Stuff We've Been Doing

Hi all,

I took some pictures the other day, so I'm going to share some of the things we've done this last week or so.

First, in preparation for President's Day, we used A Cupcake for the Teacher's President's Day Craftivity.  We read Abe Lincoln's Hat and brainstormed what items we might put in the hat.  I took pictures of some of the work before they added the cover over their writing.

I would put my candy and one of my barbies in and letters.  (I love her attempt at commas--at least she's trying.)

I would put frogs in it because when they ribbit it will be funny.  (I love the bloodshot eyes!)

I will put my Batman Toy and donuts and my wallet and a candy.  (He's certainly prepared.)

We did a quick Valentine's Day bug project:  Lots of hearts and they assemble them into bugs.  I was too lazy to change the yellow background paper, but they still look cute.

As a bit of a follow up of an earlier post, we have been working on number sense.  We're now working on greater than/less than. I have to say this group is catching on to it very well.  We played this game.  Each player rolls a double dice.  The large die tells the tens, the smaller tells the ones.  In a previous game they drew and wrote the number.  Now they just write their numbers.  Then they both have to agree whether the first number is > < or =.  After 10 rounds, they circle who had the greater number and count to see who won.  We played it another day with the smaller number winning.  Finally, I'll add a greater than/less than spinner to determine the winner next week.  Here's how a couple of the pages turned out.

And finally, my co-worker made the greatest bulletin board.  I had to take a picture of it.  I won't have time to do it this year, but hopefully next.

The other day we borrowed some iPads from the library and used socrative for the first time.  I loved it!  It deserves a whole 'nother post, so be watching for it soon.

Thanks for stopping by!
Joell

Melting snowmen

Hi all,

This week I did have us try out the melting snowman picture I found on pinterest.  Here's how they turned out.  The only thing I did for them was give them a blackline of the glasses, the rest is all first grade work.

I was very happy with how well the kids did with not a lot of direction from me.

Weather

We are having an inversion here.  That means cold and polluted air is trapped in the valley.  This is causing us to have inside recess every day.  Ugh.  I'm also suffering from sinus problems, as I usually do when it gets like this.  I'm starting my weather unit this week, and it would be nice if we had something besides an inversion to learn about.

Finally! Vocabulary Card Freebies are Done!

Hello Friends,

I have been working so hard this week!  All of my vocabulary words are now ready to go.  I have been working on this project since May and it's finally finished except for the printing and cutting.  So what are these cards I've been working so hard on?  Here's a picture and the explanation follows.

A few of my large vocabulary cards.

My school district requires that I use the SRA  Imagine It reading program.  In addition, I'm being required by my principal to use the Write Up a Storm program.  Last spring a group of 1st grade teachers from my district got together and searched through the first grade Imagine It program and selected vocabulary words either directly from the story, or words that go along with the stories.  I used those words to create these word cards.

Now, Write Up a Storm has you teach vocabulary along with parts of speech.  So all my card files are each done as a separate part of speech.  In first grade we don't deal with adverbs.  Articles and words that start sentences are called "starter words".  Prepositional phrases and words that tell where or when are called tagalongs (because they tag along behind the other words in the sentence).  To help ESL students learn past tense better, all verbs are presented in past tense, then we practice all the tenses.

We will set up a word wall with each part of speech.  Students learn an action along with each word and they are practiced often.  This is what I use the large word cards for.

I have a smaller version of each word, too.  These are printed on colored paper because in Write Up a Storm each part of speech has a color code.  So I print them like this:  starter words are white, adjectives are orange, nouns are red, verbs are green and tagalongs are blue.  These cards are put into a ziplock bag.  Students place them face down in piles according to color.  They turn the cards over and create sentences on a color coded mat that goes: white, orange, red, green, blue.   The beginning of the year starts with only 3 word sentences:  starter word, noun, verb.  A few months in we add tagalongs, and finally, adjectives.  I threw the old ones out from last year and haven't made the new ones for this year yet, or I'd have a better picture for you.  These ones are on white paper and don't have the mat under, but they should give you the idea.

A plumber scoured.  (The bottle cap is a period.)

The badger practiced before the holiday.

My friendly traveler acted at the podium.

My students last year loved using the cards to make sentences, and sometimes they come out silly or don't make sense.  Sometimes the students need to add in a direct object to go with the verb.  Another thing that can be done with these cards is to cut the picture side and the word side apart and have the kid match the word to the picture.

I teach in a school with a very high number of students who are refugees.  We have more than 30 languages spoken in my school if I remember right.  This really helps a lot with the ESL kids, but also with the students of poverty who haven't had language modeled as much in the home.

Finally, I will not teach every single one of these words every year.  I will work on 8-10 words a week depending on the needs of my class.  Since I was making cards for a large group of people, I tried to put some extras in to be used at teacher discretion.

All of the files are free, I just ask that you leave feedback and let me know if you run into any issues.    You'll note that the last section of each group of words contains seasonal words and phrases.

You can download any and all of the files at my teacherspayteachers store.  I suggest you get the excel file which lists all the words first.

Excel list of all words.

Large cards for word wall:

• Adjectives
• Nouns
• Starter Words and blank templates
• Tagalongs (prepositional phrases and time words)
• Verbs (past tense)

Small cards for word work (in color):

• Adjectives
• Nouns
• Starter Words and blank templates
• Tagalongs
• Verbs

Small cards for word work (in grayscale)

• Adjectives
• Nouns
• Starter words and blank templates
• Tagalongs
• Verbs

Whew!  That's all.  I don't know if anyone else will find these useful, but I hope so.

Joell

Water is Wonderful!

My students are loving our water unit.  I have a lot of English Language Learners, so we try to build as much vocabulary as possible while having fun learning.  Each student is writing a water book.

The first page we do is a web where we brainstorm for ways that students use water that is fun.  Here's a copy from one student's book.

Then the students pick their favorite idea to write more about on the next page.

Our next page is about how we use water for things we need.  Again, we brainstorm and make a web.

Then I had students choose 3 ways they need water.

Then we get to some of the experiments.  As I navigate this unit I use this wonderful book with great photographs.  It's called A Drop of Water by Walter Wick. 

The first pages of the book discuss how water droplets form in the shape of a sphere because the molecules like to cling together.  I have the students experience this to see how it makes a round shape by linking up arm in arm until everyone is linked and we look at the shape we're in.  It's a circle.  Then we do a couple of fun experiments with surface tension.

The first one explores how the water molecules like to cling together.  Each child gets a piece of waxed paper, a toothpick, and an eye dropper.  I place a cup with some water and food dye (just for fun) in the center of their tables and show them how to drop the water onto the waxed paper.  Then they use the toothpicks to drag water molecules apart and together.  Here are some pictures.

The best part of this activity is that my students are so engaged in exploring it's very quiet in the room!

The next surface tension experiment we do is to use our water droppers to see how many drops we can put on a penny before the surface tension breaks.  The students predict first, then try it.

Students write about both experiments and what they learned in their water books.

That's all we've done so far.  We will also be exploring the water cycle and buoyancy.  I'll get those posted as we go.

If you have any feedback for me on my lessons, or my blogging, I love constructive criticism, or just great ideas.  Thanks for reading.