Making Gifts

Hope you are all enjoying your break and hope you enjoyed your gifts.  The students had a blast making these special projects!

Star Student

We love our Star Student!  She had some special guests visit her this week including her mom, little sister, and her very special ballerina bear.

Informative Writing

The First Grade Common Core Standards require that students learn about 3 types of writing including narrative, informational, and opinion.  This week we concluded our Informational Writing Unit.  I am amazed at how much the students have grown as writers and teachers!  They shared their knowledge by writing texts on a variety of topics that they are knowledgable about including things such as horses, tornadoes, hotels, make-up, tigers, Nascar, and baseball.  Featured below are pictures of the students taking their Informational Writing Assessment.  The students had 45 minutes to produce an informational text about the topic of Snow.  They worked so hard!

Contraction Surgery

We have been learning about contractions this week.  We did some word surgery and put two words back together as contractions, such as don't, she's, and you're.  I must say that we have some budding surgeons in the group!

Informational Writing

We have been working very hard on our Informational Writing these past few weeks.  In first grade, the students will be expected to master three types of writing, including informational, opinion, and narrative. The students have been taught how informational writing involves using facts and pictures to teach their readers about a topic.  The students learn how to pick a topic and organize their writing so different components are grouped together. I have been so impressed with the topics the students have chose including horses, firefighters, make-up, hotels, tigers, Army, veterinarians, school, tornados, and race cars.  Last week, we read some informational books about penguins.  We used this knowledge to write a class informational book about the topics of penguins.  I split the class up into 5 groups and each group wrote about a different aspect of Penguins.  We then put all the pages into a class book.  It turned out great!

Where Penguins Live

Penguin Body Parts

How Penguins Eat

Star Student

We had a great time celebrating our Star Student this week.  We got meet his special guests, his mom and his grandma.  We even had his guest reader read us the book How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food?, by Jane Yolen.  We also got to see his super cool remote-controlled car during his Star Student Share.  A fun week!

Happy Birthday

We had a special guest reader today that read us The Sneeches, by Dr. Seuss.  It is one of my favorites!

Tribe Sharing Day

Chumash Tribe

Cave Painting

Beautiful cave art

Warming themselves by "the fire"

We concluded our Native American Unit last week with a Tribe Sharing Day.  Each of the first grade classes did a presentation on their tribe and each class did an activity with the teacher who taught that tribe.  It was a fun-filled day in which the students made dream catchers, made tools from dough, made Inuit dolls, made paint from berries, painted cave walls, and did some Native American Writing.  Our tribe, the Chumash, were cave painters and oral story tellers.  So in my classroom the students made patin from berries, listened to a legend about the origin of butterflies, and did some cave painting while enjoying the warmth of "the fire."  Check out the play our class put on about the Chumash Tribe below.

Native American Unit

These past few weeks we have been learning about Native Americans.  The students were thrilled the day a reading teepee appeared in our classroom.  They have enjoyed reading books inside this fun tent!

Surprise!

Reading Buddies

Must be a good book!

Art Party

The students earned a ticket party this week for their great behavior.  They are definitely a very responsible, caring, and respectful class!  They voted on an Art Party.  I just put out a bunch of supplies and gave them the time and freedom to be creative and create.  I was very impressed with their work. Enjoy the slideshow of the artists working on their masterpieces.

Looking Sharp at the Music Concert!

A couple of pictures of the singers before their big performance.  They did amazing!

"Milkshake Matthew" A Star Student Story

Veteran's Day Assembly

On Tuesday we celebrated Veteran's Day with an all school assembly.  Kindergarten sang a Veteran's Day Song, First Grade did a reader's theater, and some second graders read their personal thank you notes to the vets in attendance.  It was a great way to honor our service men and women and for our students to learn about the importance of patriotism.

Owl Pellet Dissection

We wrapped up our Animal Unit this week by doing some owl pellet dissecting.  Owl Pellets are nuggets made of hair and bones of animals that owls are unable to digest.  The students had so much fun discovering prey inside of the pellets.  It was like a treasure hunt….we found beaks, bones, and claws!

Pretzel Geometry

This is the last week of our geometry unit so we celebrated with a math snack.  The students were asked to build hexagons, rhombuses, squares, rectangles, triangles, and trapezoids with their pretzels.  They came up with some pretty neat symmetrical designs.  Some students even figured out that pretzels could be used as tally marks…these mathematicians never cease to amaze me!

Visualizing and a Guest Reader

This week our comprehension skill is visualizing.  This is when a reader has pictures or mental images in their mind that help them understand and enjoy what they are reading.  We practiced this skill by listening to some poems and by hearing the book, The Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert.  It is a wonderful story that brings to mind colorful fall images of a leaf on his journey with the wind.  It was a treat to have this week's guest reader read this book to us as well.  I have included a clip or her reading as well as a link to a reading of the whole story.

Fall Party

We had a great time celebrating Fall today!  We wore our nose glasses as we enjoyed fall themed snacks and games.  A good time was had by all!

Happy Fall!

Life is more fun with pumpkins and spectacles. 

Thanks for your help Mrs. Abrahamson!

Enjoying a snack

Orange is her color!

I love pumpkins and candy!

A pumpkin for your thoughts?

First Grade Friends Forever

Great Balance

On your marks…..get set….walk slow!

Mr. Pumpkin