Mrs Dulle's Class

We celebrated the 100th day of first grade yesterday. The students made hats using a sentence strip and 100 small strips of paper, we played a board game called "Race to 100", each student wrote and illustrated a book, and students made beautiful artwork using 100 pieces of small construction paper that they had to glue onto a large piece of paper. We also read a cute story, The Wolf's Chicken Stew, as part of our 100th day celebration.

It was great to see so many smiling faces at our Gingerbread House party. Thanks to all the special guests that came to spend time with us.

The Columbus Children's Theatre visited our school today and gave several performances to the different grade levels. They performed, "Goldilocks and the 3 Bears", for our first graders. The kids loved it and it was very entertaining.

Today was our fall party and the kids could come to school dressed as a book character. They looked really great! It was very fun for me to get to see them in costume. For the party, we had a snack and Ian's mom did a very cute pumpkin craft with them that they got to take home. Overall, it was a fantastic day!

In Math, students have been practicing identifying and making patterns. They were given a handful of popsicle sticks to create different patterns with and the kids made very creative products.

The students at the elementary were able to walk over to the other building today to see the petting zoo that some of the high school students helped to set up. Even though the weather was dreary, the kids had a great time. We then used this experience for our writing time today.

After reading the book, The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree, the students used construction paper, crayons, glue, and tissue paper to show how his tree changed through the seasons. Here are a few cute pictures of the kids hard at work.

We have been reading Froggy books by Jonathan London this week. As a fun extension activity, students made a paper plate frog. Here are a few pictures of the kids working on them.

We are off to a great start this year. The students are settling in and learning the routines of the classroom. I have enjoyed beginning to get to know your children and I am excited about our year together. Here are a few pictures of your children involved in a couple different activities.

We celebrated Valentine's Day on Friday, Feb. 11th. The students decorated containers at home and brought them in for the party to hold all of the Valentine cards they received from their classmates. There were some very creative and unique containers. The kids had a great time passing out their Valentines to others and receiving cards from everyone in our class.

Recently my class filled up our bucket with bears. The class can earn a bear whenever everyone is doing something well, such as working hard, helping each other, being good role models, or when they receive a compliment from another teacher for their behavior. My students have been working all year to fill the bucket all the way to the top, and they did it! To celebrate, students wanted to bring a stuffed animal from home in for the day and earned an extra recess. Now, the students are striving to fill up the bucket again before the end of the year so we can celebrate again. Congratulations to all my students! I'm proud of you.

We spent about 3 weeks studying penguins, learning about the different types, their habitats, behavior, enemies, food, protection, young, and more. In these pictures, students were given a penguin to paint. They used q-tips to apply the black and orange paint. Next, students glued them onto blue construction paper. They turned out wonderful and were hung in the hallway around facts about penguins that the students had written.

The Columbus Children's Theatre came to FES on Monday, December 20th. They presented the play, "The 3 Little Pigs" for preschool students through first grade. The older students watched a different performance by the actors and actresses. The kids had a great time and were very entertained, especially when our own, Mr. Tate, became part of the play.

We have spent the last couple weeks reading several versions of The Gingerbread Man, including: Gingerbread Girl, Gingerbread Cowboy, Musubi Man, and many more fun books. During our gingerbread unit, we were busy writing, singing, and reading poems about gingerbread people. Here are a few pictures of some of the fun we had.

My class has third grade book buddies that we visit with each Friday. This is a great time for my students to listen to a third grader read a book and to have fun learning. We also play word games, make crafts, share books that we have read with the third graders, listen to ebooks online, and other things. My students have truly enjoyed working with Mrs. Pearson's kids and it's great to watch them interacting. Check out this short video and slideshow.

We were fortunate enough this year to have the author, John Becker, visit our school. He talked to the students about being an author and answered many of the kids' questions. One of his recent books, titled Frenemies for Life, was inspired by a cheetah and a dog that have been raised together at the Columbus Zoo. Mr. Becker has known both of these animals since they were young and has had many interactions with them. He spoke to the students about life in Africa and how the dogs are used to protect farms from cheetahs. The Columbus Zoo brought both the cheetah and the dog to our school
and talked to the kids about them and their jobs. It was a wonderful visit and the kids really enjoyed it.

The day for our fall party was on the Friday of Red Ribbon Week. Students could dress up as book characters and they look great! Check out these cute pictures of the kids.

As an extension of the wonderful book, Leaf Man, by Lois Ehlert, students brought in leaves from home and made their own leaf people. Then, students wrote about them and shared their writings with the class. This is always one of our favorite fall activities that we do together. The kids made some really awesome and unique leaf people this year!

Some of this week's Math lessons focused on making patterns and finding patterns in the real world. One activity we did was to use craft sticks to make patterns with a partner. I was really impressed with how creative the kids were!

We had a fantastic time last Friday making homemade applesauce. This was many of the kids first time doing this, as well as mine. But, the applesauce turned out delicious and made our room smell so good. Here are a few pictures of the kids helping make it and then eating it at the end of the day.