Happy Birthday!

We had two birthday celebrations today, so that reminded me that I wanted to post about what we do for special days in the classroom.

I give each kiddo a special birthday card and pencil to start off the day. They announce birthdays on our announcements, and students get to go to the front office to get their birthday pencil from the principals.

We also make a birthday book for our friends. While students are writing birthday notes, I have the birthday boy or girl decorate his or her book cover. Our kids are so sweet, making sure that they give their friends exactly what they would want for their birthdays. They account for their friends' interests and favorite things. It's a hoot seeing what they would give their friends.

During calendar time, we sing Happy Birthday (with or without cha-cha-cha's) to the birthday girl or boy.

We don't make a huge deal out of birthdays because some of our classmates don't celebrate them. However, I do want to make the day special because I remember how exciting birthdays are when you're young. They're not so great now that I'm older! :) So we like to give a little celebration to show our friends that we're happy for them and excited for their special day. I hope your kiddos come home excited after their birthday. (If they have a summer birthday, we celebrate a half-birthday for them, too so don't worry!)

Also, there has been some confusion and a few questions regarding birthday treats. This year, our school is allowing cupcakes or cookies, but you must send your treats to school in a pre-packaged, store-bought container. The label must be on the package, and it cannot be opened prior to dropping it off in the front office. We have to comply with national nutrition laws, so I must be able to read the nutritional facts before passing out snacks. We also have a few students with peanut allergies so make sure that you are only sending peanut-free products. I apologize for any inconveniences that this has caused in the past, but I just wanted to make an additional note here in case some of you were still wondering.

As always, if you have any questions please feel free to email me or call.

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!

Fall Festival

I wanted to say that it was great to see a lot of you at the Fall Festival last night. I had tons of fun working the moonwalk! It was wonderful to see so many happy faces while we were raising money for the school! I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend, and I'll see y'all on Monday!

Fires, spiders, and other things :)

This week, we finished up studying fire safety. We'd colored our firemen last week but had run out of time. We read Firefighters on Raz-Kids as a class and then discussed all the things firefighters do for us. The students created their own tree maps for firefighters. They used the tree maps to write sentences about their firemen. This was the first time that the students were responsible for their very own words in their tree maps. I was so impressed by how well they listened and could follow directions for writing their sentences! They really did a wonderful job.

We also created Thinking Maps for fall. We discussed our schema (yay we remembered the word!) and I asked them to do a Circle Map, or a Tree Map if they wanted to challenge themselves. They really turned out great! These kiddos really understand Thinking Maps, and they seem to enjoy them. We are understanding that they help us to organize our thinking so that we can better understand these topics.

We also talked about spiders this week. With Halloween around the corner, it's always fun to incorporate a little bit of scary things into our schedule. :) We read Itsy Bitsy Spider one day and talked about our sequencing words to retell the story. The kids were very excited to learn all the new verses in the song. We made connections to the character by having a discussion of what we would do if we were the spider. Would we keep trying hard to climb up things or would we just go home and take a nap? :) We got some pretty funny answers.

We also researched spiders on PebbleGo and used the information we learned to create a Tree Map as a class. I made a SmartExchange tree map so that the kids could actually manipulate the words themselves. We used our Airliner to move the words on the screen. It was the first time that I've let the kiddos use this form of technology, and I was SO proud of how well they did. They truly listened to the rules and were very gentle with everything. Basically, the Airliner is connected to the computer wirelessly so it can be used like a remote pad to control the computer. The kids can hold it anywhere in the room to manipulate the mouse on the computer. It's very fun, very hands-on, and very tech-savvy! :) Then I had the kids make their own tree maps and write sentences about spiders. It was a great activity full of learning and hard work!

We also made scarecrows for long a week. Then we wrote stories about what we would do if we were scarecrows. The kids had a fun time coming up with creative things that they would do if they were scarecrows. I was also proud of how they colored really well. We did a whole lesson on tracing and coloring in the lines, so I'm seeing hard workers doing their best!

After the kids did such a great job with the Airliner, I wanted to incorporate it more throughout the day. In math groups one day, we worked on subtraction stories and identifying numbers on a ten-frame. What a fun way to integrate technology throughout our day!

We created sun dioramas and researched the sun on PebbleGo as well. We used our information to help us study light and heat for our science lessons. I'm glad that the kids love PebbleGo so much. It really is a wonderful resource. The first grade teachers actually wrote a grant last year so that we could purchase it for our school because we love it so much! :)

To finish off our week, we read There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. No matter how many times anyone has read this book, it's always a riot. To practice retelling the story, we made an old lady puppet using a paper sack, and we colored our different animals to "feed" her. We found the song online so of course we had to have a couple sing-alongs. We then made a Double-Bubble Thinking Map to compare TWAOLWSAF to There Was An Old Monster that we'd read during monster week. The kids did another wonderful job, of course!

We also got another extra recess on Friday! Our class won the sticker competition for the week again. I was so proud of them, so we got to enjoy the beautiful weather. :)

Red Ribbon Week

Just wanted to remind everyone that next week will be Red Ribbon Week. We're going to celebrate being drug free all week by dressing up each day, from October 22 - October 26.

Monday - Blackout Drugs!  Wear all black from head to toe.

Tuesday - Team Up!  Wear your favorite sports team apparel.

Wednesday - Join the fight against drugs!  Wear camouflage.

Thursday - Put drugs to rest!  Wear your favorite pajamas. (Please remember to wear tennis shoes for recess. No gowns, short shorts, or spaghetti straps, please!)

Friday - Drugs are unBEARable!  Bring your favorite teddy bear.

Also, don't forget that we are bringing cans for the food drive because we CAN be drug free. Your canned goods will benefit families in the JSES community.

Thanks for everything! :)

Monsters continued

It's Monster Week, Pt. 2!

Monday we did a fabulous lesson that I saw on a blog that I follow and love. It is a great introductory lesson that involves schema and building connections. As we talked about our schema for monsters, I added squiggles of our "magic brain waves." We talked about dendrites, and I even showed the kiddos pictures of our brains hard at work. They loved it! After we discussed our schema, we turned off the lights and behold - our brains had been activated! We'll be adding to our schema all week long. I can't wait to do this activity before starting our others units all year.

To talk about Columbus Day, we also watched a really neat BrainPop video and sequenced the events of his exploration. I was glad to know that the kids already knew a lot about him! We even practiced our map skills to talk about his journey. We've been listening and learning because the kids remembered all about our cardinal directions!

Tuesday we continued adding to our monster schema. We used a new color so we could tell our new information. I was excited to know that everyone couldn't wait to turn off the lights and see how we had activated our schema! :) We then read There's a Nightmare in my Closet and made connections to the story by thinking up our own nightmares. We talked about adjectives and verbs to go along with our nightmares.

In Computer Lab this week, we created Kidspiration projects. We made webs of ourselves. The kids had a fun time using the program, and I was glad to see them all hard at work!

Wednesday we read There's An Alligator Under My Bed and created a Flow Map to make our own stories. The kiddos brainstormed what might be under their beds and what they'd do to get those critters out of their houses. I was excited to see how creative they were being with their ideas. We've been working hard on using capitals and periods, too!

Thursday we had Early Dismissal, so we had a short and sweet day. We researched Christopher Columbus on PebbleGo, as it was his birthday. The kids wrote their facts down on a "sail" then we created our own versions of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria. They loved it!

Friday we wrapped up our projects for the critter under our beds. The students wrote their final drafts and then created their beds. We used our watercolors, and they loved it! They really tried their hardest to listen during our painting lesson, and it showed when it came time for them to do their own projects. They turned out so beautifully!

Our student observer did another science lesson with the kiddos, teaching them about light. They were attentive and respectful, so I was a very proud teacher! :)

We learned all about fire safety this week. The kids learned about Smokey the bear. We were very excited to learn that he was a real bear cub! We talked about nonfiction and fiction genres while we learned about the bear's story.

We also created matchbooks with fire safety rules inside. It was interesting to see who had heard of matches before and who hadn't. Sometimes I forget how little our firsties know. It's another reason why I LOVE first grade! We get to learn so much about the world together, and it's very exciting to see those lightbulbs go off each day.

We also did monster math this week to practice addition. The kids rolled dice, added the numbers, and used those numbers to create monsters. They had so much fun and learned a lot!

Looking forward to another fabulous week! Please remember to send back your field trip permission slips if you haven't already! :)