Food Fractions

Ms. Willemin taught the students a lesson on fractions, or parts of a set, using food items. The students broke cookies in half (circle fractions), cut a piece of bread into quarters (square fractions), a graham cracker into fourths (rectangle fractions), and animal crackers (irregular shaped fractions) to learn that fractions must be equal parts.

Magic School Bus Lunch

As a reward for continual positive behavior, students are occassionally invited to eat lunch in the classroom with the teacher. During their picnic lunch, they get to watch an episode of "Magic Schoolbus."

Valentine's Day Party

Thank you to all of the parents who provided the treats for the students' Valentine's Day Party. Here are a few pictures from the party:

How to Make S'Mores

This week in reading we are learning how to follow multi-step directions and in writing we are writing to tell how. Since our weekly theme is camping, we learned how to make s'mores. The students were shown how to make the s'mores step by step. As they worked, they had to verbally explain how to make them. They are currently working on the writing portion of this lesson. Then, of course, they ate their delcious treat!

100th Day Trail Mix

In celebration of the 100th day and to review the concept of skip counting by tens, the students made a 100th day trail mix. They first created placemats with ten colorful circles on it. They then chose ten different items for their mix. They placed ten of each item on a circle. Once they had all of their circles filled, they practiced counting by ten. They then added their mix to a bag and enjoyed their delicious snack. Thank you to all of the parents who generously supplied the snacks.

Domino Doubles Snack

To introduce the conept of doubles, the students created dominoes out of graham crackers, vanilla icing, and milk chocolate morsels. They first put one piece of chocolate on each side and verbally identified the addition number sentence. They continued by adding one morsel to each side of the domino until we reached the sum of 18. Then, of course, they enjoyed eating their snack!

M&M Patterns

To reinforce repeating patterns and additive patterns, the students worked in cooperative groups to create patterns with paper M&M manipulatives. They used popsicle sticks to divide the repeating parts. After creating their patterns the students went on a gallery walk to practice labeling the patterns with letters. Next I gave the students only one color of M&M manipulatives. I asked them again to create a pattern. Previous students have been stumped by this challenge but not this group. They immediatley knew that they had to make positional patterns. I attribute this to the amazing quality of teaching we have in our Kindergarten. And, the kids are smart! Some of the groups chose to keep the patterns in a row but turning the M to various positions while other groups chose to move the M&Ms up and down to create a pattern. And of course, hard work deserves a reward. So, the students had the opportunity to build a variety of patterns with real M&Ms and then eat them.

 

 

Apple Graph

The students recently took a taste test to see which type of apple they liked the best: red, yellow, or green. After choosing their favorite, they created a real object graph to see which type of apple was the most popular and which was the least popular. Using the data from the group real object graph, the students individually created a bar-type graph of the results. They then used the bar-type graphs to answer questions.

Measuring Area

We had several lessons on how to measure area using non-standard units. One way was to measure the area of square rectangles using the tiles on the floor. We marked off various squares and square rectangles with painting tape and then counted how many tiles it took to cover that shape. To reinforce that area measures the amount of surface that is covered, the students covered crackers in spreadable cheese making sure to cover the entire area. They also made various squares and square rectangles out of color tiles. They then recreated those shapes on construction paper with paper color tiles. They then counted how many tiles it took to create the shape and recorded it. They also cut out various shapes and layered them on top of one another to see which one covered the most surface. We discussed that when you layered two objects, if you could still see the outside edges of one of the shapes or if the shape covered the other shapes completely, then it had a larger area. Last but not least, the students created squares and square rectangles out of Cheez-Its. They then went on a gallery walk to compare the area of the various shapes they created. After comparing the areas, then of course they ate them!

M&M Parts of a Set

To teach about parts of a set, the students again used M&Ms. I would instruct the students to pull out a certain number of M&Ms of two different colors. They would identify the parts of a set for each color. I would use questions such as "What part of the set is blue?" and "What part of the set is not red?" Although we only have to identify fractions and parts of a set up to four parts in first grade, it was good practice for the terminology.

M&M Probability

To introduce the students to the concept of certain and impossible, I gave each student a bag of M&M candy. I told the students that they could eat the candy but they could only eat the pink ones. Of course they immediately yelled out "There aren't any pink ones!" I said, "Oh. Well, you can only eat the white ones." Of course they yelled out "There aren't any white ones!" So I asked them, "Is it possible to eat pink or white M&Ms from your bag?" and they said "No!" This led into a discussion that it was impossible because there weren't any of that color to begin with. I then had them eat all of the yellow M&Ms except for two. I think asked them if they thought would pull out a yellow piece of candy from the bag if they closed their eyes. They said no because there were only a few of that color left. We discussed that it was possible, but not probable. I asked them if they closed their eyes if they would pull out a piece of candy from the bag and they said "yes" because there was only candy in the bag. So, we discussed that since there was only candy in the bag, it was certain they would pull out a piece of candy and it was impossible to pull out anything else. We continued with this lesson through various different scenarios.

How To Bake Cupcakes

This is the writing examples to go along with the "How To" writing lesson I wrote about in the Cake: Long A post. The students used a Circle Map followed by a Flow Map to explain how to bake cupcakes. After writing, the students worked with me in small groups to edit and rewrite their text. While I worked with small groups, the other students created paper cupcakes to go along with their writing.

Cake: Long A Words

Last Friday the first grade teachers taught a joint lesson on how to bake cupcakes. I was out on this day so I do not have pictures but the students told me they had a blast! I am thankful for amazing teammates! As a part of the lesson, the students wrote various long /a/ words on a cake pattern and decorated it. This week we are currently working on writing about how to make cupcakes. Once they are finished, I will post their writing.