Flying through First Grade!

We spent last week doing some fun writing since finished our curriculum for writing.  We had a wonderful time!  We wrote thank you letters, sweet notes to our mentors and buddies who helped us with our reading, and we wrote about what we learned as the year flew by!

I gave the students the writing paper and had them write about the many things we did during their first grade year.  When they were finished, we gathered on the carpet and made a list of items that make our writing "star" writing.  The kids listed: spaces, capital letters at the beginning of sentences, punctuation at the end, lowercase letters in the middle of our sentences, sentences that make sense, and word wall words spelled correctly. After they made the list, I assigned a bird part to each writing aspect.  I told them they had to earn their bird!  If their writing wasn't done correctly, their bird wouldn't be done correctly either.  They thought it was SO silly! I wanted them to understand that their writing looked silly when it was not done correctly.  I gave them the chance to go back and check their writing and then I conferenced with each one as we went through the list.  Some birds look great! Others, as the students said, "can never stop flying or rest" because they don't have feet.  Some birds are blind.  I even had a headless bird!  The kids had a blast with it and it really helped them see the importance of each item they listed.  Next year, I think I will do this more than just at the end of the year! It was powerful!

 This bird is the headless one.  The smart kiddo made the top part of the body the bird's head.

Thank you to Mrs. Hennessy for the inspiration!

Summer Bucket List

My wonderful teammate, Mrs. Hennessey, had an idea to create a bucket of fun for the students for their end of year gift.  I have never really done an end of year gift besides a book or CD of a slide show, but my class this year is different and I knew I should do something.

The bucket is filled with:

• chalk
• a small notepad
• a mechanical pencil (we all know how awesome those are when you are 7!)
• crayons
• bubbles
• dice
• play-doh
• 1st grade sight word list
• 2nd grade sight word list
• school summer reading program information

We worked together to create a summer bucket list to include inside the bucket.  We listed activities for each item that is in the bucket. 

(I forgot the pencils when I took this picture!)

I hope the kids love them and, more importantly, USE them this summer!! :)

Inventors Galore!

We studied inventors a couple of weeks back.  The kids LOVED it!! They got excited, couldn't wait to see who we would learn about next and really liked making connections between inventors.

We read picture books about each inventor (Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison).  I passed out the pictures, words, and year pictures to the students.  As I read the books, the students had to listen and raise their hand when their picture, words, or year matched. When we were done reading the books, we had created timelines!  Here are the two we made.

Then, we used Cara's super cute inventor's book. We journaled about a new inventor each day.  On the last day, we came up with our own inventions.  Some of my kiddos really struggled to come up with something new and unique.  They wanted to invent a cell phone, or a computer, or a stop light.  It took a while to explain to them that they all had been invented already....which is why we had them. I finally mentioned something about an automatic pet feeder and then EVERYONE all of a sudden wanted to invent an automatic pet feeder! You know how that goes! :)

I'm Still Here!!

I have pretty much abandoned this sweet little blog since last November.  So many sweet ladies have left me comments and even asked for some things.  I have tried to keep up with those, but have just not had the energy to sit down, upload pictures (the few that I do have), and write.  Today we are using a bad weather day and it is SO nice to have a long weekend! Can you guys believe that the school year is almost over?!?  Oh my goodness! 

Here is a little bit of what we have been up to...

We celebrated the 100th day of school! Our school doesn't make a big deal about the 100th day for any other grade level but kindergarden.  This made me sad.  This was the first year that I did not really do a lot. Lesson learned...the kids enjoy it and next year I will take the time to do it. 

 We learned about probability and used parts of Amy Lemon's Probability Unit. Super cute things and the kids LOVED every bit of it! The posters from this unit are still up in our room because they still refer to them. 

We learned about the 3Rs! Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.  We made picture frames from recycled materials and by reusing materials that we had left over from other projects. 

We sang Jack Johnson's song, The 3 Rs, too!

 We celebrated Tom's "One Day Without Shoes" in our classroom!  

WOW!, What a powerful thing for the little ones to experience.  

 We learned about plants and began by soaking our lima beans in water over night.  The kids were in awe to find the "little plant" inside when we dissected our seeds. 

Here's to hoping that I will update this little blog more often before the end of the school year! :)

Benjamin Franklin

We have talked and talked, until I'm about blue in the face and SO bored with it, about great American citizens. We focused on Benjamin Franklin for a couple of days. We read a couple of books and talked about his inventions. We also talked about the many things he helped begin in America--fire stations, post offices, police stations, hospitals, etc. Here is a look at some of our writing.

Okay, this one is one of my favorites! Good 'ole Franklin went to the Queen and asked her to hep fund weapons for the war. I'm pretty sure that is ALL that the boys heard and know about Benjamin Franklin! Check our this picture. It makes me giggle! But hey, at least this little one was listening well!

Doesn't Benjamin look a bit like a bunny? I love my kiddos!!

Thanksgiving

Our curriculum does not even touch Thanksgiving. I decided to sneak some in during our LA block. As I was reading a non-fiction book, I paused for the kids to fill in the word "Mayflower". When NO ONE--and I mean absolutely no one--knew the name of the ship, I knew I had to find other places to squeeze it in. I was heart broken!!

We read a lot of non-fiction pilgrim books and compared and contrasted their lives to ours. We made little pilgrim clothes and gave them a picture to cut out their little head. They turned out pretty cute!

This sweetie thinks she's done with school already, I guess! It made me giggle!

We took some time to talk about what the pilgrims and native americans wore. We made costumes and wore them during our story book parade. We marched with a non-fiction book. This also allowed everyone to participate. It's not a lot of fun when some have to watch.

Fact Families

Fact families were a tough cookie for my little ones. I added it to our calendar routine so that it is revisited often.

Here's a little peak at what we did with fact families! (I'm now remembering that many of our fact family things I didn't take pictures of...sigh...)

See?, we still need work!
Cara's blog, The First Grade Parade, is definitely one of my favorites!! The fact family turkeys are from her adorable classroom blog! :)