If you give a first grader an idea, a pencil, and some paper!

 

Last week we spent a while reading what I like to call the "If You Give" books. We read several different ones and used graphic organizers to organize our thoughts about the books. Each day we read a book and then completed a different type of organizer about it. We varied the way that we did these; sometimes we did them as a class, sometimes the children did them on their own and then we shared as a class. 

We started on Monday by reading If You Give a Mouse A Cookie. After reading the story, the children looked at an organizer about cause and effect. The children had to think about what the cause was and then the effects of this. In this case, the cause was giving the mouse a cookie and the effects were all of the things that came afterwards.

Tuesday we did a "Sees, Does, Thinks, Feels" Organizer about the story, If You Give A Moose A Muffin. This organizer helped us to recognize events in the story as well as to empathize with the character to infer what he may have been thinking or feeling. These details often are not writing out explicitly in the text and inference is a great skill for the children to begin working with.

Wednesday we completed an organizer called "Question It!". The children had to identify the Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How's of the story If You Give a Pig a Party. This emphasized the key concepts of character, setting, and plot. Children were able to pick out the different aspects of the story.

Thursday we completed a "Double Bubble" comparing If You Give a Cat a Cupcake and If You Give a Dog a Donut.  The children had to compare and contrast the two stories, picking out key details of each.

Friday we gave writing our own "If You Give" stories a try. We read If You Give a Pig a Pancake and then the children were asked to write their own story that was similar to the ones we read in class. We discussed what each story had in common. We decided that each story had some type of animal that got something that then reminded him of other things and so on until it circled back around. We nicknamed these "circle" stories because at the end they always end up back where they started. The children did a great job coming up with new characters and stories. This is a great way for them to practice using author's voice and craft.

Here are some examples... feel free to come check them out in our hallway as well!
 



The Wild Things

I was very saddened to hear that Maurice Sendak had passed away earlier this week. His book, Where the Wild Things Are,  is one of my very favorites!

In honor of this wonderful author, I did a little activity with our class. I wanted to share this great story with them so that they could love it as much as I do!

We started by reading the story. The children loved it! That max is quite a character!

Then I had the children write what they thought would happen next in the story.

I got all kinds of wonderful answers! Several children thought that Max would eat his supper and then go to sleep and dream about the Wild Things. Others thought that Max would eat his supper and then go back to visit the Wild Things to have another Wild Rumpus. One even suggested that maybe the Wild Things would come to visit Max at his house.

These were great responses to the story! It not only showed me the students' ability to use basic capitalization, punctuation, and sentence structure, it also gave them the chance to participate in writing by using an author's model of language and extending the model.

They also demonstrated their abilities to use words that name characters and settings and  tell action and events in simple texts.

Who knew that you could learn so much from just one book? That's why it is such a great story!

Tasty Treats for Soldiers

Friday we had the chance to do a little b of community service. One of our student's has an uncle who is in the Marines in California. He works on Osprey's. The students mom explained that several of the soldiers don't get any mail and they are lonely. We were able to make yummy treats and cards to send to them. We also learned a little bit about what their job is and what they have to do in the Marines.

2 and 3 Dimensional Shapes

We have been spending a lot of time over the past few weeks talking about geometric shapes. We have covered two dimensional shapes including parallelogram, rhombus, trapezoid, and hexagon . We have practiced patterns using parallelogram, rhombus, trapezoid, and hexagon during our calendar time each day and the students are grasping the different names and characteristics of each one!

More recently we have added three dimensional shapes.

We looked at different examples of cubes, cylinders, and spheres in our classroom. We brainstormed the different places that we see this in our day to day life. The students recognized that cubes come in the form of ice cubes, sugar cubes, and boxes and that cylinders make up our trash cans, soda cans, and food cans! I think spheres were their favorites because they roll! They recognized that the earth, various kinds of balls, and the sun are all spheres.

After we identified the characteristics of each geometric shape, we did a sorting activity on the smart board where the children had to move the different objects into the categories of sphere, cube, and cylinder.

To finish out our unit, we did a very fun munchie math activity! We made our very own geometric cubes, rectangular prisms, and pyramids. This was a great way for us to discuss the difference between two dimensional and three dimensional figures. We had used a lot of pictures of three dimensional objects and this activity gave us some hands on experience with them. It was also a great way for students to practice spatial awareness by having to figure out where things needed to go to make the different shapes.

St. Patrick's Day

To celebrate St. Patrick's Day and all things Irish, we had a very special concert. We had Statesville's very own Irish Session join us for a time of music and dancing. We also had the Irish Girl Band, which is made up of several students from our school! We were able to see grandparents, husbands, and classmates perform some Irish tunes for us!

We also had a little Irish Dancing! Several students from the audience had the chance to come up and learn how to do a little jig! Dr. Frey and Mr. Thomas joined in on the fun.

This was a great way for us to learn about Irish Culture while enjoying singing and dancing. The kids had a ball!

Field Tri to Sci Works!

Two Weeks ago, our class had the opportunity to get to go on a field trip to SciWorks in Winston Salem. The children were so excited to get on "the big bus" and watch a movie on the way there. Since we don't have a bus, this is a rare treat!

Once we arrived, there was so much to explore and do!

We even got to play a life-size game of Operation!

And got to get a larger than life view of our teeth and gums!

This machine was really neat! It had two pendulums attached to a pen. They swung in oposite directoins and drew a neat little picture. You can bet that the kids loved this! They are such artists!

This one gave us a little bit of an exerience with force and motion. When you had the tire spinning you could swivel the chair different directions just by leaning it from side to side! I still can't figure out how it worked, but it was really, REALLY cool!

The air chair, of course, was a huge hit! There was a big line all day to get to go up in it!



The highlight of our trip was getting to visit the planetarioum. This tied in with what we have been studying in science and the kids were amazed! We got to see lots of different stars and exlplore each planet. I learned a lot! Did you know that some planets are called "Gas Giants" and are made completely of gas? Or that Earth is classified as a "Rocky Midget"? Me neither! I also learned that Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune have rings! I always thought it was just Saturn. The show was very cool and exciting.

Going along with another science theme, there were animal habitats for us to explore. They had lots of creepy crawly animals that we could observe and fish to watch swim.

I think the part that the children enjoyed the most was the sound station downstairs. They loved making lots of noise on lots of different things. There were windchimes, xylohones, and a huge piano that they could run and jump on. We couldn't tear them away!

All in all a wonderful field trip!

Celebrating Black History Month

This month we have been learning about different important people in Black History. We did a group activity to learn about 4 very important people: Martin Luther King Jr, Ruby Bridges, Harriet Tubman, and Rosa Parks. I split the children up into groups using the random chooser on our smart board. Each group was responsible for learning about a particular person and then creating some type of poster to show to the other children in our class. Within the groups, each child had a specific job. The reader read a short book about the person that the group was learning about, the recorder did the writing, the materials manager was responsible for getting all of the materials that they needed, and the presenter presented their person during a gallery walk after we were finished.

The groups did a fantastic job! I loved walking around and getting to see the way the posters were coming along. (They are in our hallway if you'd like to check them out!)

After each group completed their poster, we did a gallery walk. Each group's presenter shared their poster with the different groups as they walked around from group to group. They started out by sharing with their own groups to get all of their facts together and then we spent 2 minutes at each presenter, learning about the different people that they represented.

We also read one of my favorite books that describes a true story of a man who mailed himself to freedom, Henry's Freedom Box.

The children really enjoyed the story about Henry. After we read it, we got a huge box and put ourselves into it to see how Henry might have felt when he mailed himself the 27 hours to Philadelphia. The kids made comments like "it's dark" and "it's cramped". They began to understand how Henry would have felt, but how important it was to him to get to freedom. They learned that he didn't care about those things...all he cared about was being free to make his own choices.

After we had put ourselves into Henry's shoes, we made our own Freedom Boxes. I encouraged the children to think about what they would want to have in their box if they were going to mail themselves. Some of the things that they would have liked to have included pillows to keep comfortable, a friend so they wouldn't be lonely, food, maps, and compasses. They did a great job empathizing with Henry!

We also learned about Spirituals. Many of us have heard these songs before, but didn't realize the full meaning of them. One of our gallery walk groups taught us about Harriet Tubman and we learned that she was nicknamed "Moses" because she delivered so many people from slavery. We listened to some of the songs and found out that they were actually secret coded maps to freedom! We discussed the songs and what they might mean...

For example:

Follow the drinking gourd This line means follow the big dipper.

Follow the drinking gourd

For the old man is a waitin This means that someone will be waiting there

'For to carry you to freedom to show you the way to get to freedom.

Follow the drinking gourd

The riverbank will make a mighty good road This tells us to follow the river.

The dead trees show you the way This tells us landmarks along the way.

Left foot, peg foot travelin' on

Following the drinking gourd

The kids thought this was so cool that the slaves used secret code to escape to freedom!

We have learned a lot about Black History and all of the people who helped make things the way they are for us today where we can be free to make our own choices. Thank you to all of those people! It is hard for us to imagine a world where people are not free and can't do what they choose, so I hope that these activities gave the children an idea of how lucky we are to have that freedom and an understanding of how things were in the past.