Read-A-Thon

Our Read-A-Thon kicked off on Monday!
We've been having fun raising money and celebrating READING!
Here are a couple of fun pictures from Monday (theme: read in a cozy spot) and Tuesday (Theme: read with a buddy).

For more pictures, check out our Shutterfly share site!

Punctuation Patrol!

The other day in class, we had a mystery guest visit our class while the students were outside at recess.  You may know them as the "Grammar Police," but around here, we have the Punctuation Patrol.  The job of the Punctuation Patrol is to reward boys and girls who use punctuation marks correctly! The reward a "job well done" with one candy for each correct mark.  When the Punctuation Patrol stopped by our classroom, the assignment that was on our desk was one in which the students had to use the words, "cookie," "cake," and "ice cream," in a complete sentence. Students were told to make sure they used commas to write those three words in a list in their sentence.

Here's a few pictures of the rewards before they were eaten up!

I'm thankful for...

Today, I told students what they could NOT tell me they were thankful for.

We were starting a Thanksgiving craft which involved finishing the sentence, "I am thankful for..."
This is a pretty typical sentence starter in elementary schools all across the country every November, but I was looking for sentences that weren't so... typical.

So, I made a list on the board of words they were not permitted to use to finish the sentence.

Here is what we started with:
I'm thankful for everything.
I'm thankful for the world.
I'm thankful for my food.
I'm thankful for my house.
I'm thankful for my family.

Not so exciting.
So, I banned those phrases! Can teachers even do that??? I guess so! And I am glad I did, because here is what I ended up with instead:
I'm thankful for everything.
I am thankful that God provided a car for us when our car broke.
I am thankful for healing my sister's mosquito bite.
I am thankful for playing football.
I'm thankful for my house.
I am thankful for a roof over my head.
I am thankful for my neighborhood.
I am thankful for my family.
I am thankful for my sister, brother, and mom. (Check out that fantastic use of commas in a series!!! Woah!)

As your family is heading into the holiday season, don't forget to "Do Something!"
Here is an idea about how to use blessing bags and random acts of kindness to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Find out how at thirtyhandmadedays.com

Here on Time!!!

We won the H.O.T (Here On Time) award at our last Spirit Assembly! That means that our class had the least tardies out of all the K-2 classes. Keep bringing your student on time to give us a shot at winning again next month!

I was lucky enough to catch this special moment on film :)

Shapes!

This weekend, after a very busy and eventful week, my husband and I are enjoying some family time in San Diego with my nephew! Isn't he cute?

Family time with two of my favorite boys!

I'm also catching up on some blogs. Check out some footage from our math lesson about properties of solid shapes:

I Voted!

Did you vote this year? Well, your student did!
We had a performance task on Thursday that combined social studies and math. Our students learned about voting by making an anchor chart, having a class discussion, and reading about Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. After we had some knowledge in our back pocket, we headed off to the polling booths!

We set up a polling place in our classroom!

We had a very important decision to make as a class. Since our firsties did such a FANTASTIC job at chapel, they would be rewarded with a treat on Friday! The trouble was, there were 2 choices... cookies OR popcorn.

When the students arrived in our classroom after lunch, the classroom had been transformed! There were campaign posters for cookies and popcorn, polling booths, and a ballot box set up!

The very first step to voting was to become a "citizen" of Mrs. Jarvie's Classroom. All the students raised their right hand and took a pledge to be "great friends and good students." (This was so adorable.) After they all became full-fledged citizens of our class, I announced that in Mrs. Jarvie's Classroom, the law stated that boys AND girls could vote! Yay! I also announced that in Mrs. Jarvie's Classroom, boys and girls of ANY AGE could vote! Even louder YAY! Then, we turned on some patriotic music and exercised our right to vote.

Experiencing our very own Election Day!

The students all helped to tally the votes.

Cookies won!

Red Ribbon Week

Red Ribbon Week was so fun! We talked about the need to keep our bodies healthy and how we should use our bodies to serve God. We even got to have a Sheriff Deputy speak at chapel about staying healthy, and one of our students was deputized! Our elementary students had themed days all week, and one day, we wore our clothes backwards to turn our backs on drugs! 

It was so silly to wear our clothes turned around!

Do Something!

Wow! I've had so much positive feedback from our Chapel performance, and so many requests for the video on my lunch break, that I'll just go ahead and post it right now!
Your students did an AMAZING job this morning, you should all be so proud. I hope this video continues to inspire you as a family to get out there and go Do Something!
Here is the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD8O6fov5s8
I'll see if I can figure out how to embed the video here later, but for now, just follow the link!
Blessings,
Mrs. Jarvie

September Update

We were busy in September!

We've had dance class...

learned how to sign in to Microsoft Office and Typing Agent during our computer class...

and some of us are enjoying Art classes.

We've been loving class time, too!

We have new "offices" to use at our desks...

Worshiping God through worship and prayer...

learning as a class...

including a new way to think about sums of ten!

1st Grade Cartographers!

Today was a "rainy" day. Well, not really, but since the forecast was 113 degrees, we had indoor recess and lunch. We all know that indoor recess can make kids a little... well... crazy! We battled the "crazy" today with a fun map-making project! Reading maps and making maps are one of the skills to learn in our history curriculum. The students loved looking at maps and making their own maps. We looked at maps from all around the world in our classroom, and looked at our community in Google Earth. Then, we set to the task of making our own maps! We made sure to include labels, street names, and important buildings (like schools, hospitals, and of course, Disneyland!). I'm looking forward to seeing how all of the maps turn out. I know they will look amazing in our classroom!

In groups, students went around the room to look at example maps from all around the world! One of our favorite maps was completely in French!

Some maps included information about that country. For instance, this map shows where endangered animals in Africa live!

Students were able to inspect maps of the Germany, as well as maps that included information about the rain forests in South America.

We even looked at a map of outer space!

One of our favorite maps is this one of Paris. They symbols on the map for the buildings were very easy to read, even though the labels were in French. We saw where the Eiffel Tower was located, and even learned that there is a second Statue of Liberty in Paris!

After all that inspiration, we got to work and made our own maps.

Mrs. Bohne and I were talking about this activity and realized many of us no longer even use paper maps anymore. I was glad I was able to pull out my collection and let the kids explore!

How would you help a neighbor?

We read a story called, "The Storm," last week and the students brainstormed different ways they could help a neighbor during a storm. Here are a few of the responses. The rest are on our World Class Work wall! It is great to get the student's work up in the classroom. We have a class of wonderful writers!

"During a storm, I can help my neighbor carry the groceries."

"During a storm, I can help my neighbor by bringing them carrots."