Merry Christmas!

For unto us a child is born,

to us a son is given;

and the government shall be upon his shoulder,

and his name shall be called

Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 9:6

One More Christmas Writing

The class writes about their favorite part of the Christmas story...

Christmas List

For fun, and as a lesson in writing complete sentences and reasoning, I had the kids choose one or two or more things they want for Christmas and explain WHY they want it. I have an animal loving class, I'm finding. I apologize for the fuzzy photos.

A substitute for me so I can learn. ?? :)

Oh my! How sweet. I remember wanting my teachers to come to my house too.

A projector, of course.

World War II DVD

Dog, Unicorn, Dolphin

16 puppies! So! Fun!

I love the "that's why" ending.

These two are a little oddly similar...hmmm.

Very practical!

Student Quotes

I mentioned that someone was retired, and a boy raised his hand right away to say: "I heard on the news that Larry King is retired!"

Today my future brother in law visited the class to talk about his home country, Australia. There were some pretty good questions, but my favorite was, "Is Lego Land in Australia?"

I cannot believe we're almost halfway through the year! I love the second semester of first grade. They are so into the routine that they can basically survive the day without me. :) Tomorrow I'll be posting some Christmas writings that we've been working on.

Penny and Snow

Penny doesn't like the snow at all. I think it's just too cold for her little body. She shivers and jumps up to be picked up. She's trying to like it, I think.

She prefers to be held inside where it's warm...

and to just gaze at the snow from a distance.

Christmas is THIS week! eeeee! I can't wait.

Penny and Christmas

Penny had a grooming appointment last week. She's still only six pounds! She looks even tinier now that they cut a lot of her hair. She's so fun and lovable, even though she barks a lot and steals receipts and mittens from my purse, if I'm not careful.
She did really well with the Christmas tree! Considering that she goes nuts when I get my hair straightener out or a bag of chips or something. She didn't bark a single time while we put up the tree! While I was decorating, she checked out each ornament she could reach. :)

Holy Guacamole

I posted about guacamole awhile ago, but I liked this version better. I am bad about winging recipes and not writing them down, so I'm writing this one down.

• 1 avocado
• 1 tsp salsa (I used Pace Picante mild)
• 1 tbsp chopped white onion (Do I like onion now??? I think so.)
• 1/2 tsp lime juice
• Salt to taste

Taylor's ever-evolving work schedule has just changed again. Now he'll be working til 8:45 (with an hour drive) two nights of the week, so I'm excited to try out some recipes that can be kept warm all evening until he's home. Soups and that kind of stuff.

Twenty-five

Happy birthday, Taylor Baylor! I love celebrating your birthday with you.

Baked Sweet Potato Fries

Sweet potatoes are the healthiest vegetable in quite a few categories, I just read. I also found out that a town in Tennessee called Gleason (which is my maiden name!!) has a Tater Town day and festival which celebrates the sweet potato. How awesome is that? I usually have them baked at Taylor's family's house for dinner, and this Thanksgiving, his mom made really good sweet potatoes in a buttery, brown sugar sauce. Yum! I made some "fries" by tossing a sliced sweet potato in olive oil with a little salt and pepper. Then I baked them for 15 minutes, flipped them over a little and baked them another 15 minutes, at 350. Super easy! They were just a l i t t l e crisp on the outside and hot and soft on the inside. Not really like fries, but very good still!

Also, I like more strawberries than spinach in my strawberry spinach salad :)

Christmas Decorating!

This weekend we started decorating the apartment for Christmas. Penny is so bad about handling new things and so she barked angrily the whole time. I don't know how we'll put up the tree. But, this little grouping was a fun project to do. I printed Christmas song lyrics and titles (in some of my favie fonts like Futura and Helvetica Neue Ultra Light) on the left; I found the silver Merry Christmas at Hobby Lobby; the paper with antique furniture is just scrapbooking paper from my stash; the Merry Merry Merry is a Christmas card; Santa Claus is coming is a favorite Sufjan Stevens lyric that Taylor picked out and we framed; and the mirror is something I've had forever but never actually hung up! In January, I'll just switch out the Christmasy things and leave it up.

How to Cook a Turkey According to 1st Graders

We just learned about degrees and measuring temperature, and this assignment introduced using transitional words like first, next, then, and last. This topic was a lot of fun to talk about because it's interesting to see which ones know anything about cooking from watching or helping their families. Enjoy!

Turkey mix!

Love the pictures!

Sprinkles and get rid of the fat.

Veggies.

Look at her drawings! How cute.

Get ready and wait and wait for all the people to come until they're here.

Happy Thanksgiving! We have so much to be thankful for.

Thanksgiving Fruit Pizza

Taylor and I are bringing this to Thanksgiving tomorrow for dessert...

Letters to Pastors

This is something we did in October at school. I LOVE LOVE LOVE writing in first grade. They change so much over the course of the year. This was an assignment where I gave free reign; I just helped with some spelling and told them that a letter starts with Dear. These letters are pretty sweet.

He forgot the word about, so I told him it's okay and to just draw an arrow this time, showing where about should go. :)

Next up: How to Cook a Turkey! (according to 1st graders)