Nothing but sunshine and smiles over here in first grade.  These last few days of school are fun, but we're still learning how to work together, be a team, and get along with our friends.  The best lessons learned are lessons we've learned outside :)

We did the snow dance opposite and it worked.  We had clouds and sun, but NO RAIN OR THUNDER on our perfect Herron Park Day.  What a great way to celebrate a year of growth, fun, friendship, learning, new things, and wonderfulness in first grade!

It's been quite a year and we kind of can't believe it's almost over.  We celebrated today with a book we wrote together--all about us!  If you missed our classroom celebration take a look through your book this evening.  It's SUPER cool.  Also, if you want more copies for grandparents, aunts, uncles, and family members (or just because one copy isn't enough)...it's published on Amazon and you can buy as many copies as you want!  We're published writers!!
Miss Kylie's First Grade, All About Us

Today we took our I Am poems to the next level.  We read our poems and picked the animal that best represented us as a whole.  Then we turned our animal into the most beautiful artwork with the Eric Carle paper we made at the beginning of the year.  We're coming full circle.

Hard at work on the process...

Over the past two days we wrote and illustrated poems all about ourselves.  We filled in the blanks for statements like: I am, I wonder, I feel, I dream, and I hope.  We sure are sophisticated writers! Check out our collaborative I Am poem to learn a little bit more about each of us.

Hard at work editing and finalizing our poems!

Do you know what a circle story is?  Maybe not, but you probably know these books!  If you think about the plot of each of Laura Numeroff and Felicia Bond's book they start off in one place and end up right back where they started.  Check it out!

This week, we created some of our very own circle stories.  We mapped and planned and finally started writing.  It was a challenge to make the story go in a circle AND make sense, but it was also really fun!  Here's a peek at us working on and sharing some of our very own circle stories.

We've learned about making maps, but we decided it was time to start reading maps.  This week we worked on the CARDINAL directions: North, South, East, and West.  And then we threw in the INTERMEDIATE directions: Northwest, Southwest, Northeast, and Southeast.  We had to use these directions to write a code to get through a map.  The challenge was to make it from start to finish, stop at each store along the way, while making the fewest number of moves. It was tricky, but lots of fun!  Challenge us with some directions next time you're on a long car trip.

It was a picture perfect beautiful day at ACES.  We could not have asked for more perfect weather. We were beyond curious and got out the magnifying glasses to discover all of the creepy crawly things that live under rocks and in the dirt.  We did a little camouflaging.  We noticed signs of spring and the signs of winter that are disappearing.  We explored and had a blast!

Over the past couple days we've explored the three main types of rocks.  We've learned how they are formed, what they look like, what they feel like, and where we can find them.  Here's a fun fact, did you know that there are three towns nearby names after each of the different types of rocks?  Can you name them?  Double check your answers below...

We also learned a little bit about the rock cycle with Miss Kristin!  If you need a refresher, here's the rock cycle in a nutshell.

But we took it to the next level and showed the rock cycle with Starbursts!  It was awesome.
Ask us how it works and be sure to try this one at home!

This past weekend, Miss Kylie's sister Molly graduated from college.  We're soon graduating from first grade and we have some great advice to give about entering the "real world."  Molly, if we were you, this is what we think you should be doing!  Are you paying attention?