Seed Investigation

Hello, hello! We hope everyone had a marvelous Monday! We celebrated Earth Day in our classrooms today. Leading up to Earth Day we have been studying seeds, seeds and more seeds!  Our main selection last week was "A Fruit is a Suitcase for Seeds" by Jean Richards. It's a cute little nonfiction story that provides an illustrated description of seed dispersal (specifically fruits). It explains the purpose  of seeds and how they grow. It's hilarious watching the kids go through the cafeteria line and pointing out all of the fruit seed suitcases!

After reading about seeds all week and doing a lot of class discussion we planned a fun science activity!! We love hands-on science! It's so much fun! 

Gotta love technology!

We planned a special SEED INVESTIGATION for our young scientists. Brittany and I brought in many different kinds of fruit and did some seed research with our fruits. We labeled the fruits and added characteristics to our illustrations in our science notebooks. Students wrote about the different seeds they observed and used details to describe the seeds. 

Scientists in action!

For Example: 

The peach seed is dark brown and is called a pit. You can't eat the pit. It is in the middle of the fruit. 

They did this for all of the different fruits and vegetables we brought in. They loved using their science tools (microscopes and magnify glasses) to describe the different characteristics of the seeds. They did a great job and gathered a whole bunch of new learning!

Here is a Science Notebook Freebie if you would like to do something similar with your class! 

Have a great day!! 

Author Study

Hey frugal followers... it's almost Friday, get excited!!!  The dreaded FCAT is upon us and although our little guys don't have to take the BIG test - it has totally messed up our normal schedule.  It's amazing how much our classes rely on routine and it throws everything and everyone off when we switch it up.  Our district has one more week of testing and then things will go back to "normal".  In lieu of all this craziness, Melissa and I managed to squeeze in an author's study.  This week's feature was (drum roll please)... EZRA JACK KEATS!

Melissa and I absolutely love when we get the chance to do author studies with our firsties.  So far this year we've studied Jan Brett, Laura Numeroff, Eric Carle, and Dr. Seuss.  We hope to squeeze in Leo Leoni before summer gets here!  During these studies we discuss different titles, writing styles, illustrations, themes, plot, characters, and settings.  We also learn a little history behind the author.  We chose to study Ezra Jack Keats this week because our main selection was Whistle for Willie which was written and illustrated by Mr. Keats!  If you're not familiar with it, Whistle for Willie is an adorable story about a little boy named Peter who reeeeeally wants to learn how to whistle for his dog Willie.  He keeps trying and low and behold, by the end of the story, he learns how to whistle!  (like you didn't see that one coming haha)  The kids love it because it's a story that they can connect with. 

We kicked off our author's study by watching the Ezra Jack Keats video on Brainpop Jr.  This website is an AMAZING teacher resource!  It's soooo teacher AND kid-friendly!  Our students absolutely L-O-V-E Annie and Moby!  Thankfully our school has purchased a license for us, but you can also get an individual license for use - I'm not sure what the going rate is, but trust me, it's worth it!  We learned SO MUCH about Ezra and some of his books.  We added our new learning to our schema chart throughout the week. 

Here are some other books we read by Ezra Jack Keats...

Ezra Jack Keats is well known for his use of collage.  We learned all about collages and how to make them (thanks Annie and Moby).  To wrap up our author's study at the end of the week our firsties got to create their own collage masterpieces.  We pretty much emptied our entire closets onto our classroom carpets to give them every supply they could possibly need.  We used tissue paper, paint, string, yarn, paper bags, stencils, stickers, wallpaper, magazines, stamps, macaroni, ribbon, construction paper... and the list goes on and on!  Needless to say, they had a blast!  They were sooooo into it!  We were so impressed with their creativity!

Here's some of our creations...

Our students were coming back from the library this week eager to show us the Ezra Jack Keats books they found in the library!  They love rereading the stories we enjoyed together throughout the week! There are lots of online resources where you can find books by Ezra Jack Keats if you don't have them available in your school library.   Hope you enjoyed this little dose of creativity!  Until next time frugal followers!!!

Our new math standards don't cover patterns anymore. We made this quick math foldable to see what our 1st graders already know about patterns! Feel FREE to download this FREEbie!

Students illustrate pattern to match pattern unit.

Pattern Foldable Freebie

We hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Science Notebooks

We have used our science notebooks so much more this year thanks to common core.

We hope to use them even more next year! It's such a great way for students to record new learning and build on previously learned concepts.


How often do you use science notebooks in your class? Do you use them in centers at all??

pirate pAARRRty time!

Take a look at a few of our pirates before we went on an "ar" treasure hunt around the school.
Our kite strings are in the way, but you get the idea!

Pirate week was such a blast! We read tons of pirate books, we spoke like pirates ALL week, we played pirate games, we did pirate crafts and we finished off our week with a Pirate Paaarrrty!! It was a BLAST! One of our favorite weeks of the year, hands down! 

Each student made a pirate hat and got a pirate eye patch! We bought these items through out the year when we found them on sale at crafts stores and party stores. It was great to pull out our pirate box and have everything we needed! 

Many students tried to wear black and red.
Most brought bandanas too!

This sweet girl went all out!
She wore her pirate costume!
Too cute!!

Ready for our
Treasure Hunt!

On the look out for AR words!

Wrong map... "This is not a treasure map, it's the United States!"

X marks the spot!

Back in the classroom we finished our treasure map!

Listing our AR words
from the treasure hunt. 

Finishing our Pirate craft
from Babbling Abby's unit!

It's time to pAARRRRty!

Pirate Punch and Tattoos!

Snacks, pirate coins, loot bags and even a treasure from the treasure box!

Overall, it was an awesome week of learning! A phonics pattern the will never forget! We wish phonics was always this fun! So glad we bought the Pirate Pack from the Inspired Apple because it has so many great ideas! Our only regret was we forgot to take a picture of US! We were to busy trying to capture all of the fun we forgot to take a picture of the ourselves all dressed up! ARRGH!

This week we are learning about Ezra Jack Keats and his beautiful collage illustrations. We are still learning about the "bossy r" phonics pattern this week. We will keep you posted! Have a fantastic week!

UP KITE UP!

Hey frugal followers!  Sorry for my lack of posts lately - I'm trying to get back into the swing of things after a long (but not long enough) spring break!  The weather was definitely NOT on our side this past week! Although the sun was shining, the temps were too chilly for the beach!  However, we did manage to make it to the beach once toward the end of the week (as you might have seen in Melissa's post)... it was well worth the wait!  We had a blast!

Any-hoo, I wanted to catch you all up on a fun and exciting project we did right before we went on (a much needed) break.  As many of you know, my classroom theme is frogs.  I am also a BIG fan of the Frog and Toad series by Arnold Lobel.  They are just so darn cute!  Our main selection that week just happened to be "The Kite" from Days with Frog and Toad.  With our focus skill on problem and solution that week we decided to create this adorable little KITE story maps!

     

This was an idea I came up with my first year teaching (waaaay back in 2008).  Over the years we've made modifications to make them fit with certain skills we are trying to teach at that time.   This year we divided the kite into four sections - one for characters, setting, problem, and solution.  Students had to draw and write about each topic in the corresponding sections.  For those of you who aren't familiar with the story - Frog and Toad want to fly a kite.  It doesn't work on the first try and Toad is ready to give up.  Frog encourages Toad to keep trying, and finally... on the fourth try, the kite goes up when Toad yells "UP KITE UP"!  On each try, Toad tries something new to make the kite fly.  This year, on the bow ties, we described each "attempt" at flying the kite.  In the past, I've used the bow ties as a BME and had the students describe the beginning, middle, and end of the story.  You could also use them to record words from the story that follow a particular spelling pattern.  There are so many options!!! Each student was responsible for making their own (which they absolutely LOVED!!!).  Of course I modeled an example during whole group before sending my little firsties off independently.  We talked about the importance of using the book as a reference to help them complete their kites.  Here's a glimpse at some of my kiddos at work... 

 

 

 Here's a close up of the final product...

I used large construction paper to cut out the kites ahead of time (took about 5 minutes... if that) and I wrote the headings myself.  You could have the kids write the heading themselves if you'd rather... I just chose to do it ahead of time.  Our kites are now hanging from our classroom ceiling and they turned out to be fantastic decorations!  Each year, this turns out to be one of their favorite projects.  They all wanted to go out and see if they'd fly!  Melissa ended up taking her class out to fly real kites in the PE field hahaha it was amazing and chaotic all at the same time!!! Picture 19 kids running around with 19 different kite strings on a windy day and one teacher tangled up in the middle of all of it!!! haha It was the perfect way to finish the week and head out on spring break!  Hope you all had a wonderful spring break - hang in there, summer is right around the corner!

First Grade Buccaneers

AHOY Matey's! As you have probably already guessed, it's pirate week in our classrooms!! This is one of our favorite weeks of the year! We have been stalking up on pirate gear all year! Every time we see something on sale we grab it! We have pirate hats, eye patches, pirate tattoos, pirate stickers, pirate treasure maps, compasses, and pirate pAARRRty supplies! It's going to be such a fun week!

Today was a teacher work day we had a chance to get everything ready for a fun filled week of PHONICS!!!

A bunch of fabulous bloggers like Babbling Abby, Erica Bohrer, Michelle Oaks and The Teacher Wife (Lindsey) have already shared some fabulous ideas! Why recreate the wheel? We bought Abby's fabulous Pirate Pack last year and plan on using it again this year to focus our entire week around
pirates!!! Last year it proved to be one phonics pattern our kiddos NEVER forgot!

Tomorrow we are going to start our literacy block by introducing our new phonics pattern (r-controlled vowels /ar/) by reading "How I became a Pirate"

We have a bunch of other great read alouds for the week, too! After we introduce the spelling pattern we are going to do some fun online pirate activities to become more "pirate educated"! We are going to practice talking like pirates and mainly focus on "ARRRRR" which means a few things in "pirate" but we are going to focus on the "yes" and "I agree" version. We will also learn a few other pirate terms such as "AYE AYE" which means "I'll get right on that" and "AVAST" which means "check it out." And of course "Ahoy" for hello and "Matey" for friend/buddy! All of this information was found on Talk LIke A Pirate. It's also fun to use the Pirate Translator.

We are going to incorporate a little WHOLE BRAIN TEACHING/LEARNING by doing a little partner "mirror" and "teach" with the sounds of /ar/ in our best pirate voices! We will also bring in some Kagan learning by doing some rally robin with /ar/ words that sound like a pirate and words that sound like "air".         

  Examples:Yard/Garden/Tar and Care/Fare/Stare. We will use a T-Chart to record our new learning. 

We are going to give our students a few minutes to makeup their own pirate friend "matey".

To download Click Here

It will give them a chance to be creative! We plan to keep you updated on all of our fun activities this week! Stay tuned for more matey's! We hope ye would like to join us in teaching these lads some new things! Yo Ho Ho!

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