Valentine's Day Treats

Here is a picture of the Pinterest inspired Valentine's Day Treats I made for my students. The tag says "Thank you for making First Grade such a ball, Valentine!" I found the rubber high-bounce balls in the Valentine's section at Target (my favorite place) and put them in snack-size Ziploc bags. I then typed the tags in Microsoft Word. The ruler feature is very helpful in making sure the tags were the right size for the bags. I printed the tags at home and stapled them across the top. In total, the treats only took fifteen minutes to make! As a busy teacher, that was a plus! And, what first grader doesn't love high-bounce balls?!? In the version I saw on Pinterest, they filled the bag with gumballs, and although that does go along with our beginning of year bulletin board, I thought these were more fun. Parents, as a reminder, our Valentine's Party is this Tuesday, the 14th, at 2:45PM. You are more than welcome to come.

Space Research

As mentioned in previous posts, we have been learning about space over the last few weeks. The main purpose of our space unit was to provide the students an opportunity to conduct research. We began our research by asking questions. The students divided up in small groups to write down questions they have about space on post-it notes. We then added those post-it notes to a chart. We then created a class Circle Map to record information about space found from various sources. We wrote the information from each source in different colors to keep track of where our answers to questions came from. As a class, we read through various sources, including the online source Pebble Go. Fellow teachers, if your school does not subscribe to Pebble Go, I highly recommend it. After we read each source, we stopped to see if any answers from our chart had been answered. If they had, we added the answers to the chart and put a colored dot, corresponding to the souce it came from, on the question. This taught the students that we could look at the remaining unanswered questions and narrow down if they had a common theme. For example, once we answered a few questions, we realized most the remaining questions were about astronauts and space shutttles so we were able to use the Table of Contents and Index to narrow down specific sections of the sources to look at. This was a good way to hit home the importance of text features.

After researching as a class, the students divided into small groups to conduct their own research. They created their own Circle Map on large construction paper and chose their own sources. After a few days of research, they wrote their own sentences based on their research findings on topics such as astronauts, planets, stars, and space shuttles. They wrote their sentences on chart paper as groups as a way to get them used to taking information from the sources to the Circle Map to sentence form.

The following week, the students used Pebble Go again, but this time by themselves in the computer lab, to record information about space on an individual Circle Map. In class they added more information from various library books. The students even checked out their own space books from the library for their research - I didn't even have to tell them or ask them to! Once they had completed their Circle Maps, they wrote an introductory sentence for their first draft of their research paper. They wrote their first sentence as a "Did you know fact?" Once they had their first sentence, we talked about the need to stay on topic. For example, if their first sentence was about stars, the rest of their sentences needed to be about stars. If they did not have enough information on their Circle Maps, they were free to go back and look at more sources.

After writing their first draft, they met with me during Guided Writing (which we usually do on Thursdays instead of Guided Reading) to edit their work. The students then rewrote their research paper. They then glued their Circle Maps and final draft to a large piece of black construction paper. They added planets to the paper with dot paints and then added start stickers. We hung their final research projects in the hallway and they were so proud. I am so proud and amazed at how well they did on their first official research papers!

To Be or Not To Be An Astronaut

As a part of our writing program, Write From the Beginning, the students wrote to explain why or why not they would want to be an astronaut. They used Thinking Maps to brainstorm an introductory sentence along with three logical reasons why or why not they would choose to be an astronaut. They were required to use adverbs with their reasons to create a more interesting piece of writing. After meeting with me in Guided Writing, the students wrote final drafts of their papers. While I met with students individually to edit their work and provide instant feedback, the rest of the class colored astronauts to display with their final drafts.

Space Word Problems

In math we have been working on solving addition and subtraction word problems using a variety of strategies. One of the strategies we use is using manipulatives. Another is to draw pictures. For Guided Math time, four or five students at a time would come to my table to write their own word problems with a space theme. The students came up with the word problem scenerarios as a group and I helped them with the spelling. They then supplied their own numbers for the problems. The students then had to solve their word problems by drawing a picture and identifying the related fact family number sentences. After all students had a chance to write and solve their word problems, the students then used beans and space problem solving mats to solve each other's problems. This also provided the students a chance to come up to the ELMO to be the "teacher." By the time we were done with this lesson, the students had the opportunity to solve eighteen different word problems. Because the problems were written by their friends and were related to our thematic unit, they were highly engaged.

How the Milky Way Came to Be

In reading, we read the Cherokee tale of "How the Milky Way Came to Be." In this tale, a family was collecting cornmeal to store for the winter when they noticed it was going missing. The mom and dad told the children that it had to be "Great Dog" who was from another world. Knowing that he would continue to steal, the parents and villagers knew they had to scare away "Great Dog" with drums. When they did, he retreated to the sky in fear leaving a trail of cornmeal behind which turned into stars. After reading, we made connections back to the constellations that the students had made and then the students retold the story on a foldable.

Constellations

In science we have been learning about the difference between night and day. This went perfectly with our two week unit over space. As a part of our study, we read Stargazers by Gail Gibbons to learn about constellations. The students then created their own constellations on black paper using white crayons and silver star stickers. The students then discussed with table groups what their constellation was and how it came to be in the sky. My teammate, Mrs. Timms, had her students create "constellation profiles" as a writing extension. This was a great idea that I will have to incorporate next year.

Space Day: Long A

Over the last several weeks we have been learning about space in both ELA and Science. We have also been learning more about long vowels. To help the students make connections and help them remember the long /a/ sound, we had "Space Day." The students were asked to wear black to school. They then made yellow starts and wrote various long /a/ words on the stars. They glued the stars to headbands and taped the extras to their shirts. They then practiced reading the words with their table groups.

100th Day Trail Mix

To celebrate the 100th day of school, the students created a 100 day snack. Parents supplied a variety of items (thank you!) for the students to use to create trail mix. Each student had made a 100 day place mat the day before using 10 circles. On the circles, they wrote numbers skip counting by ten until the reached 100. They then added 100 stickers to their placemat. On the actual 100th day, the students chose ten pieces of the different snack items to place on each circle of their placemat. They practiced skip counting to 100 while they created their snacks. They then of course enjoyed the yummy treat. We had so much food left over that the students made several bags to take home.

100 Days! Hooray!

We celebrated our 100th day of school a few weeks back but I haven't had time to post about it yet. So, here goes! We started our day by having the students write one sentence about what age they currently are and what they are like now. For example, they wrote things like "I am age 6 and I am a good student." Then then wrote another sentence pretending to be 100 years old. They wrote past tense sentences listing off some of their future accomplishments such as "I am 100 years old and I have been a doctor and a father to four children." We talk a great deal in our class about the importance of going to college so I used this lesson to reinforce the concept that you can be anything you want to be as long as you work hard. It was neat to see where the students hope to be when they are 100. They then drew pictures of themselves at these ages. Unfortunately, I did not remember to take pictures of these before I sent them home. :(

For math, we read 100 Day Worries by Margery Cuyler. Just like in the book, the students were asked to bring in a bag of 100 small items. They brought in pencils, pennies, beans, cereal, pins, etc. The students sat in a large circle and created sets of tens out of their items. The students then took a gallery walk around the circle counting the items by tens. We had a discussion about how some of the groups looked larger and some looked smaller but they all had 100 items. It was a great way for students to understand that the size of the objects did not change the quantity.

KidBlog

The students recently started publishing their own blog, hosted by KidBlog. You can visit the blog here. For their first entry, the students wrote to describe the concept of an addition double. They then listed examples of doubles. The purpose of this assignment was to assess their understanding of the concept. The following week, the students used facts learned during our space research to write a few "Did you know?" facts about space. Their KidBlog will be used in computer lab and on the classroom student stations as a way to write about what they know, write personal narratives such as they do in their journals, to show technology products created in computer class, and to share affirmations with one another. Check back often to see what the students have added. Parents, I sent home passwords to the KidBlog previously. The students are welcome to add their own entries at home. They will not appear immediately because I have to approve them first, so if you do not see them right away, do not worry. If you need the password again, please feel free to ask.

Dinosaur Dentist: Doubles -1

In math we have been reviewing how to use doubles addition and subtraction sentences to solve other math facts. The students created doubles neighborhoods to relate doubles and doubles +1. I teach the students then when they are thinking about doubles +1 the two addends are "neighbors" on the number line. The concept is the same for doubles -1. If it is +1, go up one on the number line. If it is -1, go down on number on the number line. We also discussed how doubles are always even numbers and doubles +1/-1 are always odd numbers. You can learn more about the doubles neighborhoods here.

To help the students practice this concept, we played a game in the computer lab called Dinosaur Dentist. In this game, the students pull one tooth from a dinosaur, which has the same number of teeth on top and bottom (the double). They then have to use the double to determine what the answer to the double -1 would be. You can have your child play this game at home for free along with Robin Hood Doubles where the students simply identify the sum of a given double.

My Favorite Transportation

As a part of our writing program, Write From the Beginning, the students are learning to write to explain why. This week the students wrote about their favorite means of transportation. They first created Circle Maps to brainstorm their favorites, then chose one to write about on a Flow Map. The students had to list three reasons why they chose their favorite transportation. They then wrote four sentences using their Thinking Maps. The students were required to use transition words for their three sentences explaining why. After the students wrote (the process took several days), I met with each student individually to edit their work. The students then wrote a final draft of their writing and created art of their favorite transportation.

The Main Idea: Hot Air Balloons

To assess the students understanding of main ideas, we read I Fly Hot-Air Balloons from Reading A-Z. As we read, we charted important details from each section on a Multi-Flow Map. Once finished, we discussed what all of those important details had in common and what the author wanted the students to learn from the text, or the main idea. The students then had to explain the main idea of the story in their own words. They wrote the main idea on a basket that they made out of construction paper. They then created a hot-air balloon to attach to the basket.