Word Wall

It has been driving me crazy not having a "Word Wall" in my classroom. If you are wondering what a word wall is, go HERE! You can print this off and have one at home.

Yet, no matter where I tried, the room was not conducive to a word wall that was useful to the children. So, I went and got these...

and the children LOVED it! It is set up alphabetically with spaces for them to write other words they will use when they write.

This book allows the children to have those common hard to spell words at their fingertips everyday!

Speaking of writing, this is an example of this weeks writing about Hens. Jack's mom helped guide the children on how to draw the hen using the Mimio(that cool over head projector-like technology I use in the classroom) during small groups. What is absolutely amazing is the fact that not one single hen looks like another and there were step by step instructions on how to draw it. The beauty of the human differences. I shall "try" to get more pictures tomorrow of their work.


On Monday, we will have the booster thon pep rally. This is an opportunity for the children to raise money for our classroom while having a blast exercising! We are trying to raise money for a new classroom rug that was given to the new kindergarten teacher from my class.
Here is the first bit of information that went home about this today.

This past weekend, J.J. had a chance to take home Froggy! The children are very excited to get their chance with him.


Speaking of Friday, I wonder what I have up my sleeve? Hmmm, what could be in store for tomorrow.

POPCORN!

Unfortunately, I missed the whole popping process with the camera. I did capture the empty tub. Believe it or not..a cup and a half filled this huge tub.
The interesting thing...most children had never ever seen a hot air popper in action! The excitement was amazing. Truthfully, Mount St. Helens erupting could not have been more exciting.

What better way to end the week than have some popcorn? Early Friday morning I headed out to the store and picked up a hot air popper(I was afraid they didn't make them anymore.), popcorn, and a big tub. I even picked up candy corn. Mmmm, candy corn! Wonder what kind of field candy corn grows in?

After reading the story "All That Corn" in our reading book this week, we discussed everything corn. When the book said the corn was as tall as a wall, I asked why the author would compare corn to a wall. They finally guessed it was because it is tall. This past summer I went on a 12 day road trip to Danville, Illinois. We only spent three days in Danville visiting my husbands 96 year old Grandfather. I had a chance to see where my husband grew up in Covington, Indiana. On one of our excursions through the countryside, I made him stop and take this picture because I couldn't believe the corn was so high!

I am 5'9 inches tall, with my hands extended...I still could not reach the top of the corn!
All through the midwest, it was corn and soy bean fields as far as the eye could see. Grabbing a hold of the wind and harnessing its power for energy , stood windmills off in every direction.

I loved the chance to take time to get to our destination. We did not hop on a plane and get there in 2 hours. Rather, we took 12 days to see all there is to see. Chattanooga, TN, Danville, IL, Covington, IN, Lafayette, IN (to visit Purdue my husbands alma mater), Chicago, IL, Peoria, IL, St. Louis, MO, Memphis, TN(yes, I just had to go to the gates of Graceland...just to say I was there! Elvis was singing under a tent. So, yes Elvis is alive.) If you are looking for a wonderful, family friendly city, by all means please visit Chattanooga. It is an amazing walking city full of activities your child would love to do within a short walk. (Children's Science Center, Aquarium, a large park to play in, ride the Mississippi on a paddle wheel boat, a farmer's market and even a baseball field right downtown!) Lookout mountain is gorgeous and you must go into the fort.

Any fun plans for your weekend? The Winter Park Art Festival is this weekend. I may get over there for a bit.

Speaking of art, Friday was ART SEE. The children learned about Pablo Picasso.
This piece by Picasso is called the musician.

The children were creating their own art work using this piece as inspiration. Jack's mom, Chelsea's mom and Dylan's dad were there to make this activity a smashing success! I love how they present the lesson, work together, and encourage the children every step of the process!

It's actually scientific!

An interesting scientific study...

Children who are excited to write, will write passionately. Those who are not excited to write, will cry.

It is true.
Write about Flat Stanley or Flat Dylan, or Flat Haley, or Flat Scott, or Flat Amber, or Flat Carson...and the words flow. Write about what makes a good friend for a writing prompt for a grade on a cold topic...and you hear crickets...and then a sob. The children learned today what sob means...and not because I made some cry when I said you have five more minutes to finish and they hadn't even begun to write.
It was then that I want to shake somebody in the higher up offices away from the children and the classrooms and say, "LOOK WHAT YOU HAVE DONE!!!!".

I digress.

Lesson learned...do not panic with your child's grade on their writing prompt. Besides it is just the first one. Join me as I look at the bigger picture. Wait and see how your child writes when they write about something they enjoy. Although, a good lesson learned. Life is not always fun and exciting. Sometimes life throws things at you that are not fun. But, you still have to do it.

I had four parents in the classroom to help this week. (Which by the way, if you are interested in doing, contact me!) They were working with the children on a flatter level this week! Monday, the children laid down on the bulletin board paper and were traced. Tuesday, they painted themselves. Wednesday, they colored themselves. Thursday, they cut themselves out. Thursday and Friday, I hung them up on the wall. No, no, no...don't worry your child is safe...their life size portrait of themselves were painted, colored, and cut out.

I am so over the moon excited about this FLAT project we have been working on the last two weeks. The writing, the writing, the writing: the rough draft, the conferencing to correct, the final draft, and putting the words with the life size person has been fabulous. Your child has grabbed tight on to this project. They have owned it and made it their own. I can not begin to tell you how excited I am in anticipation of the Flat Stanley letters to flow in from all over the world...or USA...or where ever! Thank you for helping make this project magical for your child by participating and sending out the letters!

First grade has a lot of pencil paper tasks. I have made it my mission to use as few worksheets in the classroom as possible. This requires me to find other ways to teach these skills without monotonous pencil paper tasks. However, they have their place in forcing the children to practice handwriting, reading, and other important skills. Being this is my first year in first grade, I was floored by the skills your child is expected to know. Being a Kindergarten teacher, I am the first one to tell you there is a huge jump in expectations from K to 1. Your children are working extremely hard. I am pushing them to reach their maximum potential with as little stress as possible. How to do this??? Make it fun! I work hard to come up with new and fresh ideas.

Today, I introduced alphabetical order with the children. They seemed to get it straight away when I placed magnetic letters on the board and went through each letter at a time. You would think it was pure punishment to write the spelling words again in their spelling spiral just before lunch. But, it was as if they loved the "challenge". This speaks volumes about your child. This kind of go-gettiveness(I know it is not a word but it so works!) will take your child far!

Progress reports go home Friday, October 9th. Inside, you will find your child's report and several other things. I am including a conference form with a date and time for you to attend. Please try and make this time. However, I certainly understand life. It just might not work out for you to meet. By all means, we can have a phone conference or not meet at all. Just note this on the conference form. I just want you to know I am here for you!

Okay, I suppose that is all for now...be watching for your child's photo with their life size Flat person!

Pictures, as promised!

Todd's Box was full of nature surprises. The children went on a nature walk of their own and collected their own nature. However in order not to disturb the environment, they took pictures with their minds and came back and created a real camera with photos of what they saw.





Lego Fun



The making of Flat Stanley.

Flat Stanley

Have you mailed out Flat Stanley yet??? :o)

Many of you may have heard of Flat Stanley. The first story was written in 1943. I read the original story to the children.

Many years after this story was created, there was a huge rise in interest in the story. Not only that, there are many different adventures of Flat Stanley that followed this original work. I researched the author, Steve Brown. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2001 at the age of 77.

But, he has left behind a legacy in children's literature that lives on today. There are hundreds of websites featuring Flat Stanley and his adventures.
I am creating my own website too! This blog features our own adventures with Flat Stanley. As letters flow back to our classroom, I will post information they contain. I will keep track of where our letters are coming from and who has written them. It will be interesting to see how many we get back and just how far Stanley can go until May 1, 2010.

Go check it out! (click on the link below)
Flat Stanley Reporting for Duty!

Friday Fun!

Wait...I just wrote that! Where did this week go???

Welcome to Kaitlyn our new student and wonderful addition to our class!

When you asked your child, "What did you learn today?" Hopefully, they answered, "I learned about chlorophyll!" They would then have proceeded to tell you that the roots absorb water which travels to the leaves. The leaves absorb the sun/light changing the water to sugar which feeds the tree. When the days grow shorter, the leaves stop producing sugar or chlorophyll. At this time, we talked about maple trees, maple syrup and how a tree can give off something so sweet! We talked about how tapping a tree does not cause it to die and that syrup can be tapped each year causing no hurt to the tree. Once the sugar is no longer produced, it slowly drains from the leaf and the trees original leaf color can show through. As the leaf dies, the stem weakens and the autumn wind or rain causes it to drop.

We also talked about maps and the compass rose this week. Why have a map? What does a map tell us? Who needs a map? All of this in honor of a Flat Stanley project coming up! Monday I will be sending home a letter explaining Flat Stanley and ask that you follow the directions for sending him off on an adventure!

We will be creating our own life size flat children next week. Tuesday, we will be painting! PLEASE have your child dress in old clothes! I do not want any clothes ruined! You have been fairly warned! :o)

Speaking of painting...Friday we have ART SEE and I can not wait to see what they create next!

This past week was a whirlwind. The children have mastered the concept of "test taking" and do very well as I read the test to them.


I ask that you review letter sounds with your children. I have noticed several children are struggling with taking letter sound knowledge to paper in order to express their thoughts. They memorize every spelling word perfectly, and can read some basic sight words. When it comes to writing down their thoughts, the phonemic awareness is not there!

Work on this through oral games and activities that force the child to hear the letter sound and tell you what they hear. There are also many online sights that provide letter sound recognition games.
Check out these:
Starfall
Spelling City
Beginning Reading Games
Alphabet Antics

On the flip side, I will also tell you I had many children writing 3-5 pages in their writer's workshop journals today! I was floored! Then again, we were writing about Flat Stanley and he is pretty cool! Harnessing that enthusiasm for the greater good of writing in first grade...it's super writing teacher! hahaha I love watching their work come alive. Most amazingly was a young writer who wrote in her journal yesterday: "I love my mom and dad, I just wish I could show them." Seriously, first grade! This is an opportunity for them to express themselves and learn more about who they are as a person.

I have pictures...I really do. Nature walk, Flat Stanley's, and more. But alas, as I left out of the school in a flurry of hurry I left my camera behind. I have been at school every day this week by 6:30 am. When the end Friday arrived, I was ready to go!

The children really enjoyed the nature walk and it coincided perfectly with our story! I really enjoyed this story! Did you find yourself in the mom's shoes??? I know I have! What a great reminder to see the world through our children's eyes!

What are your plans this weekend? My daughter has made friends with a girl 4 doors down! Her first close friend in our neighborhood(no other kids live here). They are having a sleep over at our house! They just finished up a pedicure session and are watching a movie, Horton Hears a Who! Oh, to be 11 again! The rest of the weekend...birthday parties and girl scouts. Oh yes, and relaxing! Enjoy this "fall" weather. I know I will be outside!

Friday Fun Day!

What a busy week we had!

Did you see your child's autobiography? They were utterly amazing! I loved how proud they were of their accomplishment! We worked on it all week, a page a day! Their writing is becoming stronger and stronger everyday!

We managed to get many apple activities completed and had fun along the way!


The apple was put on the scale, bear counters placed on the other side of the scale, filling the bears to an equal weight with the apple, and then the bears were counted by using tallies. This child was in the middle of counting and tallying their bears!

We also studied the seasons of an apple tree.


Learning about Johnny Appleseed Chapman, parts of an apple, seasons, and friendship rounded out our week!

Buddy reading is a very enjoyable activity. The children choose their buddy and find a spot to read the story of the week together.
Here's a few pictures of them buddy reading.






A video sums it up pretty well! It may sound noisy, but everyone is reading the story aloud and listening to one another!

If you listen closely, one child is helping another. He tells him he is not supposed to read. He responds, I am helping. I love capturing moments of the day when they are in the middle of learning activities!

Friday is always a very exciting day for us. No, I do not think it is because we do our testing on Friday.

Fridays are cause for celebration! Media, Lunch Bunch, Show and Tell(wait-we do that every day), Star Student, and Froggy!

Friday was a smidge more exciting because we had the opportunity to head over to the media center for our first media lesson. Mrs. Brown introduced us the the media center(That's a fancy word for library! (o: ). She went over the rules, showed the children their book area, how to check out, and how to take care of the books. The children are able to check out books every week when we go to the media center. They are allowed to keep the books for two weeks, but are not able to check out a new one each Friday if they have not returned their books.

We also celebrate great behavior by eating lunch in the classroom if their card was not flipped all week. They LOVE this!

Show and Tell was exciting and the clues are sometimes funny, sometimes hilarious, and most times so easy the children always guess! The chance the children have to enrich their vocabulary is excellent! We saw a purple care bear today and an army jet. The other day, a student brought in a real Florida Key conch shell...she even knew how to blow it! Ok, imagine...first grade, little girl, conch shell, and her cheeks puffing out as she pinched her lips together and blew for everything she had...instant hilarity! The children did not miss the opportunity to laugh from the bottom of their bellies!

We started the star student program last Friday. This is an opportunity for us to learn more about one another. The children also created a page for the star student book. I bound the book together and created a Start Student keepsake Haley was able to take home. Each one will have the chance to be the star student! Who knew something so easy could be so powerful?
These are in various states of completeness, I took the photos as they were working.


"Haley skips like a princess." Now, I ask you this...Does it get any more wonderful than this?
They came up with their very own ideas...I simply said, "You all know Haley. I want you to write something nice about her or a special memory you may have of her."

Just when you thought it could not get more exciting, we have a new student coming to our class on Tuesday! Her name is Kaitlyn. Please make sure to share the exciting news with your child. Encourage them to make her feel welcome!

Hope you enjoyed your long weekend!
We spent the weekend in Ocala with my husband's parents.
I took my three children to see the movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. It was a fun movie and full of imagination and creativity! The children swam and played. My husband went fishing in the Gulf with his father. I relaxed and enjoyed the time I had to spend with my family! On Sunday, I wrote out a scavenger hunt of things to find in Ocala and off we went to find them.
Scavenger Hunt List:
-4 unreal horses (Ocala is known for horses! They have large horse statues painted in different themes all across Ocala.))
-1 real horse
-white fence
-1 fall leaf
-cows
-a stick that looks like a fork
-a parking meter
-shampoo
-toothpaste
-deodorant for Jacob
-Toys for Jay
(His 2nd birthday is October 29th and I wanted some sort of an idea what he would want. He picked out his favorite~and didn't want to leave it behind. He cried and threw a mini fit. I told him, you don't always get what you want and you have to wait until your birthday.)

Yes, it is true. We headed to Ocala's town square and found several of the things on our list. I added the other grocery things because I had to also go to the store!

Don't be afraid to try this sometime with your own children. They loved the whole idea of a scavenger hunt! Plus, they got to explore a little of the town we visit often!

Please remember no school on Monday!