Comparing Area

To practice comparing area, we created large rectangles and squares on the tile floor. The students were asked to all stand in the rectangle that they thought covered the least area. They quickly realized that they could all barely fit inside the rectangle. They then moved to the rectangle they thought had the largest area. They realized then that they had much more room to move around and were not as crowded. They then counted how many floor tiles each rectangle contained to confirm their findings of which covered the most and which covered the least area.

Rainbow Days

Each Monday a volunteer from Rainbow Days comes to each first grade class to teach character education and life safety lessons to the students. Ms. K., our fantastic volunteer, teaches the students lessons such as who the boss of their body is (their brain), the safest seat in a car (the back), when you become an adult, and ways to say "no" to drugs and alcohol. The lessons are taught through engaging stories.

Life Cycle of a Chicken

As a part of our study of life cycles, the students created a diagram of the life cycle of chickens. Here is one of the examples:

 

Sorry the picture is sideways. I tried to rotate it a few times but it was not cooperating. But, you get the idea.

Earth Day Book Swap

Each year the first grade teachers host a school wide Earth Day Book Swap. The students bring in books from home that they no longer read and trade them with other students. It is a good way to promote reusing materials and literacy at the same time. As a part of our commitment to Rachel's Challenge, we also collect books for one of our local family shelters.

Life Cycle of a Fish

The students demonstrated their knowledge of the life cycle of  a fish by drawing the stages on a paper plate.

Frog Life Cycle Shared Writing

In science we learned about various life cycles. To assess the students' understanding of the stages of the frog life cycle, we wrote a Flow Map together on the Promethean Board. The students then worked together to write on chart paper the various stages in sentence form. After they completed the shared writing, each student wrote their own sentences on frog shaped paper. They then colored a frog cover page to display with their individual and shared writing.

Introduction to Area

To introduce the concept of area to the students, they were each given crackers of various shapes and sizes to cover with cheese. As they covered the crackers we discussed that area measures how much space something covers. We also discussed which cracker required more cheese and which required less to cover.

Measuring Length

The students worked in small groups to measure a lizard family with various non-standard units. They used pop cubes, paper clips, beans, etc. They then ordered the lizards from longest to shortest and compared their findings with other groups.

Technology Savy: Flower Diagrams

The students created diagrams on flowers on the computer using Pixie 2 software. They used the various painting and clipart features to create their pictures. They then used text boxes and our class Brace Map to label and write about the function of each part. All of their diagrams can be seen on their KidBlog. The students export their work independently as I model it on the Promethean Board and then upload their work into their own blog.

Animals and Their Offspring

In science the students have been learning how adult animals and their offsprings resemble each other through physical and behavioral characteristics. As a part of their lessons, the students created a foldable to go along with the book Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman. The students created a two-flap foldable. On the top flap they drew a picture of an offspring and then quizzed their partner about what animal would be its mother.

Addition Connect Four: Math Fact Practice

To help the students practice their addtion math facts, I created a game called Addition Connect Four. The students work in partners to roll two dice. They add the two dice together and cover up the corresponding number sentence. The first partner to cover four number sentences in a row wins. You can download the file at my TpT store.

Sunflowers: Writing to Inform

Using PebbleGo, we learned about a specific type of flower: the sunflower. The students then used what they learned to answer various questions on a Tree Map. Using the Tree Map, they wrote a shared writing to tell what they learned about the flower. Shared writing, or interactive writing, is when the students take turns writing and give each other verbal help as they write. After writing, we had a mini art lesson on how to draw a simple sunflower.

Garden Research: Expert Guest

We are very fortunate to have a garden expert as a part of our school community. One of the grandparents at our school owns a local garden store and volunteered her time to come answer questions for our students as a part of their research. She brought in various plants for them to explore, explained the needs of specific plants, and then answered their questions. The students then went back to class and wrote down answers they found to their questions on their research handouts.

Garden Research: Non-Fiction Texts

In reading the students have been researching the garden habitat. The study goes along with our science lessons over the interdependence of animals and plants as well as the study of plant parts and functions. The students worked in small groups to answer various questions they had about either bugs in the garden habitat or plants in the garden habitat. They had to find answers using various non-fiction texts such as dictionaries and encyclopedias.