Reading in the Dark

Everyone bring your flashlight! We are having a reading in the dark party!

Fire Safety Town

Boosterthon

Check out all the fun we had a Boosterthon Fun Run!

Costume Ideas for the Folk and Fairy Tale Festival

Here are a few costumes from years before!

The mouse from The Little Red Hen

two Cinderellas and two of The Three Little Pigs

The Big Bad Wolf

Two more Big Bad Wolfs

Thank you for helping make our learning come alive!

Scientist!

We have been explore science tools and how to use them! We got to use hand lens, pipettes, goggles, and balance scales. Here is a look at how much fun we had!

Centers- What are they and how do they benefit your child?

Centers are one small part of our literacy and math instruction.  A typical reading and math lesson has many parts. First, there is the whole group lesson; this is when I teach a new skill. In the whole group lesson, the learner is given time to explore and get explanation for a new skill. There is normally some type of work to check the learners understanding. When students are finished with their work from the whole group lesson the learner works in centers. You may be wondering what is Mrs. Young doing during this time, I am pulling small groups of students for re-teaching lessons, extension of learning lessons and guided reading group. This is why centers are so important!!! The quality small group instruction that can be given while everyone is still actively engaged makes for an unbeatable approach to meeting everyone’s needs.

There are other great things about centers:

·         The learner is independently working on an activity to make them a better reader or mathematician. They are using a map to manage completing the required activities while building great time management skills. They must complete a number of centers (usually 11 centers) before Fun Friday!

·         Once the learner completes an activity they must put it in their Center Folder until Friday to be checked for Fun Friday. This builds great accountability for your own learning as well as your belongings.



Brenna's Center Folder



·         Students must also learn to use their resource around the room. This is one of the main reasons I love centers. As learners of a technology driven world, our students do not have to be experts at any one topic any more…they just have to be experts at finding the answer to any question.  During centers the learner must navigate around the room gathering supplies to complete centers. They can also use any resource in the room to complete their centers. For example, during our “Read the Room” centers the learner can use words found on the wall or in books from our classroom library. These students practice the important emergent reader skill of beginning sounds while learning that a book can give you the answers.

resource around the room

·         Another wonderful aspect of centers is…everyone is having fun while practicing a needed skill. There are lots of games, hands-on activities and social interactions. 

	What are the students doing?	What is Mrs. Young doing?	Example from this week:
Whole Group Lesson	Actively listening Learning new skill Exploring new skill	Teaching a new skill Monitoring students learning	I taught a lesson about fact families (2+3=5, 3+2=5, 5-2=3, 5-3=2)
Work to check students understand of new skill	Practicing a new skill	Monitoring and correcting any misconceptions about the skill learned today	The students played Go Fish with fact families. They have to find all 4 number sentence that belong in the same family. The student had to ask for any fact that belonged in the 4,5,9 family.
Centers/Small Group Time	Independently practicing on a skill already learned	Meeting with small group for Guided Reading, Extension Lessons or re-teaching lessons	A couple of examples of centers: Double fact game (4+4=8, 6+6=12) Making a graph and reading it Things Mrs. Young might be doing: Extension lesson- a few students understood fact families well enough we were able to play Go Fish by asking for a specific fact that belong in the family. For example they would have 4+5+9, 5+4+9, and 9-5=4, they would have to ask for 9-4=5.

A map from a few weeks ago

First Day Jitters

Today we read First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg. There is surprising ending! To build our class community we talk about how we were all a little nervous. Then we catch all our fears in a web.

Earth Day

Butterfly Release

We have had a great few weeks watching our butterflies grow but the time has come to set them free!

Reading 10,000 pages for a fish!

We have been reading Miss Daisy Is Crazy. A hilarious chapter book about A.J. a 2nd grader in Miss Daisy's class. Let's just say Miss Daisy is not always the smartest ;-) Her students teach her a lot!

In the story A.J. wants to turn the school into a Video Game Arcade so Miss Daisy tells the kiddos to read one million pages and she will make it happen. Our kids loved this so much...we are doing it to! But only 10,000 pages and we are trying to get a class fish!!!

Only 3 day in and we already read 1,647 pages!

Happy Reading!

Gobble It Up!

Customize a free greeting

Dallas World Aquarium

Here are just a few picutes. More to come!

Diving into our study of the ocean

·         We are swimming right along on our study of the ocean and everyone is really enjoying it! This is one of my favorite times of year because of all the art projects and fun, fun, fun learning going on! This week we have talked about coral reef, food chains, the zones of the ocean and much more. Next week we will talk about the open ocean and the many animals that live there.

Starfish!

Are you smarter than a 1st Grader?

Where is starfish's mouth?

Does a starfish have teeth?

Answer:

Ask your 1st Grader!!

One of our favorite books about the ocean, Rainbow Fish.

Exploring a mini beach.

Look at our pretty Rainbow Fish!



Sorry Blogger will not let me turn the picture :-(



Check out this wonderful Triorama. We have learned about Tide Pools and Coral Reef. We will learn about the Open Ocean and the Dark Ocean!



Love is in the Air - Valentine's Party

Making Heart Monsters

More Heart Monsters

They loved those monsters

Opening their Valentine's

Frist Grade Style Minute to Win It

They really loved this game!

Winter Celebrations

Here are just a few picture from the winter party. Thank you for making our party a success!

The week before the winter holidays, 1st grade study how kids celebrate around the world.

Here are the kiddos learning about Mexico and Italy! We also learned about the Czech Republic, England,  and Sweden, just to name a few.