Nonfiction Unit

This week we are starting a unit on nonfiction and research.  To get things started we created a circle map as a class containing the different things we knew about nonfiction texts. After we had exhausted all our knowledge, we read a nonfiction book called From Egg to Chicken. I told the class to pay close attention to any nonfiction text features they might notice as I read. After reading, we used a red marker to add some of our knew thinking about nonfiction texts. As you can see, our book gave us a lot of new information. We plan to read another nonfiction book tomorrow and hopefully can add even more new learning to our circle map.

Polar Bears in the Arctic

Last week we finished up a unit on penguins who live in the Antarctic, so this week we moved on to polar bears who live in the Arctic.

On Monday we read a nonfiction book about polar bears, and then did a little research about them on Pebblego.com. After reading, each student made a polar bear using construction paper, and wrote three facts they learned on it's body.  We learned a lot of interesting facts! For example, did you know a polar bear can swim up to 60 miles? Or that they build a snow den for the 2 babies they have at a time?

On Tuesday we learned a little bit more about the Arctic environment and the people who live there. We read the book Angela from the Arctic and then had  discussion about how her life is the same and different to ours. After the discussion, everyone made a double bubble comparing and contrasting their life to Angela's. We were surprised to learn that even though her daily life looks very different than ours, we have a lot of things in common with her as well. For example, we found we all love to eat pizza and watermelon!

On Wednesday we read Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear? This is a fun book because the kids pick up on the pattern pretty quickly and can help read along. After reading we brainstormed our own list of animals and the sounds they make. Each student completed a page for a class book by following the story pattern. They did such a nice job!

On Thursday we read a little more about life in the Arctic and the Inuit people. We had a discussion about their way of life and how it is very different than ours, but that doesn't make it bad, just different.  Each student put together an Inuit person and wrote 3 facts they learned on the body.

Friday we had a little fun and painted an arctic scene. We did this as a directed drawing, and as we drew each piece of the scene we reviewed what we had learned. Did you know it only takes two hours to build an igloo? Neither did we!

Back from Break

On Tuesday we were busy busy busy getting back into the swing of things. It was so great to see all the smiling faces  bouding into the classroom.

We spent a bit of time in the morning reviewing some of our rules and expectations in the classroom. After spending a few weeks away from school it never hurts to do a bit of review. We got right to work on our new reading unit. This week we are reading stories about the season winter. We started off with a classic: The Mitten by Jan Brett. Many of the kids in the class had heard the story before and wanted to help participate in the reading. After the story we practiced retelling as a class. Then each student set to work creating their own mitten and animals to use as puppets when telling this story. They should have brought those home already, so ask them to retell the story to you!

Our writing project involved writing something about our winter break. We put together this cute person in a snowsuit, and used the handwriting page to write a sentence or two about our break. They turned out really cute:

On Wednesday we read a different version of The Mitten. This one was written by Jim Aylesworth. As a class we created a double bubble to compare and contrast the two versions of the story. Everyone was really excited to see how the stories had the exact same idea but each author added their own creative touch to make the story their own.

Next we talked a little bit about New Year's resolutions. I was very impressed with how much they know about resoutions. One student told us it was "like making a promise to yourself to do something that year" and another chimed in "yeah, and the promise is to do something to make yourself a better person." I couldn't have said it better myself. We did some brainstorming about things we could resolve to do this year and then everyone wrote their own resolution. We finished off this lesson by creating these super cute party people!

On Thursday we did a visualizing activity using the book Owl Moon. I read the story aloud without showing the pictures, and as I read each student used a piece of blank paper to draw what they saw in their head. After reading, we looked at the pictures in the book to see how the illustrator interpreted the story, then we looked at some of our artwork to see how it was alike and different. We realized that while everyone had a lot of the same ideas, no two pictures were exactly the same.

For writing, we made a flip book for the new year. Under each flap students had to write finish each of the following statements:
- Last year I learned....
- This year I want to learn ....
- My favorite part of last year was ...
- This year I hope to ...

 This one made my heart smile! "This year I hope to... stay with my teacher". So sweet! :)

Yesterday we finished off the unit reading Snowmen at Night. We made connections to the story by writing about what we would do if we were snowmen at night. After they completed the writing portion of this project, we made these cute snowmen using tiny pieces of cut paper. I love how they turned out!

Creative Gingerbread

Last week we wrapped up our week long unit on The Gingerbread Man. Each day we talked about the different elements of the version of the story read and recorded them on our big Gingerbread House. After working on this as a class a few times, I gave the kids this recording sheet and it was their job to record each part of the story we had been talking about. They did a great job!

On Friday we finished off the week making our own creative Gingerbread Man (or Girl!).  First students had to design their own creative version of the gingerbread man, then we used a tree map to construct 3 sentences about our creations:

I am impressed with how easily this group has picked up on the concept of the tree map and how to use it to create sentences. This is not something we have had much practice with this year and everyone did a wonderful job with it!

Apples!

Sorry I've been MIA from the blog the past week. Wednesday I left straight from school to head to the airport for the Reading Recovery conference in Dallas and it's taken me a few days to get back into the swing of things. Here is a quick catch up of what we have been working on:

On Wednesday we used Pebblego.com to do some research on apples. We learned about the different parts of the apple and made these cute apples with labels to show each part:

On Thursday the students read Apples by Gail Gibbons with the substitute. After reading they had to make a flow map showing the stages of an apple tree, then they made an apple using construction paper and recorded 3 facts they learned from the book.

On Friday they read some more nonfiction books about apples, practiced retelling facts, then made these cute tear art apples:

When I got back on Monday I found a great report left by the sub! I'm so proud of everyone for working so hard and showing the sub such respect. :)

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!

Pumpkin Brace Map

Today we started our week long unit on pumpkins. We started out the week reading a nonfiction book about the life cycle of a pumpkin. The book was a simple text that described the different parts of a pumpkin as it goes through it's life cycle. I used this opportunity to introduce the students to the brace map. A brace map is a thinking map that is used to show parts of a whole. We made these cute parts of a pumpkin brace maps using construction paper to demonstrate our learning.

Just a quick reminder that tomorrow is the last day to send in the tiny pumpkin to be used for Pumpkin Day. If your child has not already brought their pumpkin to school please make sure they have it tomorrow. The pumpkin must be a handheld size as in the image below. Thanks!

Sleeping Bag Campers

All last week we had been reading fiction stories about camping to build up our schema on the topic. As a fun activity to tie all our learning together and show me what the students have added to their schema over the course of the week we did a writing project about camping on Friday.

We started off our activity with a thinking map. We used a flow map to write about what we would do first, next, then, and last if we went camping. This was our first time being introduced to the flow map for writing and everyone did great!

Then, we created these cute little campers in sleeping bags and used them to write our final sentences about what we would do if we went camping.

I think the finished products turned out super cute!

This week we are continuing our camping theme, but moving into our nonfiction unit. We'll spend some time comparing fiction and nonfiction texts as well as researching some of the different animals you might find while out camping. Should be a fun week!

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!