A Day in the Life of a First Grader

Busy, busy day in First Grade!! We are still working on adjectives and I have some fun popcorn stuff we did this week (just forgot to photo), but today we did kites. I was thinking about how much the kids liked making the boats last week when we started with descriptive words so I decided to do something similar. Our story this week is "The Kite from Days with Frog and Toad". So we made kites.

The kite had a sentence on it for them to complete:
M__ kite fl__s h___ in the sk__!

We have been studying long i with i, igh, and y this week so this prompt was quick and easy.
Then while talking about kites we were using comparative adjectives. So to practice writing comparative adjectives we wrote the comparative adjectives they chose on the bows on the kite.

So the writing prompt was on the kite, then on the bottom they wrote two adjectives they could compare with (like fast or long). Then on the bow they wrote how those words changed (like faster and fastest or longer and longest). They turned out really cute and my students had lots of fun making.

I think my adjective bulletin board has been a great idea. I can change it out every week with something different we describe. So much fun!

Later today in Math we started time using words "before" and "after". We made a list of things we do everyday like brush our teeth, get ready for school, eat dinner, etc. Then each student illustrated one action we do during the day and we made a timeline. We put the cards in order using the words before and after.

We made the timeline but left spots to put the actual time. So as I learning progresses on this topic we can add to our display with the actual time we do these things. They LOVED this activity!!

Contest

1st Grade with Miss Snowden is having a contest! She just reached 100 followers, well 101 now that I am following!! Anyway she is having a contest and is giving away a unit from Erica Bohrer using jellybeans and a doorhanger. Check both these blogs out!! Awesome!

Never Ending Week

The week after spring break seems like it is always the never-ending week!! I feel like it is the first week of school because I am exhausted! We did manage to get something done this week...but only because our reading story was the fabulous "Olivia". I love this story! The kids loved reading it too!

So after taking some advice from Abby on the Inspired Apple I created some writing prompts using Olivia Valentines I found at Target last month. They all show Olivia in different poses and activities. We thought they were super cute and today we tried our hand at "buddy writing". We do "buddy reading" A LOT but this writing was a first. The kids did great! They brainstormed their ideas in their journal with their buddy and then we had a "Writer's Conference" where I helped them organize their writing. It was fun and we got some good stories out of it!

Also, because of Olivia's love of the art musuem we have been studying art too! After we spent a few days discovering which art we really like, and which ones we "just don't get" as Olivia would say we created our own. Just like Olivia we painted on the wall (ok it was butcher paper, but they liked the idea it was the wall!)

I am in the midst of planning some kind of comparative adjective project for next week! Will update soon :)

Day of Creation!

We worked hard today in first grade!!
This morning in reading we took advice from Abby at The Inspired Apple and read "The Boat Book" by Gail Gibbons! We are studying long o with "oa" and "ow" so it was a perfect catalyst for this unit and for studying adjectives.

The kids LOVED the book and we had a huge discussion on types of boats. It was fun. Then we filled out our "Shipful of Adjectives". Super cute idea...

Then we made our own boats, which turned out fantastic!!

I love the pirate ship! The student who created this one gave me a big, happy surprise today by not only picking a different adjective to use on her boat (I mean different from any of the ones we used on our "Shipful of Adjectives"), but she remembered a vocabulary word from before Spring Break! I was so proud! She wanted to use haste, but I explained to her we needed to change haste to hasty. I love knowing that they actually got something from a previous lesson!

Anyway, later in the day we made coin glyphs. We have been studying money, coin values, and counting money but today we talked about the symbols on each coin and we made our own glyphs. They turned out really cute too!

I got this idea from this website. It is called "My Coins Go Jingle-Jangele".

Enjoy!!

Done Planning!!!

I feel like I am a non-stop planner. Everytime I get online I somehow find something I "need" to do. It is a horrible addiction and I don't think anyone really understands unless you are a teacher. I decided to start blogging because all the amazing ideas I see online. All these teachers blog with all this stuff and I am impressed.

This is only my second year teaching so I am creating resources left and right and always looking for the best way (and the easiest way). I have gotten so many great ideas from blogs that other teachers have shared. I certainly hope I can pass along something worthwhile as well.

Before spring break we went on a field trip to see Goodnight Moon at the Nashville Children's Theatre. It was awesome...actually my second time seeing it! This field trip inspired first grade to pull together a unit on Goodnight Moon. One thing we did that was absolutely adorable was a glyph. Here are the directions and the graph we used:

And now for the best part... The final result!!

Of course my camera died after these two pictures and I forgot to take more before we went on break! Either way a super cute project and we had a lot of fun making it and writing!

UPDATE!!

So I took more pictures of our wonderful glyph.. Here they are :)