This Week in 1st Grade

So 2 weeks ago was NUTS and this past week was NOT much better!

Monday: Regular school day, though it became icy throughout the day and was slightly dangerous by the time we got out of school and on the roads.
Tuesday: Ice day! NO school!
Wednesday: Regular school day (and recess--FINALLY!)
Thursday: Regular school day, but I had a workshop and was out--sub day!
Friday: LOVELY (but windy) weather for Valentine's Day

So last week, I actually only taught on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. That is somewhat awesome.

Well, what does this next week bring?? A lot of the same things from last week since we didn't get everything finished!

MONDAY
Phonics/Spelling: Introduce trigraphs -dge and -tch with a whole group picture sort. We will sort the pictures by sound into two hoops (which I don't have at home, so I will show you on construction paper...).

Then, we will add the words for each picture.

Throughout the week, we will keep a flipbook of words we come across that have -tch and -dge in them. We will spend some time searching through books for them and will also keep a class list of the words. Here is a simple (at home!) example:

Handwriting: We will focus on ABC order, specifically on using the second letter when words have the same initial letter. Our sight words of the week have 2 sets of same letter words so this is a PERFECT time to review that concept. This is the very boring but colorful flipchart we will use. We don't have fun fonts at school (and aren't allowed to download them!) so Century Gothic it is! :P

The students will decide and write the order of the words on their dry erase boards. Then, together we will drag the words over in order to confirm their answers.

Handwriting (all 10 minutes of it) for the rest of the week will consist of lots of skywriting, some pencil and paper practice, and using our tactile handwriting boards.

Check out my post about these boards by clicking here!

Reading/Writing: Penguins research project--we have been researching penguins for the past four weeks. We didn't do much last week at all (only 1 day of penguin study), so this week will pretty much be the same activities I planned for last week. We will learn about main idea and informational text features. We will use the text features to answer specific questions. My GT students will be starting a mini-research project on penguins as the class continues research together. I whipped this up for them (and will share with you very soon):

We will also begin our own informational text book about penguins--fun stuff!

Math: We will finish up numeration on Monday and move on to learning about time on Tuesday! Our time unit always begins by reading The Grouchy Ladybug by one of my favorite authors, Eric Carle. Here is a great YouTube video of it:

We will then discuss a brief history of the clock (riveting, really) and the difference between analog and digital clocks. We'll discuss a sundial first and I'll show this quick video to demonstrate how it works:

After the sundial, we view/discuss how people used to use hourglasses to keep time and the difficulties that may have come with using one. We will then have a discussion about using a standardized format for keeping time and a tool that is not solely reliant on good weather days or people. Then it is time to explore the clock tools!

I give them about 10 minutes to just play with our little clock buddies. Exploring tools before using them as tools under your instruction will allow the kids' curiosity about the tool to be satisfied and get the play out of their system. They will then be ready to use them as properly!

We will use these videos to reinforce what we are learning about time:

We have already watched these videos a jazillion times this school year already, so the kids are very familiar with them! I give them a clock to use during the video since the videos are very interactive.

We will also build our own paper clocks in order to learn more about them, as well as build a clock number line to learn how a clock is actually a number line!

Since it is still February (and we only did stations once last week!), stations will still be from my Cross My Heart pack:

And here is a SUPER time game that I will add to the Math with Technology station:

Science: This week we will finish up learning about what makes seasons since we didn't get to finish last week. Here is a GREAT video we will watch that shows one year in 120 seconds, specifically how the trees look during each season.

And instead of making these season trees like I planned for last week...

...we are making a circle book about seasons instead. I will share it with you after we make them!

Social Studies: This week is all about presidents! Monday is Presidents' Day, so we will learn about the great contributions of some of our great presidents, specifically Washington and Lincoln. We are doing a little craftivity to house the information we have learned about these great men. My GT kids will be doing their own research on a great president and will make an informational book about it to share with the class. Fun fun!

Well, I hope you have a GREAT (and snow day-less) week!! :)

This Week in 1st Grade

Last week was NUTS:

Superbowl Sunday: Cold weather and precipitation
Monday: 2-hour school delay due to icky weather
Tuesday: Regular school day
Wednesday: Regular school day
Thursday: Snow day!
Friday: Snow day!
Saturday: BEAUTIFUL, warm weather.
This week's forecast: Cold and snowy! Aah!

Texas has not had all of the extremely crazy weather that some of you have experienced this year so far, BUT we still have had some! So, as you may have already guessed, this week will be for catch-up for 1st grade!!

MONDAY
Phonics/Spelling: Review combination or and introduce combinations er, ir, and ur. On Wednesday and Thursday in small group, we will add "Park the Car" with the new combinations to our list of activities. Friday will be r-controlled vowels BINGO! :D

Reading/Writing: Penguins research project--we have been researching penguins for the past three weeks. This week we will learn about main idea and informational text features. We will use the text features to answer specific questions. My GT students will be starting a mini-research project on penguins as the class continues research together. I whipped this up for them (and will share with you very soon):

We will also begin our own informational text book about penguins--fun stuff!
Math: Numeration 51-99 unit--this week is all about reviewing how to represent numbers, and comparing and ordering two-digit numbers. Station activities will come from this unit:

We will also view some of our favorite money videos to review coins and their values:

I also found this one today that I will introduce to them (they will LOVE it):

Science: We have been busy studying weather and clouds. Last week, we sorted cloud pictures to learn the terms clear sky, partly cloudy and overcast. After looking at clouds in the sky and reading Little Cloud by Eric Carle, we will make a cloud foldable similar to the one pictured below (from Pinterest). Instead of cloud types, we will make a visual representation of clear sky, partly cloudy and overcast.

We will also begin learning about what makes seasons! Here is a GREAT video we will watch that shows one year in 120 seconds, specifically how the trees look during each season.

Then, we will make our own season trees like the one below (from Pinterest), except we will be doing all 4 seasons on one page.

Social Studies: We will continue learning about landforms! We have already discussed types of landforms and where to find them. This week, we will use Google Earth to explore different landforms in the world (and on Mars!).

Finally, we will write about our favorite type of landform. Here is our writing paper (click on it to download it):

Well......time to finish preparing for the week. Thanks for coming by! I hope you have a good (and normal) week! :)

Treasures from YouTube!

Here are some of my favorite videos from YouTube that we use regularly in my classroom OR that we have used with great success!

MATH

Rote counting to 100 with a little fitness!

Skip counting

Everybody loves money...

Time (obviously)

Addition fun (in English AND Spanish!)

More skip counting

ELAR

This is just greatness.

Short, sweet, and to the point!

Can't go wrong with Schoolhouse Rock!!

Other very good parts of speech songs.

So fun!

SCIENCE

This is just amazing to see!

So cute.

Very imformative. :)

We are watching this one on Monday--can't wait, haha!

HANDWRITING

This song WILL be stuck in your head. Guaranteed. Love it.

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

Clean up!! Must be finished and at the carpet before the song is over.

This is just fun! Will definitely get those sillies out...or make them sillier.


I said a boom chicka boom!


Self-control and wiggle release all in one video!

SOCIAL STUDIES

Learning about families

Just a snippet of the speech.

Great explanations!

BOOKS AND STORIES

Jack and the Beanstalk

The Princess and the Pea

10 Fat Turkeys--this is great with a storyboard!

Great for science when talking about animals and animal babies.

More a song than a story but fun anyway.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!

Have you used any of those before? What are some of your favorite videos?

Foldables Week: Social Studies

This is my final foldables post and it's for social studies. I don't teach social studies this year so the pictures are from past years.

Anchors Away Day 1: Science & Social Studies

Today's anchor charts are all science and social studies! I don't teach social studies :( so mine will just be science. We have only made a few so far--here they are:

Electricity: (we just did a basic KWL chart)

For both of the energy charts the kids completed the same chart in their science journal as we did one together:

We just started this one at the end of last week, so not much is on it yet. The kids will add new examples to it as we progrss through the unit (pictures from magazines, newspaper clippings, drawings, words, etc. are all acceptable).

The students are welcome to add to any chart at anytime during the unit.

Alright, it's your turn!! Link up with your awesome science ans social studies anchor charts!

I have been B-U-S-Y

My school district does some pretty awesome things from time to time. We have an AMAZING Technology department that works so hard to ensure that teachers have the technology we need and want. They also want to provide as many opportunities as they can for students to learn how to use technology and create things with it. For the past 3 years my district has put on a "Summer Technology Camp" for our students. The camps are 4 hours a day for 1 week . Camp is 2 weeks long so, essentially, the students can enroll in up to 4 camps for the summer--that's a lot of learning! BONUS: The camps are held at a local college campus so the students get to experience being in college!! (They really enjoy that aspect.) There are several different topics including Rainforests, Lego Robotics, Oceans, and Rockets. The students gain experience in several programs including Microsoft Office, Movie Maker, Kidspiration, Tagxedo, etc.

Anywho, THAT being said...I've been teaching camp for the past 2 weeks, which is what has kept be soooo busy! The camp I taught was Creating Public Service Announcements. My students picked a cause they cared about, established a fake organization, made business cards, a poster, a bookmark, and information book to pass out, AND a commercial. Check out my pictures and compilation of their commercials! I can't show you the whole videos because of privacy reasons, but I was able to chop them and put them all together into one video for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

Just a note....the main goal is understanding, not spelling and grammar. I did my best to catch it all BUT it is what it is! :D

Here are the posters and circle books they made.

Also, don't forget to enter my giveaway! It ends Thursday!