Farm Week

As y'all know, we are going to Dewberry Farm next week. I am beyond excited! I love this field trip!!! In order to activate our schema, we studied farm animals this week. We created a nonfiction farm animals book to take home in order to begin our nonfiction unit. This was a week-long project, and it was a little exhausting but the results were AMAZING! I could not believe the quality of work that everyone put into their books. I don't think I've ever seen such great work in October ever before. I'm so proud!

We also finished our light, heat, and sound unit by studying heat. We read Heat Wave by Helen Ketteman and discussed different ways to make heat. The kids LOVED the book. It's pretty hilarious, and I'm a sucker for any of Ketteman's books. After we read the book, we created a Multi-Flow Thinking Map to talk about cause and effect. What a great lesson!

Our class also voted on Tuesday. Fort Bend has a mock election for the entire district. We talked about the importance of voting and participating in elections. I was glad to hear all the good things the students already knew, so I can tell that everyone has been discussing the upcoming election at home. :) We even used our voter registration cards when we went to vote. The computer lab had been set up with privacy folders so that the kids had their own little ballot boxes. It was a great experience for the students. Remember, parents can vote in the mock election, too! Your kiddos brought home instructions in their Tuesday folders.

We did some more SmartResponse lessons for math this week in guided math. I have found that this is such a great way to differentiate the kids' instruction as well as get them motivated and excited to do math groups.

We are working on addition and making groups of ten. The kids made houses and put part-part wholes inside of them to show me a way to make a group of ten. Then they wrote the fact families that went along with their pictures. This was a fun activity for them and a good way for me to assess their learning!

We filled up our pom-pom jar again! I'm so proud of our friends. We've been getting lots of compliments from other teachers in the hallway and from outclass teachers! :) We had another dance party with crazy socks. It seems to be a very popular choice for celebrating, plus I love how it lets us get up and moving to get our exercise!

We also won the Star-Spangled Stallions award for 1st Grade  for the first nine weeks! Since we received the most stickers out of any classes, we won the award! :) Mrs. Allen came by to congratulate us, and Ms. Carney even took us out for an extra recess! What a wonderful Friday surprise!

Can't wait to see everyone next week. Don't forget we'll be going to Dewberry Farm on Friday!