The Audience

The audience plays a very important role during our story acting.  Sometimes an author may need them to participate by makings sounds or repeating phrases.  The most important thing they do is get the drama started by stating:  LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION.  The second most important thing is  they like to give compliments to the author and the actors for a job well done.

Story Acting

We had Officer Buckle and her dog Gloria,  Mario and Luigi and several J.J. Watts.  Everyone had a great time writing and dramatizing their stories.  The best part for me was watching the students work together to figure out who their characters would be in the story and where it would take place.  There was a lot of conversation about what a story needs!

Story Book Parade Day

Wow!  What amazing costumes.  The Superheroes did such a great job choosing different books to be represented in the parade.   The best part was when we returned to the room and began writing stories to include all these wonderful characters.   This was yet another incentive the students earned from the Fun Run....  we story acted ALL DAY! (Well, technically half a day.) 

Parade

Fun Run

To say that we were a little excited about the Fun Run would be an understatement!  The Superheroes were thrilled to be running to raise money for the Spark Park.  Somehow I got roped into running the laps too!  Ms. Patin said at one point a parent took a picture of me grimacing instead of smiling and I said that's probably when my hip went out trying to maneuver around those corners! It was a great event and we had a fun time and got a workout all at the same time! 

Fun Run!!

Writing Conferences

You will often find us sitting and discussing our writing in small groups.  Today we are working on zig-zag books.   The students are writing stories and working hard to create

 a beginning with characters and a setting, the middle which involves the plot and

 the end which delivers a solution to the problem. 

Heat Energy

The Superheroes are exploring three different types of energy:  heat, light and sound.  We explored man made vs natural types of energy.  We determined that the sun provides two types of energy both heat and light.  Today we experimented by creating heat energy with our bodies.  The students rubbed their hands together which created friction and then held a chocolate kiss in their hand to see if it would melt.  The results were very interesting.

Pumpkin Math Stations

Instead of a Halloween Party, The Superheroes had Super Pumpkin stations.  Thank you parents for the donations of pumpkins and treats!  We had so much fun reading, writing and exploring science through pumpkin activities.  One student said, " I've had too much fun today!"

Pumpkin Math From The Inside

Our next time was to explore the pumpkins a little closer.  Did you know that the lines on the pumpkin match the stem of the pumpkin?   We decided to explore with the largest pumpkin.  Did you know that as soon as you cut a pumpkin open you can smell it?  We found out lots of interesting things such as: the inside of a pumpkin is hollow (that made us think of ships -which float), the seeds have a very distinct way of hanging in the pumpkin, and that a bigger pumpkin has bigger seeds!  

Does A Pumpkin Sink or Float?

CLICK ON PICTURE TO ENLARGE

 The Superhero scientists went to the garden today to determine whether pumpkins sink or float?  After a lot of discussion, we put (or threw) the pumpkins into the water!  And guess what no matter how heavy they are they all floated!  The interesting thing was they floated in different ways.  Some turned upside down, some turned sideways, and some floated with the stem sticking straight up!  Needless to say the experiment generated a lot of questions and 

we will have to explore the inside of the pumpkins next!

Live Version of The Five Little Pumpkins

Toy Dance Party

The Superheroes have done it!  They have worked together and earned a lot of jewels.  This happens when they are showing attributes of the Learner Profile.  Being principled and respectful and working together as a community.  Together we came up with a few possible ways to celebrate.  The winning choice:  A Toy Dance Party.  The students brought a favorite stuffed animal for the day and

 as you can see from the pictures: we danced!!!

Five Little Pumpkins

Students working in the poetry center on The Five Little Pumpkins.  It has become one of our favorites during the month of October.  

First Grade in Action

My students have been experimenting with taking pictures.  I love what I find when I download them!  Here are some random shots of The Superheroes in action.  Practicing sight words, writing books, and exploring science with poetry.

World Record

Today was a very exciting day at Mark Twain!  The whole school participated in trying to have the most students being read to at one time.  Thank you to Bryan's mom for volunteering.  We loved the book and the best part is it fit right into our planner.  

Parts of a Story

We continue to explore what makes a great story.  This week the students worked on the setting and the characters.  We broke up into small cooperative groups to read a book together.  After reading the group had to determine what the setting was and who the characters were.  

We used that information to create an anchor chart. 

Math Monsters

Today we tried something new in math.  We combined a little art with the art of creating equations.  The students were required to complete the equations before creating the art.

  The end result was a math monster!!

The Visit by The Superheroes

Here we are working hard with our partners to illustrate the story we wrote this week.  The students did an amazing job matching the picture to the words of the story.  The end result is fantastic!

Writing Wednesday

This week we worked on a story together.  We are discovering how the narrative of a story works.  What happens at the beginning, middle and end.  We also have to decide on what genre before writing.  This is a class story where everyone has input into the development.  Our first idea after writing the story - act it out!  The next day, we took the sentences and divided among our classmates to illustrate.  The end result is a wonderful new class book for our library! 

Math Stations

The Superheroes work in math stations daily where they get to explore different concepts.  Our newest interest is bar graphs.  The students are fascinated with the ability to gather the data.  The next step would be to develop questions based on the data they accumulated. 

Tye Dye Milk??

We continue to work on our scientific observations skills by performing different types of experiments.  Today the students explored colors using milk and dish washing soap.   As you can see we were quite surprised by the results.  It lead us to come up with several more questions (as any good scientist does) and we will continue to try different things in our science station.  

Birthday Treats

Today we got a special birthday treat from Jackson's dad.  He came with his guitar and played several songs for us.  We even got a mini lesson on how the guitar makes sound.  

The Superheroes are always interested in visitors, so if you have a special talent please feel free to contact me to come and share with us. 

The Anatomy of Storyacting

What is the process of story acting?  

The first step is to share the story with the audience.   Next, the cast of characters is announced and they move off stage to get ready.  The teacher reads the story as the students act out the character assigned.  They may move or speak as that character would.  Finally, the actors take a bow and the audience claps for them and then the actors clap for their wonderful audience. 

Literacy Stations

Literacy Stations continue to evolve as students gain more and more independence.  There are many engaging stations that involve word building, sight words, reading, listening and writing. 

Waiting for the Show

One of our literacy stations involves creating a play.  Today the performance had an audience!  The next step will be to write down the cast of characters and what the characters are saying. 

Science Center

Science has become a new obsession in our classroom.  We studied the different types of tools scientist uses and how they record their observations.   We've tried a few experiments, making hypothesis before following through on procedures. 

New Photographers!!

Everyone wants a chance to use the camera to record what's happening in your classroom! 

 Here are some interesting perspectives! 

Storytelling 101

Every day we pick a new storyteller.  It was decided that this first time the student's name would be chosen randomly.  Next, the storyteller sits down with me while I write the story for them.  As you can see from the pictures it is an exciting time.  The students naturally gravitate to the table so they can hear what is happening in the story, but I think they are very interested in who the characters will be!  If chosen, they will be able to act the story out!

Meeting Ms. Immel

As you can see ALL the students are completely enthralled listening to Ms. Immel reading.   

The best part was 'story acting' after we read it.  

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!! 

The last post by The Super Team

Now, its' time to say good-bye.  The year has flown by so quickly.  Like Lane said, "it felt like just one minute."  How is it possible that we accomplished so much in so short of a time.  

Thank you to the parents for helping with EVERYTHING (the list is too long!).  

Thank you to my students for making my year so interesting, fun and exciting! 

I think The Superheroes said it best during their performance on awards day.  

So, it seems right to end with their words:

The Magic Pen

written by The Superheroes

I hear Ms. Musters say, "Lights, Camera, Action!"
I hear people whispering, "Let's play at recess together!'
Clickers clicking when recess is over
Feet stomping on the read track
I see a tree not a normal tree a tree filled with words like...
narrowing, sobbing, gasped, glitch, frolic, inspire, redundant, imperative,
chockablock, coax, plethora, observation, grateful.
Come to the deep blue sea and meet with me..
kids everywhere writing with a magic pen
pencils flying everywhere sounds like
shhhh shhhhh shhhhh
asking questions, conferencing,
writing  a whole idea on your paper
writing about our lives
I hear kids singing a song called "Puff the Magic Dragon"
(Students sing the chorus:  Puff the magic dragon, lived by the sea and frolicked
in the autumn mist in a land call Honah lee. )
I taste bunuelos fading into sadness because of how quick this year has been.

If felt like one minute
"Everything is Awesome"

(After 3 seconds, students burst into song and dance)
Everything is awesome
everything is cool
when your part of a team
everything is awesome
when your're living out your dream

Advice!

One of our last assignments as first graders was to come up with three (because that's our magic number) pieces of advice for the future first graders.  

Here are some of their wise words:

Express ideas to other classmates.

Follow rules its the best thing to do. 

Focus on your work. 

The first time you go on the spider -it has to be Spanish day. 

You will be making and dramatizing your stories. 

Create your own challenges.

If the class is doing something really yucky - go ahead and try it!

Be safe when there are fire drills. 

You have to write long sentences. 

When you do literacy workstations:  write, write write, Think, think, think and Learn, learn learn.

Just raise your hand to ask. 

You need to be independent. 

Follow the essential agreements. 

Our Memory Boards

Finally, our memory boards are complete!  We took them off the wall and found a pocket full of post cards from all our friends.  As you can see from the pictures everyone had a great time reading and sharing our memories from first grade.  

Here are some of the memories that were shared with me:

Toy Dance Party

Reading at Rice University

Field Trip to the Menil Museum 

Crocodile Field Trip

Pumpkin Math 

Frog and Toad Program

Making Butter

The 100th day of School

Goop 

and the list goes on...