Dive into First Grade

I have been so blessed to have had the opportunity to go on another dive trip. We did our first dive trip 3 years ago and this last November, we went on a week long adventure to the island of Roatan just off of Honduras. Here a picture of me next to Mr. Bud; one of the wreck dives by our resort. :)



When I came back, I of course had to dive into Thanksgiving but after all of the pilgrim fun, I was able to take some time to bring the ocean to my landlocked classroom. We spent the week writing and reading about the ocean animals and at the end of the week were able to pick our favorite animals to create published writing and pieces of art. We put all of our ocean life together to make a coral reef that I would be all for diving!

Isn't it cute! The kids got to pick their favorite animal they wrote and learned about for the week, make a final draft of their writing, and then create an animal out of construction paper. Of course...you will notice all the sharks at the top. Kids are just fascinated with them. I could spend a whole week just on sharks. Here are some close ups of my kiddos work.

 




When we do our writing, I split the kids into differentiated writing groups that are working on specific targets/standards. As a group, we do an example writing together and discuss the writing target and previous worked on targets as we create a descriptive writing piece. Then the kids go and work independently on a piece of their own. Since we are describing something, we use a web to brainstorm out descriptive words before writing about the animal or object. The below picture shows the group work together on the left. The student then gets to pick out an animal of his or her own to write about. I like to give the kids something tangible to take back to their tables for independent work so for this unit, I used cut out pictures of ocean critters from my dive magazines.

At the end of the week, the kids go back and review all of their writing and pick their very favorite writing. Once they have picked it, we go through and edit the work together. That is the orange pen marks you see on the picture on the right. Then, they write up their final draft. Isn't this clownfish the cutest!  

 

Here is a freebie of the writing page, if you want your kiddos make an ocean writing of their own.  Here is also another freebie for a seashell writing page that we did after our ocean unit to tie into our life science unit.

 

Enjoy!

 

Priscilla 

 

 

 

Student Supplies

Happy Monday! I am in the process of planning out a new classroom. This terrifies me and excites me to no end! I recently moved from Idaho to Colorado. The biggest thing I have taken away from the move was....how did I get all this stuff? I am pretty sure Jason almost died on the spot when he saw all of my teaching supplies that I just could not live without. OF COURSE....even plastic straws, cotton balls, and used crayons are important. :)

Anyway, on Friday I got to see my new classroom and I am beyond myself. (Allow me to brag for a half sec.) It is a brand new classroom in a brand new building. I have brand new furniture and brand new technology. Did I mention I was excited?

After seeing my room, I of course got to planning right away. I'm not able to work in my room yet since they still need to set up the technology but I have brought home the curriculum and am making room maps and drafting ideas galore.

The first thing I want to figure out is how to store student supplies. I have tables in my new room and I have always had desks in the past. How do I store all of their stuff while making it organized and easily accessible?

Well, I found some pictures that I think will put me on the right track. Let me know what you think and please visit these fabulous ladies.

Now this I get. Every table has their supplies and everyone shares the general supplies. I love the way that Tiffani over at Time for Organization has separated the supplies into cups and I am currently seeing visions of scrapbooked cans. By the way, Tiffani is also giving you those cute little polka dot labels for free!

Here is another table top organization idea from Mrs. Shannon at Mrs. Shannon's First Grade Class. I like the idea of every table having a small garbage can and also a small basket of books for fast finishers. I'm also think having writing notebooks, math journals, or poem folders at the table as well.


Well I am off to do some shopping. I'll let you know what I find. :)

Ta-ta for now! :)

Priscilla

Rockin' Resources Linky!

Wowzers...I can't believe (or yes you probably can!) how busy we teachers can get throughout the school week.  I had such HUGE expectations for this little blog when Priscilla and I started it almost a year ago.  Well.... I am happy to say I am going to give blogging the ol' college try and really set aside time to share my daily classroom happenings and teacher inspirations.

So, why not start big and begin the rejuvenation with a Linky Party :)Kelley over at Teacher Idea Factory has begun a great Link Up for all of those teacher resources you can't live without.  Here are some of my favorites from this year:

I am a zealous Smart Board user and visit this website to download {FREE!} ready to go activities. It is super easy to search for certain concepts and I like the option to select multiple grade levels too!

Discovery Education's United Streaming.  My school district has a subscription and we can instantly stream tons of videos...all kid friendly! Nope, no worrying about inappropriate ads or language, this is an easy go to for instructional videos.

Music! I love to sneak in Heidi's Songs, Jack Hartman, Intelli-Tunes, Dr. Jean and random itunes selections into our day.  It is such a fun way to jazz up-no pun intended :) to smooth transitions or energize a boring concept. Plus, I just had a dance loving class this year....they would work their little hearts out for a 1 minute dance party!

Apple ipad...

Okay this one is kind of cheating, but I recently found out I will be the proud owner of 3 new ipads for the upcoming school year and I KNOW I will use the heck out of them. I can't wait to discover what a great resource this is going to become!

Jennifer

Homework Extension Ideas

I just finished our first trimester parent teacher conferences this last Friday. The conferences went well and I loved getting to brag about all the gains my first graders have made since the beginning of the year.

Every year there is a very eager parent that asks the question, "How can I challenge my child more at home?" Every year I discuss ideas with parents and make suggestions but I was tickled pink when I found this list of Homework Extension Ideas created by the Teeny Tiny Teacher.

She was so thoughtful in her ideas for all of the subjects. The ideas are well thought out and this page really gives the parents a reference point to come up with challenging homework ideas at home.

Priscilla

100 Chart Pumpkin

With Halloween landing on a Monday {ugh!} and an involved party planned by some of my amazing parents, there wasn't much time left in the day to squeeze in some math. So....I created an easy 100 chart mystery picture for my students to complete. The fun part is that this activity is super easy to differentiate! Pass out blank 100 charts, charts with missing numbers or a completed 100 chart depending on your kids' abilities. Plus, you can give the numbers in so many ways it is bound to keep their interest. Announce numbers to color in tens/ones, as addition/subtraction sentences, word problems, 1+/-, 2+/-, 10 +/-...you get the point :)

After coloring in the numbers, a cute little pumpkin appears.

**Side Note** I plan on using the interactive 100 chart found in the Smart Board Notebook gallery to follow model. This is what you are seeing in the image above, I left the side bar open so you could hopefully get a better idea of where to find it!

{Download a copy of the coloring instructions HERE!}

Jennifer

Yum..a sweet candy corn man

Whew...I don't know how you ladies do it! I am having such a hard time keeping up with the blogging and teaching, now that school has settled into a bit of a routine I am ready to jump back in!

I have Halloween on the mind, as I'm sure you do too with only 6 short days to go! I just wanted to share a cute and easy art/writing project my class completed this week to get into the spirit of Halloween.

First we made a torn paper candy corn man, inspired by this post from Made for 1st Grade's Candy Corn themed unit. We added our own spin by cutting our own triangle shape without a tracer and adding torn pieces of orange, yellow, and white paper. The kids choose to snazzy their Candy Corn Man by adding a face, arms, legs and of course a spectacular pair of shoes :)

The following day, we added a poem about candy corn. I deleted the color words as well as the missing verb in the last line. The kids enjoyed filling in the missing color words... but we had to keep in mind what colors needed to go where in order for the poem to rhyme. The poem is a short one I whipped up so it's nothing special, but the kids liked choosing the verb. Overall, it was an easy project which encourages individuality, plus it keeps those copy machines a little less busy!

Candy corn,

candy corn,

orange, yellow, and white,

I sure hope I ___ you on Halloween night!

{Download the Candy Corn poem I wrote HERE!}

Jennifer

Freebies you NEED to check out!

Wow, the first week has come and gone and I am loving my new class! I'm tired, but so excited to incorporate all of my new blogging ideas.  I have printed so many spectacular signs, games, and my wish list on Amazon is becoming monstrously long!  For this post I just wanted to link you up with some of my favorite ideas and freebies I have printed from all of those amazing teaching blogs out there via googledocs.  Hope you can find something useful too!

Super cute Daily 5 Posters from kindertastic's cute blog...there are large and small versions for both pocket charts or anchor charts. I posted mine on some cute scrap booking paper at the top of our I chart.  They not only look great but provide a nice visual for beginning readers. You can find them here!  

Here are some G-R-E-A-T reading strategy posters.  They can be found at The First Grade Parade...of course. There are two different versions to choose from... Letter size and she also also included a bookmark for kid friendly referencing too! Cara has such darn cute stuff to post every week. {how she does it all is inspirational to say the least!}  Love, Love, Love! Click here for her reading strategy post.

I have also found Deanna Jump's monthly calendars super handy at Mrs's Jump's Class.  I am planning to keep a copy in my Cafe binder to help me stay on track with all of those conferences. You can click here for the link!

Those are three of my current favorites...stay posted for more :)

 Jennifer