The Kissing Hand Connections

We read The Kissing Hand a while back to practice making connections. We talked about how Chester felt in the story. After reading, the students shared with a partner one thing the story reminded them of from their personal life. They then wrote a sentence about it and illustrated it.

College Week: Career Parade

The students were invited to dress up in attire for their favorite career. The students who dressed up paraded through the school while the other students cheered them on.

College Week Festivities

As a part of college week, the students made t-shirts to show when they are expected to graduate high school and begin college. I printed "College 2025" on cardstock and the students traced the letters onto their shirts with permanent markers. They then colored them in however they wanted. For the piggy banks, they cut strips of construction paper and glued them in various patterns. We are trying to instill in the students at an early age that college is important and they need to start saving for their future now. The students also added their handprint to a grade level banner that we will keep hanging in our common area all year as a reminder of our belief that they will attend college one day.

College Week: Guest Speakers

During College Week, the students had two guest speakers come talk to them about the importance of going to college. The first is a scientist from The University of Texas at Arlington. She talked to the students about what she studied in college and what she does now. The second works in finance for Honda. He talked to the students about the importance of earning good grades. He equated earning good grades and getting scholarships to college to having a good credit score. The students were very engaged and full of questions.

Cardinal Directions and Maps

In Social Studies we learned about cardinal directions and maps. The students play "Simon Says" using cardinal directions, drew a map of the classroom according to items' location in the room, and went on a walk through the school using a blueprint map.

Daily 5: Work on Words

We use the Daily 5 process in our class to help the students learn to read in fun, engaging ways. While I work with small groups on reading, the rest of the students rotate through five student chosen lessons. One of those is Work on Words. The students practice reading, spelling, and writing a word wall and phonics words. They also work on alphabetizing and matching rhyming words. Fellow teachers, you can download my Word Family Buildings and Word Family Train Sort from my store on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Name Alliterations

During our study of alliterations, the students wrote their own name alliterations. As a class they brainstormed words that start with every letter of the alphabet. We charted these on the Promethean Board. Then, in their journals, they used the chart to help them write their own silly sentence. Once  they were finished, they peer checked them and then  I checked them. After making any needed corrections, they rewrote their sentences on construction paper and illustrated it.

Weather Safety

In science we learned about various types of weather. As a part of our lessons, we discussed the proper clothing and tools needed to stay safe in various weather conditions. The students then illustrated a picture for each type of weather to show their understanding of these tools and proper clothing.

Library Orientation

Our class visits the library each Friday morning. The students may select up to three books to take home. Before being allowed to take books home, they had a presentation on how to select books and how to take care of them.

Rhyming and Alliteration Poems

Several weeks ago the students worked in small groups to write rhyming and alliteration poems. They wrote them together on scratch paper first or the Promethean Board and then transferred them to  chart paper. They then illustrated their work as a team.

Social Contract

Our district uses the Capturing Kids' Hearts process to promote positive behavior. One aspect of this process is building a Social Contract. The students brainstorm in small groups how they want to be treated by their peers, how they want to treat their peers, how they want to treat the teacher, and how they want the teacher to treat them. The groups then share those ideas and we add them to the contract. The ones with check marks were said by more than one group. This shows that those words are most important to our class. Each student then signed the contract to show that they agree to follow it. In our class the students also make happy faces of themselves to show that positive behavior is happier behavior.

School Rules

We have been spending quite a bit of time going over and practicing school rules and procedures. In one of those lessons, students wrote and illustrated one rule they could follow. They then shared their work with a neighbor and discussed additional ways that could follow school rules.

Koo Koo Kangaroo

As brain breaks and to get the wiggles out, we have been dancing to online videos by Koo Koo Kangaroo. I learned about these videos in a Gifted and Talented training this summer. Fellow teachers, if you have not seen this or done these with your class, you should. They have a YouTube channel and their own website. Our class favorite so far is "Dinosaur Stomp." The picture is a little dark because we turn off the lights so we can see the Promethean a little better.

What Do You Want to Learn?

As a class the students brainstormed things they wanted to learn in first grade. We charted those responses on a Circle Map. The students each completed a sentence about the one thing they old most like to learn. Then, as a part of a lesson on following directions, the students followed multi-step directions to color a Moseley Thunderbird.

This Summer

Last week the students drew a detailed picture of at least one thing they did this summer. They then wrote a personal narrative about their summer.

David Goes to School

We read Dvid Goes to School by David Shannon to practice following directions and to identify finding the parts of a book. After reading, the students created their own book with a title and author on the cover. On the inside, they wrote at least one rule they could follow from our class Social Contract.

Wemberley Worried

We recently read Wemberley Worried by Kevin Henkes. After reading, the students brainstormed their favorite parts of the story which we charted on a Circle Map. They then completed one sentence to record their favorite part and illustrated it.

Crayons

We have been learning the poem "Crayons" to practice reading color words. We have also been working on our fluency. To hear the students reading, click this link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9lnesyw8sb0yw95/Crayons.m4a. I have found that when the students know I am recording them and that they will have an audience besides their friends and teachers, they tend to worker harder on reading goals.