Mrs. Bumgardner's 1st Grade Class

Winter Writing Projects

2012-01-21T07:44:00.001-08:00

Since returning from Christmas break we have done LOTS of writing activities. The first one focused on recalling details from several versions of the popular Ukrainian folktale The Mitten.

Each day we read a slightly different version of the story and wrote about the characters, setting, problem and resolution. This helped us compare how the stories were the same and how they were different. We also worked on writing complete sentences by telling about an event that happened at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of each story.

I had been hoping for a little snow to inspire the next few writing projects . . . but instead we just had to recall some of our past experiences. Luckily we live in Kansas and we’ve all had the chance to go outside and play in the snow. This being said, we read The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats earlier this week and made a cute little art project that was inspired by the main character. Then we all wrote about our own snowy day adventures.

This week we also did our very first technical writing activity. We all made a “How To” book on Thursday. Students seem to do their best writing when they can relate to the subject and can draw on their own experiences. So, building a snowman was the perfect topic. We began by reading The Biggest, Best Snowman by Margery Cuyler. In the story the main character, Little Nell, learned that even though she is little she can do BIG things . . . like build a snowman.

Next we worked together as a class to create a word bank on the Promethean board. This is often helpful for beginning writers. We left it up so they could refer to it as needed.

Then students got to work in their books sequencing the four pictures and writing. I encouraged all of them to add details and descriptive words to make their writing more interesting to the reader.

As students finished they got to decorate the front of their books with this cute little snowman art project. I’ve kept the books at school to share with you at conferences. It’s been so exciting to see how much improvement everyone is making with their writing skills.

Ringing in the New Year

2012-01-06T17:22:00.001-08:00

It was so great to see so many smiling faces on Wednesday when everyone returned to school. After a nice {long} break the kids seemed happy to see all their friends and tell each other about their Christmas gifts.

This month our Maize Way character trait is

We rang in the new year by learning what it means to have self-discipline and the importance of making goals or resolutions. To help with this we read Squirrels New Year’s Resolution by Pat Miller. This story taught us that a resolution is “a promise you make to yourself to be better or help others”. As a class we brainstormed a BIG list of resolutions . . . then everyone got to choose one or two of their own and write about them. Then we made these cute little phone art projects to Ring in the New Year and our resolutions are stapled under the numbers.

{craftivity inspired by A Cupcake for the Teacher}

Our Native American Unit

2011-11-19T06:10:00.001-08:00

This past week we have been learning about Native American culture in 1st grade. We have read several legends and done some fun art and writing activities to go along with them.

We read Arrow to the Sun which is a Pueblo tale about a Native American boy who is trying to find his father. He has to face his fears by going through four kivas (the kiva of lightning, snakes, bees and lions) before he and his father are reunited. After we finished reading the story we made a class book. Everyone wrote about something they are afraid of.

We read Whale In the Sky which is a tale from the Northwest American Indians about totem poles. Then we made our own totem poles by putting animals in ABC order and writing a tale of our own in our journal to go along with the totem pole we built.

We read The Legend of Bluebonnet which is about a Native American girl who sacrifices her most prized possession to end her tribe’s suffering. A few of us even shed a few tears while we were reading the story. Then we made a class book by writing about what our most prized possession is and why.

Here are a few of our writing samples from the class book . . .

We read The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush which is about an Indian boy named Little Gopher who is smaller than all of the other children in his tribe and not able to ride horses, run and shoot bows and arrows with them. He finds out that he has a special talent when a Dream-Vision comes to him and we spends most of his life trying to paint a picture as pure as the night sky. After we read the story we decorated a bag to resemble Native American pottery and filled it with paintbrushes.

On Friday we worked hard ALL afternoon finishing up our unit by making our own book about Native Americans. All around the room were centers that had an art project and a sentence to write. We rotated around the room and somehow finished in record time . . . I think we are all still trying to earn those feathers for our headbands.

Here’s a {sneak} peek at what our finished product looked like . . .

We finished up right at the end of the day by making Native American boy & girl art project to go on the cover.

We also did some Thanksgiving {Pilgrim & Indian} Centers this week . . .

We put Thanksgiving words and symbols in ABC order. Then we had to write a complete sentence using the each word. We are REALLY working hard on neat handwriting and using capital letters and punctuation marks correctly.

We found each Indian’s missing feathers by solving the addition and subtraction facts.

We put sets of Native American symbols in order to count by 2’s to 50 and 5’s and 10’s to 100.

We unscrambled words to create complete sentences about Native Americans and the first Thanksgiving. Over the past few weeks this activity has gotten much harder for us because there are no longer clues about which word goes at the beginning of the sentence and what kind of punctuation mark goes at the end of the sentence. We are having to work with our partners to figure this out.

We practiced decoding short vowel words with blends and had to decide if they were real words or nonsense words. We have learned that it is a real word if we can use it in a meaningful sentence.

We practiced working with related facts by writing two addition and two subtraction sentences to go with each set of numbers.

We wrote some silly sentences about Ten Little Indians by choosing action words and describing words to tell about what each Indian kid did.

We also got to listen to some great Thanksgiving themed books at the listening center.

Ice Cream FUN

2011-11-13T09:17:00.001-08:00

Last week the main story in our reading book was called Miss Jill’s Ice Cream Shop. On Friday I decided to surprise the kids with a day filled with ice cream themed fun. We began by reading a big book about how ice cream is made.

Then we did an activity that focused on facts/opinion about ice cream. Students worked with a partner to read a sentence and decide if it was a fact or opinion. This was the first time we have done anything like this so it was a bit tricky for a few of us!!!

When we were done we wrote our own fact and opinion about ice cream.

We also did a few problem solving activities. This one involved using three flavors of ice cream (chocolate, vanilla and strawberry) to find out how many combinations there were for making a double dip cone. There was also one that involved making a triple dip cone but I didn’t get any pictures of it!!!

To end the day we made ice cream. Everyone brought a pair of gloves from home and we worked together with our friends to make a bag of ice cream.

After adding all the ingredients, we put our baggie inside a large bag of ice and salt and shook it.

Talk about some noisy fun!!!

Then we enjoyed our ice cream . . . yum, yum!!!

Scarecrow FUN

2011-11-13T08:53:00.001-08:00

We welcomed in the month of November with some Scarecrow FUN. All week long we did Scarecrow themed activities during center time to reinforce many of the skills we are working on.

Here’s just a few of the fun things we did . . .

Our Halloween Party

2011-11-13T08:08:00.001-08:00

This weekend I’m playing catch-up!!! After several busy weeks at home and with other responsibilities I am finally getting around to updating our class blog with pictures from all of the fun things that we’ve been doing.

Thanks to the planning of our fabulous room mom we had a GREAT Halloween party. All of the kids were so excited to put their costumes on at the end of the day for our celebration. We are so lucky to get to celebrate Halloween in our district. I know there are lots of schools out there that don’t allow their kiddos to dress up!!!

Here’s a little peek at all my cuties and goblins . . .I even dressed up for the occasion . . . along with Miss Keckler and Mrs. Schmelzer.

We had so many special people join us for the festivities . . .

Fire Safety FUN

2011-10-18T18:33:00.001-07:00

Last week was National Fire Prevention Week so we stayed busy learning all about fire safety. We read lots of books that taught us many important fire safety rules. One of our favorites was called Stop,Drop & Roll by Margery Cuyler. We also talked about what to do if our clothing caught on fire and the importance of having an escape plan and a family meeting place in case there really was a fire at our house.

All of our centers were fire themed , too!!! Here’s a little peek at some of the fun things we did to review lots of the skills we have been working on in reading and math.

We also began learning how to apply what we have learned about addition and subtraction up to this point in our math series. By using the numbers in a “number family” we wrote addition and subtraction sentences.

Octo-Bear FUN

2011-10-09T19:52:00.001-07:00

This past week we welcomed October with some Octo-Bear themed fun. All week long we did teddy bear themed activities to reinforce many of our first quarter skills.

In math we worked with a partner to solve teddy bear math problems. We took turns rolling a dice to find out how many bears were on the top and bottom of the bunk bed. Then we added the teddy bears together to find out how many bears were on the bunk bed in all.

We used Gummy Bears to create our own addition math problems.

We also used Teddy Grahams to find all of the combinations for 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10.

We read lots of great bear themed books throughout the week. Here were a few of our favorites . . .

On Monday we read The Very Cranky Bear and then did an activity where we had to recall what each animal gave the bear to cheer him up.

We also read The New Bear at School and did a writing activity to go with it. First we brainstormed a list of things a bear might do if he came to our school.

Then we used our graphic organizes to help us create a book of our own about a bear that goes to school. We worked hard to write complete sentences and add details to our writing.

On Friday we read I Lost My Bear. Then we became bear detectives and created our own book about all the places we might look if we lost our favorite teddy bear. Everyone did such a great job using capital letters and punctuation marks.

On Friday we brought our own teddy bears from home.

We paired up with a friend and used a Venn Diagram to compare how our bears were the same and different.

We also made bear sentence wheels and practiced writing “Beary” good sentences.

It’s Apple Time

2011-09-24T19:04:00.001-07:00

This past week we welcomed in the fall season by doing lots of apple themed activities.Here’s a little peek at some of the fun things we did . . .

We learned about the parts of an apple by making this cute little art project and labeling each part.

We read Ten Apples Up On Top by Leo LeSieg and then used green and red apples to make combinations of 5. This went right along with our math lessons for the week.

We also practiced creating and solving basic apple seed addition math problems.

At centers we stayed VERY busy . . . so busy in fact that we didn’t get any pictures.

Our main story for the week in reading was called Pigs In A Rig.

All week long we practiced decoding and reading short i words. We also did several fun {pig} themed activities. On Wednesday we made our favorite pig character from the story out of pink construction paper. Then we wrote about what happened to the pig in the story.

They ALL turned out so cute!!!

On Friday we read several versions of The Three Little Pigs and compared how they were the same and different.

Then we worked hard all afternoon to sequence some pictures from the traditional version of the story and retell it using our own words. This was a VERY big task, but we all worked hard and were so excited to have our own book to take home and share with our families.

Alphabet FUN

2011-09-11T19:06:00.001-07:00

Last week we had a very fun filled week wrapping up our alphabet unit. To celebrate mastery of our letter sounds we did center activities that were ABC themed.

Here’s a little {sneak} peek. . .

We also read lots of popular ABC themed books and did writing activities to go along with them. We will be sharing all of the class ABC books we made throughout the week with you at conferences.

We ended the week by having a class Potluck. We read Potluck by Anne Selby and Alligator Arrived with Apples. Then we had a yummy celebration. Each child brought a snack to share with the class that started with the first letter of their first name.

Color FUN Centers

2011-09-05T17:54:00.001-07:00

This week we wrapped up our color unit by doing lots of fun activities that reviewed all of the color words. We also had our very first week of centers and the kids did great. I think it really helped that we had so many wonderful parent volunteers helping us throughout the week.

Here’s a little {sneak} peek at all of things we did during center time . . .

We practiced reading our color words and kindergarten sight words and arranged them to create a complete sentence. Then we wrote the sentence using our neatest handwriting.

We stamped our color words and wrote them neatly using the lines and spaces correctly.

We practiced putting sets of numbers from 1-25 in order from least to greatest.

We solved basic addition problems by adding sets of crayons together . . . somehow I didn’t get a single picture of this center!!!

We extended color patterns {AB, ABC, AAB, ABB}.

We listened to Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Did You See? at the listening center and practiced spelling color words from the story using these cute little cards and letter tiles from Doodle Bugs {a great little kindergarten blog}.

We sorted crayons by color and graphed how many we had.

We also got to use the mini laptops to play some back to school games and look at our class blog.

{More} Color Day FUN

2011-08-27T16:28:00.001-07:00

On Monday we read The Cats Colors by Jane Cabrera. Then we made a cat book of our own about things that are orange. We worked hard to sound spell all of our orange words and add details to our pictures. Then we decorated the cover of our book to look just like the orange cat in the story.

We also read The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Manus Pinkwater and painted a picture of our dream house, just like Mr. Plumbean did in the story.

We ended the day by reading one last orange themed story called Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes. We learned about bullying and how it affects our friends at school. We also practiced writing our first and last name neatly and created a math problem to see who had the longest name in our class.

On Tuesday we read Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes. In the story Lily loves everything about school and wants to be a teacher when she grows up. That is when she doesn’t want to be a doctor, or a nurse, or a dancer, or a singer, or a hairdresser. We worked together to brainstorm a list of jobs and then we all chose the one we would most like to be when we grow up and wrote about it. We also practiced sequencing events from the story. Then we made a purple paper purse to put our stories in.

{Sorry I don’t have more pictures to share . . . somewhere between reading the story and the finished product I dropped my camera in the toilet. I learned the hard way that my back pocket is not the best place to put my camera!!! I have a feeling you all probably heard about it as soon as your child got home. They all thought is was pretty funny!!!}

We also read Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson. In this story Harold uses his purple crayon to go on a magical adventure. We created our own adventure by making a book of our own. We had to use our imaginations to complete the writing prompts on each page. Then we used a purple crayon to illustrate each page.

On Wednesday we read a few fabulous pink stories from the Pinkalicious collection and made a pink cupcake shaped book about things that are pink. Several of our kindergarten sight words were in the book so everyone practiced reading it aloud with a partner when they were finished writing.

Before we went home we read Double Pink by Kate Feiffer and Land of Pink by Roy Sanders. We learned that you can make pink by mixing red and white.

Thursday was a day filled with opposites. We began by reading a book about opposites. Then we played a game where everyone was given a card and had to pair up with someone in the class to form a set of opposites. We shared the sets of opposites we made with the class and brainstormed a few more. Then we made a book of our own about opposites and illustrated each page.

We also read Harry The Dirty Dog by Gene Zion and Margaret Bloy Graham. In the story Harry was a white dog with black spots. After running away from home to avoid taking a bath he got very dirty and turned into a black dog with white spots. We made a cute a little dirty dog art project to take home.

After lunch we read Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews and did a creative writing activity. We showed off our creativity by making a class book about the things we could make with “One Black Line”. We can’t wait for you to see it {and all of the other books we’ve been making} when you come to conferences.

Friday was brown day and we read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin. This story reviews all of the color words so it was a great way to wrap up our color days. We worked hard on a brown bear art project that we hung in the hallway and we made a brown bear book of our own to bring home and share with our family.

Color Day FUN {Yellow & Green}

2011-08-20T15:00:00.001-07:00

On Thursday morning we had another color monster waiting on our desk for us when we arrived. We also worked more independently to finish the writing prompt on the back side of our paper about something that is yellow.

The first yellow book we read was In My New Yellow Shirt by Hideko Takahashi. Then we made a class book about all the things we could be in our yellow shirts. What great imaginations we have!!!

Then we learned the importance of being yourself and making good choices with the story Dandelion by Don Freeman. We also made a cute yellow lion art project.

The last yellow book we read was Gus the Bus by Olga Cossi. Then we made a bus art project and did our first big descriptive writing project.

On Friday for “Green Day” we began by reading a great describing book called The Aminal by Lorna Balian. That’s right . . . it’s really spelled that way!!!

After reading a few pages we stopped and drew pictures to predict what we thought the “aminal” looked like. Then after we finished the story we drew a picture and wrote a sentence about what the “aminal” really was.

We also read Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Leoni and did a yummy color mixing activity with icing that I’m sure you heard all about. We began with the primary colors and experimented mixing them together to make the secondary colors. A few of us even experimented Another one of our favorite green stories was Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss. After we read the funny rhyming story we made a class book by writing about a green food we would not like to eat.

We ended the day by unscrambling a sentence about something that is green.

As you can see we have had a very fun and busy first week of school!!!

Color Day FUN {Red & Blue}

2011-08-17T17:52:00.001-07:00

On Tuesday we began the first of our color days. As soon as we arrived we had a red monster on our desk to color. Then on the back we practiced writing the word red three times using our neatest handwriting. We also wrote a sentence and drew a picture about something that is red.

The first story we read was The Little Red Hen. After we listened to the story we had to color and cut out four pictures from the story. Then we sequenced them in the correct order to retell the story.

We also read a slightly different version of the story called The Little Red Hen Makes A Pizza and used a Venn Diagram to compare the similarities and differences between the two stories.

We also read Clifford the Big Red Dog and made a Clifford art project to take home.

This morning we began the day by coloring another funny blue monster. Then we worked together to make a list of thing that are blue. We also wrote a sentence about something that is blue and drew a picture.

The first blue story we read was Blueberries for Sal. In the story little Sal goes with her mom to pick blueberries. They cross paths with a mother bear and her cub who are looking for blueberries too. After wandering off the young ones trail off behind the wrong mother. Luckily they find their own mothers at the end of the story. After we read the story we drew a picture to show WHO was in the story, WHERE the story took place and WHAT the characters were doing in the story. We also practiced counting sets of blueberries.

After lunch we read Dear Mr. Blueberry. This is a story about a little girl named Emily who thinks she sees a whale living in the pond outside her window. She writes a series of letters to her teacher, Mr. Blueberry, asking for information about whales. After the story we made a blue whale art project of our own.

Welcome to the Jungle

2011-07-27T18:43:00.001-07:00

My name is Mrs. Bumgardner and I am so excited that you are going to be in my class this year. This is my 11th year of teaching 1st grade in the Maize school district. I hope you and your family have all had a great summer!!! I’ve stayed busy with my kids and all of their summer activities. I’m also working on finishing up my Master’s degree so I’ve spent LOTS of time doing homework. I will officially be done on August 14th!!!

This is a picture of my family. My husband's name is Jeff. We have two sons. Grant will be in 5th grade at Pray -Woodman and Miles will be a senior at Maize High School.

I am glad that you and your family logged on to check out our class blog. I can't wait to meet you on August 9th from 5:30-7:30 at Meet Your Teacher Night. Please bring all of your supplies with you that evening so we can get them labeled and put away. Then you will be all ready for the first day of school. There are a few additional items that I would like for you to get that are not on your supply list.

Animal Unit {Part 1}

2011-05-13T22:31:00.001-07:00

Interesting Insects

We had fun learning facts butterflies, ladybugs and honey bees. We also reviewed many of our first grade math and language art skills by doing some activities that went with The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle. Amazing Amphibians

We learned about the life cycle of a frog and the most common characteristics of amphibians. We also used several “froggy” themed books to reinforce skills such as building compound words, writing a complete sentence, and writing a story that has a beginning, middle and end. We also became herpetologist. We divided into groups and were each assigned a kind of frog. Everyone in the group had to be a part of each step of this project. First we used the book to find answers to specific questions about what our frog ate, where it lived, who its predators were, what it looked like, etc . . .

After each group gathered all of their information they created a poster to share with the class that included a picture of their frog in its habitat. They they shared their posters and facts with the whole class.

Check back next week to see all of the fun things we will be doing as we learn about repitles, fish, birds and mammals.

Earth Day & Plants

2011-04-29T17:48:00.001-07:00

We had a VERY busy week in 1st grade. Our days seem to just be zooming by. At the beginning of the week we celebrated Earth Day. Earth Day was officially last week {April 22}, but we were so busy with all of our Bunny Day activities . . . so our celebration was a little belated.

Here’s a little peek at some of the fun things we did!

We read lots of books and made a book of our own about ways we can take care of the Earth.

We also made these cute little posters to hang up around our house and school.

We listened to a story about what it means to go “GREEN”. Then we made a class book by writing about how each one of us could go “GREEN” to help our Earth.

We also made some cute little Earth Day critters to decorate our classroom with.

This week we also did lots of activities that taught us about the parts of a plant and what plants need to grow.

We ended the week by spending an entire day doing math and reading activities that were all centered around a popular “plant” themed fairy tale.

We had a LOT of fun reading several versions of the classic.

We worked with a partner to use a Venn Diagram to compare two of the versions.

We also practiced using a dictionary to locate words from the story. Then we put them in ABC order on a beanstalk art project.

Our final activity was writing a “Jack” and the Beanstalk story of our own. It was all about the adventure that we had when we climbed the beanstalk. We wrote about who we saw, where we hid, what we stole, and what happened when we got to the bottom of the beanstalk.

Our Place In Space

2011-04-19T06:46:00.001-07:00

Take a little peek at all the fun things we have doing in our classroom the past few weeks as we have learned about our place in space.

Wild About Weather

2011-04-03T12:19:00.001-07:00

This was an exciting week in our 1st grade classroom. As I mentioned earlier in the week, we have been learning about weather. The kids really seemed to enjoy all of the activities we did. They already knew a lot about weather and were eager to share their own weather facts and stories. I have to admit this is the first year I have ever heard the kids talk about a “tsunami”. I guess they’ve been paying attention to world events.

On Tuesday we learned more about wind. Being from Kansas we already knew a LOT about wind. We read Gilberto and the Wind by Marie Hall and then wrote about {good} wind and {bad} wind.

On Wednesday we did a little experiment to see how rain is made. With the help of a hot plate we used our imagination and pretended it was the sun heating up. Then we put a pan full of water on it and pretended it was a lake. We watched closely as the water heated up and began to evaporate. Just like it does in a lake on a hot day.Then we filled a plate with ice and pretended it was a cold cloud. We put the cold plate on the pan filled with hot water. The cold plate caused the moisture in the warm air to condense and form water droplets. This is the same thing that happens in the atmosphere. Warm, moist air rises and meets colder air high in the clouds. Last we carefully lifted the cold plate of ice. The water vapor condensed on the bottom of the plate and formed precipitation. We made it rain in our classroom. We also learned a little more about clouds on Wednesday, too!! We read a few fun books about clouds and did some creative writing about what a cloud might look like.

We used our imagination and a few cotton balls to make a shape in the sky. Then we used the following writing prompt . . . to write about what we made.

{Once I looked up in the sky. I thought I saw a _______ but it was just a cloud.}

On Thursday we read Thunder Cake by Patricia Pallocco. Before we read the story we made some predictions about what we thought a Thunder Cake was. We found out that it was a cake that Patricia made with grandma when she was a little girl. Like many of us, she was afraid of thunderstorms. So, her grandma helper her overcome her fear by gathering all of the ingredients and making a cake before a thunderstorm hit.

After we read the story we also got to enjoy some Thunder Cake topped with strawberries thanks to this little cutie {and her mom}.

We couldn’t even taste the secret ingredient . . . tomatoes!!!

We wrapped up our week of learning about weather with some rainbow themed activities. First we met a rainbow expert. His name is ROY G. BIV and he taught us about the colors of the rainbow.

Then we read some books about what makes a rainbow.

We also made a torn paper rainbow art project . . .

AND wrote about what each color of the rainbow reminded us of.

Our favorite part of the day was when we enjoyed some rainbow Jello cups thanks to these two little cuties and their moms. They had every color of the rainbow!!!

We also had fun at our weather themed centers this week reviewing many of the math and language art skills we have been covering in class.

Cloudy With a Chance of . . .

2011-03-28T18:57:00.001-07:00

It looks like we picked the perfect week for our weather unit. You can’t beat a week where there is snow, rain, wind and cold temperatures at the beginning of the week and a forecast for hot and sunny weather planned at the end of the week.

We used one of my favorite stories to kick off our week of fun. First we brainstormed a list of all the kinds of weather we could think of.

Then we read Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett. Most of us were familiar with the book or had seen the movie.

Then we used our imaginations and made a book about a town just like Chewandswallow where food fell from the sky. Besides coming up with a name for our town we also got to decide what would fall from the sky for breakfast, lunch, dinner and a bedtime snack.

Even though everyone thought it sounded kind of fun to have food fall from the sky, we decided it was probably better to just have rain, sleet and snow.

Circle Story Week

2011-03-21T08:28:00.001-07:00

Hopefully your 1st grader came home each night last week and told you all about the fun things we did with many of the circle stories written by Laura Joffe Numeroff.

We began our circle story unit on Monday by reading If You Give A Mouse A Cookie.

To learn more about what a circle story was were all assigned one sentence from the book. We had to write our sentence and illustrate it. Then we worked together as a class to sequence the events and put our pages together to make a class book. This allowed us to see how a circle story works and how one event triggers the next event. Then we made cute mouse art projects.

On Tuesday we read two more circle stories and wrote real and fantasy sentences about pigs.

On Wednesday we read If You Give A Moose A Muffin and focused our attention on the story elements. We used a muffin shaped graphic organizer to write about the main character and setting. Then we choose one problem from the story and wrote about how it was resolved.

We also read If You Take A Mouse to School and made a math themed book about all the things a mouse might do in our classroom. He did addition and subtraction problems, solved story problems, identified shapes and ordered numbers.

Then we made a circle story of our own called If You Give A First Grader A Book. Students had to finish the writing prompts on each page and draw pictures to illustrate their words.

On Thursday we finished up our week of circle stories by reading If You Give A Cat A Cupcake and doing a sequencing activity using events from the story.

All week long we did center activities that were inspired by Laura Numeroff’s circle stories.

Our final project of the week was creating a circle story of our own. After all of the experiences we had with stories like this throughout the week everyone was ready to write. They used a graphic organizer to plan their story and then wrote it modeling it after the format of the ones we had read this week.

As you can see we had an a very FUN week in 1st grade!!!

When we return from Spring Break we will be welcoming Spring and learning all about weather.

If you are a K-State fan . . . you better stop reading now . . . because I just found one last picture from last week that I HAD to post . . . I {sort of} promised my little twin that I would!!!

We both wore our {new} shirts to school on St. Patrick’s Day to show our Jayhawks some LOVE!!!

St. Patrick’s Day

2011-03-11T21:40:00.001-08:00

All week long we have been doing lots of fun St. Patrick’s day themed activities.

We made a Super Sentence wheel to help us write complete sentences about Leprechauns.

We made a cute little Leprechaun art project.

We read lots of books about Leprechauns.

One of our favorite Leprechaun themed stories was That’s What Leprechauns Do by Eve Bunting. After the story we wrote our own book about what a leprechaun might do if he came to our school. We all know leprechauns can be kind of sneaky so we were pretty sure he would get into some trouble. You would be amazed at how creative and silly our stories were!!!

Here are just a few examples of the mischievous things the leprechaun did at our school . . .

Lost {and Found} Writing

2011-03-11T20:58:00.001-08:00

This past week we read the story Lost! by David McPhail in our reading series. In the story a bear gets lost when he ventures into the big city and a boy helps him find his way home. Once he gets back to the forest safely the boy discovers he is now lost and the bear vows to help him find his way home.

It’s a very cute story and hopefully your 1st grader will read it to you over the weekend!!!

To go along with the theme of the story we did several {LOST} writing activities this week. We wrote about something special that we have lost and we wrote about a time that we have been lost.

Our BIG writing activity involved a LOST and FOUND box. It was full of items that a 1st grader might lose.Our job was to create a story about the item we chose from the LOST and FOUND box. We used a graphic organizer to plan our story. We had to tell what the item was, who lost it, what they were doing when they lost it, who found the item and where the item was found. We really had to use our imagination on this activity!!! After we completed our graphic organizer we used it to help us write a story. Our stories turned out SO great that we asked Mr. Mountain {our principal} if we could hang them up by the LOST and FOUND at our school.

These are my FABULOUS 1st Grade Writers . . . aren’t they a cute bunch!!!!

No Ordinary Potato

2011-03-08T15:58:00.001-08:00

Today we read a popular Irish Folktale by Tomie DePaola called Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato. In this story a lazy Irishman plants a magical potato seed that he gets from a leprechaun and it grows into an ENORMOUS potato.

After reading the story we did a creative writing/art project. We began by making our own ENORMOUS potato from a piece of brown construction paper. Then we used paper from the scrap box to turn it into a unique potato creation. By the time we were finished these were no ordinary potatoes anymore.

Then we finished up the project by writing about the potato character we created.

It is always so much fun to see how creative the kids can be. Check out these amazing potato creations!!! We are displaying them in the hallway until next week and then we will bring them home to share with you.

Our Lucky Day

2011-03-06T15:01:00.001-08:00

Friday was our “Lucky Day”.

All day long we did activities that were centered around the theme of {LUCK}.

Here we are showing off our “Lucky Headbands”. To get us started we read Fluffy’s Lucky Day by Kate McMullan. Then we did a little pre-writing activity to get us thinking about what might happen to us if we had a lucky day just like Fluffy. Everyone had to finish the writing prompts about what they would eat, find, play, see, get and have on their Lucky Day.

Then we divided into small groups and shared our ideas.

Next, we turned our ideas into a book and wrote complete sentences about four events that would happen to us if we had our {Luckiest Day Ever}. It was so much fun to read each child’s book.

Before heading to lunch we read a story called Lucky Tucker by Leslie McGuirk about a dog named Tucker who had a very lucky day. Then we wrote stories about a lucky day we have really had.

During math we even did a lucky lesson. We did a little research to try and prove that there are more green clover shaped marshmallows in a box of Lucky Charms than any other shape.

We began by dividing our box of Lucky Charms cereal into 22 bowls. Then we sorted the marshmallows by shape and recorded how many of each kind we had.

Next we graphed how many of each shape we had and used our graph to answer some questions. Finally we combined all of our data and made a class tally mark chart to see if we had more clovers than any other shape. Unfortunately we ended up with a few more rainbows.

All About Teeth

2011-02-26T21:08:00.001-08:00

This past week we learned all about how to take care of our teeth. We even did an “Eggs-citing” experiment with an egg and vinegar. We soaked an egg in vinegar overnight to see what happens to the enamel on our teeth when we don’t take care of it. Hopefully your 1st grader told you all about what happened to the egg.

We did LOTS and LOTS of writing this week, too!!!

Here’s a peek at cute little book we made about brushing our teeth. Everyone did a great job sequencing the pictures and writing complete sentences.

Several of the writing activities we did throughout the week went along with some popular {dental themed} children’s literature. This was one of our favorite and funniest stories!!! It was by one of my favorite authors . . . Robert Munsch. In the story Andrew has a loose tooth. Both of his parents, the dentist, and even a motorcycle-riding Tooth Fairy try to help him get rid of his loose born tooth, but his tooth just won’t come out. When there seems to be no solution, some pepper takes care of the problem by causing a big sneeze. After we read the story everyone had to recall four characters and what they did to help Andrew with his loose tooth.

Our best writing of the week {and maybe the entire year} involved retelling the story of Arthur’s Loose Tooth. They turned out so great I had to hang them up in the hallway.

I’ve got LOTS more to post . . . but I keep getting an error message from Live Writer.

Check back tomorrow for more pictures from our week of dental themed fun!!!

President’s Day

2011-02-19T19:50:00.001-08:00

Since President’s Day is right around the corner we spent the week learning about some of the symbols of our nation and a few of our great leaders. We began with George Washington . . .

We also leaned a few things about Abraham Lincoln.

One of our favorite books of the week was Abe Lincoln’s Hat. It was all about how Abraham Lincoln kept important papers in his hat so he wouldn’t lose them. We even got our own copy of an important speech that President Lincoln gave {The Gettysburg Address} and put it in a special pocket on the back of his hat.

We talked a lot this week about the qualities a good leader must possess. Honesty seemed to be the one we focused on the most. To go along with this theme we read a very funny story about the importance on honesty and did a little writing of our own about being honest.

Here’s a peek at all the fun {President’s Day} themed activities we did at centers.

We put some famous president’s in ABC order using their last names.

We unscrambled sentences about some famous leaders and American symbols.

We created “Presidential Patterns” using coins and then recorded how much money was in each pattern. Counting sets with nickels and dimes was a challenge.

In math we’ve been learning how to figure out what number is one more, one less, ten more and ten less using a hundreds board and what we know about tens and ones.

After doing this center we are ALL STARS at filling it pieces of a hundreds board.

We covered a log cabin with pattern blocks.

We also had fun playing on our mini-laptops. One of our favorite websites is {www.ABCya.com}. We can play lots of fun games here that review many of our 1st grade skills.

100th Day of School

2011-02-10T19:17:00.001-08:00

Sorry about the delay in getting these pictures posted . . . I finally got a chance to sit down tonight and play catch up. Last Monday we celebrated the 100th day of school. We’ve been counting up to this day all year and we were all excited when it finally arrived!!!All day we worked hard on activities that centered around the number 100.

We began by making these cute 100th Day of School glasses.

Then we read a story called The Wolf’s Chicken Stew by Keiko Kasza. In this story a wolf tries to fatten up a chicken for his stew by feeding him 100 scrumptious snacks each day. After the story we wrote about some other things we thought the wolf could have fed the chicken. We also made our own 100th Day stew. While we were enjoying our 100th day snack mix we colored a worksheet with 100 shapes on it and then counted how many of each shape there was. We made sure that our numbers equaled 100 when we added them.

We also read The 100th Day and made a book of our own about the number 100. We wrote sentences about 100 things we thought we could lift, 100 things we would like to eat, 100 things we would not like to eat, what we would do with $100, what we wished we could have 100 of and what we would never want to have 100 of. The kids really had fun finishing these writing prompts!!!

After lunch we got to flip a coin 100 times and record if we got heads or tails. Then we color coded each turn and recorded how many heads and tails we got all together. Then we learned how to use the calculator to add our numbers together to make sure they equaled 100. We also got to do the same thing with a dice.

Our big writing project for the day centered around the book called I’ll Teach My Dog 100 Words. After we read the book we made our very own book filled with 100 words that we can read and sound spell.

We are definitely

Our {New} 1st Grade Journals

2011-01-29T18:39:00.001-08:00

We LOVE all of the Junie B. Jones books . . .

and now we get to be just like her. Since we are all such fabulous writers we all got brand new journals . . . just like the one Junie B. Jones uses in 1st grade. Each morning when we finish our deskwork we are trying to write our own personal journal entry about something special that is happening at school or in our life.

Next week we will share our journals with you at conferences!!!

Happy KANSAS Day!!!

2011-01-29T17:52:00.001-08:00

All week long we have been learning about our great state of Kansas. Today {January 29th} Kansas celebrates it’s 150th birthday . . . and there is a real Kansas Showdown taking place on the basketball court tonight. That’s right KU plays K-State tonight. So yesterday we wore our favorite Kansas team shirts and made some art projects to show our favorite team some support.

K-State

WSU

{As you can see our class was divided.}

This week we also made a book about our Kansas state symbols this week.

Just for fun see if your child can identify each one of these symbols and tell you something special they learned about it. This shouldn’t be hard for them because at the end of the week we practiced putting all of the symbols in ABC order and writing a sentence on each page.

Here are a few other Kansas themed projects we did this week:

On Monday we discovered what our state insect was by making this hidden picture grid art project.

On Tuesday we learned about our state flower. First we read a book about the lifecycle of the sunflower . Then we read a story called Sunflower Sal about a girl named Sal who made a quilt on the Kansas plains out of sunflowers that she planted. Then we followed a pattern and made a class quilt. Everyone got to make their own sunflower block.

We also learned how to write numbers in expanded form this week. We did a fun little basketball themed activity on the Promethean board where we recorded the scores from our favorite Kansas teams and wrote them in expanded form. Then we ordered the scores from least to greatest.

At centers this week we . . .

used a Kansas map to find towns that began with each letter of the alphabet.

We covered a few Kansas symbols {Jayhawk and an Ornate Box Turtle} with patterns blocks and graphed how many of each kind of block we used.

We sorted words by consonant digraph endings {ng, nd, nk} on box turtle cards.

We sorted pictures on sunflower cards by digraph sounds {ch, sh, th, wh}.

We solved addition math problems on petals of a sunflower and matched them with the correct answer.

We also unscrambled sentences about our state symbols.

Happy Birthday KANSAS!!!

Plenty about Penguins

2011-01-23T11:47:00.001-08:00

Last week we learned a lot interesting facts about penguins. We began the week by making a KWL. We always like to brainstorm a list of things we know when we begin a new unit. As you can see from our chart we knew several things about penguins before we ever got started. We also made a list of a few things we wanted to know about penguins. All week long we added to the list of things we learned. We decided penguins are pretty amazing animals.

KWL Chart

Here are a few books we read about penguins.

One thing we learned is that penguins have blubber to keep them warm. We did a little experiment to see exactly what blubber is and how it keeps penguins warm. Here are some pictures of us soaking one hand directly in ice cold water and the other hand inside a bag of blubber. We were amazed at how warm our hand in the bag of blubber stayed.

We also learned that Emperor penguins grow to be about the size of a six year old. That’s as big as us!!! After the mother penguin lays an egg the father penguin puts the egg on his feet and protects in until it hatches. Here are some Emperor Penguins we made.

We practiced writing SUPER sentences by brainstorming lists of words and choosing one word from each list to write a sentence about a penguin. Then we illustrated each one of our sentences.

Our final writing activity of the week was inside this cute penguin art project. We all wrote at least five things we learned about penguins. It’s amazing how much everyone can write when they know so much about the topic. This really was some of our best writing of the year.

Tacky {the Penguin} Day

2011-01-20T17:09:00.001-08:00

Today was “Tacky Day” in our 1st grade class. We read lots of the books in the Tacky the Penguin series written by Helen Lester and did some fun activities to go along with many of them. We learned that even though Tacky is an odd bird, he’s still fun to have around.

In honor of Tacky we all dressed “tacky” today and made these cute Tacky the Penguin art projects. Everyone chose different prints of scrapbook paper to make a “tacky” outfit for their penguin.

After we read a few stories we didn’t have any trouble thinking of some other words to describe Tacky.

This afternoon we got a “Tacky Pack” of worksheets. Inside our packet were activities that focused on vocabulary from the story, character traits, sequencing events, matching antonyms and patterning.

We ended our “tacky” day by reading Tacky in Trouble and filling out a story map about the story. We had to recall information about the setting, characters, problem and resolution. We also had to write about three of our favorite events from the story.

Happy “Tacky” Day!!!

Marvelous Mitten Activities

2011-01-15T08:03:00.001-08:00

On Thursday afternoon we read The Mitten by Jan Brett. It is a famous Ukrainian folktale. In the story a little boy named Nicki loses one of the white mittens his Baba {grandma} knitted for him while he is playing in the snow. Several woodland creatures come along and take refuge from the cold in the mitten. Just when all of the animals are fit snuggly into the mitten a little field mouse comes along and his whiskers tickle the bears nose. This causes the bear to sneeze and the animals and the mitten go flying.

After we read the story we colored and cut out all of the woodland animals that were in the book and used them to act out the story. We weren’t sure all of the animals would fit in our mittens. We also read several other versions of The Mitten and used a Venn Diagram to record how the stories were the same and how they were different.

On Friday we read The Hat which was also written by Jan Brett. In this story a hedgehog finds a wool sock and when he sticks his head in to investigate what it is it gets stuck to his prickles. All of the other farm animals think he looks silly, but they want to be warm too, so they go and steal other items of clothing off the clothesline to make themselves a hat. Finally with a little help Hedgie gets the sock off his head and discovers that animals DO NOT wear hats.After we listened to the story we worked together as a class to recall which events happened in The Hat, The Mitten, or in both stories.Then we practiced writing complete sentences to answer some questions about the setting, characters and events from the story The Hat.

All of our centers were mitten themed this weeks, too!!!

We created real and nonsense words by rolling the vowel dice and filling in the vowel we rolled on the mitten word card.

We sorted and graphed colorful mitten and then used our graph to solve mitten addition problems.

We put winter words in ABC order. Then we wrote them in a book and had to use them in a sentence.

We unscrambled winter sentences and wrote them using correct capitalization and punctuation. Then we drew pictures to illustrate our sentences.

We played Mitten Math BINGO by rolling the 10-sided dice to create and solve addition problems. Then we got to mark the answer on our Mitten BINGO card.

We listened to The Twelve Days of Winter at the listening center and did an igloo math worksheet.

We also practiced ordering sets of numbers {1-100} printed on mittens.

One of our desk work jobs was this hidden grid art project.

As you can see we stayed very busy this week. Even though we weren’t able to fit all of our Mitten themed activities in we still had a marvelous week in 1st grade.

Snowy Day Writing

2011-01-13T20:13:00.001-08:00

After enjoying two {cold} snow days at home we didn’t have any trouble coming up with something to write about today. First we read The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, which is about a little boy who wakes up to find that snow has fallen overnight. We follow him along on an adventure as he discovers all of the things he can do in the snow. Next we made our own Snowy Day picture just like the one from the story. Then we wrote about the exciting things we did in the snow.

Here’s a peek at a few of our final projects that are hanging in the hallway. Aren’t they cute???

Everyone did such a great job writing about their own {Snowy Day} adventures.

Happy New Year . . . We’re Back!!!

2011-01-09T18:50:00.001-08:00

We didn’t waste ANY time getting back to the swing of things after our big holiday break. This week we did lots of fun snowman themed activities and learned how to decode and read words with digraphs {sh, ch, th, wh, tch}.

We made a digraph flipbook to practice this new skill.

Our main story for the week was called Moving Day. It had lots of words with digraphs in it. We also learned some interesting facts about hermit crabs.

Here we are putting all of sight words for the week in ABC order.

At centers we matched sets of antonyms that were printed on snowman themed cards.

We covered a snowman with pattern blocks and graphed how many of each kind we used in our design.We listened to the story I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow at the listening center and then used a graphic organizer to sequence all of the items she swallowed in the before she burped out a snowman.

We counted and matched sets of snowman and snowflake cards that had sets of coins {pennies, nickels and dimes} printed on them. We unscrambled sentences about snowmen and practiced writing them using our neatest handwriting. We had to decide what kind of sentence each one was and chose the correct punctuation mark to go at the end.We also decorated a folder with these cute snowman art projects to put all of our 2nd quarter assessments in to take home and share with our parents.

We didn’t have any real snow this week in Kansas so we had to be creative and build our own snowmen out of construction paper. Then we did some technical writing and wrote directions for how to build a snowman. Up next . . . mitten themed activities and we will be learning about how to find our special place on the map.

Polar Express Day

2010-12-22T11:28:00.001-08:00

On Friday we had one final Christmas themed day. We all wore our favorite pj’s to school and took a ride on the Polar Express. We began the day by listening to the story come alive as it was read by Lou Diamond Phillips on one of our favorite websites that is sponsored by the Screen Actors Guild Foundation.

click {here} to hear the story

Then we illustrated and sequenced six events from the story and put them in these cute little train books.

While we were working we enjoyed donuts and juice.

After lunch we got all snuggled up on the floor with our pillows and blankets and watched The Polar Express.

Our New {Improved} Santa's

2010-12-17T11:13:00.001-08:00

Gosh we have had a fun week in 1st grade!!! On Thursday we read {another} one of my favorite Christmas stories, A New Improved Santa by Patricia Rae Wolff. In the story Santa is feeling fat, old-fashioned, and boring, so he decides to change his image. Each month he makes a new improved change to himself. In January, he goes on a diet. In February, he starts an exercise program. In March, he tries out a few new hair styles. In April, he changes his clothing style. By October, he even purchases a roaring red rocket-copter to replace his reindeer and sleigh. But, when November rolls around, Santa unveils his new and improved self, and is sad that the children seem to hate all the changes he's made. Luckily, Mrs. Claus helps him get back to his traditional attire in time for Christmas, and Santa learns a valuable lesson.

This book taught us that a new {improved} Santa is one who is true to himself and to the spirit of Christmas.

I have to tell you in advance this may be my favorite project EVER!!!

The kids all got to design a new {improved} Santa of their own using holiday scrapbook paper and some craft supplies we had here in the classroom. They turned out SO cute!!! I absolutely love watching the kids use their imaginations and create a project that is all their own!!!

GRINCH Day

2010-12-16T01:53:00.001-08:00

Yesterday everyone showed up all decked out in green to celebrate GRINCH Day.

We began by reading the story How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss. As we were reading we stopped to brainstorm a list of words together on the board to describe the Grinch at the beginning of the story.

Then we brainstormed another list of words to describe the Grinch at the end of the story.

We did a little creative writing project to go with the book. Each student had to complete the following prompt and illustrate their writing. Then we divided up into small groups to share our writing.

Mr. Grinch please don’t steal my __________ because ___________.

Everyone got to make their own Grinch mask . . .

and torn paper Grinch art project. {I love how different and cute they all turned out!}

They also got to have their picture taken with The Grinch {thanks to Miss Keckler}.

We ended the day by watching the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas cartoon from 1966. We also got a bag of {magic} Grinch Dust to take home and spread in the yard on Christmas Eve to warn the Grinch we have Christmas cheer this year!!!

Happy GRINCH Day from Mrs. Bumgardner & Miss Keckler

Reindeer Day

2010-12-11T18:54:00.001-08:00

Friday was Reindeer Day in our 1st Grade Class. We began the day by reading a story about our favorite magical reindeer . . . Rudolph. We have all heard the story of Rudolph’s 1st Christmas but we got to hear all about the adventure he had the following year. We read Rudolph to the Rescue and then made our very own Rudolph art project complete with glittery red nose.

We also learned facts about real reindeer. We began {at the end of the day on Thursday} by brainstorming a list of things we already knew about reindeer on the Promethean board and then we listed some things we would like to learn. On Friday we read a book about reindeer and learned many interesting facts about their antlers, what they eat, where they live, etc . . .

We also made a book with reindeer facts in it and decorated the cover to look like our favorite reindeer of all . . . Rudolph of course!!!

After lunch we made our own book filled with reindeer facts. We are continuing to work hard on using the lines and spaces correctly, leave spaces between our words, begin each sentence with a capital letter and end each sentence with the correct punctuation mark.

We ended the day by listening to one of my favorite reindeer stories, Olive the Other Reindeer. It’s about a dog named Olive who hears on the radio that Santa is looking for “All of the Other Reindeer” and goes to the North Pole to help out. Then we made our very own set of reindeer antlers just like the ones Santa gave Olive. Don’t we look cute!!! Happy Reindeer Day!!!

Christmas is Coming

2010-12-11T07:16:00.001-08:00

It’s been a rough week for several of us in first grade, including me. We’ve got the yucky stomach flu going around in our classroom and school so we haven’t had everyone here at the same time all week. My camera and I both stayed home on Monday and Tuesday so I tried to make up for being gone by taking lots and lots of pictures the remainder of the week. Here’s a peek at all of the Christmas themed centers and activities we did this week . . .

We listened to the story I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Bell at the listening center and sequenced pictures from the story by coloring them and cutting them out and gluing them to piece of construction paper in the order the old lady swallowed them in the story.

We sorted short a and long a pictures on these cute candy cane cards and sound spelled them.

{sorry, no pictures at this center}

We sorted and graphed colorful candy canes and then used our graph to write and solve colorful addition math facts.

We unscrambled Christmas themed sentences. Then we wrote them using correct capitalization and punctuation . . . and of course our neatest handwriting. We also drew a picture to illustrate each sentence.

We used a hundred’s board to fill in the missing numbers on the candy cane cards. We had to be able to count by 1’s, 2’s, 5’s, 10’s and even backwards. This center was a little tricky for a few of us!!!

We sorted and solved addition math problems and matched them with the correct answer. Then we recorded all of the math problems on a record sheet.

We also practiced our sight words during center time this week by playing a game called Roll, Say, Keep. We rolled a dice and drew a card from the correct numbered space on the playing board. If we could say the word and use it in a sentence we got to keep the word.

During our thematic time this week we read a Christmas story called How Santa Lost His Job by Stephen Krensky . It’s about an elf named Muckle who designs a new machine called “The Deliverator” that he claims can deliver presents faster than Santa. The elves and Muckle decide to do tests to see who is the fastest, the “Deliverator” or Santa. There were three tests; the first test was who could get dressed the fastest. The second test was who could mach the most children to a toy in an hour. The final test was who can put the presents under the tree the fastest. As you can imagine the “Deliverator” won all three contests but when Christmas Eve rolled around and a few problems with the weather arose the elves quickly discovered that Santa is the only one who can deliver toys to the boys and girls.

To go along with the story we made a cute elf art project to hang in the hallway.

We also worked on a {sweet} hidden picture grid art project.

Up next . . . Reindeer Day!!!

A Sweet Week

2010-12-03T17:42:00.001-08:00

We had a very sweet week in first grade. All of our centers and activities were gingerbread man themed.

Here’s a little {sneak} peek at some of the fun things we did . . .

We practiced creating and solving addition math problems using gingerbread man cards. We even had peppermint candy counters to help us solve the problems using a double ten frame.

We listened to The Gingerbread Boy by Paul Galdone at the listening center.

We reviewed contractions that end with ‘s by matching two contraction gingerbread cards.

We sorted gingerbread nouns by person, place and thing and then put them in ABC Order.

We sorted gingerbread rhyming word cards and then used the words to write super sentences.

We put candy words in ABC Order and drew pictures to illustrate each word.

We decorated a gingerbread house on the mini laptops and played games.

This week we also read several versions of the gingerbread man. A few of our favorites were . . .

We compared two versions of the popular folktale. After listening to both stories we worked with a partner to record how the stories were alike and different. Then we made our own gingerbread boy and girl art project.

We also got to write our own version of the gingerbread man story by picking characters to finish each sentence and drawing a picture to illustrate our work.

Finally this morning we got the chance to make our very own sweet treat at snack time. Each one of us got a ball of gingerbread dough and rolled it out to make a gingerbread boy or girl. It was a little tricky for some of us but they all turned out so cute.

We finished off our sweet week by sequencing some pictures from the “original” story and writing about the gingerbread man’s adventure. Everyone worked so hard on their project. We brainstormed a list of words on the board that might be in our story and then everyone got to work. We all tried really hard to write in our neatest handwriting and remember to use capital letters and punctuation marks in every sentence that we wrote. We also tried to use details in our writing.

As you can see it really has been a very sweet {and busy} week in first grade!!!

Writing a Complete Sentence {part 1 – nouns}

2010-11-23T07:26:00.001-08:00

During the past 9 weeks I have been working very hard to create and redesign curriculum that effectively teaches students how to write a complete sentence as part of the requirements in one of my master’s courses. I began the process by identifying the five parts needed to make a complete sentence.Today we focused our attention on nouns. We learned that a noun, or naming word as we sometimes call it in 1st grade, refers to a person, place or thing. With the help of this new poster hanging in our room hopefully we won’t forget what a noun is anytime soon.

We began by making three large lists on the board of examples for each type of noun. Then students got to draw and write two examples for each type of noun in their book.

Next students sorted pictures of nouns into the categories {people, places, things}.

Finally students did a Cloze Activity. They had to read several decodable sentences and fill in the blanks with a noun to correctly complete each sentence. Then they illustrated their pictures.

Native American Legends

2010-11-22T11:29:00.001-08:00

This past week we have been learning about Native American culture in 1st grade. We have read several legends and done some fun art and writing activities to go along with them.

We read Knots on a Counting Rope which is about a blind Navajo Indian boy who likes to hear his grandfather retell the tale of his birth and how he was named. Then we made a class book about what our Indian name would be.

We also read two trickster tales by Gerald McDermott. The first one was called Raven. It is a tale from the Pacific Northwest. In the story Raven feels sorry for the people living in the gloomy cold, so he flies to the house of the Sky Chief in search of light and warmth. To get inside, Raven pulls a shape-shifting trick that allows him to be born to the god's daughter. We also read Zomo the Rabbit. In this story Zomo, who is very clever, beseeches the Sky God for wisdom. Zomo is sent out by Sky God to do three impossible tasks: he must bring back the scales of Big Fish in the sea, the milk of Wild Cow and the tooth of Leopard. Zomo manages to trick the three creatures into giving up these prizes, but returns to discover that the joke's on him.