EBeam

Recently, every classroom in my school was equipped with an EBeam! They are awesome! We use them for interactive games, artwork, short clips, and movies. The kids love them and are so engaged. They are wonderful. Here, we are doing an interactive game on Facts vs. Opinions. Whether you have an EBeam/Smartboard in your classroom, you should check this website out: http://pbskids.org/arthur/games/factsopinions/

Presidents Day

For Presidents Day and Lincoln's Birthday, we did a lot of studying of presidents. We read books, made charts. When we were done, the kids wrote down 3 or more facts about presidents that we learned. It was very fun! 

Author's Purpose

This week, our comprehension skill was Author's Purpose. I always like to do a read aloud before my mini-lesson that relates to our skill we are going to be learning. To teach Author's Purpose, we go over that author's write for 2 reasons (this is a very elementary explanation, obviously) to inform, or to teach us or to entertain, or make us laugh. I read a funny story, one of our favorites, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and Wild Baby Animals. We talked about how they had very different purposes. In Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, the author wanted to entertain us. In Wild Baby Animals, we discussed how in this book, the author wanted to teach us. We learned a lot about baby animals. This was a wonderful lesson and we learned a lot.

"I Have a Dream"

For the entire month of February, we have been doing a lot of activities for Black History month. Here, we are making our "dreams." After reading and learning about Martin Luther King, Jr., we made our own dreams that we would like to see happen in the world. Some great examples were, "I want people to recycle more." "I want everyone to be nice." "I want everyone to share more." It was very cute and we really did learn how Martin Luther King's speech helped change the world for the better.

We also did an activity where we took 2 eggs, one brown and one white. I passed them around and we discussed the differences between the two eggs. We decided that the only difference was the color. Then, we cracked the eggs open, and I passed them around and asked if they saw any difference, (unfortunately, one yolk broke, so I had to break the other one, so that I could get my point across). They did not see a difference in the inside of the egg. So, we talked about how even though the two eggs had different colored shells, they were still the same on the inside. We related it to just because people have different colored skin, we are all the same, all human and we are to treat everyone with respect. It was a very nice and educational lesson.

Calendar

I must say, Calendar is one of my favorite things to teach. When I was student teaching, I learned from a really great teacher and his calendar routine. I have redesigned mine a little and made it my own. It is amazing how many skills can be covered in this quick, fun 10 minute lesson! We start by singing the days of the week, we name the day, month and date. We did "yesterday was, today is and tomorrow will be" for the first half of the year, but have phased it out. We do weather, "precipitation" and "sky conditions." Then, we say how many days of school we are in, and count them on ten frames by 1's, 2's, 5's and 10's. We practice even and odd numbers. Finally, we do a monthly poem. We also review our daily schedule. The children are welcome to check it throughout the day to see where we are at. The kids really enjoy all of this. Their oral vocabulary skills and counting skills are great! I am so happy with this calendar routine! Feel free to borrow anything!

Venn Diagrams- The Hat and The Mitten

For our Compare and Contrast unit, we used Venn Diagrams to use this skill. We compared and contrasted many stories, The Hat and The Mitten, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and The Pigeon Wants a Puppy! and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and If You Give a Moose a Muffin. We put post-its on the chart to compare/contrast. It was so fun! As a final project, each child was assigned another child who they were to make a Venn Diagram and compare and contrast themself with the other child. They did very well and we had a lot of fun!

100th Day of School!

It was the 100th Day of School a few weeks ago! It was so fun! Each child brought in 100 items. We lined them up in rows of 5 and counted them by 1's, 2's, 5's, and 10's. Also, each child dressed up as a 100 year old! We love the 100th Day of School!

Dentist

For our Community Workers unit, we had a fabulous dentist come in to our classroom. We learned how to brush our teeth, floss, what foods to eat and what foods to stay away from. We had a blast!

Chalkboards

These chalkboards are very popular items in my room! My sister-in-law created these and donated them to our classroom. We love them! She makes them in many different shapes. They are great for home, too! Check out her website: www.mollyschalkboardshop.com

Be Our Guest!

For the Thanksgiving Assembly, we performed "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast. To create these beautiful signs we put pictures on an Elmo machine, projected it onto a poster board and had the kids trace and color the characters. They turned out to be lovely props in our performance!

Gobble up some great work!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our Classroom

This is a picture of our fabulous classroom!

CAFE

CAFE is used in our classroom reminder for students to use while they read. They are reminders of why we read- comprehension, accuracy, fluency, expand. Readers are leaders!

Our "Bees" Promise

This is the basis of our classroom rules called, "Our Bees Promise." I got it from the blog, "First Grader at Last." It is very effective and of course cute!