We had a wonderful afternoon teaching our friends how to play games. What a great way to end the school year!

HAPPY SUMMER TO EVERYONE!

Peanut Butter Day

We had a sticky-great time! We had peanut butter snacks in the morning and voted for our favorite on our IWB. Most of us liked peanut butter on bananas best, but we all tried peanut butter on apples, on celery (no one liked that!) and on crackers. In the afternoon we made our own peanut butter pizzas with sandwich rounds, strawberries, blueberries and raisins. It was yummy!

DOGS

We read a poem about birds and a poem about bugs. We wrote a poem just like those, but we wrote about dogs.

DOGS

by The Stars

Tan dogs, black dogs,

Napping on their back dogs.

Warm dogs, chilly dogs,

Running, chasing, silly dogs.

Small dogs, big dogs,

Playing with the pig dogs,

We like dogs!

Our Reflections Winners

 Our PTA and Ms. Gronlie do a Reflections Project. This year was "Together We Can..."

This year, together we won!

Baby Turtle!

 Mrs. Pullen found this turtle on the street near our school. We think it's a baby snapping turtle. Mrs. Pullen's class is going to find out what it is. We think it's really, really cute!

SEAHORSES

Dylan - Seahorses are fish.

Their tails are curly. The babies are very tiny. They don't have teeth. Seadragons look like seaweed.

Chantelle - Seahorses hold on to seaweed with their tails so they don't float away.

Leah - The mom gives the eggs to the father. They do a mating dance.

Sierra - Seahorses come in all different colors. Their enemies are bigger fish and people.

Corbin - They eat little shrimp. Their skeleton is outside of their body. It's an exoskeleton.


Crysta  - Seahorses swallow their food whole.

Zoe - They eat by sucking food into their mouth like a vacuum. People are harvesting them and that's not good.


Taylor - Seahorses look like horses because their
noses are the same. People harvest them to eat them. They have fins behind their ears.

Jaz - They are the only animal where dad's have the babies. There are lots of kinds of seahorses, including seadragons.

Karsyn - They push their babies out from their stomach pouch.

Faith - They use their back fin to swim.

Tragan - They also use their tail to swim.

Catie - They have hundreds of babies at a time.

Cam - They can change colors a little.