Blog Archives

Me on the Map

10/26/2017

Rosie Revere taught us that the "only true failure can come if you quit!"
Engineering and Growth Mindset go hand in hand this week!

Practice Adding Doubles!

Where's Buster Map Game

Moby's Match US Symbols Game

Math - I can use doubles to solve math problems quickly!
Reading - I can find details in a story to support my main idea.
Writing - I can write tall, short, and hanging letters correctly.
Science - I can think like an Engineer.
Social Studies - I can find my country on a map and tell about its important symbols.

Me on the Map Project!

We are "zooming" into our world as we learn how to find our special place on the map.

Revamping a lesson that we do every year so that it is more engaging and organized! Can't WAIT to show my kiddos! https://t.co/Cpx0CZSmuA pic.twitter.com/vB0FvG4kcK
— Elementary Nerd (@ElementaryNerd) September 24, 2017

Download the "Me on the Map" project here!

Thinking Like an Engineer

We modeled how engineers think by planning a "Playground Redesign".
We asked ourselves: How could the playground parts be even better?

What's the Main Idea?

We read an article that LOOKED like it was "All About Eagles",
but we learned how to use the details we read to find the Main Idea.

Main Idea: The Bald Eagle is a symbol of the United States.

We collected details from the article to write our own facts about this national symbol.

Download Bald Eagle Craftivity

"I failed," said dear Rosie. "It's just made of trash. Didn't you see it? The cheese-copter crashed."
"Yes!" said her great aunt. "It crashed. That is true."
But first it did just what it needed to do.
Before it crashed Rosie...
before that...
it flew!"

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Raced Through Week 7 and 8, and Still Feeling Great!

10/16/2017

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We took some time Monday morning to plan our week. We decided what was most important for us to get done (I will...), what we could do when we finished those things (I can...), and what we would like to remember to work on this week ( I should...). We talked about how it is always a good idea to plan ahead and make goals for yourself so that you can feel organized going into your week. We are working on being self-aware of our goals! We will keep our goal sheet in our "Stations Folder" all week to remind us while we work on our stations!

Version #1

Version #2

This Bob books app is FANTASTIC! It is great for readers on a first grade level as it allows students to read AND participate in word work activities that appear straight out of their book.

BOB Books APP

The ABCya.com is a MUST for my students. It consistently offers rewarding and engaging games that link back to skills we are working on in class. This week we used "Number Grid Fireworks" to practice visualizing numbers on a 120 chart.

Number Grid Fireworks

The Little Red Hen is a focus this week, so this read-aloud on Starfall.com was great for my students!

The Little Red Hen

READING - I can tell the main idea of a story.
WRITING - I can write a descriptive paragraph.
GRAMMAR - I can use nouns and proper nouns correctly.
MATH - I can visualize numbers.
SCIENCE - I can observe changes.
SOCIAL STUDIES - I can describe my community and find it on a map.

We used our observation skills to observe changes:

Milk Observations:

OBSERVATION 1: We observed a tray of milk and wrote what we saw. [Scientists write many details like color, numbers, measurements and textures.]
OBSERVATION 2: We observed a tray of milk with two dots of food color in the middle. We made a labeled diagram of what we saw. [Scientists use diagrams to communicate their observations. They label the important parts!]
OBSERVATION 3: We observed while a drop of dish soap was added to the tray of milk, right on top of the food coloring. We recorded our observations again! [Scientists may have to do the experiment multiple times to get good observations.]

More Milk Changes:

OBSERVATION 1: We observed a bag of milk mixed with sugar and vanilla extract. We made "wonders" to help us continue with our experiment. [Scientists experiment because they want to figure out the answers to their questions.]
OBSERVATION 2: We put our baggies into a bigger bag containing ice and rock salt. We sealed up the big bag and took turns shaking it. We observed every 5 minutes for changes. [Scientists have to make observations over time.]
OBSERVATION 3: We opened the little baggies and observed how the LIQUID milk had changed into a SOLID. We used our sense of taste to make one last observation - YUMMY! [Scientists use all of their senses possible when they make observations, but safety comes first.]

We made real world connections to our reading
as we learned about prepositions!

We made more connections as we learned about maps!

We explored maps of our community and
used them to write a paragraph about our town.

We talked a lot this week about helping friends in our class using kindness. We brainstormed ways to lift each other's spirits and talked about how sometimes people's actions may be confusing to us, but that there may be reasons that we are unaware of for why a person is acting the way they are. We decided that giving compliments would be a good way to show someone we are supportive of them in order to break them out of their sad or mad mood!

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