Storytelling

I don't know if you heard, but Friday was a Ms. Immel kinda of day.  

Ms. Immel is my mentor from the Early Literacy Leadership Academy at Rice University.  She assists me with implementing literacy through storytelling/story acting in the classroom.  The Superheroes and Ms. Immel had a great time reading and acting out a new book.(Please, Mr. Panda)   You will be receiving stories dictated by your child with a letter attached explaining the process.

  Not only are your children learning a great deal - they are having fun doing it! 

 At the end of the year, we will publish an anthology of their stories.  

Mathematicians at Work!

Here are a few examples of the work that happens during math workstations.  In the first picture the partners decided to skip count by two's.  After sorting the collection into 2's they began to record their work.  The second picture shows partners working together to create and solve equations with manipulatives. The third picture shows two very proud friends who worked together to sort their collection into groups of five and then recorded their work. 

International Day Of Peace

The students worked together to create this masterpiece.   Last week we had several conversations regarding peace and what we would want placed on the Peace Wall at Mark Twain.  One student came up with the saying: Peace is... listening to the world.  The other students began to brainstorm that we needed a picture of the world and all of us around it.  Further discussion include using the paper doll idea to represent all kids.  I happen to find paper dolls on line that represent other countries and we worked together to create the final project.  The students had a lot of conversations about the different countries, the way to say peace in other languages. and the population of other countries. 

Counting Collections

The Superheroes were very excited to have someones' name valued at more than 100! 

Name Challenge

Today we explore graphing.  This activity required the students to make unifix towers for each letter in their name.  The value of the letter was dependent on where it was in the alphabet.  First, we graphed our predictions.  Whose name would have the most unifix cubes?  Why do you think that?  Whose name would have the least number of unifix cubes?    The students first completed their names and then counted how many cubes.  Next, the visited other students to compare their values.  We also double checked and counted to make sure the number on the recording note was accurate.  In the end, we moved the lesson out into the hallway where we put our towers together to great one hugh graph.  The end results were surprising to everyone!  

Collections

We are obsessed with counting!  The students are learning about skip counting by 2's, 5's, and 10's.  During math workstations, students use what we are calling collections.  They include different materials to count and different materials to organize the counting.  

Special Visitor

Today we had a visit from Mr. Musters, my brother! 

 He is a 44 year veteran teacher who just retired and moved to the Philippines.  The kids were so excited to meet him. He did a great presentation on life for children in the Philippines.  It fit in perfectly with our planner:  Who We Are. 

  The students perceptions became global as they learned how actions and attitudes 

affect communities in other parts of the world. 

Lemon of a Lesson

We are working on our science objectives and the first one states:  What does a scientist do?  We have been exploring possible tools scientists use and ways they record information. Today we used magnifying glasses and lemons.  The students learned how to use their five senses (except taste!) to observe and record information. 

Venn Diagrams

Today we spent some time getting to know our new friends.   Together we worked on a Venn Diagram.  We had to communicate with each other to find out things that were different about us and things that were the same.   We had a great time working cooperatively and then the students shared with the rest of the class.  

Read Read READ

We always spend part of our day just reading a good book.  The students have developed a plan to read to self and we choose 'just right' books and a comfy spot. 

Ten Dots???

We had a great time in math today exploring what you can make with ten dots.  The students had to sketch a picture that requires ten circles to make it complete. It was a risk-taking venture

because several times they realized their idea did not work. 

 Then The Superheroes had to become thinkers and solve the conundrum.  

Math Workstations

(Click on picture to enlarge it)

The Superheroes are working hard in the classroom.  Here are some examples of how we are working in math workstations.  We begin by exploring all the different types of manipulatives.  Students are learning about patterns, sequences, ordinal numbers and skip counting. 

Morning Meeting

Here we are in Morning Meeting sharing a greeting.  Each week a new student will be responsible 

for leading the morning meeting and coming up with ways to greet each other and 

fun activities to do as a whole community. 

Birthday Graph

We had a fun time during math today!  First we tried to figure out a way to organize all our birthdays so we could easily figure out which months had more birthdays and which months had no birthdays.  After a discussion it was decided we should create a human graph.   This way we could easily see that April has the most birthdays!  Next, we took the information and turned into a class book!

Buddy Reading

We will be spending a lot of time reading in first grade.  One way is with a buddy.  We call it the EEKK position:  Elbow to elbow, knee to knee I read to you and You read to me.  

Reflections

Everyday the students can add a reflection to our board.  Here are some from the first day:  First grade is awesome.  I love First.  I am having a great day. I made 5 friends.   As the year progresses,  I am hoping to see reflections connected to our planner and our learner profile.   Each week I will save some to put in a book so that the class can see how much they have grown and learned.

Summer In A Bag

Summer in a bag was a huge success for our first homework assignment.  Everyday the students wanted time to sit together and share the stories in the bags.   We also used them for our first object writing lesson. It was wonderful to see the students sharing and listening to their new friends. 

Signed Agreement

As a whole community, we chose the attitudes and actions that we would like to see in our classroom.  Amazing how when  we put it together it spelled HERO!

Essential Agreements

Here are the students working on their first cooperative group activity.  Each student has an important role in the group.  The goal:  to come up with what we think is important to have a great class.  How do we think the classroom should look like, sound like, feel like on a daily basis.   The students wrote individual with words and pictures their ideas.  Next, we sat as a whole team and decided which one of the choices we agree is the best choice.  From that our essential agreements were born!

Morning Meeting

We begin each morning with a meeting where we greet each other and then do a fun activity with the whole group.  It is a great way to start each day.  The students are all smiling and laughing with each other as we learn our names and learn how to listen to our friends.  We end with what we now refer to as "chime time" this is a method from the Hawn Foundation: http://thehawnfoundation.org/mindup/ to help students calm their brain.  Through this program the students are learning about the parts of the brain and how they work.  We will be completing Mind up lessons throughout the year.

In the beginning...

I usually show up at the classroom in August to begin unpacking, but this year my room was done early YEAH!!  So in between Writing Camp and Presentations at Rice I was able to swing by and begin the transformation of the year.  In the beginning it's hard to believe that we start with literally a blank canvas and then the students change the space as soon as they enter. 

  They make the classroom- a classroom!!