Field Day!

We had a great field day last Friday!  The rainy weather held off for the perfect length of time for all groups to rotate through the stations.  We had so much fun playing with the parachute, hula hooping, face painting, playing Capture the Flag, playing Tug of War, and water sliding!  During the afternoon we went to the gym to listen to a high school band comprised of former HCS students!   Check out some of these photos of highlights from our day!

Lambs

Katherine Knox, a reading teacher at our school, visited with two of her lambs today! Mrs. Knox explained how she raises lambs for wool. She shared her spinning wheel and let each child take a handful of wool. It was a lot of fun!

A Visit to Shelburne Farms!

Despite the cool temperatures and rain, we had a wonderful day at Shelburne Farms on Wednesday.  Most of our day was spent visiting the Dairy Barn.  Our Shelburne Farms instructor, Margaret was wonderful in leading discussions, answering questions, and teaching us new things throughout our visit. We began our visit with the babies!  We were able to pet baby lambs and cows!  We learned that the baby cows have been separated from their mothers, so that the mother's milk can be used for cheese making.  These cows are kept in their own separate stalls, but near other baby cows and are being raised by a loving farmer now. 

After seeing the babies we then saw some mother cows that who are living all together in a "mothers community."   The milk from these mamas provides all the milk that is used to make yummy Shelburne Farms Cheese (which we all got to sample after lunch! Yum!).  We all learned how to milk a cow and most of the children were able to milk and brush one!
 




 We also saw some beef cows and discussed how these cows provide us with meat for hamburgers and steak.  These cows were busy eating and many were chewing their cud!  Margaret explained to everyone about how cows have 4 stomachs that their food passes through and in between goes back up to be chewed again.

 After our lunch in the education barn we visited more farm animals!  Many of your first graders are very calm and confident chicken handlers!  We also got to see goats, pigs, donkeys, and horses! What a great day we had!

Champ!

Sharing our books with Mrs. Lasher's Class!

The first graders wrote "Informational Teaching Books" about a topic they knew a lot about.  In these books they included many text features that are found in informational writing such as a table of contents, headings, labels, text boxes, and more!  After the books were published (typed and bound with final illustrations) we visited some Kindergarteners to share and celebrate the finished work!

We earned EXTRA RECESS!

The 100th Day of School!

This past Thursday we celebrated the 100th day of school! It was quite an exciting day with everything 100! Some of the fun we had included seeing how many trick words we could write correctly in 100 seconds, collecting 100 stickers for politeness, and more! The students all spent time thinking and writing about all of the adventures they'd like to have in their lifetimes before they turn 100 years old. Some of the items on their "bucket lists" included: going to China, swimming with dolphins, and going tracking! They created special portraits of themselves at 100 years old to go along with their writing (see below). 

We ended our day by sharing our 100 day projects and taking a tour of all the others in the K - 2nd grades!

Before I am 100 I will...