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!