We had SO much fun creating these "Binder Buddies"! :) We are working on a SMART goal in 1st grade to help out reading comprehension, so we decided to create reading response journals... well, how fun does that sound to a kiddo? So we decorated them, and gave them a name! Now I can say "Get your Reading Buddy!" We had creativity flowing and lots of fun names including Stewart and Bob! :)
0 Comments
We are working on visualizing while reading this week, and we read a really FUN poem called "My Neighbor's Dog is Purple". I read the poem and stopped after every paragraph and the students had to draw what they were visualizing in their heads. In the end of the story, the purple, vicious sounding dog, ends up being a purple crocodile statue. It was so cute to see their reaction at the end of the story, and their papers turned out hilarious!
Learning math works well when you can collaborate and talk about math with others! We played a game using pennies and wrote all of our combinations of 10 in a circle map, then we shared our finished circle maps! It was fun to see students catch on to the "pattern" that if you switch the numbers around, you get the same answer, but also have another combination to add to the circle map.
We read a really cute book called "Moving Day" about a hermit crab that needs to find a new home because his shell is old and cracked. The whole setting takes place in the ocean, but we decided to change up his setting and how his shell would have to adapt to these conditions. Some of the setting we came up with were, North Dakota in the winter ;), desert, and a swamp. Kids used the ipads to research the actual habitat and what it looked like and how his shell would have to adapt to survive in these conditions. Was so fun! They had to really get outside of the box, but their shells came out really neat, and adaptive! ;)
Part of our spelling practice (and team building) is buddy check spelling tests. They kiddos take turn giving each other the test, and they practice using academic language and kind ways to help friends out. This has become a really fun way to practice!As part of learning the rules and expectations, we are also learning how to be a good citizen at home, at school and in the community. We read about different ways to be a good citizen in each area, then students created a little scenario to show how to be a good citizen by acting it out for us on the "stage". It was a fun way to help solidify how to be a good citizen!
Vocabulary is such an important part of learning comprehension, especially in 1st grade. Here we have students learning vocabulary in an interactive way! Students created a flip book of all their story vocab words, drew a picture to represent the word, and then they used a strategy called "4 part interview" to teach each other the word. This also gets them using the words in sentences, and then we went on a vocabulary word hunt around the school.
Mr. Markusen is awesome! He has his "Marky in the Morning" show every Friday, where he showcases a classroom LIVE and it streams to all the other classes. We get to watch him talk to us about important information, and get to see what other classes are up to. Stay tuned for a blog post when he visits Room 314! :)
My goal this year is to become super tech savvy and to have the kids also use technology as much as possible in every day education. It is important for them to get used to 21st learning styles because these ipads and activboards are going to be the lowest form of technology they will see in their lives, and it's amazing!
With that, I had students work in groups to go around and take pictures of following the rules and meeting expectations for each part of the school (classroom, hallway, lockers, lunchroom and playground). They then returned and used their pictures to make a bubble map using the app called Poplet. This coming week, they will be pulling up their ipads onto the activboard via airdrop and sharing their rule books they created. Kids are amazing, they teach ME every day about technology, too! :) We had SO much fun brainstorming about what a good logo/mascot for our new school would be... We worked it out as a team! I had the students brainstorm by using the hand up/pair up strategy. I wrote down all their awesome ideas, then they paired up and picked their top 3 favorites from the bubble map. I then tallied their responses, and we came up with the top 3 favorites.. The Bison (hehe), The Leopards and The Stallions. (All names were kid created!) Then they made an individual vote and we made a bar graph of all of our votes. The kids were cheering for every response! It was engaging and fun. Our class winning name was The Leopards... but as you all know, the winning name for Legacy, school wide, is the LEGACY LIONS! :) I love being part of our new school. This is going to be a great year as the Lions!
|
Super Teacher!
A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instill a love of learning. Archives
November 2015
Categories
All
|