The holiday season is a magical time for first graders, filled with curiosity and excitement. It is a tradition in first grade for each student to choose a country and present its Christmas traditions. What better way to channel that energy than by taking a journey around the world to learn how different cultures celebrate Christmas? This engaging project combines geography, history, and cultural studies into a fun, festive experience. Introducing first graders to global Christmas traditions broadens their understanding of the world, fostering appreciation for diversity. It’s a joyful way to explore the values of kindness, family, and celebration that unite us all—no matter where we’re from. It also creates opportunities for hands-on learning through crafts, music, and storytelling, making lessons memorable and interactive.

First grade has started working with teen numbers in math. They are learning multiple strategies to add and subtract a single digit from teen numbers. The most common strategy is to make or subtract from ten. To be able to do this, you must know how to decompose numbers. To give the class practice, they rolled dice and had to find the parts; one part had to be ten. This practice allowed them to build it with their hands and make the decomposition of teen numbers more automatic.

The class really enjoyed the time we spent learning about the moon’s phases. To wrap up our learning, the students sculpted the moon’s phases using Oreos!! Not only was that fun, but it allowed them to create what they had been taught. When everyone had completed their Oreo moons, the second grade visited, and the class taught them about the phases using Oreos. It was a great way for the class to share their knowledge.

Second grade had their turn to teach science to first grade the next week. The second grade’s weekly story was about volcanos. At the end of that week, they invited us over to teach us about creative and destructive volcanoes. Then in groups, they watched as the second graders erupted a mini volcano. It was exciting and so beneficial for the students to practice teaching what they’ve learned.

The end of October was a busy time! On Halloween, Ms. Denise takes each class on a hayride around campus. Always making a special stop at the pumpkin patch that the middle schoolers grew. With the weather this year, the hayride took place the day before Halloween. On Halloween, lower school students come to school dressed as a book character. Each student presents to the rest of lower school and an audience of parents. Students had to walk onto the stage and speak into the microphone to introduce themselves, name their character, state the book title and author, and tell about their favorite part of the book. It is always so much fun to see all of the characters come to life. After book character day presentations the class had a fun day playing games and different activities.

The first full week of November has proven to be eventful. With the national elections taking place, lower school student had a vote too. The first through fourth graders for on The Best Things in Life. It was a neat experience to have the “booths” set up and each child take a turn to individually vote for their choices. We were able to discuss that it’s an anonymous process and that they would have to wait to find out the results. After every ballot was tallied it was put in a chart for the student to view. When we discussed the result we talked about greater and less than and there were a couple of ties to sort out. It was an exciting way to involve the students and let them have a role in such an important process.

Until next time!!

Mrs. Claire

It’s October and you know what that means — first grade Temple Projects!! In social studies the class is learning about early American civilizations. The focus of the study is on Mayan, Aztec, and Inca civilizations. While some of the rituals of these cultures are for mature audiences, we discuss the importance of families and the different contributions they’ve made to our society. Each year the students, with their parent(s), gather on campus and build a model of a Mayan temple. This hands on learning experience is aimed to reinforce the students understanding of what the temples looked like as well as the purpose for the temples. It gives the students an opportunity to teach their parents about a different culture and have a shared learning experience together. Thankfully the weather was beautiful and the projects turned out awesome!

Community service is an important component of St. James. We teach our students to respect and care about the community. Each class on campus, from the youngest 3 year olds to the 8th graders, is responsible for at least two community service projects each school year. These projects range from collecting pet food for the animal shelter, to collecting change for the Be the Light program in town, to supporting local law enforcement, to reading and singing to residents at area nursing homes, to collecting toys to support Toys for Tots. This year, first and second grade are working together to support and help a community that is even closer to us, St. James! We’ve taken on the task to serve our school. Several times throughout the year we will walk around campus and pick up litter and check on other ways we can serve the school to keep it beautiful and safe. Being so close to State Line Ave a lot of trash gets blown onto our campus. Critters like to dig in the playground trash cans and cause a mess too. We are charged with keeping an eye out to ensure the campus is in the best condition. One gorgeous afternoon the first and second graders gloves up and picked up 5 bags of trash! The best part was how excited the students were to pickup the trash that was making campus look gross and hurting the Earth.

In science, first grade finished the bodies of water unit. To wrap up the unit we discussed why things float in some waters and not in others. The short answer is because waters like salt water have more elements in them making the water more dense and the density allows things to float. Fresh water, having fewer elements in it, is less dense and things sink. Before coming to this conclusion, the class experimented with grapes and different types of water. There were four glasses of water, one being the control, and the others were a salt water mixture, fresh (tap) water, and a baking soda water mixture. The students and I created the mixtures by combining the ingredients. Once all of the ingredients waters were made and/or set out, we hypothesized what would happen when the grapes entered the water. It was a lot of fun to hear all of the guess and their explanations. The class knew that once the grapes sank in the control, they would sink in the fresh water too. The excitement came with the mixtures. The students were unsure what would happen with the baking soda and salt water. They were shocked and awed when the grapes floated in the salt water. It was such a fun and easy experiment to demonstrate water density.

The weather has been perfect at recess. The students love finding insects and other creatures. The all got tickled when the little lizard ran an up my arm. “St. James where I did spend my childhood days.” This is a favored quote from our school song and it resonates in these moments. Students having fun and being carefree on playground during recesses.

Several times throughout the year I sit the class down on the rug and we have a compliment circle. I start the activity by calling on one student and I give them a compliment, then they give one to a student, and then that child gives one to another until everyone has received one compliment. To make sure everyone receives one, you crisscross your legs when you get your compliment. The last child gets to give one person an extra compliment. By the end everyone is crisscross and a little happier after being lifted up by their classmate. Since this was our first we had a long discussion on how it can be hard to give and receive compliments. We also talked about how to compliment the person and not just physical attributes. Afterwards, the students had to each say one thing they liked about themselves and I gave each a specific to them compliment. A fantastic way to start the day!!