Insects!

This week we had the privilege of working together with all of our first grade friends! To meet our new CCSS writing and technology standards we had students create a video presentation about insects. This project has been one of my top favorite integrated projects we've done this year. This included science, reading, speaking, listening, writing, teamwork and technology all into one fun project! Students created a written plan, took photos, chose speakers and recorded this presentation. We used a free, easy to use app called 30 Hands.  We hope you enjoy our presentation titled, Things About Insects.

aARgh! It's what a pirate says!

An important sound we teach in 1st grade is the sound 'ar' makes. To help kids remember this sound we refer to it as the "pirate sound." This year we decided to dedicate a week to a pirate theme to help our students learn and remember this important sound!

We read pirate books at read aloud time, read pirate themed books during reading groups, made pirate hats, made a list of 'ar' words, had a pirate themed PE game, wrote about what we would say, wear and do if we were pirates, went on a treasure hunt for 'ar' words, made a pirate to look like ourselves, illustrated a picture to go with a pirate poem and wrote a pirate story together.

Here are pictures from some of our pirate adventures this past week.

We created a list of many words with the 'ar' sound!

 We made our own lists of our favorite 'ar' words. We also created pirate hats we wore all week!

Then we used our list and our creative minds to create ourselves as pirates. I was impressed with their creativity. One student purposely left an arm off, claiming he was a one-armed pirate!

On Wednesday we answered clues from our treasure map and went out into our school to find our treasure. Below is an example of how the treasure looked throughout the school. Each 1st grade class had a different color of clues/treasure.

Here students are searching for their treasure!

Students returned to show off their clue and treasure!

We added our treasure to our treasure map!

To end our week we wrote a story together using what we had learned about pirates and our 'ar' words we found in our treasure hunt!

Hope you had fun enjoying our pirate adventure! Sorry for not posting in awhile, upon returning from spring break we were so busy with a unit on force and motion that I forgot to take pictures and blog! Hoping to get back to our weekly posts! :)

Writing Like Laura Numeroff

Laura Numeroff is one of my favorite children's book authors. The week before winter break we read A LOT of stories she wrote. Below are some of the titles we read:

Her books are catchy, funny and teach kids a wonderful writing style. Students quickly caught on to her patterns and identified these rules to follow if we were to write a story like Laura Numeroff.

• The title should start with "If you give..."
• She has one animal and one girl or boy in each story.
• The first letter of the food, should have the same first letter as the animal.
• It always ends with "and chances are..." and connects back to the first thing you gave the animal.
• One thing leads to another. 

They wrote a wonderful story (I only took notes and typed it up. They really wrote it all by themselves!) and illustrated it. It is now bound in our classroom. Feel free to come and check it out! Below is each page of the story:

Corn, Turkeys, Soup and the Civil War

This post contains a little bit of everything we've experienced this month of November. The students have been hard at work on many different activities. My most favorite are their thankful turkeys because it shows who they are in such a meaningful way. I LOVE reading what they are thankful for. I am thankful for all of them and for you, parents and families who help them learn. I look forward to seeing parents this week for conferences. Here is a sneak peak at what you will see!

We began November by making mosaic indian corn. This project helped students work on fine motor skills, patience and using the proper amount of glue.

2 weeks ago we created thankful turkeys. Students were shown how to create their turkey but were then given free reign. When you see the turkeys hanging in the hall you might notice a turkey head or some turkey feet re-attached, some smaller or upside down feathers, even some feathers coming out of turkey feet! Each turkey has it's own personality. I strive to help children learn to be problem solvers. Many students asked for a second turkey and I simply said I have no more you will need to solve your problem, and each one of them did!

This past week we read several stone soup books and other variations such as pumpkin soup, mouse soup, vegetable soup and others. The students loved comparing and contrasting the stories as we were reading. Stone soup teaches great lessons on sharing, kindness and working together.

We illustrated a book about making stone soup.

We illustrated a poem about stone soup.

We ordered the steps of stone soup, cut them out and glued them in order.

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We wrote how-to make stone soup! (This month we have been learning how to write a how-to paper and this week was their first writing by themselves. They did an awesome job using numbers, signal words and sequencing the steps correctly!)

We made stone soup at the end of the week. Students had mixed feelings about the soup. Some just had a bite and others had seconds! Thanks everyone for contributing to our stone soup feast! I asked the students to tell me their thoughts on everything we did with stone soup. This is what they had to say:

"I like the books with the two pigs and I like them shared." - Justine
"I liked Pumpkin Soup." - Pacey
"I liked the Mouse Soup book because when the mouse was saying something he went on the floor and his mom was making mad soup." - J
"I like Mouse Soup because it's funny because the big guy did the stuff." - Emma
"The Vegetable Soup." - Savannah
"I like Pumpkin Soup, with the monks and I like Pumpkin Soup with the kids." - Travis
"I like the video." - J
"I like eating the stone soup." - Evan
"I like the Stone Soup and the old lady and the boy." - Bryonna
"I liked Mean Soup." - Brayden
"I like the Stone Soup." - Albert
"I like Vegetable Soup because the vegetables are healthy." - Calley
"I like Mouse Soup." - Nolan
"I like Mouse Soup." - Isaac
"I like those 3 strangers that tried to help people and needed stuff to make soup and said go away we are as poor as you and they tried to help them but then they started to share." - Tanner
"I like mean soup because they yell, scream, stick their tongue out and banged the pot." - Aiden
"I like this Stone Soup because it has lots of vegetables in it." - Juvanna
"I like the two pig book the villagers were hiding the food and then they would go get them." - Rebecca

Finally, it was civil war and Eagles day! Here are your adorable children supporting their favorite teams!

Thank you again for sharing your children with me each day. I am truly thankful they are in my class. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!