Snowman to go..

Polar Express, Here we come!

A package arrived from the North Pole!

Emergent layer..

During guided reading, we were learning about a tropical rain forest and to help us remember what the emergent layer was we stood up next to a partner and decided.who would be the emergent layer if they were in a rainforest. (the two tallest!)

Costumes!

Syllable sort and buying a pumpkin..

Pumpkins float!

Describe center and measure up.

Witches brew

Students were read a story about witches brew, then they got to feel witches brew and sample it (only the kind that was in the water bottle) and vote if it was yum or yuck! So thankful for our volunteers!

Pumpkin centers!

Feel and describe the inside of a pumpkin with adjectives!

Chocolate cheese please???

Our read aloud book a couple weeks ago took characters around a dairy farm.  I decided to bring the dairy aspect to life by bringing the students chocolate cheese to try.  The first picture shows their first taste. This picture could not be more priceless, look at each of the student's faces! The second picture, the students are giving their rating of the cheese.

Ten more or ten less.

I forgot to post this from a fun lesson a week ago, we were working on finding ten less or ten more. I would shout out a number students would find a whiteboard to write that number, then they would have to find someone else to erase and write ten more or ten less than that number.  The students loved it!

Crazy ideas from student teachers..

A student approached me with an idea. He wanted a 10 minute slot of our day to share 23 pictures of monsters, brainstorm for 2 of the best names, (then I asked him how is this related to school) and I kid you not he said, "then we could segment and blend the names". How could I turn him down after that? So today we got to brainstorm, vote and name a monster. The 2 student teachers ran the whole session with a few interjections from me.  Check out the awesome tally marks for counting the votes.

I can compare numbers using symbols!

This center isn't just your typical comparison of numbers..students work there way up to comparing four different numbers to correctly align with how the symbols are placed in the equation. (students leg is hiding the 1st number in the equation) These mathmaticians were rockin, I may have to have them compare 5 numbers next time!

More travel agent shots..

Travel Writers!

Our first graders worked tirelessly last week to complete a travel brochure. They took on the role as a travel writer and travel agent. They researched different habitats and worked within a partner to create a travel brochure for that habitat. Students asked luring questions like "Do you want to go on a sea adventure?". Then they had to use their senses to describe what someone would feel, see, hear or even smell or taste in their habitat. They also had to color code a map showing where there habitat was in the world as well as what gear someone would need when traveling there.

To conclude this activity, we invited our reading buddies down to persuade them to visit our habitat.  I was so proud of the 1st graders, once they heard the call for all travel agents to begin selling, they went to work! They were shaking their brochures, asking their luring questions, then once they hooked someone's attention, they taught them all about their habitat. The 4th grade reading buddies were very impressed and wanted to visit the habitats! It was a great morning!

Verbs, nouns and adjectives..

Students were playing a game today unscrambling words to make a complete sentence. Once we made a sentence, then students "switched" out the nouns, verb and adjectives to make a totally new sentence!  Our "noun" was not happy about going from a gorilla to a pony. Haha. In the pictures below you will see students rearranging the words to make a sentence or writing a new noun, verb or adjective.

Student teachers!

I "employ" several student teachers throughout the day, but especially before the official school day begins. If students arrive early to school they are invited in the classroom to read or begin working on extra work. In the pictures below you will see student teachers helping students.with a question. These students are not giving the answer,but are teaching their friends HOW to answer it. The students always thank their friends for help and I can see it is making more of a collaborative learning environment. Students depend less on me and more on each other. It is really cool to see it in action. The other picture shows student teachers teaching a friend how to do a math center that she has never been to yet.  And this is all before the bell rings! This class is the best class, they make my days so much fun. 

Our first Reader's Theater!

We have been learning how writers can adapt stories. For example a writer could create their own adaptation from an old nursery rhyme to make it more fun, exciting or current. Our actors in class did a fabulous job with a script that was an adaptation from the song "Old McDonald Had a Farm". Check out the audience cheering for their peers! Fun morning!

Time will tell.

Students mastered time to the hour and half hour at their center. Other students said "It was actually really hard to build a triangular pyramid!"

Reading buddies!

Today we kicked off our reading buddies program. We ventured to fourth grade where we listened to a fantastic story called "The Little Orange House". It was about a witch who needed a house, as we read the story, we cut different shapes into a folded piece of paper that was the shape of her house, at the end of the story we opened up our house to see what the inside looked like and to our surprise, it was a pumpkin! Our favorite 4th grade teacher even had a treat for us on our way out the door. Great morning!

Happy faces

Other centers were working away today. Check out the whiteboard where these students made their own true and false equations. Look at our awesome 2D shape artists! Awesome opossum! B-)

Place value...a fun place to be..

I love love love love love (get the picture?) The two pictures below.  I am still bursting with energy this evening from what a fantastic day of learning we had.  Today in small group guided math instruction we worked on place value.  We looked at different numbers and decided how many groups of tens and how many ones made up that number.  Once students mastered that, we went onto using manipulatives where I would set out groups of tens, and ones and they would quickly write the number down on their whiteboard. If students get the answer correct I quickly point to them and they know they got it right and they should erase their answer. If they didn't, I quietly and quickly say "try again". The awesome thing about guided math is they are working with students at a very similar skill level which allows for each student to feel very comfortable in learning, trying, not being far behind the person next to them.  Students know we can find the answer in different ways but they have to be able to explain in words how they figured out the answer.  They have gotten use to defending their answer whether they are right or wrong. Most of the time if they are wrong, they don't realize it until they start explaining their answer to the group...and during some point in their explanation, we usually hear an..."oh..wait..it's actually.." and they go on to explain the correct answer with a smile on their face.

I had to break for a minute to assist another center today and I asked one of the students to be the teacher, and when I returned I was able to capture these two moments. The first image shows 2 of the students counting the manipulatives without needing to touch them, another student it touch counting the manipulatives to get her number, another student already wrote that there are 4 groups of tens in the tens place, while the other student is starting to write what goes in the ones place. In the second image you will see the student teacher pointing to students to erase because they got the answer right and if you pay attention to the other students' whiteboards, the answers are all correct. Warms my teaching heart!

All guided math groups did a fantastic job and got to learn and practice in Mr. Whit's drawing station as well.

Read and search station.

Parent volunteer taught "read and search' station. At this center, students read a story, then searched for long vowels, short vowels, beginning and end of sentences, one and two syllable words, and contractions. They would code their find with various symbols.  We love our parent volunteers! (this parent volunteer came with years of experience as a 1st grade teacher, our class is so lucky and had a great time!)

Math meets ART!

Mr. Whit has been a fantastic "addition" (get it addition and math...haha) to our math centers once a week. He helps the students with drawing techniques using 2D and 3D shapes. The students' drawings are looking great. Check out how engaged they are!

Guided reading centers..

Students are reading a BIG book together and writing a sentence about the story and a question they have after reading it. Other students are at the reading informational text center, where they read magazines together and answer various questions.

Understanding basic features of print..

Today during guided reading, we focused our time on hitting the common core standard RF.1.1. To do this, student needs to be able to identity the beginning and end of a sentence, period, question mark, exclamation point.  All guided reading groups need to practice identifying the beginning or end of a first, second or third sentence from a page in their book. Students were struggling with which sentence was first, second and third. We will continue working on mastering this so it becomes automatic.

Students also enjoyed learning how to play our new smartboard center that focuses on compound words, contractions, and syllables. We created movements for each word to help us remember what those words meant.

Great Thursday so far! And our afternoon will be a blast, I can't wait!