The Life of a First Grader

 Sometimes we get caught up in all of our school work and projects, and are busy with sports. When this happens, it is easy to forget what is going on at the other end of the building in the elementary classrooms. From Mrs. Kapanka and Mrs. Wilson teaching the preschoolers their letters, to the fifth graders learning about decimals and long division, they can all be fairly busy too. To see just what some of them do, I decided to interview my little brother Ryan, who is in first grade, to see what life is like for a first grader at Calvary Christian Schools.

The first graders are very busy and learn a lot. They learn phonics, how to read better, simple math, counting money, spelling, and other things. Not everything they do is work though. Mrs. Smith does lots of fun things that help motivate the students to learn. She has a reading loft with lots of pillows that kids can read in once they finish their seatwork. She also has spider plants, Fly Guy books and posters, hanging snowflakes the students made, a tooth chart, and other fun stuff around the room. In addition, Mrs. Smith has parties and full days filled with fun activities.

One of these special days is the parties every ten days to celebrate the tenth day, twentieth day, thirtieth day, and so on of school. This past week was the ninetieth day of school, so one of the parents brought in marshmallows that had been dipped in chocolate and rolled in sprinkles. They brought in enough for each kid to have nine. Then the class counts by tens until they get to ninety. The whole point in this is to teach the kids how to count by tens and divide things up. The best day throughout this whole process is the one hundredth day of school. The kids wear glasses that are made of paper one hundreds, and everyone brings in one hundred round “somethings.” They divide one hundred by however many students there are in the class, then make piles on their desks with that many “somethings” for each kid. After that, they pick up a pile from each desk. They do activities with their piles, and then eat them.

Also recently was Valentine’s Day. For this, they have a party with fun things to do like passing out valentines. But they will be writing letters to Mrs. Smith’s daughter, Shona, too. She is in Nicaragua with the Peace Corps. This is one way the students can learn about what’s going on in the world.

First grade is a lot of fun and is a blast for these kids. It’s not all seatwork and paper, there is other stuff mixed in. Mrs. Smith keeps them engaged in learning without them even realizing it. I think that makes first grade really special. Kids get to learn while doing exciting things. These were some of the highlights from a first grader’s perspective.

- Megan Mitchell, Freshman