Two Peas In A Pod {A Text-to-Self Connection}

This week we are digging deep into Text-to-Self Connections.

Today we read a class favorite and as we were reading we were reminded of our own likes & dislikes. 

After reading, we talked about how Little Pea does not like to eat candy.  We then shared one thing that we do not like.

We also thought about what Little Pea does like and what we like.

Even and Odd Spooktacular Fun!

Is it just me or does this little ghosty crack you up?! I absolutely adore him.  

This week we were learning all about even and odd.  

Back when we first learned about digits, we did learn about which digits were even and odd.  We did this by first finding a partner. Then I told them that I had different food items.  If the items were even, which means if they can be shared fairly and everyone gets the same amount, then the students could eat them.  This brought a great concrete idea to the concept of even and odd.

<<<<<Sorry! I didn't get a picture of this activity.>>>>>

This week was all about learning how to know if a number greater than 10 is even or odd. 

Here is a peek at our week...

First, we played a game called prove it. In whole group instruction, each student created a game board. Then the students passed their game board to a partner and had to prove whether the numbers on the board were even or odd.  

The next day, I let the cats out of the bag.  I told the students the story of two haunted houses where there were little black cats who loved pumpkins. In one haunted house, cats could only live there if they could share their pumpkins evenly with another cat.  In the other house, cats didn't have to worry about being even.  We then sorted the cats into the even or odd house.  (We did a couple as a whole group and then I had the students go off and prove it on their own.) After proving it, the students put their number in the even sort or odd.  Once everyone finished, we all came to the carpet and took note about patterns we saw in the sorts.  We made the conclusion that you have to look at the ones place to tell if a number is even or odd. 

The 3rd day, we read this fun story. 

We then in the spooky spirit made "Even Gleeven and Odd Blodd."  Monsters that either like everything about and around them to be even or everything about and around them to be odd. 

On the 4th day, we did a quick sunflower cut and sorting activity.  Then the students played an even and odd game. 

Finally, we received our "check point" from our Unlocking Number Sense fun.  We all worked to show what we knew about even and odd numbers.  Hopefully on Monday we will receive our clue!! 

Whew! What a week! 

Now off to a day of football watching and errand running! 

Happy Saturday :) 

More French Fun!

Today was our 3rd week of learning all about France! 

Last week, we talked about the French flag, made connections with it's similarities and differences to our American flag, and created our own French flag!

Today, we talked about where France is like on a map and what it looks like.  We then used oil pastels and decorated a template of France. The only directions I gave were to decorate it and boy, the students were SO CREATIVE! Some took what they knew about the France flag and colored their template to look like the France flag.  Others thought about the fact that France is known for flowers and they drew flowers.  

I loved this activity because of the connections they made to the things that they previously learned about France and their creativity really shined. 

We also have been learning new French words and sayings each week.  They are LOVING these new sayings.  So far we have covered...

• Bonjour - Hello
• Je m'appelle - My name is 
• J'adore - I love
• Je voudrais - I would like
• Au revoir - good bye
• L'eau - water 

C'est la vie!

It is so important to accept others and others cultures.  I started spending some time with my class doing an activity each week to help us learn about other places in the world. 

This month, we are in the midst of learning about France!

We started by learning that many people consider France to be an absolutely beautiful place because of all of the flowers and gardens.  We learned that when in France people often gather in the gardens to picnic, chat, read, and even paint! We learned about French painter Claude Monet and that he painted the exact same place over 200 times! It is that beautiful and he wished to capture the scenery as much as possible in every season.  

We then made our own versions of Claude Monet's Water Lilies! 

Add some finger painting, take off the tape, and Voila!

J'adore!

Au revoir!

Land Ho!

Y'all, today was an ABSOLUTE BLAST!

Here is what led up to our fun for today...this week we have been learning all about explorers!

We began by learning all about explorers, creating an anchor chart, and writing about where we would like to explore as an explorer.

I found the cute templates for the boy and girl templates here and made the paper to fit the writing prompt.

We then learned all about Christopher Columbus. The students were amazed that this happened over 500 years ago!  After reading the books, we made these great sequencing boats.  Tip: After having the students cut out all of the sails, have the students find a spot in the room and lay out all the sails.  Then teach them how to sequence them (put one behind the other) and read each sail many times until they are able to sequence them.  

Our morning work. 

 Finally, TODAY, we packed our bags, created a map/telescope, and put our hats on for a journey to a new land!  I found this idea from Jodi and isn't it THE BEST?! My students absolutely LOVED IT!!!! They were so into it! So many adults commented on how impressed they were with deep understanding of facts that the students knew about the voyage! Now, my goal was that the students understand the risks, sentiments, preparation, and trading that goes into exploring. BUT the students were so into this Columbus Day voyage that they also were all about learning certain "Columbus trivia" facts - such as 1492, the 3 names of the ships, etc. 

A couple of tips...

• I did not have 7 volunteers so I took out a couple of the items to be traded for and kept pumpkin (pumpkin muffins), cotton, feathers, popcorn, and cinnamon (cinnamon rice crispy treats). 
• Also, we didn't have another room available to go visit, so I had my natives sit on picnic blankets outside and when we arrived, I had the students sit in groups of 5.  
• Once everyone had traded in that group (and the group had talked about what the item was, how the item is used by the natives, what it feels like/tastes like/looks like/etc) we would rotate to the next group.
• We completed the voyage day book altogether and once we finished I gave them some time to color.  
• Before the voyage, I told the students that, like Columbus, we would be writing about our exploration and what we found and then sharing our exploration with our loved ones back home (they were supposed to read it with their families at home).

Happy Columbus Day (almost!)  

Creative Choice

Having plenty of purposeful activities for the students to do is so important in the classroom.  I thought I would share what I have for my students who finish their work quickly.  

Each of the sticks (in the blue cup) have a student's name written on them (I took this before school started so I hadn't written names yet).  When a student finishes his/her work, they can be creative and choose an activity to do: their anything & everything journal, a math tub, computer work, word work activities, ipad work, and/or work on writing. 

When they pick an activity, they can put their name stick in the pocket that corresponds with the activity.  There is one rule though: there can only be 4 people at a choice. 

 The activities on this board are ones that are differentiated & that the students also do during other times of the day.  For example: work on writing also happens during literacy stations. This is great because the students can work at their own level and they don't need any instruction because they already know about them.

Typically, I wait until about the 4th week or so of school to introduce Creative Choice.  Before then, I have the fast finishers work in their anything & everything journals - they can do anything (school appropriate) in these journals: write a story or poem, draw, practice their handwriting, create math problems and then solve.   

Fire Safety

Today we learned all about Fire Safety! 

Even though Fire Safety month is not until a little later, I have found that Fire Safety really hits home with the students when I plan these lessons on the same day as a Fire Drill.

Some of the fun activities we did today (in addition to a Fire Drill) included...

asking vs telling sentences with Fire Safety Tips

reading Fire Safety & Firefighter themed books

& choosing our favorite Fire Safety Tip and sharing why it is our favorite!

Have a great night!

Weekend News!

Happy Sunday! 

Is it just me or do these weekends FLY by??

I thought I would share one of my FAVORITE ways to kick off the week with my group of Firsties...

Weekend News!

I just love this time when my students practice writing about what they did over the weekend and then each child shares with the class what they wrote.

Here is how it works: when the students come in on Monday morning, they spend the first 15-20 minutes (with morning announcements at some point during that time) writing in their "Weekend News Journal" all about their weekend news.  Then the students all come to the carpet and we take turns sharing what they each did during the weekend.  

Tip: I have the students write the date at the top of the page that they start their weekend news on. This helps with organization. 

Not only do I love that the students come in every Monday and get straight to work, I love that I we do this writing in our journals which means weekly prep is not needed! 

Here's to a great week!

Sorting It All Out

Finally!

Do you ever feel like there is that one topic that you just can't seem to figure out? How can I make this topic really fun (but not have to spend hours prepping?!)  Now, don't get me wrong I often spend hours planning and prepping but for some reason whenever it came to teaching about sorting and organizing I had the hardest time getting excited about my lessons...until now! I think I have finally "Sorted It All Out!!" and boy, could I not be more excited to finally have landed on this lesson!

Some of our sorting and organizing activities...

Guess My Sort: I started out by randomly choosing a couple of students to come up to the classroom.  Then I told the class: I choose these students to come up here because I sorted them by something that they all have in similarity.  When a person sorts things, that means they group items together after finding something that all of the items have in common.  I then asked the students to guess how I sorted the students that came up to the carpet from the people (the color of their shirt), then I sorted another group (by type - all girls), then a 3rd group (all similar height - this was the hardest one! Students found so many sorts which was great because I said yes you are right that is a sort, but that is not what my brain was thinking when I sorted them), and finally I told the students to make a shape, any shape with their hands, & then I brought the kids up based on that - (by shape).

          

**As we did this, we created an anchor chart**

       Lucky Charms - Each child got a scoop of lucky charms

and was told to sort them once. Then we discussed the sorts we found.  Then they had to sort them a 2nd way.  Again, we shared.  

This was absolutely a class favorite (and a favorite for me since it required very little prep!!)!! 

One other thing I loved about this activity was that it allowed us to talk about what we can learn from our sorts.  For example: we discovered that from our sorts, we knew that we had more cereal than marshmallows and why that is significant to know. 

        3 Little Firefighters: While they ate their Lucky Charms, we read this sorting story and talked about the sorts while reading.  

A First Grade First Day of School

Well, we've made it through decorating the classroom and our information nights, and finally the First Day of School! Oh, and what a day it was!! 

To kick things off, the students came into the classroom, found the book that they picked out at Meet the Teacher in the circle, sat down, and started reading!  
{When I took the photo, not all of the students had chosen a book yet - I make the circle a little larger and all students fit in the circle}

After the announcements, I complimented the students on what a wonderful job they did entering the classroom and reading! I then collected the books and had the students introduce themselves to one another (by going around the circle & saying "Hi, My Name is _______."  

Next: A good ol' simon says brain break.  I said things such as simon says "stand up if you have a brother."  That way the students had a way of getting to know one another.

Then we read "I'm So Glad You're Finally Here!"

Next up - heading to our tables to receive our school boxes to talk about our school supplies and then to sort the certain supplies that go in our boxes. As we moved to the table, we discussed how to move from the carpet to our tables and students modeled this. 

We moved back to the carpet (as we came back to the carpet modeled returning to the carpet) to discuss procedures such as bathroom, water, entering the classroom, etc.  The students do not receive assigned carpet seats until Day 2. 

Walking in the hallway.  We practiced lining up and then we practiced walking in the hallway BUT we did not actually go in the hallway just yet.  We walked around our classroom instead (playing follow the leader).  

We read "The Night Before First Grade" and discussed what we each did last night.

Recess

Cafeteria tour

Read Aloud: First Day Jitters and made Jitter Juice.    

Lunch

Magic Play Dough 

Summer Souvenir Shirts. We made t-shirts to remember our favorite summer memory. {On Day 2 we wrote about what was on our T-shirts as our beginning of the year writing sample & shared our t-shirts.}

Specials {P.E., Music, Art}

Dismissal Practice

Pack Up

Dismissal

How did you celebrate the First Day of School?

Open House

Back to School is such a busy time of the year.  With organizing your classroom, to prepping for Open House and Meet The Teacher, to getting everything ready for the First Day it is quite the marathon.

First Up...

As I greet the parents at the door, they come in and find a file folder that has their child's name on in it.

While the parents are waiting for everyone to make it to the classroom, they begin filling out the information within the file folder (it has the student's first & last name). 

Once everyone has entered the classroom, I get their attention and share with the parents about myself (experience, etc), about our daily classroom routine, more specifics about homework, highlight what the papers are in the file folder, etc.

Once I have finished, I ask the parents to please fill out the Student Information Sheet, Letter to Their Child, and to stop by the 3 stations (All About Me sign up, Volunteer sign up, and Wish List) before they leave.

Next...

This is literally my FAVORITE day before school "officially" starts.  I always have the same sentiment as I did during sorority recruitment of the moments right before opening the doors and excitedly shouting "WE'RE SO GLAD YOU'RE FINALLY HERE!!!!" Each year, I am literally so excited about the group of firsties who are finally here. :)

During this morning, I greet the students at the door and hand them a checklist of fun things to do with their guardian during this time.

For the bedtime reading, I hand them a letter about myself with letters from my previous Firsties about what First Grade is like stapled behind. They absolutely LOVE it!

How do you do your information night(s)? 

Before we know it...it will be the First Day!

Back At It With A Classroom Tour

Well, it is officially August and time to start prepping the room for my next group of firsties.

I've got to say, I love the feeling of walking back into the classroom after summer break. 

I thought I'd start out the year by sharing a peek at my classroom.  

The back carpet area (where I do read alouds and any lesson that I just need a white board and no projector).  In the cubbies (which tomorrow will have a sticker inside with each student's name on it) the students put anything that they need to take home.

We will also put our trains that remind us of perseverance throughout the year on the clothespin lines.

      

Bathroom/sink area and our book cart that houses all of our leveled books. I updated the stickers in front of the leveled books but was out of the light blue stickers (so sad) so I was unable to do those bins - the OCD part of me is just dying for those stickers to get delivered! 

Classroom library 

Work on writing area.  On the clips above the windows, I put the students work.

The front of the classroom where my small group table is.  As well as my students FAVORITE part - the basketball hoop.  We use this hoop for a fun behavior tool called a Shoot Out on Fridays.

This is where I put our anchor charts and our word wall (just need to put up the letters!).  Also, on the balloons in the background - I have laminated them & use a dry erase marker to write each child's birthday on the month that corresponds.  

Updated: Letters are up and I am loving them!

Now, off to start prepping for Parent Night and Meet The Teacher!