Dr. Seuss and Other Things

This week was all about Dr. Seuss. Since we're having our parade next week, we wanted to celebrate this fabulous author! I've also incorporated a few creative book report projects into our Dr. Seuss study so that the kids can start getting some great ideas for their Texas Readers' project.

Tuesday we read The Sneetches then created a mobile to go with the story. We made sure to look at the rubric so we could get a 100 on our projects! These turned out great, and it really helped the kids start getting some good ideas for their projects.

Wednesday we read Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose and created a bookmark. We checked our rubric again, just to make sure we'd get a 100! I think the kids are really understanding what we're expecting from their Texas Readers' project. I've been very impressed with how well these projects are turning out.

Thursday we researched about Dr. Seuss himself. We read about him on PebbleGo and talked about what we knew about him from our prior schema. The kids knew quite a bit! I heard Mrs. Waterbury did an author study in Library this week, too. We sure love Dr. Seuss!

Friday we read There's a Wocket in my Pocket and made a page for a class book. We had fun creating fictional Dr. Seuss-like characters.

I can't wait for our Dr. Seuss parade next Friday. Parents are welcome to come! Our class will be dressing up as Thidwick. Please wear brown clothes (or any other moose-like colors if you don't have brown). We'll be making antler headbands and giant hearts in class to go with our outfits. I know we'll look great! :)

In science we finished up our seasons unit and started talking about weather. As a mini-assessment, I had the students draw a picture of a certain season. They had to draw the picture well enough so the class could guess their season by just seeing their drawing. This was very fun, and I was able to see who really understood seasons!

We also finished up our money unit this week. Here's a book that we made in class. It goes along with our money song that we've been singing. I hope your little ones have come home to teach you the song! It really helps them remember the values of the coins. Make sure you ask your kids about "hairy money" too. It helps them add up the values of the coins. We had lots of fun with it!

I'm very excited for next week. With Go Texan day last Friday and rodeo in full-swing, we are going to be starting our Texas unit (surprise, surprise it's my favorite!). We started working on some fun projects Friday and we'll be finishing them next week. They'll be on display at Open House, so I'm very excited for the next couple weeks! :)

Valentine's Day

I know it's so late, but since I was sick last week I totally forgot to blog! Eeek! I'm sad that I don't have that many pictures since I was out, but I'm so happy to report that our substitute left a shining note about everyone's behavior! She commented about how sweet and helpful everyone was. I was a very proud teacher when I came back. :)

Here are a couple of things we did. We read tons of Valentine's books, then we created collage hearts out of scrapbook paper. I am so glad that a wonderful mom donated tons of paper for us. We've done so many great things with it! Thanks, Mrs. U! :)

We also wrote letters to people that we loved. I let the kids write to whomever they wanted. They were so sweet. They wrote letters to me, their friends in class, their parents, and other teachers at school. Each child was so thoughtful about the kind things they said. It warmed my heart! They worked so hard.

We had a wonderful Valentine's Day party filled with ice cream sundaes and extra treats. Thanks to all the parents who donated and decorated! You helped make our party a great success!

Dental Health & Lunar New Year

February is such a busy month! Black History, Groundhog Day, Valentine's Day, Dental Health, Lunar New Year, Presidents' Day, and so much more!!!

This week we studied contractions during our phonics and spelling time. I can't remember which blog I found this on last year, but I loved the idea of becoming "Contraction Surgeons" as a class. I found it really helps the kids understand why we have contractions and how to actually make them.

We talked about how surgeons have to mark their patients before surgery, so we had to cross out some letters we'd be taking out of our "patients." Then the surgeons cut their patients open, so we would have to cut our letters out of the words. Then surgeons stitch their patients back together, so we'd have to use "bandaid apostrophes" to put our contractions back together. The kids loved it! We got gloves from the nurse and used lots of hand sanitizer to keep the germs away before we went into surgery. I was glad to announce that all of our students passed contraction surgeon school. They loved it, AND they learned! Yay!

We talked about dental health quite a bit this week. We read books about it, researched it on BrainPop, and had lots of personal experiences! After learning about dental health, we created these toothbrushes.

Our class also read Dr. DeSoto, always a favorite. After we read the story, we talked about some character analysis. Then to make a connection the story, the kiddos thought about what creature or animal they would want to work on if they were dentists. I also had them think about what they'd give to that creature or animal as a prize afterward. These turned out so cute! I put them all into a class book.

During writing, we worked on personal narratives about a time when we lost a tooth. First, we created a Flow Map to think about the specific details we wanted to write about (where, when, how, etc). Then we used the Flow Maps to create a story that we illustrated afterward. I was very impressed with how these turned out. I think it's pretty funny that as an adult, loose teeth gross me out so much! Just seeing them wiggle around when the kids push them with their tongues. Eek! I remember being so excited as a kid, but all my class knows I can't stand it now!

We also celebrated Lunar New Year this week. We talked about how it's usually referred to as Chinese New Year, but since a lot of other people celebrate it too, we would call it both. We read stories, researched on PebbleGo, and talked about our own personal experiences with the holiday, too.

We had lots of fun researching our zodiac signs and finding out what it meant about us. We realized it would be the Year of the Dragon when these firsties are graduating high school... in 2024!? My stars, that seems crazy when I graduated in 2006. Yikes! We also made some very pretty lanterns and decorated dragon headbands.

Today is the first day of the Year of the Snake! As they say in Vietnamese, "Chuc Mung Nam Moi!" which means "Happy New Year!"

Friday was also my birthday, and I have to say this was one of the best yet! Some of the kids brought me presents, my next-door teacher friend made a Texas sheet cake (yum!) and Ms. McCormack bought me a Nothing Bundt Cake (double yum!), I got flowers, AND one of the moms threw me a surprise party! I'd like to give a big shout-out to Mrs. W for always surprising me with her kindness and thoughtfulness. She brought cupcakes, juice boxes, and balloons. I felt extra-special all day. :) I've been so blessed with such wonderful kids and parents this year. I'm feeling a little sad that it's February already!

100th Day!

Oh my word... the 100th day of school came and went in a blur! It was go, go, go all day long!

I loved seeing the costumes today. We were in stitches ALL day long! Some of our friends were even acting like they were 100 years in old. We were creaking and aching and taking 10 minutes to walk to the door.. Haha! I love it... I was so excited to see how everyone was filled with excitement and joy! It's so fun to celebrate such a big day for the kids.

Our class voted for the best-dressed boy and girl, then we had a grade-level competition, too. I wish I could put up photos of everyone! Here are the grade-level winners posing together. I think this chickadee looks like Rose from Golden Girls! So precious!

Then we went on a school-wide parade to show off our costumes. Our kids were yelling "Hey there, whipper-snapper!" to passersby. I couldn't contain my giggles!

Here are just a few activities we did today. We rolled dice 100 times, flipped coins 100 times, made pizzas with 100 pepperonis, made 100th day headbands, played the dot game with 100 dots, found a mystery picture (which was a 100!) on a hundreds chart, and much more... Of course our favorite part of the day was creating our 100th day trail mix.

Thank you for making this day incredible for your kids! We had 100% participation in snack donation (my first year ever!), and we had such great costumes today. You are such an important part of your child's education, and I want to thank you for being such amazing parents!

Science Project

This week we worked on a project for the Science Fair. To get the kids excited about the Science Fair, we wanted the first graders to be able to work on an experiment, too, even though technically they aren't entering the competition. I love getting the kids excited about science at an early age. It really is fun!

If you came to Technology Night on Thursday (and thank you for those that did!), you might have seen our project on display in the pod. Our trifold boards didn't come in on time, so we decided to just use butcher paper. I actually think it turned out prettier this way!

Our experiment was about snack foods. We wanted to know which snack food would be the greasiest one. I think the kids really enjoyed the experiment, and it tied in well to a discussion about healthy eating choices.

After seeing these results, I am definitely going go think twice when getting snacks at the grocery store! :)

Arctic Things

We've been learning about the Arctic and Antarctic for the past two weeks. Boy, is there a lot to learn!
We created a nonfiction book about arctic animals using PebbleGo and the other books we read throughout the week. These books really turn out very nicely. We worked so hard on them. I wanted to make sure the kiddos knew that it was important that they think of themselves as authors and illustrators who take pride in their work. We're getting ready for Second Grade, so we're really trying to do our best!

Our class also researched Inuits on World Book Web. It was so interesting to learn about life near the North Pole! We created Inuits to record our newly-learned facts.

Since Saturday was Groundhog Day, we wanted to make sure to add in a few groundhog lessons. We talked about what happens if he sees his shadow or if he doesn't. We also got to learn a little bit about Punxsutawney Phil, and the kids loved him! (As much as I love the cold weather, I'm kind of glad that Phil didn't see his shadow... I'm ready for the gorgeous spring!)

We created little groundhogs after learning some facts about them on PebbleGo. We made sure to add shadows for them with an additional Groundhog Day fact.

Then we read Who Will See Their Shadows This Year? We brainstormed which animals might want to look for their shadows and what weather they might bring. We created a class book with all our lovely pages.

We had another great week. I'm looking forward to tomorrow being the 100th day of school. Wow, it is flying by!