Save a Turkey! Eat...

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us in room B4! We kicked off the month of November by talking and writing about what we are thankful for. Then, with the help of Mrs. Clark, the Great (she really is the greatest), we made our Thankful turkey for our seasonal bulletin board. Each student wrote something they were thankful for on a feather. Most of the students said that they were thankful for their friends, family, pets, and best of all... TEACHERS! Gotta love it!

Then, we read the book Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving by Dav Pilkey. In this book the children are excited for their field trip to a local turkey farm. After the farmer shows the kids his turkeys, they soon learn about their ultimate demise and they are horrified! They quickly come up with a thoughtful plan. As the students get on the bus to go home, something about them looks a little different... they have stuffed the turkeys in their coats! They save Thanksgiving and the turkeys are very thankful. They enjoy their Thanksgiving food together... turkey free! I love Pilkey's illustrations, but my favorite page is the one when the students have hidden the turkeys under their coats and are preparing the get on the bus. Every time I read this page, there is always a little sigh of relief amongst the kiddos (and me!) in my class!

Afterwards, we brainstorm things that we can eat on Thanksgiving, besides turkey. We work on writing a list, using correct spelling and punctuation. The students enjoy learning about the use of a comma when listing items. Then, I read the students a letter that was sent to us from Gobbles, the Turkey. He is pleading with them to disguise him before Thanksgiving. He tells the students that they can disguise him as anything they'd like, as long as he does not look like a turkey! Attached to the letter was a template of a turkey. The disguised turkeys looked great "hidden" on our bulletin board. No one knew what they really were! *If you click on the red button on each disguised turkey below, it will take you to a a separate page where the students told about how they created their project (Disclaimer... I know the buttons look like targets, but they are not. It was the best icon to use so that everyone could really see where to click!). Go ahead and click away... they are all masterpieces!

Gobbles, the turkey, also wrote about how he heard that Mrs. Miakisz and Mrs. Olsen would have the students write a letter to persuade people to eat something else instead of turkey on Thanksgiving. This went great with our Lucy Calkins persuasion unit. Take a look...

After all this fun, it was time to learn about the history of Thanksgiving. While everyone learned about the Pilgrims and Native Americans, the second graders learned about immigration and their own ancestry. The day before Thanksgiving vacation we celebrated all of this hard work and Thanksgiving. The first graders had a Thanksgiving feast with all of the other first grade classes. They ate turkey and a little of each recipe that each first grade class made; Mrs. Bowker's class made corn bread, Mrs. Fernau's class made snicker-doodles, Mrs. Gilgallon's class made apple sauce, and we made cranberry relish. Making the relish is one of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving. We use my grandmother's old fashioned meat grinder (Hi grandma!!) to chop up the fruit. It's such a nice way to mix family tradition and Thanksgiving preparation together. Both the second graders and the first graders take part in this wonderful learning experience. The second graders celebrated with an ancestry celebration. They created a their own Thanksgiving snack, and also enjoyed some traditional dishes from one of their countries of origin that families shared. Everyone had a great time! Take a look at our Mayflower ships, our cranberry relish preparation, and the pictures from our feast below... be sure to check out our fabulous hats!

 

Mrs. Olsen and I (and all the other 2nd grade teachers) wore these funny turkey hats... they were a hit! Thanks to Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Kamppila for getting them for us!

Finally... even though March is National Nutrition month, we celebrated during the month of November. I thought it was appropriate since we talked so much about (and ate so much of) Thanksgiving food. The students learned about healthy and unhealthy choices. Then they learned about the 5 healthy food groups. They created 5 food group placemats with labeled drawings of food from each group under the flaps. (Thanks to Amy Lemons from TPT for this craftivity)

We are looking forward to our culminating nutrition activity with the visit of Cornell Cooperative Extension. A member of their educational outreach program will be visiting our class and providing us with the "Eat a Rainbow" lesson. 

 I hope you all had a happy, healthy, and family filled Thanksgiving! 

 I am very thankful that you stopped by!

Mrs. Miakisz

October in B4

I hope you enjoyed your October as much as we did!  We were very busy in room B4.  At the beginning of the month, the first graders had a great time visiting the dance museum.  I was so excited about this field trip, because as many of you know, dance is an important part in my life.  I am a dance teacher too!  One of their favorite parts of the trip was acting out the parts of Frozen.  While the dance teacher told the story and played the music, the students enjoyed "building a snowman," "dancing with streamers," ""driving" a toboggan, and taking part in many other creative movement activities.  Take a look!

After all the dancing, we got to tour the museum.  The students learned about many of the exhibits, costuming, and even local dance inspired art work.  We all enjoyed seeing the pictures of the pointe shoes that local artists created and installed throughout Saratoga.  The students got to stand in front of their favorite one and share their reasoning with the group. 

Our tour guide was excellent.  She was very knowledgeable and taught us so much!  She did a great job making the information kid friendly and easy to understand.  We liked spending time in the movie theater and watching dance movies and videos.  We especially loved the children's room, where we got to dress up, try on dance shoes, and show off all of our cool moves!  

Then it was time to go back to Pashley.  We missed Mrs. Olsen, Mrs. Clark, and all of our second grade friends!  But first... we had to take a selfie :) 

(Wasn't I lucky to be able to sit with 2 of my first grade friends?!)

In order to celebrate Christopher Columbus Day, we put our map skills to use.  We discussed where Columbus was from, where he hoped to go, and where he ended up instead.  We looked at a map that looked similar to what Columbus thought the world looked like, and then looked at a real map of what the world really looked like.  We were amazed that Columbus thought the world was flat! Then we made our own maps.  Mrs. and Mr. Olsen burned brown paper bags to make them look old fashioned (I heard their house still smells like a campfire.... thank you!!).  After the paint dried, the students labeled Spain and the "New World" that Columbus discovered and drew his path.  Then, the students pretended to be Columbus and wrote about their journey.  Many of them wrote about how the journey was very long, how they thought they were headed somewhere in Asia, and how they weren't very nice to the Native Americans when they arrived in America.  Take a look at the fabulous work below!

 

Finally, we hope everyone had as much fun on Halloween as we did!  One of our favorite parts of Halloween is the TREATS!  The kids got lots of treats from all their teachers and friends at school.  Mrs. Olsen, Mrs. Clark, and I gave the kids "Bugs and Kisses" (thanks to http://dixiedelights.blogspot.com/2013/10/bugs-kisses-halloween-treat-free.html for the printable)  We thought they came out pretty cute! We also had a great Halloween surprise one day.  We were quietly working on our daily math lesson and there was a loud knock on the door.  When we opened it up there was no one there.  BUT there was a lovely little bag on the floor.  After we picked it up and opened it we realized that we got BOO- ed!  There were candy corns inside that we got to eat at snack time.  Then, to carry on the excitement and tradition, we decided that we would BOO Miss Pick's class.  We hope she and the kindergarteners enjoyed the spooky rings and pumpkins and we gave them!  

We also really enjoyed the minion cupcakes and the Halloween cucumbers (even if they were meant to be in another classroom... oops!) 

On Halloween day we had a great time dressing in our costumes; even the teachers dressed up!  The first grade teachers were Super Teachers.  One of our parent helpers, who is a teacher at Charlton Heights was also dressed as a Super Teacher.  Twinning!  The second grade teachers were Bat Girls, which was perfect because it went right along with the bat unit that we did in October.  The students loved marching in the parade and taking part in their grade level specific activities.  The first graders did fun Halloween centers, while the second graders had their much anticipated "Pumpkin Day."

Thanks to all of our helpers and thanks for a great October!