Colors!

Last week was all about colors! I have found that students really enjoy reading all these color-themed books because they are familiar with the texts, and it helps us focus in on retelling and rereading familiar stories. 

Monday was all about purple. We had lots of connections because I happened to be wearing all purple that day! :) I was surprised that very few of the kids had read Harold and the Purple Crayon. We discussed visualizing and how oftentimes we have to make movies and pictures inside our brains when we are listening to stories. Everyone seemed very excited when I told them that they would get to be illustrators and make their own pictures for the story. While I read the story aloud, everyone drew their pictures. When we finished, we pair-and-shared to compare everyone's pictures. It was interesting to see what each child thought was most important (like the boys' intricate dragon drawings vs. the girls' picnics). We discussed how it is ok for everyone to visualize different things. I always love these visualizing lessons! Then we watched the video for Harold on DiscoveryStreaming. The kids really enjoyed seeing the book in motion, and they were very excited to see that their drawings were similar to the real story. What fun! We did this project in my Art Theory class in college, and I remember loving it just as much then. :)

Tuesday was another day for purple. We started with reading Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse. The students made connections to the text by thinking about what they would want inside their purple plastic purses. (The boys thought about things that their moms would want inside their own plastic purses.) I was happy that the kiddos even turned our discussion into a lesson on good and bad choices. We talked about how teachers want the best for us, even if we think they're just being mean at times. ;P Of course, I sent home all of my examples before I remembered to take photos, so here is a picture of mine. (One of my friends really thought that we should have turtles in our purse, so of course I had to add it! How fun!)

Wednesday we did green. We read Go Away, Big Green Monster! and created our own scary monsters out of construction paper. During writing time, we focused on adjectives and making our writing more detailed. We talked about how our writing should help our readers visualize. I always love how fun these monsters turn out!

On Thursday, we started orange. We read one of my all-time favorite stories The Big Orange Splot. As a class, we talked about accepting everyone's differences and how those make us special. I love how everyone made connections to bucket-filling and bucket-dipping. We are such good friends this year! The kiddos made their own houses and then added a big orange splot to connect to the story. It was hard to choose just a couple to share. Also, any day is not complete until someone mentions Ninjago, so I knew I had to add this house to the blog. :)

Friday was Carrot Day! You know how first grade teachers are suckers for theme days, so I was super-excited. Everyone brought in a full-sized carrot from home to participate in some Carrot Day awards. We gave out homeroom awards for Smallest, Longest, Biggest, and Silliest Carrots. Then we gathered as a first grade group in our pod, and we handed out grade-level awards. It was such a fun way to end the week! Our class read The Enormous Carrot then made our own carrot books. (I'm loving our use of new vocabulary from the day in this book!)

Science was extra-exciting, too, because Kindergarten let us borrow their hand lenses and microscopes! We have been learning about science tools, so this was a great way to integrate Carrot Day. I sliced off a bit of their carrots, and each kiddo got to look at their carrot under the microscope. Talk about exciting times! (Where were these nifty plastic microscopes when I was in school!?) This was a great way to talk about tools as well as practice using our Scientific Method.

All in all, my first Carrot Day was a huge success! I have to give a huge shout-out to my BFF, Ms. McCormack, for bringing out her Color Unit to share! :)