Spring is Here!

Spring is definitely here in our classroom! We started off our spring activities with learning about the life cycle of a frog. This was also our science night project. We have been observing our frog and our tadpole and watching for changes. The kids are writing down their observations in journals and are really looking forward to seeing the tadpole change into a frog!  They have named our friends Anna and Olaf and love helping with the feeding and cleaning. 

We have also finished our life cycle projects.  They have been learning to label different stages of the frog life cycle, and then made a frog craft to display their life cycles.

 

With spring arriving, so does our Spring Book Fair.  Yesterday, our class got a visit from a very special book character....

 

...CLIFFORD!!  They all got to give high fives and hugs and got very excited about making a trip to the book fair.  Be sure to ask them about their special visitor!

We are now starting our unit on the rainforest and will soon be learning about the butterfly life cycle with real butterflies in our room! Keep checking back for more first grade updates!

 

Nevada Reading Week and St. Patricks Day

The first week of March was Nevada Reading Week. Our class got really excited about reading and the activities that were planned. Monday was door decorating day, and first grade had the theme of fairy tales. Our class chose the first American fairy tale, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  Each student got to write on a poppy flower if they were off to see the wizard, what would they ask for? We were able to buddy read with two 6th grade classes and read lyrics to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" for poem in my pocket day. We had Mr. Kressin and Mr. Sensibaugh as guest readers, who read books that had to do with their jobs. Friday was crazy hat day, and we all made hats that showed what our favorite book is. We really had a great week and got pumped up about reading!

After Reading Week we started our St. Patricks Day writing project.  We talked about things that are important to us, and things that are worth more to us that gold or money.  We read "That's What Leprechauns Do" and decided that to a leprechaun gold is worth a lot! When the students started brainstorming about what was important, we got many different ideas! Students wrote about everything from Martin Luther King, to books, to family.  I love the creativity that I saw!

Stay tuned for our next project...tadpoles, frogs and Science Night!

1st Grade Olympics!

In February we started an Olympic unit where the students were divided into four countries and competed as a team to earn "medals" in teamwork and participation. Our classes countries were Ukraine, Australia, South Korea, and Canada. The kids made their country's flag and kept track of the actual Olympic medal count for their country.  On a few special days we got together with the other first grade classes and their countries to do games and relays. At the end of our unit each country earned a teamwork medal and had lots of fun doing it!

 

Valentine's Day and President's Day!

In getting ready for Valentine's Day we wrote acrostic poems. The kids had to think about someone in their family that they love and write descriptive words starting with L, O, V, and E.  then they made Love bugs to showcase their work! On Valentine's Day we also decorated bags, worked in teams to do valentines puzzles, and passed out cards.

 

After Valentine's Day we learned about presidents and Washington D.C.  We saw pictures of famous landmarks in Washington D.C. and made mini books about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  For our writing project, we wrote about what we would do and what we would be like if we were President of the United States.  After the writing was done, students got to put their pictures on 5 dollar bills just like Abraham Lincoln. 

Stay tuned for Dental Month activities, First Grade Olympics and St. Patrick's Day!

The month of February has been busy! We started the month off learning about Chinese New Year. This year was the Year of the Horse. The kids made Chinese dragons and Chinese lanterns!

  

Next we had the 100th day of school! We had a whole day of activities based around the number 100. We worked as teams, made 100s necklaces out of fruit loops, decorated flags that say "I'm 100 days smarter", and everyone contributed 100 of something to our 100th day trail mix snack!

 

Finally, our writing project the first two weeks of February was about sequence. Students had to write the directions for how to make a peanut butter sandwich. They had to make sure they included everything, because we then combined with Mrs. Whitaker's class to follow the directions and actually make the sandwiches. 

 

New Years Resolutions

We have been working on writing our new years resolutions for 2014.  It seems that many of the kids resolve to help mom cook this year! That's fantastic! 

Welcome to 2nd Semester!

I would like to use this blog as a way to keep families updated on the different things we are doing in first grade! We have so many great projects and activities planned and can't wait to share them with you!

Here is a recap of some of the things we did during 1st semester:

In November we wrote about what we were thankful for. We also practiced persuasive writing using the book The Pigeon Wants a Hot Dog.  Everyone was able to pretend they were a turkey and gave three good reasons why you should eat hot dogs at Thanksgiving.  We had some very creative responses!

In December we studied Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Christmas.  This is a project we did during our week of studying Christmas.

After winter break, we moved on to snow, snowflakes and polar animals.  This was a Friday activity where students were split into groups to create a snow structure (made out of marshmallows.)  This was based off of Zoomer's Summer Snowstorm.  We combined with Mrs. Whitaker's class, and saw a lot of team work as everyone had to make one group structure.

Our writing project for the beginning of January was "Help! I'm stuck in a snow globe!" Students used lots of adjectives to describe what they might see around them if they were stuck inside a snow globe.

Last Friday, we talked about camouflage and why polar bears might be white. Everyone started with a white polar bear glued to white paper showing camouflage in the arctic. Then we painted over it and took off the polar bear cut out. This shows us how a polar bear would not be camouflaged if it lived in the jungle.


Stay tuned for more updates as the semester goes on!