I Miss You!

School has been out for one week. I miss you! What have you been doing?

Last weekend I got to go visit my friends. They live in Walla Walla, Washington. We drove nine hours to get there. The weather was hot! The flowers were blooming. There is also an aviary in Walla Walla. An aviary is a place where birds live. It's almost like a bird zoo. Here are a few pictures of my trip!

This is a picture of my friend's dog looking at a female albino peacock at the aviary.


Here is a male peacock with his tailfeathers up. Peacocks make strange noises.


Here are some roses we saw.


Are you going on any trips this summer?

What Do We Do the Last Few Days?

A lot! While some teachers do not much look forward to the end of the year, I think it is the best time ever! The kiddos who came to me as mostly kindergarteners turn into second graders, and that is a big jump! While most of them cannot read what I write on the board at the beginning of the year, by the end they are completely independent. They started off the year as strangers from most other classmates and they end as best friends. We have inside jokes and sometimes can't stop laughing and other times we share sadness as we read a serious book or learn history. I LOVE this time of year. We are more family than friends, and I HATE to let them go! (But I will, don't worry.) So what makes these last few days so fun besides everything I already said? The culmination of a year of learning! Below are some posts with pictures of the fun projects we have been doing.

Reading Buddies and Garden Plot!

Our reading buddy party was a great success! Despite all the rain, we also started work on our garden plot on Friday. We will plant this week!

Reading Old Writing

We spent some time reading our writing from the very beginning of the year. You should have heard them all reflecting on their writing from the beginning!


They showed each other their best and their most surprising pieces.



Most students came to show me something they would fix now!

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Some things were hilarious! They showed me things like spelling "was" "wuz" and "puppy" "pupe." It was great to hear them say how far they have come and laugh at some of their mistakes.


He had written, "I wi sh I wuz at hom" He told me he really did start liking first grade later. :)



The kids spent almost 30 minutes looking at their writing with friends.



Good writing for the beginning of first grade!



We had a couple students who were not with us at the beginning of the year. They teamed up to read what they had written since they came.

This was fun! I would encourage you to do this with your child when I send their writing home this week.

Field Day...Slippery Soap and Wet Sponge

We won!

Field Day

The first grades combined for a morning of outdoor fun! Mrs. Fisher, our gym teacher, organized stations for us, and we rotated classes through each one.

Rainforest Poem

These are some pictures of us acting out and reading our rainforest poem to Mrs. Persons' class. They did a great job memorizing and saying their parts. Drama has been another ongoing focus for our class this year.

Field Trip to Hyalite Canyon

After a forty-five minute bus ride to the canyon, we were excited to get things underway. Chaperones helped pass out water and snacks before we started going to our stations. The weather turned out great, and it only started to sprinkle at the very end of the day!

Mrs. Persons wrote a grant last summer for us to be able to take this field trip. All first grade classes (about 75 kids) from our school were able to go on this one of a kind trip! Thank you Mrs. Persons and Bozeman Schools Foundation!


Our first station was a birding station. A representative from Audubon and our science instructional coach took us on a short hike to look for and listen to birds. Our class has been researching birds for about two weeks, so I hope your child has told you which bird they researched! I wish this station could have lasted longer!

An MSU student and past Forest Service employee volunteered to teach us about bear safety. I was surprised about some of the misconceptions about bears. She discussed appropriate bear diets, food storage, types of Montana bears, and what to do if we ever see a bear.


An artist and parent taught us about how to use shapes in sketching at our next station. Drawing has been a major focus in our class this year.


The weather was beautiful as we looked out over the reservoir at the mountains and sketched! This was definitely my favorite field trip ever!



Before lunch, we took a forty-minute hike up the West Shore Trail. Even though they were getting very hungry at this point, the kids did great! I loved watching how much they enjoyed the outdoors!

We got a little rest before turning around and heading back to get lunch.


After a picnic lunch, we had our last station about landforms and geology.


By 2:45, we were exhausted!


Many naps and almost naps were taken on the bus ride back to school! What a fabulous day! Thank you for helping make it work!