This week we started learning our harder reading concepts, and I am truly impressed by how quickly they caught on.  This week we learned about double final consonants and adding -s to words to make a word plural.  They caught on and I was so happy to see how quickly they learned that concept!  Hopefully it will be that easy for the rest of the concepts.  :)  In math, we also learned how to add one to a number and adding 0 to a number.  We also got to make our November calendars this week.

On Tuesday, we had some fun since it was election day!  We learned all about the election, about Obama and Romney, and we read some books that told us what it takes to win the election.  It was so much fun to read the books and the kids were so intrigued by the books.  After we talked about Obama and Romney, we got to vote!  Everyone was in their own little "cubicle" and I gave them a piece of paper and they had to write "o" for Obama and "r" for Romney.  We counted up the votes to see who was the winner in our class.  Here are the final results (in my class anyway...):

We also played a game I like to call the "fly swatter game".  I write sight words on the board, and I split the class into two different teams.  Then one person from each team comes up to the board and I say a sentence leaving out a word that is on the board.  They have to figure out what word I left out and the first person to hit it with the fly swatter wins. They LOVE playing this game.

I can't believe how quickly the holiday season is coming up.  Only one more week of school until Thanksgiving break.  Then when we get back, we will only have 3 weeks until Christmas break!  That's not enough time for me to do all of the fun things that I want to do. 

It was great seeing you all for parent/teacher conference this past week.  Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions.  I am such a lucky teacher!  Thank you for all that you do!

What a week!  I have barely had time to breath this past week, and I have a feeling this upcoming week is going to be the same way, but it will keep me busy, which is what I need when my husband is studying ALL the time!  (That's what I get for marrying a pre-med student)  This week has been so crazy (at school AND at home), but SO much fun!  We were reviewing EVERYTHING that we have learned in first grade.  This week, we will start learning harder things and it will become more difficult, so I wanted to make sure they understood the concepts we were already learning before we moved on to more difficult things.  We have also been learning a lot of new things in math!  We have been learning about how to add 1 to a number, and we learned about morning, afternoon, evening, and night.  We made this fun collage together as a class to help us remember what happens at each time of the day.  We also go over it EVERY single day so they will remember.  :)

On Monday, we learned all about pumpkins!  We learned how they grow and what is inside them.  We also learned about all of the different things you can do with pumpkins.  Who knew that pumpkins could be used for SO many different things?

 I even brought in a pumpkin so we could look inside it and name all of the parts of a pumpkin.

This is always my favorite activity to do with the class.  I call these "puzzle pumpkins".

On Tuesday, we learned about skeletons and what is inside our bodies.

 To review our nouns, we also did this fun noun worksheet where they had to separate the different pictures into the sections "person, place, thing, animal".

Wednesday, it was HALLOWEEN!  It was nice that it was early release on a holiday.  But at the same time, I didn't get to do all of the fun things that I love to do on Halloween!  It was still a blast and we still had fun learning.  

Here is a pictures that I took of our 1st grade team!  I am so lucky to work with these wonderful ladies.  They are so nice and we all get along so well!  These are definitely some of my best friends.  Of course I dressed up as a bee, and Ms. Bair dressed up as a lady bug!  Adorable.

 Here is a picture of the class in our costumes.  I'm not the biggest fan of Halloween, but when you get to spend the holiday with children, it makes it much more enjoyable.

This picture was an accident, but I LOVE their faces in the background.  It made me laugh when I saw this.  I think they were getting ready to take our silly picture.

 I've got some pretty silly kids in my class this year!  They are so fun!

I LOVE it when my previous students come to visit me!  Hailee and Rebecca from last year came to visit me during Halloween, so I HAD to take a picture with these adorable girls in their costumes, especially since Hailee and I were dressed the same!  But she was much cuter.

 Thank you to the parents who volunteered for the Halloween party!  It was so much fun and I know the kids had a blast!

For this game, the kids had some candy corn and had to try and get the candy corn in the pots.

 This one was SO funny to watch!  Pin the tail on the cat...so cute.

 I loved this little treat that they got to make!  They filled up a plastic skeleton glove with candy corns and popcorns.

SUCH a fun week!  I can't believe Halloween has already come and gone.  We have already started our Thanksgiving crafts because before you know it, that is going to be here!  CRAZY!  Once Halloween hits, the year seems to fly by.  Parent's I can't thank you enough for everything you do.  I truly enjoy being your child's teacher and am looking forward to spending the rest of the school year with them and you all.  I am looking forward to seeing all of you during parent/teacher conferences!  Thank you SO much for all that you do!  I am the luckiest teacher in the world!