Consonant Blends

This week we are learning about consonant blends along with our short vowel work. We have been studying our class names and have noticed we have quite a few with blends. Throughout the week, we will be completing simple activities to help us learn more about blends.

I found this adorable chart at Ladybug's Teacher Files that I will be laminating and using in the classroom. I'm posting it for you to download and use at home. You can have your first grader cut out the blends and glue into a notebook. They can create a word journal. Each time they find a word with a blend, they can add it to their journal under the specific blend. Or you can put this in their FROG book as a reference.

Scientists...

We began our first science unit this week...Our World and Us. We begin this unit by learning about scientists. We read one of my favorite scientist books, What is a Scientist?, and began investigating what scientists do. This is what we learned...

One thing that scientists do, is use their senses. After several rainy days, we were able to become scientists and use our senses to explore the world around us. With a recording sheet and magnifying glass in hand students explored the area around our school. Students recorded something that they saw, heard, smelled, and felt.

SLUGS!! 

 

 

 

And we had fun too!!!

 

We continue this unit next week. Check back for more!

What have we been up to?

There's a lot happening in Room 105.  Inferring, poetry, patterns, and SPRING!  I am SO ready for spring!  We have two weeks until Spring Break, but I know that it will fly by.  There's a lot packed into those two weeks.  We have a field trip, report cards, an Author Visit, and our biggest event of the year...our Poetry Coffeehouse!  I cannot wait!

So we began our study of poetry a few weeks ago.  The students are natural poets.  We began by going outside with an "idea notebook" to just observe.  Each student found a spot on the playground, found something of interest, and began to write observations about their topic.  Some of those observations became instant poems.  Here are the poets in action. 

We have read countless collections of poetry, studied different types of poetry, and next week we begin to put it all together.  Their poems are quite amazing! Stay tuned for more info on the Coffeehouse.

In Reading Workshop, we have begun a unit on Inferring.  We started out with a "Mystery Item."  I used Abby's Mystery Box poem to introduce the students to inferring.

I gave the students clues. We could change our inference with each clue.  It was a fun way to introduce the unit.  Since then, we have been working on using pictures, text, and our schema to help us understand the meaning of unknown words and develop a better understanding of the text.  Michelle's Reading Workshop Response Sheets are great tools for each Reading Workshop unit.  We have been using her inferring sheets all week.

I am hoping that Spring returns this week. I am ready to pack away my winter coat! We started our two week unit on Spring. I found a great new book, Mud, to introduce students to spring changes.

Students also learned about turtles too and how they adjust with the seasons.  We had a special presentation.  One of my teammate's husband brought in turtles and talked with the students about their habitat, diet, and other facts.  Of course that was day I left my camera at home! We made a fun little turtle and completed a tree map.  These are displayed on our bulletin board.

I will leave you with warm thoughts.  Here are some of my girls enjoying the one day it was warm two weeks ago.  They are ready for the warmer weather.

Thank you to all my students' families and blog friends who have voted for me in the We are Teachers
mini-grant.  I truly appreciate it!  If you haven't voted yet, you can find the link in the previous post.

Enjoy the weekend!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

We have had a great start to our week celebrating all things Seuss.  We kicked off Monday with the beginning of our new reading incentive...Hats off to Reading!  Students will earn a sticker for every 15 minutes ready.  The goal is to earn 20 stickers by March 31st (up from 15 stickers last month). Click on the photo to download a reading log.

 

Last week we studied Dental Health, so what better way to kick off Dr. Seuss week by reading The Tooth Book.  This great book tells who has teeth and how they come in handy all in rhyme.  So students were challenged.  Could they write how teeth come in handy using rhyme.  It was a fun challenge.  Here is are two examples:

Today we read the favorite, Green Eggs and Ham.  I was inspired to create an alphabet book after seeing adorable stickers at Michaels.  Each student created a page or two.  Would you eat them in an igloo?  Would you eat them with a Kangaroo?  Would you eat them with a Monkey?  These are a few examples.  Tomorrow our Kindergarteners are eating green eggs and ham.  I cannot wait to hear all about it! 

Click below to get a blank copy of the ABC Book.

 

I am looking forward to tomorrow...Wacky Wednesday!  I will be posting photos. 

Lucky Clover

Not many people can say that they have a strong team.  I am so lucky I get to work with three AMAZING teachers!  Miss Ferguson is full of creative ideas and resources.  You walk into her room and you instantly can tell she was born to teach first grade.  At the beginning of the year, Miss Ferguson shared with us a nonsense word fluency game she had used to help her students master basic phonics skills.  She has created a new game for St. Patrick's Day called "Lucky Clover."  Click on the bear to download the game.

How to play:  Put all the clovers in a bag.  Players take turns pulling a clover out.  If the player reads the card, he/she keeps the card.  If not, they put it back in.  If the player pulls a "Lucky Clover," then he/she gets two turns.  The game is over when all the cards are used.

This is a fun game to help reinforce blending and phonics sounds.  It is going into my game station this week.

100 Days Smarter

Many schools celebrated the 100th Day of school a few weeks ago.  With our late start and several snow days we are a bit behind.  But today it was finally here.  Hip Hip Hooray!  Here is my amazing class all decked out in our Frog shirts.  We made the shirts for special days.  Aren't they the cutest class ever?!

We celebrated the 100th day all...day...long.  It began in morning meeting.  I always ask a morning question.  Many times we estimate.  This week we have be estimating coins, then writing the value.  Today I had 100 pennies in jar.  Apparently I am pretty predictable.  Every student estimated 100 pennies.  Here we are putting them in groups of ten to count.

Next came a reading of 100 Hungry Ants.  Students had to draw a way the ants could march in equal rows.  This lesson came from mathwire.  We also (tried) to write 100 words.  We made text-to-self connections with 100th Day Worries.

After lunch the fun began.  The students enjoyed our 100th Day Stations.

1.  Estimation Station.  Is it more or less than 100?
2.  How many ways to make 100? (A favorite)  Students did addition, subtraction, and multiplication.  They used tally marks and created coin combinations.
3.  Name patterns.  Students had to write their first name over and over again in a 100 chart, then color the first letter to create a pattern.  This also came from Mathwire.
4.  100th Design.  Students got the number 100 and had to create a design with those numbers.  This idea comes from Michelle Gagne.  This was SO much fun.  Students created faces, bikes, necklaces.  I will have to take some more photos and post them on the blog.

5.  100th Day Snack.  A very yummy station. Students each got 10 pieces of 10 items to eat 100 pieces of yum!

We had so much fun!  The students did an AMAZING job with the stations, even with a surprise fire drill.

We finished up our celebration after special.  Yesterday, students used Pixie to draw a current self-portrait and one of what they will look like when they are 100.  We printed them out and colored them.  Today, students wrote what they can do now and what they hope to do when they are 100.  Students hope to see, walk, and eat when they are 100.  This is a modified lesson from Mrs. Jump and Mrs. Larremore. 



It was such a special day!  Thanks to all the parents who helped make the day a HUGE success!

What color is a Polar Bear?!

We completed our study of Polar Animals last week.  Students dived into this unit.  We began with the study of Penguins.  We created a Schema/New Learning Chart to monitor our study.  I had introduced students to misconceptions back in November, so we created a spot for misconceptions.  I couldn't have planned a better learning opportunity. On Day One of our study, a student shared her schema:  Polar Bears are enemies to Penguins.  I added to a post-it and placed it under Schema.  I just couldn't wait for a student to realize that this was, in fact, a misconception.  The next day we read National Geographic for Kids Penguins.  I was reading about Penguins' enemies...Did you know that rats are enemies to some types of Penguins?!  As I was reading, I would add New Learning Post-its and revisit the Schema section.  I reread the student's statement on Polar Bears.  I paused for a minute and said "That's interesting.  This book mentioned several enemies, but never said anything about a Polar Bear.  I wonder why?"  I could see the kids thinking hard and all of a sudden a hand flew up.  He knew the answer...They can't be enemies because they live on the opposite sides of the world!"  That student got a "kiss my brain!"
 Though I do not have a picture of our Schema/New Learning chart, I do have a photo of our Penguin Tree Map.  We finished Penguins with an "All About Penguins" writing.  Inside the adorable penguins are the student's writing pieces.  (Thanks Mrs. Chitwood for creating the wonderful display!)

Now what color is a Polar Bear?  After several snow days, we finally were able to work with Polar Bears.  Students are always fascinated with this beautiful creature.  They just cannot believe that the skin of a Polar Bear is black and it's fur is actually colorless.  With our Polar Bear study, students created their own personal Polar Bear tree maps.  We displayed the tree maps with our Polar Bears.  To remind students that the Polar bear has black skin, we trace a Polar Bear on black construction paper and go over it with chalk.

We finished Polar Bears with a measurement and writing activity.  Students learned that the paw of an adult male can be up to 18 inches in length.  We created life-size paws and completed another "All About" writing.  As you can see I am out of room and have not displayed these.  I think I am going to turn them into a class book. 
It was such a fun unit!  Now we are studying Heart Health in celebration of Valentine's Day, using a Picture Perfect Science unit.  I will post photos soon.

I have a Dream

Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream.  Students learned about this American Hero and his dream around Martin Luther King Day.  Today I finally put up the bulletin board!  We really did not do it that long ago, but with all the snow days, it feels like ages.
After learning about Martin Luther King Jr. students created a portrait of him using the program Pixie.  I printed out their work.  We used the fact sentences provided by Brooke from Primary Perspective to learn even more.  Students had to cut apart the words and put the sentence in order.  Finally, we completed a text-to-self connection paper after reading Martin's Big Words.  Students had to write about MLK's dream, then about their own.  Many students wrote that they dream everyone would be friends, others wrote about personal dreams.  I had a student write about a dream she had about her cat.  I learned that I need to go over the meanings of "Dream."

I can't wait to do it again next year!

It's Melting!

This time of year offers so many exciting science opportunities.  We have been doing a unit on the properties of matter.  We have used ice, water, and snow with the study.  I LOVE snow!  However, with snow comes snow days.  Due to snow days and delays we have had to rearrange our plans.  I have decided to cut out our 2-day It's Melting lesson.  This modified lesson come from Science NetLinks.    I had created recording sheets to go with the lesson.  I wanted to share them with you.  Parents, this is an activity you could do at home.  Teachers, I would love feedback on how the lesson worked in your classroom and anything I should change on the recording sheet. Happy Snow Days!