Q-Tip Paintings

Today we finished up our mini unit on the season fall.

We began our day by reading There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves. I just LOVE this series of books. They have one for just about everything. The kids love them because they pick up on the patterned text quickly and enjoy reading aloud with me.

After the story we worked on our retelling skills. Each student folded a piece of paper into fourths and used the front and back to number the boxes from 1-8. In each box they were asked to write a sentence telling what the old lady swallowed and draw a mini picture. We focused on our sequencing words and they had to use first, next, then, and last.

As students finished up their retelling they got to begin working on a fun fall tree painting. I found this idea on Pinterest, but the original idea came from La Classe Della Maestra Valentina.

First students used a circle tracer to lightly trace the outline of the top of the tree. Then they had to use crayon or marker to draw the trunk, a few stems, and the grass below the tree. When that was completed they used q-tips and tempra paint to add dots to the tree as fall leaves. Some decided to have some leaves falling down as well. Everyone had a lot of fun with this!  I was cracking up at their comments about the q-tips. "Ms. McCormack! These are for ears, not for painting!" "Ms. McCormack, have these q-tips been used before?!?" hahaha

 Next week is going to be a super exciting week in first grade! Stay tuned!

Turkey Art

Oops! I just logged in to post about what we have been doing this week when I realized that I never posted pictures from our turkey paintings last week!

Last Tuesday, we ended our short week with a fun turkey project. Using one of our Draw, Write, Now books, we had a class directed drawing of a turkey. After the design was sketched, the students traced in black crayon and used their watercolors to give it color. I love how each student was able to add their own details or personality to make it their own even though they all followed the same steps.

Thankful

We started off our short week this week, learning about the Pilgrim's journey to America on the Mayflower. We read about the voyage and each part of the ship online, then made these cute Mayflower's to write some facts we learned. Each student was required to write 2 or 3 new pieces of information they learned from our reading.

After we completed our Mayflowers we put together this cute turkey craft:

Awhile back we made coffee filter monsters by making a tie-dye coffee filter and pressing the color onto paper. I saved the coffee filter, knowing we could make something cute and colorful out of it later. Those ended up being perfect for our Turkey tailfeathers! So cute!

Finally, we finished up our secret project we worked on all last week: Thanksgiving placemats for our families! We had a mini lesson on how to draw people correctly, then students were asked to draw their family in the center of the placemat. They turned out amazingly great! I just love seeing all the different families portrayed by each student. Here are a few examples (ignore the flash. I had these laminated so they could be used as a placemat):

And, as promised, here are a few pictures of our Quilt of Thanks from last week!

We had so much to be thankful for! I for one am thankful for this wonderful group of students who work hard every day and try their best. Their sweet personalities bring a smile to my face every single day. I hope everyone has a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving holiday filled with family and friends. :)

Pumpkin Day!

Yesterday was Pumpkin Day in first grade! I absolutely LOVE pumpkin day; it's so much fun for the kids every year!

This year we started off our morning by carving our big class pumpkin. We sat in a giant circle on the carpet and the kids helped me figure out the order of steps I would need to take to carve it. It was obvious quite of a few of them had some schema on this subject, because they knew exactly what to do. We took off the top, checked out the goop inside, cleaned out the pumpkin, carved a face, and then lit it up using battery powered tea candles.

After we had gone through the steps to carve the pumpkin, I challenged students to use a flow map to record the steps we took. I encouraged them to use the words first, next, then, and last to help them describe the order.

Once students had a completed flow map, I gave them a piece of handwriting paper to transfer their work. Thus they created a how to paragraph on carving a pumpkin.

To finish things off students used their watercolors to paint a pumpkin. Their paintings turned out fabulous! I love any day at school that we get to paint. Everyone works so hard and their work turns out amazing every time.

Once the paintings were dry we put all the pieces together. Here is an example of the finished product:

When the students went to Ms. Coburn's class in the afternoon they got to use their own mini pumpkins to do a variety of pumpkin day activities such as a sink or float experiment, measuring, and comparing. What a fun day in first grade!

Coffee Filter Art - Monsters!

We finished off our monster unit on Friday with a bang.

After reading Jeremy Draws a Monster on Thursday, we read Go to Bed Monster on Friday. These two books are very similar, so after reading we reviewed the story from the day before and talked about things that were the same and different by looking at the different story elements. Then the students created their own double bubble comparing the two stories. They did great!

Since it was "Fun Friday" and the end of our monster unit, I found this super fun monster art activity from Housing a Forest. To make these monsters, the students were each given a coffee filter and asked to color the entire thing, in any pattern they wanted, using marker. After it was colored, we sprayed it down with water and pressed it between two pieces of paper. When we peeled back the coffee filter what was left on the paper was the basis for our monster. I have made coffee filter art before, but never like this. I love the way the colors transfered to the paper and the great texture it left. I think it looks even better than the tie dyed coffee filter! The kids were amazed at the color transfer. I just love teaching them new simple ways to create art.  They cut the print out and used white and black paper to add the finishing details. Look how cute they are!

Here are a few up close so you can see the awesome texture left by the color transfer:

What a fun way to end our week!

Monster Art

Yesterday we started a fun monster project. We read the book Where the Wild Things Are (such a classic; I remember my mom reading it to me when I was a kid), and then made connections to the story by creating our own unique "wild thing" ... otherwise known as a monster.

First the kids all had to sketch their wild thing using pencil. After they finished with pencil they used a black crayon to trace over each line then they used watercolor paints to color it in. They turned out FABULOUSLY! AND, this is the first time I have let a class paint and no one spilled any water anywhere. yay! The kids loved being able to paint. They were all so engaged and relaxed while doing it; the room has never been so quiet! haha

I seriously loved every single one of these, so here is just a preview of the great work they did (you'll notice some of the students gave their monsters names; those are not the name of the child that created it):

Today we used these monsters for a great thinking maps activity.  We started out making a tree map to describe our monsters. The students made branches for things their monster can do, has, and is. We looked at our paintings and came up with a list of things that could fit under each branch. I created the master list on the board and students were asked to choose 2 things I wrote for each branch and copy them on their own paper. We talked about how to choose something that is true of your monster, not just anything you see written.

After creating our tree map, we used it to create sentences. This is a great activity to help the students learn how to write a complete sentence. And, it's so easy because once the tree map is done, all the work is done for you and all the words are already spelled out for you.  I taught the kids how to read down the tree map to compose sentences. I was actually very impressed by how quickly they picked up on the concept. They were even able to start using the pronoun for their monster (either he or she) in their sentences.  I'm so proud of all their hard work. It took awhile, but these really turned out great. here are a couple so you can see what the writing looks like:

We will definitely be doing more painting in our class this year. The kids handled it so well and it was fun for everyone. Plus, we got some great practice writing out of it. win win!