CLASS PROJECT, READING, AND MATH

Every February St. James presents a program celebrating grandparents. We take an entire morning to enjoy Grandparents’ Day. It is a morning full of class presentations, touring the campus, sharing handmade gifts with your loved ones, and making memories with those most dear to you. One fun thing the children get to partake in is making a class item for the silent auction on Grandparents’ Day. This year, the class made a piece of pottery that is a decorative bowl of their handprints. We had a local potter, Chris Thomas, come to class to discuss pottery and help in this endeavor. After tracing and cutting out the children’s handprints, each student chose their glaze and painted their handprints. Then, Mrs. Thomas and our parent volunteer arranged the handprints onto a bowl to take with her to dry and fire in the kiln. This is the neatest project I have been a part of while working at St. James. We are so excited to see how it turns out!

To practice reading, I paired the class up and assigned them a story. I am blown away with the progress I am seeing in regard to their reading. While in pairs I was so happy to see how encouraging and patient the children were with one another. Not only does this help with reading fluency, it helps the children learn how to work together and be a kind friend.

In math the children have been covering all manner of mathematical topics, but this week we began learning about congruent shapes. It is fascinating to see the students work through things that puzzle them. I think the terminology threw the class at first, but once they understood the definition they had fun building and drawing congruent shapes. Introducing geometric concepts in first grade is beneficial because it gives the students a firm foundation in what will become more complex concepts.

Have a blessed day!

Claire