Week 15: How Do I Eat a Gingerbread Cookie Graph

This week, we read lots of different gingerbread books.

My favorite is the Gingerbread Girl!

In math, we made a "How do I eat a gingerbread cookie" pictograph.

Week 14: Non-Fiction Text Features

We have been learning about different types of non-fiction text features such as: table of contents, index, glossary, and captions.  

This week, the students drew pictures from their guided reading books and wrote their own captions. They also determined if their caption was a fact or an opinion.

Week 13: Wants and Needs, Career Day, and an Elf!

We had a busy week back to school after a much needed Thanksgiving break!

Wants and Needs
We are learning about what we want and our needs to survive.  Students made Christmas stockings with their needs and toys they want for Christmas.  They were given a toy catalog and cut out pictures of toys and items that are on their wish list.  These stocking are hanging in the hallway!

Career Day
Thank you to the students and families who participated in our first grade career day!  They did an amazing job and they are going to be great community workers in the future!

Meet our Classroom Elf
Our classroom elf arrived on Thursday, December 1st.  We named him Candycane.  He just had a birthday on November 25th.  His favorite food is Christmas cookies and loves the colors red and white!

Week 12: Thank You Firefighters!

This week, the Fairfield Fire Department visited our school and taught us all about fire safety.  It was a great presentation and the kids learned a lot!  They even got to go outside and see the firetrucks!

The firefighters were so kind.  They gave every child a firefighter hat.  We wanted to thank the firefighters for coming to our school and teaching us about fire safety.  Here are my students enjoying their firefighter hats and writing Thank You cards to all the men and women who keep us safe!

Week 11: Different ways to represent numbers

In math, we have been focusing on addition and subtraction facts and strategies.  This week, we were figuring out all of the ways to make the sums of 11-19. 

One day, I decided to write the numbers 11-16 on big chart paper.  The children were instructed to go around the room and write down a way to represent that number.  We talked about using addition, subtraction, tally marks, money, time, measurement ...etc. 

The children came up with some awesome ways to represent numbers!

Week 10: Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from Nemo and Dory!

I want to personally thank Mrs. Tonks for being our room parent and organizing the helpers for our awesome Halloween Party on Monday.  Also-thank you so much to all the other parents who helped out with the party!  It was so much fun. :)

The children looked so great in all of their costumes!  We were missing one of our girls, but got a big surprise during the parade!  I was so happy to see Raven!

 

I hope everyone enjoyed their Halloween celebrations! 

 

Week 9: Board Games and Close Reading Activities!

My students earned another whole class reward for "Spotless Behavior."  Their reward was to have a game board party!  It was so much fun and the kids really enjoyed playing the games.

This week we also learned a lot about matter in Science.  We did an experiment with Mr. Russell's class and we made ice cream by using ice, salt, cream, sugar, and vanilla.  We turned the liquids into solids... and it was yummy!  

You can make it at home too!  Just click on this link:  

Ice Cream Experiment

Then, we did some close reading activities with a story about water.  The students became reading detectives and worked in partners to answer questions based on what they read!

  

What a great week in first grade!

Week 8: Measurement Mondays

We have several school-wide goals this year at Klein Elementary.  These goals will help students become more effective readers and mathematicians!

Our math goal this year is to provide a better understanding of measurement and data.  We have "Measurement Mondays" at Klein in all grade levels to help students focus on this important life-long math skill. 

Typically, we do not begin our measuring unit in first grade until March.  But now that we are striving to become better measurers at Klein, I have included some independent activities in the classroom that will help children begin their exploration and understanding of measurement early on in the school year!

One simple way of incorporating measurement into our daily routine is by providing rulers to the children as an activity they can do when they have completed their morning work.  Here are some pictures of some students choosing to measure things around the room! 

Click on the link to practice measuring at home!  Measure!

Week 7: ExpERIEnce Children's Museum Fieldtrip!

We had an amazing time at the Children's Museum on Friday.  The children played, explored, learned, and had so much fun!  I think the teachers and parent helpers had lots of fun too!  It was a great day!

Thank you so much to Mr. Wisniewski, Mr. Sanford, Mrs. Burick, and Mrs. Harmon for volunteering to be chaperones!