Ahoy Matey!

Ahoy Matey!  We have been learning about maps.....pirate style. 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.  On Friday, we put on our eye patches and we were off to find the hidden treasure somewhere in the school.  We followed clues all over the school going north, south, east and west.  Sometimes the clues even led us in circles!  We searched all over the place until finally the last clue led us back to our classroom.  Once we got back inside the treasure was still nowhere to be seen!  The last clue told us to walk 10 paces south.  We all walked, counting our steps until finally we saw it.......hidden inside our red bench......the hidden treasure!  We quickly grabbed it to see what was inside.....gold coins and glow stick necklaces!  ARRGHH!!

 

 

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 made our own Me on the Map book.  Each student makes their own and is the star of the book.  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 classroom 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, 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! 

We are CURIOUS!

This week we were CURIOUS about so many things.  On Monday, there was a red bag on the front table when the students came in.  They were curious to see what was inside....but they had to wait until the end of the day.  The kiddos made some good predictions about what could be inside.......candy, toys, books, class pet, straws, paper, crayons where just some of the guesses.  After being curious about the bag ALL DAY LONG, at dismissal they kiddos finally got to see what was inside.......lollipops!

Our weekly story was Curious George.   We read several stories about Curious George and learned how is curiosity got him into some trouble. We then wrote about a time that we were curious.

On Friday when the kiddos came into the room, they noticed a big bowl, lots of glue, shaving cream, food coloring, and some liquid eye drops.  They were all very curious about what we were going to make.  During science, I told them we were going to mix all those ingredients together and make .....

Squishy, Fluffy  Slime!  I told them I was curious to see what this slime would feel like, smell like, sound like?   Are you curious about this slime?  If so, you can make this fluffy slime at home.

Below you can find the recipe:

Supplies:

bowl, spoon, 1 bottle of glue, shaving cream, foaming body wash or soap, contact solution or eye drops, baking soda,

Directions:

1. Pour 1 bottle of glue into a bowl

2.  add 1/2 t  of baking soda and mix with glue

*if you want to make your slime a color, this is when you would add a few drops of food coloring

3.  add 1-2 squirts of foaming soap and mix

4.  add 1/4 C of shaving cream and mix

(the mixture should now look like cake batter)

5.  add 3-4 drops of contact solution slowly and stir until it becomes fluffy.  You can add a few more squirts of foaming soap if you want at this point.
6. When it is no longer sticky, you can take the slime out and continue to blend the mixture with your fingers.  (if the mixture is still sticky, add a couple more drops of contact solution)

7.  ENJOY!

 

OREO Day!

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 21 OREOs high!!!  

After we stacked our OREOs we tasted different flavors of OREOs.  We created a graph that showed which flavor we liked the best.  Thank you for all the OREO donations you sent in!  Fun projects like this are not possible without the support from home!

 

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 21? 

Happy Stacking!