Holiday Card Project

One of our big design projects back in November and December was to write letters to wounded servicemen in Walter Reed Hospital and create holiday cards with movable parts to send them.  We studied books that had pop-up parts, wheels that turned, flaps to open, and tabs to pull.  Students experimented with different types and then came up with their ideas and created cards which we mailed along with their letters.  

Here is part of the response we received from Lauren Honeycutt, our contact at Walter Reed:

"I got the box yesterday and delivered the letters this morning! They are AMAZING! They were a huge hit with all of the staff and patients - we cannot believe that first graders made those!!"

And here is a photo of Lauren at the nurse's station at the hospital holding some of our cards and letters:

Legoland Field Trip

Yesterday's trip to Legoland was a big hit with the kids!  Like the song says, everything was awesome! We began with the introduction in the factory area:

Then we tried to save the princess by shooting trolls on the laser ride.  Next students had a bit of free play time in the giant climbing area:

Then our group had our building class.  Students learned how to give their structures a strong, wide base to make them less wobbly so they could stand up during an earthquake.  They worked as a team to build tall towers.  Students also learned vocabulary like architect, base, and natural disaster.  Here are some of our sturdy and not-so-sturdy towers:

After our class we had a little more time, so we went to see Miniland, which had fantastic Lego models of many DFW area landmarks:

Our last stop before leaving was to drive the Lego cars.  Here are some great 1st grade drivers:

Thanks so much to all our parent chaperones!  I really appreciated all your work keeping up with our very excited kids!  It was awesome!