I'm starting a new phase of homework- weekly poems and comprehension questions. I know this strategy isn't new, but it is new to my students. They were expected to practice the poem each night and complete comprehension and vocabulary questions. The culminating activity would be each team reciting the poem at our new Family Area. (I have to take pictures of the new room arrangement! It's awesome!)
We are using the Fluency First series the school bought years ago. Thank goodness we don't throw anything away! Here is the poem from this week:
The best part was having everyone find the beat and read along. Here is everyone as a group.
Then teams had a chance to show off one at a time. You'll notice my class is a little smaller than usual- it was a half day yesterday.
As it turns out, we in General Delk's Army are just as smart as our 5th graders! Well, maybe we can't name the parts of an animal or plant cell, or talk in-depth about DNA and genetics, or even multiply... but we can recognize some figurative language in different texts!
Similes, Personification, and Onomatopoeia, oh my! My students loved looking at it, and I loved seeing what our 5th graders came up with. Then this appeared:
Ms. Waddell's Figurative Language Turkey! It was like a sign! The cosmos wanted my students to learn how to enhance their writing skills!
So, when Ms. Leahy found the poem for this week, and it had 3 different examples of figurative language, it was like manna from Heaven to my language-hungry soldiers!
Seasonally appropriate, good length, easy to read rhyme scheme, and a cute picture to color. Yes, this is the perfect poem. As you can see, we have already found the compound words and sliced them and found the winter words and underlined them.
Next, it was time to find the figurative language; simile, onomatopoeia, and personification.
Simile- to compare two things using like or as. (Example- She was as beautiful as a rose. The baby's smile was like a ray of sunshine.)
Onomatopoeia- Sound words. We have studies this skill, you can check it our {HERE}. (Example- Bang! Crash!)
Personification- giving an object the ability to do things like a person. (Example- The leaves skipped down the road.)
The first paragraph uses a simile when it compares a car covered in snow to a cupcake covered in icing. The second paragraph uses onomatopoeia with the word 'scrunch' to describe the hound of the horse hooves. The last paragraph uses personification when it says that snow tickled people's faces.
When I pointed out that this poem was teaching 5th grade material to my first grade soldiers, you would have thought Christmas had come early. My soldiers were so excited to be learning 5th grade material! Of course, this breakthrough in higher education calls for... a CHART!
But, unfortunately, I used the last of our chart paper today when we made our A Chattanooga Christmas chart.
We made it to go along with our Christmas Around the World power point from yesterday. We talked about other countries' traditions, and I wanted my students to be able to share their traditions too! We had a great time doing it, but it did take the last of our chart paper. Never fear, I'll go on a search of the school tomorrow. We will have a figurative language chart, if it's the last thing we do! (which it won't be. There is lots more learning to do.)
I have to admit, I was expecting my students to come to school tired and crazy from their trick-or-treating last night. I warned them yesterday that if they brought candy to school it would get taken up, and if it was chocolate, it would get eaten. (by me!) However, everyone came in ready to learn and no one brought candy- or if they did, it stayed hidden.
One thing my students did bring with them... runny noses. * If you are a parent reading this- we need kleenex! Tissues, hand sanitizer and baby wipes would be great!
Good news on the Math front- today went much better than yesterday! I made sure each student had a copy of the 10 frames to use. So far, most have mastered the sequence of steps to finding the answers, but not necessarily the concept. I keep reminding myself- one thing at a time. I've now seen some of my students that struggled the most find a math strategy that works for them. Right now, that's all I ask for- my students working math in a way that makes sense to them.
I posted a mini math lesson yesterday on what we worked on today. You can watch it HERE.
During our whole group reading time, Mrs. Overton was back, only this time she got to be herself! First grade has studied animals, habitats, and landforms so far this year in science. Mrs. O loves visiting the beach and the ocean, and she had some equipment to show and share with the class! Here is a video from today of Mrs. O sharing her experience with snorkeling, and also sharing a book on starfish that she found just for grades K-2!
I didn't film the questions after the story, but here are some things we learned about starfish: 1. Starfish are in the shape of stars- with 5 arms 2. Starfish have eyes on the ends of their arms! 3. Starfish breathe using gills that are on their arms 4. Starfish have suction cups on their arms that help them stick to a place, and help them move 5. Starfish love to eat clams 6. Starfish can't see color, they see things as being dark or light.
Thank you, Mrs. O for combining reading and science for us today!
Our poems for this week- all on Halloween! I found these poems myself using Google. I typed in Halloween poems for kids.
A poem about scary things knocking on your door. My students informed me that the witch and monster were not real, they were just trick-or-treaters going around asking for candy. I told them that made me feel better. I don't like being scared!
We were about to start these, when Ms. Leahy came in to tell me that Mrs. O was ready to read to us. We'll get to them tomorrow!
The class read-aloud for today was:
Such a cute story, and it goes with our Halloween frame of mind! It's about a hen who walks through the farm at night and everything looks scary! My students pointed out that not everything that Hilda thought she saw was really what it was. For example- Hilda thought she saw a snake, but it was the water hose.
Unfortunately, we didn't have time for a wonderful chart. In the middle of the story I got a call from my child's Pre-K teacher who informed me that my child had a pink, oozing eye. Gross. So, I had to split my class so I could pick him up early. ( It was at the end of the day. We had about 20 min left of school, but I had to get out before pick-up traffic blocked me in)
Here's hoping he can go back to school tomorrow! I hate having to call in a substitute!
Since I was running out of the building, I didn't snap a picture of our brain. As long as I'm at school tomorrow, we'll have one then!
Today I was blessed enough to be in another Professional Development. If you haven't already noticed, we have those a lot here. Today's was Math centered, just like the previous one.
My soldiers were blessed enough to have a wonderful substitute teacher, Mrs. Hughes.
Mrs. Hughes is our Literacy Coach here at Clifton Hills. She is a wonderful resource for the teachers! I am constantly picking her brain for more ideas for the classroom. :)
The good news- Mrs. Hughes LOVED the class and the students were very well behaved! In fact, they got so interested in their Poem for this week, Flutter, Flutter Little Bat, that Mrs. Hughes plugged her computer into the Promethean Board and they researched bats as a class!
As you can see, they read the poem and found the rhyming words.
The bad news- no Daily Brain at the end of this post. I can promise you, the students went home with a full brain!
In math, the lesson was on Doubles Facts. My students already work with doubles facts when they do their Counting By 2's Cha-Cha. Students learned the definition of double- having two of the same thing. When counting with doubles, the main thing to remember is that you are adding the number to itself!
For reading, Mrs. Hughes reviewed a story from our book. It's a story called Seasons and it tells about things that happen and animals you would find in different seasons. After reading with the class, she had the kids help her fill out a fabulous chart. (Mrs. Hughes loves charts too!)
After making the chart, students were to pick their favorite season and write at least 3 sentences telling why that season was their favorite. (and once again, my students impressed Mrs. Hughes with their writing abilities!)
Here are some samples of their wonderful work:
I am going to post the chart and the students' writings outside our classroom. Come by and check us out!
So, all in all, this was a great day! Everyone went home happy!
**REMINDER** Today is my long day for Parent/ Teacher conferences. I am typing this post from school! I will be available tonight until 6pm, and tomorrow until 4:30. Friday is a half day and I will stay in the building until 3:30. Report cards are given out during the conference!
Today was the last day of this week. NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS TOMORROW!
Tomorrow is a Professional Development/ Records day for teachers. I'll let you know how professionally developed I become.
My students love music. I've noticed that the majority of my class has a musical intelligence. (they learn better through music and rhythms.) But it's not just music itself, but Music class with Ms. Harris that they enjoy. They have been working on high and low notes, and today they did an activity working with beats and rhythms.
I don't know if you can tell, but they are passing around a bean bag to the beat of the song. They had a good time seeing who was going in the stew-pot, and they learned beats!
Reading today was A Surprise for Zig Bug. Our words for this week were in the short 'u' family, with a review of other short vowels.
The words for the week are on my board so students can refer to them in their writing, and use them when they are working in literacy centers. I also have vocabulary words from the poems we use for the week.
After reading our fiction piece, we read the nonfiction piece about insects.
We reviewed by listing what we learned about insects. The kids were fascinated to learn that insects use their antennae to feel and smell, and some use their feet to taste! Imagine having a nose at the top of your head, or a tongue on your feet! You'd look like a Picasso!
Our poem we used this week was found by Ms. Leahy, and is titled Lunch Box Surprise.
All of the yellow underlined words are sight words that we picked out, and the red boxed words are new vocabulary words that we put on our board.
One of our vocabulary words that we chose is mousse. The students had fun with this word because their prior knowledge of this words is with it's homonym- moose. They couldn't imagine eating a chocolate antlered quadruped.
I pulled out a box of chocolate pudding (yes, I had it in my classroom already. I'm not sure why.) and I told my class that the mousse to which the poem refers is like pudding- a think mixture that is fluffy and sweet.
At the end of the day, we celebrated the short week by making Magic Pudding with the 4 boxes of pudding I had, the containers I brought from home, and pints of milk from the cafeteria. I really wish I had thought to get their making pudding on camera! Every student got a turn shaking the containers saying, "Abracadabra! Make magic pudding!" Since the containers I brought ended up being a little too small and I had to reconfigure the amounts of the ingredients, things were not exactly pretty. My soldiers didn't complain! They ate their pudding and were happy!
Math was more recognizing numbers in a 10 frame. That wasn't the fun part of math. The fun part was when we finished our lesson and played Facts for Cash! That would be Cub Cash. 2 students go head-to-head in a battle of wits! They are given unifix cubes and a number story. The first student to figure out the answer and ring the bell wins Cub Cash! (Thank you, Ms. Leahy for sharing the idea!) The biggest winner of the day...
the smiling gentleman in the white shirt! The winners stayed at the front until they finally lost a round. This student won 10 rounds before someone beat him! The second place winner...
the brilliant lady in the blue jacket. The best part of the game? No one in my class got a bad attitude about not winning. I am so proud of my soldiers for not getting upset! We cheered for everyone!
I did not intend it to be backward day today. I fully intended on having a perfectly normal Monday, full of excitement over what the new week would bring. And we still did, it was just a little topsy-turvey.
Today we did math... FIRST! That's right! We didn't wait until after lunch and recess, that's how we started our day! (Well, after computer with Mrs. Webb) Exciting! I didn't realize we were going to be doing this until this morning. We had a special guest in the building, and he asked to see some rockin' math lessons. And Mr. Evans, knowing exactly where to look for a rockin' math lesson, asked first grade to do math first thing in the morning.
I gotta say, I liked the change. I wouldn't mind it becoming permanent. The kids' brains were so awake and fresh! That's a good thing because we just started a new unit and it's a doozie. Today, we began ALGEBRA.
Now, don't freak out. Of course I didn't tell the kids that it was Algebra. The vocabulary term of today was "missing part". We worked on finding the "missing parts" of number sentences. This is the inside of the student booklet from the lesson.
The problems went like this: The students were given the whole number and were told one of the number parts. In a number sentence, it would look like this 5+ __=6. The students then had to use logic to figure out the missing number. In our case, the numbers were dog bones, and we had to create more bones to make the right amount.
I'll be honest. This lesson was clear as mud for most of my soldiers. Since this was the introduction lesson, I'm not too worried. We have plenty of time to work on this skill. I would suggest working on it at home too!
* Home Tip: Find some small objects (like beans, cotton balls, pennies, whatever you have around the house) and an empty cup- not a clear cup. Please, no more than 10 small objects. We're still working on knowing our 10s facts! Let your student count the objects so they know the total number. Then put some of the items in the cup, and ask him/ her to figure out how many items are on the table and in the cup! Make sure you change the total number from time to time- don't always have it be 10.
Here's my example from my home. I used cherry tomatoes since my husband's garden is overrun with them!
Let your student count how many objects there are in all. There are 6 tomatoes in all, that is my whole number.
Cover some of the objects and see if your student can figure out how many are hidden.
Hmmm, if I know that there are 6 total, and 3 are showing... and I know that 3 is half of 6, then I know that 3+3=6! There are 3 hidden tomatoes!
I know it looks easy, but the kids had a little trouble wrapping their minds around it. Don't worry, we'll keep working on it! If you have another way to work on this skill, I would love to know it! Feel free to leave a comment on here, or in your child's folder!
The math lesson took our entire morning, the kids were surprised when I said it was time to line up for bathroom and lunch!
When we got back in from recess it was time for Reading. We posted our high-frequency and vocabulary words for this week that follow the story. We are working on short 'i' words, and a small review of short 'a' words.
Our story is The Big Hit. It's about pigs playing tennis. It's just as fascinating as you think it is. I'm feeling another edition of Wonder Red's Word Families coming to add little spice to the lesson.
We changed up the centers for the week. I only got pictures of one team's work. Good job Team 4!
Their job was to put the story back together in the right order. Then they wrote the story and illustrated it.
I have a confession. I went a little crazy with the poems this week. I found 2 that went along with science, and Ms. Leahy wrote one to go with our reading. (it might have come from our Reading series, but I'll give her the credit!)
Check out the video I found! It's a little different version, but it's still fun! I consider it to be in the science category since it's talking about animals in their natural habitats.
The other science poem is titled Habitats.
We separated the poem into different animal habitats.
And, last but not least, the Pig poem was written by Ms. Leahy.
What wonderful vocabulary words! Playful, plump, pudgy, loyal... are you feeling an adjective lesson coming on? I'm thinking maybe Wednesday or Thursday.
Another point was brought up with this poem: Why wouldn't a pig care for barbecue? We had fun talking about that one. :)
Our Daily Brain
p.s. PARENT NIGHT IS TOMORROW!! It starts at 5pm. All family members are welcome! If you would like a conference with me, we can set one up tomorrow night.
p.p.s I will not be in the classroom tomorrow. In fact, none of my soldiers will be in the classroom. I have a math Professional Development tomorrow and my class will be split between the other 5 first grade classes. (unless a miracle happens and I get sent a sub!)
Unfortunately, I was not at school today. I was at home with my twins because they have strep-throat. I was not a happy teacher or mommy today.
I am hoping that the students had a good day today, but I won't know until tomorrow. I'll keep you posted!
Just for fun, check out the 5 Green and Speckled Frogs song I found on Youtube!
Today I forgot my regular camera at home. I feel terrible! I did have the video camera at school, so we did get video of our reading our "Apples, Apples" poem.
I reminded the kids that, even though they might not recognize all the words, they recognize the symbols that we used. Here we go!
You might be wondering what I'm wearing in the video. That would be a kimono. The school had its first school-wide Cub Cash event today: a Teacher Fashion Show! To celebrate, I wore the fanciest thing I own, my kimono. I wore that thing all day. I was looking good! It wasn't until later I was told it was a "What Not to Wear" fashion show. Oh well. :)
In math we worked on making number sentences. A number sentence is just an equation. We worked on making addition number sentences.
For example: Joe has 7 red apples and 3 green apples. How many apples does Joe have?
We learned how to take the numbers out of the story problem (7, 3) and find the clue words (in all) and create a number sentence. We know that the words in all mean that we are counting them all together, so we are adding! First we counted the first group and wrote down the number, then counted the other group and wrote it down. Then we counted them all together and found our answer!Our number sentence is 7+3=10. Easy cheesy!!
Since I couldn't take pictures to show what else we did, I will just tell you....
1. Individualized spelling tests. Each student has his/her own spelling words, they came from a list of high frequency words. I tested my students at the beginning of the year, and the words they missed are the words they started with. It takes a little extra time to test each student, but I think it's worth it. The student stays with the word until he/ she can master the word. Practice makes perfect! So, if you notice that your child brings home the same spelling word 2 weeks in a row, that shows that the student needs to work on it a little more.
2. Punctuation practice. We practiced making complete sentences with proper punctuation. My soldiers are masters at showing the correct punctuation! They especially like making the "Command" period at the end of sentences.
They like punching their palms to show that it is a "hard period".
3. Math Quiz. We took a quick math quiz over number sentences, the kids agreed it was pretty easy!
Unfortunately, we did not get to science because it was during our Teacher Fashion Show. But don't worry! We'll keep working on our lapbooks next week.
No Daily Brain today, but I promise our brains were full when we left!
