Christmas is in full swing!

Christmas is in full swing in the classroom.  We have Santa's, reindeer, elves, and snowmen hanging everywhere.  This week we will be finishing up a special gift from the students to the parents as well as making a few other crafts.

Wednesday will be our gingerbread day!  We will read several stories about gingerbread men, go on a hunt for the gingerbread man, and make our own gingerbread houses.

Thursday we will have our Christmas party at 2:30.  If you have already signed up for an item to bring, THANK YOU!  If you have not, please go to signupgenius.com and pick an item that is still available. 

Students need to bring in 22 little gifts to pass out to each student.  It can be a candy cane, stickers, pencils, erasers, etc.  If you are unable to send something in, please let me know. 

Friday is Polar Express day! Students may wear their PJ's to school.  We will watch The Polar Express and drink hot chocolate. 

Just a reminder that there will be NO homework, spelling, or lightening words this week!

 

 

 

Happy Grinch Day!

We celebrated “Grinch Day” on Friday and the kids had a blast!!  They came dressed in green and each one got a Santa hat from Elfie to wear!  They were TOO cute!

Of course, we started out the day by reading the book…

Next, we talked about adjectives that described the Grinch.




Then  kids made the Grinch and did a cute little writing activity.  "I would make a Grinch grin by….”  Their responses were so clever!!! 


At the end of the day, I passed out “Grinch-licked” candy canes to all the kids, made "Grinch Juice", and watched the movie, How the Grinch Stole Christmas.





We had a "Grinchy" Fun Day!

Our Special Visitor from the North Pole!

The kids were over the moon excited last Monday.  When we got back from Thanksgiving break, we had a special delivery straight from the North Pole…


I read the letter to the kids and they flipped.  I mean, they seriously had a conniption.  They could barely stifle their screams.  We somehow managed to get through the letter without anyone going too crazy, but when it came time for me to open Santa’s special delivery, we just couldn’t contain ourselves anymore.  It got a little wild.  But it was precious because their little hearts are SO innocent and they just couldn’t hold in their excitement at all.  I just LOVE the magic of Christmas!!!! 
As we were opening up the package, the kids were BEGGING me to be careful so that I wouldn’t touch our special visitor.  Luckily, Santa’s little burlap sack and all that North Pole snow made it super easy for him to stay put as I opened him up.  We read the story that the elf brought to us that explained how this how "elf thing" works. After we learned the rules, we had to give him a name.  We named him Elfie.  The book explained that Elfie will be watching the kiddos during the day at school and reporting back to Santa each night on their behavior.  We also learned that we CAN NOT touch Elfie or he will loose his magic and wont be able to fly back to the North Pole each night.  Elfie is always in crazy places around our classroom and the kiddos LOVE to try and find him each morning.  We were so good last week, Elfie  brought us red candy canes from Santa!

Thanksgiving threw up in my classroom!

OH.MY. This pretty much sums up how I feel when I walk into my classroom.  I’m greeted by dangling turkeys, pilgrims, timelines, and kid work all over the place…and I LOVE IT.  The last 3 weeks have been a whirlwind.  I didn’t get a chance to do half the things I wanted to, but I’m okay with it because the kids got JUST what they needed!  We’ve been furiously preparing ourselves for our Thanksgiving performance- The ABC's of Thanksgiving.  The kids have done a great job learning their lines and are so excited to tell their families about the first Thanksgiving.  After the performance, all the families are invited  to browse around and take a look at all the fun things the kids have been learning. 
I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving break. 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you, Veterans!

Last week we learned all about Veterans Day.  We discussed what a veteran is and what the military does for our country.  Next, we wrote letters to veterans to thank them for their service. The kids were SO excited to make their own little veterans and even MORE excited to see them hanging in the hall later that afternoon!  TOO cute!!!  It seems like SO many of my kids have family members serving in the military, so they made some amazing connections during this activity.  God bless everyone serving in the military {past & present} and the family members that have to sacrifice during their absence.   Coming up this week we will be learning about the First Thanksgiving, Indians, and Pilgrims! We will also be reading more turkey themed books and practicing for our play, The ABC's of Thanksgiving.  Be sure to stop by next week to see what we have been doing!

What makes you cranky?

This past week we were all about goblins, witches, and Frankenstein.  We read several Halloween themed books, but our favorite one we read was called, Crankenstien.  After we read Crankenstien, we brainstormed about what makes us cranky......the answers were hilarious!  Be sure to ask your child what makes him/her cranky!  Another fun activity we did this week was make monster slime!  It was a gooey, slimy fun time! 


Below you can find the recipe for monster slime if you would like to make it at home.


Monster Slime
1 cup of water
1 T of Borax
1/2 of glue
1/2 of water.
food coloring


Directions:In one bowl mix the water and borax.  In  another bowl mix the glue and water.   Add food coloring if you would like.  Add the glue mixture to the borax mixture and stir.




Thank you to everyone who sent in food for our Fall party on Friday.  Everyone had a great time!  It was so nice seeing so many of you.  The kiddos had so much fun walking in the parade and showing off their costumes.  I loved seeing and hearing all the smiles and giggles. 


Have a great week!

Pumpkin-A-Paloosa

We had such a FUN week!!!  I absolutely LOVE this time of year!!!  We had a pumpkin themed week and we learned SO much!!  We started the week out with a pumpkin shaped KWL that the kids helped me fill out.  We read TONS of fiction and nonfiction books about pumpkins. They are SO into non-fiction and loved helping me fill out the “What we Learned” part of the pumpkin chart.

We were working on sequencing this week, so I put a little sequencing activity in the pocket chart & they had to sequence the life cycle of a pumpkin.   I found the real life pumpkin photos  & they matched them to sentences that I typed up on the computer.  After they matched the pictures to the words & sequenced the steps.  

My FAVORITE activity is one I’ve been doing for years.....The Great Pumpkin Investigation!  Words cannot explain how excited the kiddos were. Here are a few things we did during our investigation.  I brought in 4 pumpkins for our investigation! The kiddos worked in groups of 4-5 investigating their pumpkins. We first made predictions about if our pumpkin would sink or float? Most of us predicted that our pumpkins would sink because they were heavy and big! Guess what??? Our predictions were wrong......the pumpkins floated! WOW!!  We talked about using our 5 senses…minus the sense of taste…to observe the outside and inside of a pumpkin.  As each kiddo took a turn observing the outside of the pumpkin, I had him/her give me an adjective to describe their observation.  We created a word web and I wrote down all of the adjectives for the outside of the pumpkin in GREEN.  Then we did the same thing for the inside of the pumpkin.  I cut each pumpkin open and had the kids dig in and give me an adjective for what they felt/saw/smelled.  Then I wrote those words on the web in RED.

Then, we scooped out the seeds and saved them to count. We worked on our skip counting by putting the seeds into groups of 10.  I had them estimate how many seeds they thought were inside. We counted by 10's to find our answer and I think we were all surprised by our numbers! One of out pumpkins had over 400 seeds!  We also practiced our measuring skills...We measured how tall the pumpkin was and the circumference of the pumpkin with cubes.  It was an awesome week!!

 

 

Spider Week!

What is it about spiders that kids love SO much?!  When I busted out our graph to start our unit of study on arachnids, the kids went CRAZY.  

We started our week with the question, "Are you afraid of spiders??"  Me.....not so much....unless the are BIG and FURRY......GROSS!!!  They are more creepy than scary...and the kiddos feel the same way.  We read lots of nonfiction and fiction books to learn about spiders.  Did you know that spiders live everywhere BUT Antarctica, have 8 eyes, and can be as big as a plate?

 

All of our math and literacy stations were spider themed and the kids LOVED them. One of our favorite books that we read was The Diary of a Spider.  We continued to work on comparing fiction/nonfiction stories.  In math we worked on addition by playing Spider Drop.  In writing we worked with Thinking Maps.  We gathered facts on our tree map all about what spiders are/can/have and then did a little non fiction writing.  I like to ease the kiddos into the writing the process by providing writing prompts at the beginning so they can be successful with this while learning what I expect to see when they write.  Plus, it helps to organize their thinking.  After students completed their writing, I painted their hands to make handprint spiders.  They turned out SO cute!

We ended our fun week by watching Charolette's Web and making a fun spider snazzy snack.  Can you guess what we made our spider out of?  Ask your child.....I am sure they would love to tell you about it!

Be sure to stop by next week to see all the BAT fun we will have!

Maps, Mischief, and Mateys!

Ahoy Matey!  We have been learning about maps.....pirate style. I told the kids that they would have to work hard all week to learn about maps in order to go on our big treasure hunt.  We started off our map week by learning directional words while reading the story, Rosie Walks.  We practiced what over, under, around, through, etc. meant by acting out the words.   Next, we learned all about the parts of a map, including our favorite....the compass rose. We learned a neat way to remember the cardinal directions-Never, Eat, Soggy, Waffles.  Then we practiced reading a map using the compass rose. We even made our own compass rose that we used to help find the buried treasure.  We put on our eye patches, got our compass rose, telescope, and map of the school and we were off to find that treasure.  We started at the front doors of the school and followed the map  going east and then west, and then north and then east.  It took us to the music room, cafeteria, gym, office, computer lab, and the library.....but we couldn't find the treasure! Finally our map led us south to the art room where we  found the treasure!  We quickly grabbed it out of the room and headed back to our classroom to see what was inside.....gold coins and candy!  ARRGHH!!

Next week our room will be filled with spider fun.  Be sure to check back next week!

Me on the Map

Last week we began our community unit and we combined it with our mapping standards.  We read County Mouse/City Mouse and discussed the difference between the country and city.  This lead us into a discussion about King George and if we lived in the city or country. 
Next, we brainstormed all the places, people, and things that make up a community.  Students came up with a lot of great places and things. 


We then read the book,  Me on the Map.  

This book is a great tool when teaching about maps.  We make our own Me on the Map book.  Each student makes their own and is the star of the book.  I take their picture, cut it out and glue it to a popsicle stick.  This picture of them moves to each page.  We talk about what planet, continent, country, state, town, street, etc that we live on.  Our Me on the Map books are hanging in the hallway if you want to stop by and take a peek at them. 

We ended our unit on communities by designing our own map of King George.  Students picked a place in King George and created it out of construction paper.  We then designed a map with roads and glued down the buildings and houses.  The kids had a blast and it turned out really cute! 

This week we will continue our unit on map and become pirates!!!   We will learn the parts of a map, we will learn how to read a map, and we will even create our own map.   On Friday, we will use our new map skills to find the hidden treasure somewhere in the school!  ARRGH! 

Apple Fun For Everyone

Last week our classroom was All About Apples!  Before beginning our apple themed fun, we always do our little KWL (what do you KNOW, WANT TO KNOW, LEARN about apples?)  We read tons of books, both fiction and nonfiction about apples.  A few of our favorites were Amelia Bedelia's Apple Pie and Curious George and the Apple Harvest.

We also love our labels.  It's about this time of the year when we've recently introduced the concept of labeling and we're trying to integrate this skill in as many areas as we can.  Labeling apples is always one of my favorite activities.  I don't know why.  I love the way they all turn out.  Check out the one your child created coming home on Tuesday!

Making applesauce with my class is another seasonal favorite.  I love the way it makes my classroom smell and I absolutely LOVE the experience it gives my kids.  They talk about this all year long!!! Then I bring home the very few leftovers I have, heat it up, and serve it over ice cream....for myself.

The recipe will be coming home in the HORSE this week just in case you want to try and recreate the deliciousness at home.

 

An apple taste test is also imperative!  Such a simple yet meaningful and fun activity to do with the kids!    After our little taste test, we graph the results.  This is a great springboard for introducing pictographs and analyzing data....compare/contrast...more than/less than....how many more/fewer...you get the idea.  Those darn red delicious apples!  They "win" every time!!  My personal favorite?!  Honeycrisp!!!!!! {of course, it's also the most expensive....WHY?!?!?!?!}

Around this time of the year we're also learning about our 5 senses, so I take this opportunity to integrate that learning with apples.  I have my kids investigate apples using their 5 senses.  They LOVE this!!!!  As they're investigating, I write their words on a chart.  After we've gone through all 5 senses, we talk about how these words DESCRIBE apples.  This is a great springboard for introducing descriptive words {adjectives}.  

After creating our anchor chart, the kids fill out their Apples are/have/make organizer and write a few sentences.  

We also had a blast investigating apples in lots of different ways.  Each students got and Investigation Booklet and working with partners, completed each page.  This is one of their favorite activities through our unit of learning!  So engaging and fun!!!  We also did a few experiments.  First we predicted which substance would keep our apple from turning brown.  The kiddos had a lot of great predictions.  One of my favorites was....."I think air will keep the apple from turing brown because apples live in air!"  Another favorite was....." I think lemon juice will be the winner because Mrs. Parker is using green, granny smith apples.  They are sour and so is lemon juice!"

After leaving our apple slices in a cup of water, air, and lemon juice all day, we looked at the result......the winner was LEMON JUICE! 

       

We always end our apple unit with a little culminating activity...another fun food activity. Can't you tell I love anything that involves food?!  We made Apple Smiles!  YUMMY!!!

Have a great week!

OREO FUN

We had another awesome week!  The kiddos continue to amaze me at how well they are adjusting to first grade.  I know how big of an adjustment it is going from Kindergarten to First grade....and they are doing amazing! 

This week we continued to practice our routines and procedures for reading and math.  I am in awe at how well they are doing with this.  Students at this point usually still need me to help manage the activities, however this group of kiddos are able to do them with very little help from me.  This is exciting because it means I can start meeting with my guided reading groups next week! 

Here is what we have been up to around the classroom:

In reading we read the story The Storm.  We continued to talk about words that describe the characters in the story.  We learned all about short i words (pig, fit, is, it) and did lots of fun games working with short i words.  In Science, we learned about the 4 seasons.  We read books, watched a Brain Pop video, and even made hand print trees that represented the 4 seasons.  In Writing, we are working on handwriting and learning how to correctly form our letters!

In Math we have been working with numbers 0-30.  We have been practicing counting by 1, 2, 5, and 10's.  We are counting both forwards and backwards. We learned how to make tally marks and figure out if the number is even or odd.  We have also been talking about which number is greater than or less than.  To wrap up our unit on numbers, we did a fun activity with OREOs.  The goal was to see how high we could stack the OREOs before they toppled over. The students worked with a partner trying to get the highest stack of OREOs.  While one student was stacking, the other student was counting.   It was so fun to see the students stacking and counting.....trying to get the highest number.  Our highest stack was 27 OREOs high!!!  

After we stacked our OREOs we tasted 4 different flavors of OREOs.  We created a graph that showed which flavor we liked the best......BERRY flavor won by a landslide!

We ended our fun math day by making Oreo milkshakes and watching Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs! 

This is a fun activity that you can do at home with your child.  How high do you think you can stack the OREO's???? Do you think you can make a tower greater than 27?  Happy Stacking!

 

 

 

Teddy Bear Day!

We had a great day in 1st grade! It was Teddy Bear Day in our classroom.  Each student got to bring in their favorite teddy bear from home.  Some brought in different stuffed animals if they didn't have teddy bears.....we had unicorns, frogs, dogs, and lots of bears! We started our morning off by reading several books about bears.

In Math, we used gummy bears to complete a ten frame to help us find the combinations of 10.  Then each child got a bag with 12 gummy bears. They sorted by color, made a bar graph, and then answered questions like which color did you have the least of? most of? 

We danced to "I Am A Gummy Bear" for our brain break and then we got to  sit on the floor with our bears and read stories to them. 

We ended our bear day by eating teddy grahams and watching Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  It was a BEARY good day!

FIRST WEEK FUN!

What an AWESOME and BUSY  first week we had!  We had so much getting to know each other and our new classroom routines. We read First Day Jitters on Monday and talked about how even teachers get nervous for the first day of school.  To help our "jitters" we made Jitter Juice.....boy was it good!    We read lots of stories by the author, Kevin Henkes.  Chrysanthemum, Worried Wimbledon, and Lilly's Purple Purse were just a few of our favorite.  We talked about why we wanted to be a peace maker and not a peace breaker in our classroom.  We had lots of fun getting our wiggles out during our brain breaks and  learning how to play new math games.  On Friday, we even made our own volcanoes!  I can already tell this is going to be an awesome year! 

 

Welcome Back!

Howdy Partners!

Welcome to first grade and to our class blog.  I hope you are ready to become a Parker Cowboy.  We are going to have a Rootin Tootin good time this year.

I created this blog to keep parents informed about what we are learning in our classroom.  I plan to update this site often with important information, pictures and activities.  Please check back often to see what we have been up to.

It was great  meeting my new buckaroos at Open House on  Friday.  If you were not able to come, please know that I have an open door policy in my classroom and you are always welcome to drop by anytime!  

Just a reminder that Monday we will go to PE for specials so wear your tennis shoes.  

Don't forget to put your Jitter Glitter under your pillow tomorrow night!  I can't wait to see everyone on Monday!