Colorado and Problem Solving!

Hello First Grade Families!
Happy Autumn! How are you? I am well. My trip was lovely. I have never been anywhere to see the true fall colors, so I felt very lucky to be there, as well as to be able to have the time with my friend for her wedding. We worked hard on decorations and also had time to catch up and enjoy our togetherness.

Today I showed some photos from my trip.  The kids were interested in the old smelting ovens and the colors of the trees.  They also called the rivers were "real".  Not just like others they've seen?  It was neat to see their enthusiasm about nature.

Lately we have been exploring many concepts. The children are very curious about water and have been working on hypotheses and researching answers to questions they have.

We also got a lovely care package in the mail from our wish list. THANK YOU to Silas's family who made this gift! We got two new games and yesterday we began playing with them. One is on money concepts and the children were figuring out how to use our American coin quantities to make certain amounts. The kids were getting good at realizing that (for instance) you could use four dimes and seven nickles for 47 cents, but that also there are other easier ways to make this!

Our class council last week and this week brought up many issues the children would like solved. Since there are so many, friends decided to take one to think on more. Since they offered to come up with possible solutions, I will put their names down next to these. Here they are:

Balls getting popped on the yard: Ocean, Bryana, Kaylie.
People pushing: Rainli, Solomon and Milayna.
Having to wait for friends who are not with us at meeting times: Joey, Ocean and Niko.
People not letting others in the houses at recess: Ben and Rainli.
People hitting swingers because they are throwing balls under the swings: Peyton and Milayna.
People sliding down on others: Avery.

What solutions might these kids come up with? It is nice to see children offer to brainstorm ideas to better work their world. This is an important process for these children because they are learning to be their own problem solvers and are beginning to see that they have power to make changes in their society through their own suggestions and through their modeling of citizenship. It is always so moving to see children bringing up ideas of how others can work better and making their own class agreements. And they are so proud because they know that they made a difference.

Henry asked me to post the song we did in September. Here it is:
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=we+all+sing+with+the+same+voice+sesame+street&view=detail&mid=645E7D0A61B84FC82CD4645E7D0A61B84FC82CD4&first=0&FORM=LKVR8


And finally, we are having our park date this weekend. I don't know if the weather will cooperate, but check your email for information, just in case we have a sunny weekend. If not, we'll do it at a later date!

Have a great week! Love, Jennifer