We are preparing for our Thanksgiving Feast that I do with my first grade students. We are making a class book of the images we have of the very first Thanksgiving. The students watched a great video on Unitedstreaming.com on the holiday of Thanksgiving. Then they created their pictures for our book. We used the cover and template I am sharing. Then they shared their pictures with the class and told why they think the first Thanksgiving celebration was special. This was a great lesson on adding social studies into our curriculum.

Challenge Spelling Words

In first grade, we are trying to create differentiation in all areas. With the push to make everything Common Core aligned and challenge our students with rigor, I have been looking closer at the things I do/ create for my students. I find that I do try to acheive this in all activities. One way I have succeeded in accomplishing this is in Spelling. I give each student the Pre-Test on Mondays. If they pass it, then they get the opportunity to select 5 words that they would like to learn how to spell. They can be any 5 words that interest them. We post these words on their desks, they do Challenge Work with these words, and they get tested on Friday to see if they can spell these words. Here are some of the papers that I use during Spelling each week. I will post more throughout the week, as I use them. The children love to be a Challenge Speller. I have about 6 children each week get to do this fun activity that is special for their learning level. It amazes me at the words they come up with to spell... and that they spell them right on Friday! I am so proud of my students!!

Doubles! Doubles! 6-10 version (+playlist)

We are learning about adding double numbers and this video is so fun to watch and sing. The kids can't get this song out of their minds. :)

http://www.youtube.com/v/yFuskIXXQa4?list=PLF158F7EFBB65A045&version=3&showinfo=1&attribution_tag=8qkmwsp0P_L-zv5csnSsQg&autohide=1&feature=share&autoplay=1

Dice Game for Math Center

Happy Monday!! I am continually working to beef up my centers and create rigor in my classroom. I am using this activity to help my students to master the Common Core Teaching Standards in math. This activity will enhance their addition and subtraction strategies. The students roll two dice and then add them together. If they are using addition, they will write the two addends into the first two boxes and write the answer at the end. If they are using subtraction, they will roll the dice and add them together to find the other member of their fact family. (We call the largest number the "daddy".) They write the daddy first and then the two numbers on the dice in the middle and last position. For an extra challenge, the students have a third form to write the entire fact family sentences on them- two addition and two subtraction sentences. This is used to differentiate the lesson.

Halloween Fun in First Grade

Happy Halloween Everyone!! We are having a blast this week learning about pumpkins, bats, owls, spiders and Halloween. I am focusing this post on things I do the two days before Halloween- when I do let the kids talk about costumes and "scary" Halloween characters. I try to make it more of a fall celebration in the days prior to this. But all kids enjoy a little bit of fun at this time of year. So I let them talk about the things I usually ban- vampires, zombies, witches, ghosts- in a first grade fun manner. The first time anything gory comes into the conversation, I stop it. ha ha Have a great holiday!!

Pumpkin Adjectives

Welcome to fall! First grade has been very busy learning about fall items and pumpkins. We visited an awesome pumpkin farm for a field trip. We are learning all about adjectives this week and using the words to describe pumpkins. The children are having so much fun! Here are just a few activities that we did today.

Columbus Day Fun!

I do a lot with

Christopher Columbus over the few days following Columbus Day. I think it is important for my First Graders to know about exploring and not giving up on a dream. We watch a really appropriate video on Columbus on Unitedstreaming.com, an Animated Heroes Classic movie. While the students are watching the movie, they write down over three facts in their Fact Books. We then chose three of their top facts relating to Columbus and transfer to a writing paper, which is made into a class book. We also make a cut-out of Columbus in a ship to put on our desks for the next few days. I took some pictures of just the Columbus project, before the ships were made to add to this post.

Why??

The word "why?" comes up a lot this year. It is a common word but it really gets the children thinking deeper about the process of things, how things work, how to figure out answers, and makes connections to other thoughts. Every time I can, I ask the children "Why?". They are getting much better at coming up with in-depth answers. They are reflecting on their answers and they can generate more questions they have by answering this question. Try it in your classroom and see what the kids do with being asked why...

Tattle Monster

Good afternoon, My students were very active and ready to learn today. I am proud of the progress they are making this year. I did have a little bit of an issue lately with a couple of students tattling on one another, then it turns into them trying to tattle to get the person that tattled on them in trouble, and so on. YIKES! I thought and thought about this and with the suggestion from my Principal, I came up with a Tattle Monster. I am sure this has been used many times and in many different ways in classrooms across the states. This is just my own version/ creation. I am going to make it into a large poster to hang in the room. The children can fill out a slip, if they think it is serious enough for me to hear/ or if the Tattle Monster tells them to inform me. :) Let me know if it is helpful!

Fire Safety Week

We are celebrating Fire Safety this week in my school. We went on a visit to the locak fire station. We have completed many activities but I thought I would share this one. The children really enjoyed it! Each child created their own Fire House Dalmation, then they had to add a background with at least three fire prevention items in their illustration. They shared their picture with the class and we made them into a class book. I have included a few good stories that are in my Fire Safety reading basket.