100 days! Can you believe your little one has completed 100 days of first grade? I really don't like to think too long about this because, inevitably, time marches on. I know that we will not celebrate our 200th day together. The closer we get to the end of this year, I know I'll be losing sleep about these 23 precious little people moving on. God has gifted them with so much, they bless me DEEPLY (more than they can know). Every day I see such hard work, laughter, joy, growth (yes, a few "buddy breaks" sprinkled here and there, but, that's just part of our growth :) I'm hooked. You child will permanently have a piece of my heart wherever God plans to lead him or her.

Our hundredth day was spent counting to 100 in more ways than I thought possible!

If only you could "hear" this picture. There was a low murmur throughout the room as everyone was counting 1, 2, 3...

100 pieces took a lot of scoops :D

Sorted, counted and ready to munch!

Speaking of hearts, we have Valentine's Day coming up! This Thursday, the 14th, your child may bring special Valentine cards for each child in class. We'll make little mailboxes to collect the special notes. Here are our the children's names in case the class list walked away in the past 7 months:

Alden
Abby B.
Nick
Lillian
Lauren
Meta
Makenna
Cooper
Parker
Luke
Ellie
Annabel
Eric
Molly
Eden
Taryn
Nathaniel
Jorden
Gavin
Isaac
Joseph
Abby V.
Tara

You may send the notes to school on the 14th.

We will be concluding our mini-unit on "how to" papers this Wednesday. Thank you for our huge supply of buckets. We had a great time building our ice castle (though I'm pretty sure Lamar Construction won't be calling me as a summertime foreman!) I had envisioned a castle the children could walk right inside. Maybe it was a little smaller than I had expected because about half the castle was eaten away by our little snow munchers :) We sure had a great time outdoors on a beautiful day. It gave us an important common experience with which we could draw upon for our how-to papers.

We checked our papers for clarification by pantomiming each other's work.

How-to papers are fun to listen to!

In Social Studies, we're being introduced to one continent each week. While learning a bit about North America, we made HAMBURGERS (ours were made out of cookies and frosting). We had a lot of enthusiastic takers!

A few important dates:
Thursday, February 14-Valentine party at school
Friday, February 15-We'll be meeting with our preschool buddies again for a little post-Valentine fun!
Monday, February 18-Winter Break
Tuesday, February 26-Skating Party!!!