First grade is great and we continue to be busy and happy doing all kinds of new things. We came back from vacation eager to get down to business.  In January we studied the Civil Rights Movement.  We learned about some great black Americans such as Ruby Bridges, Harriet Tubman, and Martin Luther King.  We were so impressed with Ruby Bridges and how brave she was in first grade. 

     The month ended with our 100^th Day Celebration.  We did 100 things that day.  Some of them included licking a tootsie roll pop 100 times before we could bite, sitting perfectly still for 100 seconds (it was hard), making a book of 100 things, sharing our 100^th  Day  Friendship snack, and we each made something out of 100 items.  We really used our imaginations and came up with some very creative things.  We also wrote about how we made them and got to present it to the class. 

 February brought us some special heroes to learn about and celebrate.  For Reader’s Theatre, we presented Washington, Lincoln, and Me! in the Parish Hall for our families and friends.  We learned why Abraham Lincoln wears a stove pipe hat (to carry his important papers) and how George Washington led our country in the Revolutionary War.  We did some excellent writing about our first and 16^th presidents.  Our teachers showed us how to make line drawings of President Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

      We have learned to add double digit numbers with the help of our classroom store.  We used pennies and dimes to make purchases and find the total value of our receipts.  Also, we can add 10 to a number (with the help of a fun rap song) and we are working with fractions.

      In first grade we have mastered all 70 phonograms in Spalding Phonics and practice them everyday.  We all enjoy extra practice playing Phonogram Bingo, Go Fish and “I say, who says”.  Our phonograms have helped us with decoding and encoding in our daily reading and writing. 

 There is always something exciting happening in grade one!