In Like a Lamb?

Hi First Grade Parents!

After the lion-like snow day last week on the last day of February and the lamb-like weather we have had since the beginning of the month, I hope we don't get hit with a bunch of snow at the end of the month!  Spring has almost sprung afterall!

Sorry about not posting our Dr. Seuss activities last Friday, but we did not get to anything due to an assembly and all the other reading and math we usually do each day.  We made up a few activities on Monday, but I still did not have enough for pictures.  The lone picture will be the mini-writing lesson we did after we read Green Eggs and Ham.  I got this cute idea from Cara Carroll. 

The students had to rhyme where they would and could eat eggs and ham and record it on the writing sheet.  Then they were asked to illustrate green eggs and ham on a paper plate.  Some chose to decorate their plates so their ham and eggs were a bit overshadowed by the design :).

I am going to take the time to explain our guided reading centers since it is such a big part of our day.  We have guided reading for at least 60 minutes every day (I usually go a bit over) except on Wednesdays we go for 75 minutes since we do not have morning recess that day.  This also gives me an opportunity to see every reading group that day.

While I am meeting with reading groups, the other students are independently working on one of five choices of activities.  This concept is from the Daily 5 model of guided reading.  Each student not working with me will get to choose one of the five centers to work at quietly until it is time to change.  Students are at each station for 20-25 minutes before switching. 

The first choice is Read to Self.  As you can see from the picture (from Kelli B. from Castles and Crayons) each student is to choose a book from their book bins (all at independent reading levels) and start reading quietly by themselves (in one spot) right away.  We spend the first five or six weeks of school building up stamina each day.  They all know the need to read the whole time or we find time to practice later on in the day.  I can't believe how well they do! 

The next choice is Read to Someone.  Students will get a choice to read with someone as long as they are quiet, reading the whole time, stay in one spot, and sit EEKK or elbow, elbow, knee, knee and hold their book in the middle.  This choice is a popular one in our class so we review the expectations every week.  The second picture is just a little poem to help them remember their job!

Another choice is Listen to Reading.  I have a rule that only two students at a time are at this center.  I put in two different book titles each week, but I also had this singing book and they absolutely love it.  I go home hearing those songs in my head.  I am looking for more singing books on tape since the interest is there.  When they are finished listening they are required to complete a follow up activity to test their comprehension and understanding of the story.  They could draw their favorite part of the story, draw each of the characters and the setting, or relate the story to something similar that has happened to them in their life (relating text to self).

Another choice they have is Word Work.  Each week I have two hands-on activities that they may choose to do.  We go through each center activity on Fridays for the following week so they know exactly what is expected of them.  Sometimes I have a recording sheet that you may see, but many times it is just working with concepts involving sight words, vowel patterns, or other concepts such as contractions, nouns, verbs, or adjectives.  Again the expectations are that they need to work alone unless the activity calls to work with someone (such as Bingo).  They also need to get started right away, work the whole time, and clean up when it is time to switch.

The final choice is Work on Writing.  I also have two different writing prompts or activities for the students to choose from.  One is always an activity that comes from them.  I will make blank books up for them to be both the author and illustrator or create a prompt that will interest them.  The other activity will be a more structured writing activity such as rolling cubes with words on them and putting them in order to make a sentence.  Then, they will need to write and illustrate the sentence.  Another example is to find hidden pictures from Highlights magazines and then write where they found each object.  I made sheets that say, I found the ________________________ and they will need to fill in the blank telling me where in the picture they found each item  ( I found the toothbrush on the back of the park bench).  I like the writing center because I can see the progress of their spelling.  I also use this writing to see what future activities I need to create or find based on the spelling need.  Again, this is a quite and independent activity. 

While they are working on the Daily 5 activities I am pulling students to work in small guided reading groups.  We will be practicing reading strategies to increase their independent reading level.  These books are at their instructional level meaning that they are not quite able to read the book independently.  This is why it is soooooooo important to read every night.  It may seem like they are reading books they have memorized and they may have, but that is why I sent home the blue reading comprehension cards.  Many students are wonderful word readers, but they need to understand the story as well.  Ask them what happens at the beginning, middle, and end.  If you have not seen the blue reading comprehension cards let me know and I will get them to you. 

Remember to keep track of your reading minutes!  The Reading Night will be next week!

Stay dry!

Mrs. Parker

American Symbols

Hello Parents!
Sorry this was not posted last week, but we did get through everything!  We have had a busy week of school trying to finish up our American Symbols unit created by Deanna Jump.  Here are some pictures of our symbols we have covered so far.

Here is our tree map of four American Symbols (flag, bald eagle, Liberty Bell, Statue of Liberty).

Here are our American flags with fingerprint stars!

This bald eagle looks a little crabby : ).

Sorry for the blurry picture.  Our Liberty Bells.

These Statue of Liberty projects took much longer to prep than to put together!

Here we are measuring how tall the Statue of Liberty is (305 ft.!)  We were going to measure in the hall, but since it was such a nice day I thought we would go outside.  We measured from the corner of Starr and Eddy all the way to about the crosswalk!  We also saw how big her feet are (25 feet). 

We did this today and it was too cute not to post.  We made George Washington (thank you Cara Carroll! for the idea).  We also wrote one fact in a telling sentence and one fact in an asking sentence.  Ask your child which asking and telling facts they chose.  We also studied Abe Lincoln today, but will not have time to do a project honoring him.  Ask your child what they learned about Abraham Lincoln.  I could not believe how interested they were on both presidents!

Finally this will be our assessment I created once we get through George Washington and Abe Lincoln hopefully by tomorrow. 

A look ahead for next week- Dr.Seuss activities March 2nd

Week of March 5- Dental Health

Week of March 12- Spring!

Happy Valentine's Day

Wow!  Valentine's Day 2012 is officially over and boy do your children have energy!!  It really was not bad at all.  I love the fact that they were so excited for the activities I planned.  Every holiday I try to make all the math, writing, and language thematic and today is one of my favorites!

Here are our valentine bags we worked so hard on.

For this activity we guessed what the most common color of candy hearts would be in the bag.  Then we chose one heart out of the bag at a time, tallied them, counted them up, and wrote why we thought the most common color was the most common.

In this activity we took our hearts and tallied up each letter.  When we were finished we counted up all the tallies.  My goal was to see who would automatically use the cross tally after every four- You can check your child's sheet to see if they did or not. 

Graphing their hearts.

Measurement activity using their hearts.

Building words using hearts with beginning and ending parts of words.  Then they recorded the words on the sheet.

We finished off the day with a word search while they enjoyed their hearts.

The average amount of frosting on each cookie : )

The average amount of sprinkles on each cookie : )

I allowed them to choose one piece of candy to eat and then they had to take the rest home.  So now you know how much sugar they ate today!

Circles Reading Group

Dear Parents,
During guided reading one of the groups is currently reading a world atlas resource guide.  We have already talked about the United States (Pacific Ocean, western US, eastern US, Atlantic Ocean, capital cities, map key and how to read them).  Today we talked about Antarctica and the Arctic.  A couple students requested this website on ice caps to view from home.  These pictures are amazing and the students are very motivated and want to learn more!

Ice Caps


A few reminders:
-please remember to send all snow gear to school.  We are still in winter and the weather is not going to stay this nice until spring.

- Our Valentine's Day party is Tuesday next week.  I am planning on making the cookies and decorating them again.  I have frosting left over and have a ton of sprinkles at my home.  We will be playing math and literacy center games as well as completing some valentine literacy projects.

-Love Lunch will be Monday and Tuesday next week.  Please be prompt.  If you are coming Feb. 13 (Monday) be here by 11:40.  If you are coming Feb. 14 (Tuesday) please be here 11:45.  You can wait for your child right outside the classroom door.  They have recess first and then will be coming in to wash up for lunch.

-Also in honor of Valentines we are going to wear either red or white on Tuesday. 

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Parker

Test

Something is going on with my blogs so this is just a test to see if I can post.

What a 100th Day!!

Today was one of my favorite days to teach- the 100th day!!
The kids all had a blast talking about 100 ALL DAY!!  We did not finish up a few more math activities I had planned so I may send them home for the math weekly homework tomorrow. 

I knew I was not going to finish all my 100th day activities today so I put everything in a book so they could take it home and finish.

For this activity we worked on making ten groups of ten colored dots to equal 100.  I found this cute activity from Julie Lee on tpt.

                                                                 The final product!

We completed a 100th day Lab.  Here they had to look at the bag of candy corn, craft sticks, and bears then decide which bag had more than 100, less than 100, and exactly 100 items in it.  Can you guess? : )

After looking at each bag they cut out more, less, and exactly sentences and glued each one next to their prediction.  I was pleasantly surprised how well they did.  The majority was correct for each item. 

Then, we graphed our class data for each item.  This graph shows that two students thought there were more than 100 craft sticks in the bag, four thought there were less than 100 craft sticks in the bag, and eleven thought there were exactly 100 craft sticks in the bag.

Now, when I chose the items I wanted a smaller item to have more than 100 items, a larger item to have less than 100, and then a more challenging item to have 100.  When I asked the students why they chose what they did many of them were right on with their reasoning.  Some even related this to our "Beans" Lab back in Unit 9 (the smaller items takes up less space than the larger items). 

Now if I did not have this blog I am sure this is the only activity you would hear about!  As I was having them dump all their snacks in the bowl I wondered if we would have 100 cavities just in time for our dental health unit :).  I sure hope not! I would suggest they brush well tonight anyway!



One last note- I made a mental goal today to make sure your child is packing up better.  I found so many old papers in many of the bins that I know things need to change.  If you see many papers come home today from your child it is because I cleaned out their bin.  I have already talked to them about changing this, but I don't think it could hurt for you to talk with them as well.  We have some very competitive people in the room that love to be first at everything! 

Valentine list was sent home today.  Look for details of the party to be sent home tomorrow or Wed.

Feel free to leave some feedback on the website as well as any suggestions you may have for me. 

tparker@ecasd.k12.wi.us

Thanks!

Mrs. Parker

Early spring?

 Hello and Happy Groundhog Day!

Well it looks like Phil the groundhog saw his shadow, but Jimmy the groundhog in Madison did not so I am going with Jimmy!  Early spring it is!!

We had a day full of groundhog activities in the classroom.  After guided reading we started a writing project where they were asked to explain what their burrow would look like if they were groundhogs.  We discussed how the ground would feel at this time of the year and what we would need to be comfortable underground.  At this time of year first graders still struggle with adding detail in their writing.  The focus was correcting punctuation and making sure uppercase letters were used only when needed.  It seems like I am constantly reminding them to put capital letters at the beginning of sentences and change the capitals from uppercase to lowercase between words.  : )

I found this groundhog activity from Cara Carroll (The First Grade Parade) online and the kids just loved it. 

If you can't read this writing it says, "This is my burrow.  It is warm and cozy.  My bed is made and floor is clean!"  - Too cute : )

Here is a picture of the groundhog's burrow.  See the groundhog climbing the ladder- even a smile on his face.  Great detail with the lights, butterfly decor on the wall, a bathroom (brown box), and blocks and a Barbie to play with (orange).

Here is what the project looked like with the groundhog head (made out of three hearts).

Here are the groundhog hats we made at the end of the day.

We also worked on measurement for math today.  We measured the groundhog shadows in inches and also measured lines in centimeters.  It went along great with our Trailblazers lesson about Goldilocks and the Three Rectangles.  In that lesson we measured the length, width, and area of three rectangles to see who was the "biggest."  

Our morning was all Language Arts which includes guided reading.  Please make sure your child is bringing home their guided reading books EVERY night.  Even if your child has the book basically memorized they still need to read at night to practice fluency.  When they do not read at night eventually the text will get too challenging and fluency along with comprehension will suffer.  I tell them they should be reading at a normal talking voice pace, Goldilocks style- not too fast or too slow.  When they are finished reading check their understanding of the story by asking questions about the characters, setting, plot, beginning, middle , end of story, and so on. 

Please feel free to leave feedback about this site and what else you would like to see posted. 

Thanks!

Mrs. Parker