CURRICULUM NIGHT!

REMINDER!!! Curriculum night for first grade is tomorrow, Thursday, September 26th at 6:30pm. Mrs. Hughes and Mrs. Sorenson will be presenting in Mrs. Sorenson's classroom, but I will be there as well for anyone who needs to talk to me! Thanks!

Brain Breaks!

Everyone needs a little break from sitting and working every now and then! In our classroom we use "brain breaks", which are often video clips and fun songs that we put up on the board and dance to! Check out our moves!

Reach for the Stars!

Our hopes and dreams board is finished! Each star has a student's hope or dream for first grade. Every student has a hand that they've decorated that is reaching toward their dream! Let's reach those goals!

Name of the Day

You may have heard about (or seen) our Name of the Day routine. Each day I make a chart with a student's name all scrambled up with sticky notes. The student whose name it is comes up and rearranges the letters to spell his or her name. Then we talk about the vowels and consonants in the name and we try to make words with it! Once we are done, the special student gets to bring their Name of the Day poster home! This time of our day is definitely a favorite in Room 8!

Read to Self

We started readers' workshop by talking about how readers love to read, and I read aloud many books that were either about loving to read, or just books that I loved so that I could share my passion for reading! Then we talked about special places to read books, and we made a class book sharing our favorite places to read. Once we had a strong handle on those ideas and students were really excited to start reading, we began our read to self routine and started building our reading stamina. Students have picked one spot that they read in every day (unless it is their turn for the bathtub!). They also have bookbags that they read from during read to self time that contain books at their reading level. The expectations during read to self time are that students stay in their seats, they keep their voices off, and they keep their eyes glued on their books. Each day I time how long the students can practice reading to self. We began the routine a few weeks ago at three minutes, and now we are all the way up to ten! These kids wouldn't even look away from their books when I followed them around with my camera!

Homework!

Believe it or not, many of the students have been BEGGING me for homework! You might have heard them tell you this already at home, but I have told them that since homework doesn't start quite yet in first grade they can either read a book and write down the title, practice their red words or other spelling words, or write/add to a story. If they bring me in something like this that they've worked on at home I will give them a special sticker (In case you didn't know I'm a very big sticker collector)! Kids that bring in stories have also been able to have an opportunity to share their stories with the class and get feedback on their writing. This has been a huge motivator for the class so far and I'm loving the stories and work that are coming back to school each day!

We are learning about tally marks in first grade! Students have been practicing tally marks on paper, white boards, and even the Smart Board! One of the students' favorite activities is coming up with a question to use to poll the class and tally the answers. Some students are using basic yes/no polls while others are asking questions with more choices, such as, "What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?". This afternoon we did a special tally mark art project! Each student got a "Tally Mark Tim" page and five popsicle sticks. They colored their popsicle sticks and glued them to tally mark tim to show how to make neat, straight, and organized tally marks. They loved it!

Fun Friday

Our four day week is over and I think we are ready for our first FULL five day week!

On Friday we tried to do some "fun" activities  to celebrate the end of our school week. We reached our goal this week for following directions and "filling buckets", so we were able to have popsicles during snack time!

For our SWR lesson we put shaving cream all over the tables and the students practiced writing letters, names, words from the "at" family, and our sight words "see" and "the". This was my first time doing this activity, so I didn't realize that I should have students only use ONE hand in the shaving cream. We sure had a lot of fun but it was super messy!!!

During our social studies time we are doing a unit of study titled "All About Me". During this unit we learn about different backgrounds and celebrate all people. We read books about loving who we are and feeling unique. The main project of this unit is a self-portrait. On Friday we read a book about skin colors and practiced "color mixing" to create our own skin colors for our self-portraits. I gave each student a plate with different colors on it, and students were able to mix the colors in different ways to match their own skin color! I felt brave and had all of the students painting at the same time, and it went great! They're such a kind and hard working class! I can't wait to show you our finished self-portraits!

Fun in First Grade!

First graders are really starting to master the routines of our classroom! We have started the "Read to Self" part of our Daily 5 literacy time. Every student has a book bag with "Good Fit" books inside. These books are at their level and are practiced each day. During other times of the day, students are free to read any book in the classroom. Tomorrow we will open up our classroom library! We have a lot of great readers in our class!

We have also started our daily math stations. Each day I teach a lesson to the entire class, and then we split up into different stations. There is a "Meet with Teacher" station where I usually do a workbook page with students. "All by Myself" is a station with an activity that students have practiced many times and are able to do independently. "Technology" is when students use iPads or computers to practice math games, and "Hands On" is a station where students get to physically manipulate math tools. Look at what the students did today! I introduced math journals to the students and they LOVED them! Many students asked if they could complete more workbook pages than the one that we did together!

 Other groups had the opportunity to use math tools, such as pattern block templates, pattern blocks, or unifix cubes!

 Check out the teamwork!