The First Grade Pilgrims shared a feast of thanks with their friends the second grade Native Americans and the Kindergarten Turkeys. The story of the first Thanksgiving was shared, a story was read, songs were sung, and class made foods were shared.

While studying about Christmas around the world, we celebrated the Holy Supper which takes place on Christmas Eve in Russian households. The menu consists of 12 traditional foods which stand for the 12 disciples and the meal begins with the prayers offered by the father and a blessing for each child offered by the mother as she places a cross of honey on each child's forehead. The meal concludes with the telling of the Christmas story by the father.

During our study of Christmas in Russia, we learned of the composer Peter Tchaikovsky and of his famous ballet, The Nutcracker, adapted from the book by German author,
E.T.A. Hoffman. The children waited anxiously in their seats reading various versions of the Nutcracker story before the performance began.

While studying Christmas in Mexico, the children learned about Las Posadas, the nine processions commemorating the pilgrimmage of Mary and Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem and then trying to find shelter in an inn for the evening. In this photo, our children are beginning their first Posada.

During our celebration of Las Posadas, the children learned the Mexican Hat Dance.

The children made and filled their own Christmas Tree pinata.
Great fun was had by all!!!

To launch our unit on the human body, we took a field trip to the Robert Crown Center in Hinsdale and participated in the Healthland Program.

Valeda told us about all of our internal organs and their functions.

During our unit on the organs of the human body, we learned about the process of digestion and acted it out. One student pretends to be a piece of food and goes into the mouth where it is chewed and mixed with saliva, then swallowed down the esophagus where the muscles in this tube push it into the stomach. There, the stomach acid and more muscle action make it into a kind of "food soup." It then goes into the small intestine where the usable parts of the food are absorbed and distributed into the blood stream while the waste products go to the large intestine and are "kicked out" of the body. The organ actors did a wonderful job!!!

February 5th was our 100th Day of school and we celebrated
by each creating a project of 100 "things," counting to 100 as many ways as we could and joining the
100's Club, making a snack of 100 delicious edibles, reading a book entitled THE WOLF'S CHICKEN STEW,
and writing about it and making a
mural to accompany it, taking 100
steps, sitting still for 100
seconds, doing 100 jumps, and many
more things! We had a YUMMY
100th Day cake and thanked God for
the blessing of 100 Days to learn
from Him at St. John Lutheran
School.

We love because God first loved us!!!

As a culminating activity for our unit on the Senses, we took a Feely Walk. We let the touch receptors from the skin on our feet tell us how pinecones, cotton balls, snow, salt, macaroni, and warm soapy water feel. We generated some wonderfully descriptive words to use in our writing as well! It was great fun!

Mrs. Gaede accepts a Proclamation from the Mayor of Wheaton regarding Lutheran Schools' Week.

The first graders utilized the play in their literacy reader to practice fluency, expression, projection, and stage presence. The title of their play was, 'Where are My Animal Friends?'

As we prepared for our Seder Supper in re-enacting what Jesus and the disciples did in preparation for and celebration of Passover, we did as Jesus did. The teachers washed the feet of the disciples as an example of how we all are to serve and love one another out of the love we have for Christ and in gratitude for all that He has done for us!

As the culminating activity to our unit on seasons, the first graders are going on a trip to a summer-like place. We have experienced winter, spring and fall together, but not much of summer. Soooo, we found out that areas near the equator are always summer-like because of the their location to the sun. We will be gone 5 days and will miss our families, but we will have fun studying the 5 Big Game animals on our photographic safari.

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Following our unit on oviparous animals, the children dissected unfertilized eggs and then observed newly hatched chicks. What a glorious example of God's miracles of life!

As a culminating activity for our unit on nature, we went to Fullersburg Woods to participate in their Nature Detectives Program.