We Are 100 Days Smarter!

Izabelle concentrates....

Connor flips....

After several snow days threw a wrench in our calendar, we were finally able to celebrate our 100th Day of School!  In elementary school, that's a pretty big deal and we usually have quite the celebration and this year it was no different.  We enjoyed many 100 Day Activities, such as Flipping a Coin 100 times and graphing our results.

 All Flip a Coin 100 Times worksheets can be found on Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT), which is where I do all my shopping!  I'm not sure what the students liked more -- the thrill of having to go "all the way to 100" or learning how to flip a coin "the real way."  Either way, each student enjoyed the activity and learned more about how the number 100 can be broken apart into two different numbers.  Look how they concentrate! It's amazing!!  ----------->>>

Cora and Cameron work, work, work!



Freddie counts....

Autumn writes....

 After a quick snack, we enjoyed making 100 Words I Know booklets.  The kids had a blast walking around the room and seeing if they could reach 100 words.  Every 100 words earned them a pack of Smarties (since they are so SMART, get it?).  I don't yet have pictures of our next activity, but they will come soon.  We worked on creating a list of things we would be when we were 100 years old.  Some examples were that we would have hairy noses and ears, we would be called Granny, and our teeth would fall out.  We then created some really awesome "self portraits" of ourselves at 100 years old.  Pictures will be posted soon of some finished products.


Kaysen finds 100 words...

Lastly, we ended our awesome 100th Day with a sweet treat and challenge.  I told my kids that I would happily give them each a Blow Pop sucker, but there was a catch:  they had to lick it 100 times before they could crunch into it!  It was fun listening to them attempt to lick the suckers and count to 100, and although I know I heard some early crunching, some of them were quite serious about making that challenge!  Overall, we had a great day and we all left school feeling pretty happy-go-lucky and ready for 100 more!

My Wild and Crazy Bunch of First Graders!

A Heart-to-Heart....

I love the time leading up to Valentine's Day.  There is something about the ooey-gooey-ness of love that makes our hearts pitter-pat.  I remember the fun of making Valentines -- getting out the red and pink construction paper, hearing that sound as my safety scissors would slice through -- you know the sound.  I loved ever-so-gently dabbing on small pools of Elmer's glue, sticking on little puff balls of reds, whites and pinks, and finally having a use for those white paper doilies.  I remember sitting with my mom on snowy afternoons and cutting out decorations to hang on our windows at home.  It was always such a nice, quiet time -- she always paired it with hot chocolate and music playing in the background.  Knowing her, it was either the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac or Linda Rondstant.  I loved those afternoons.  We would cut out paper hearts and have our own little heart-to-heart talks.  I knew in those quiet moments with my mom that she truly loved me.  I think sometimes those are the quiet moments  that some kids are missing out on today.  It's a busy, busy world and it's practically impossible to have a family without having to work.  Add in all of the sports and extra curricular activities and pretty soon we hardly have time to say good morning and good night.  Now that I'm a mother I have promised myself to make paper hearts with my daughter.  I can't wait to sit at the table on a snowy afternoon and watch as she cuts through construction paper and signs her name with several X's and O's. 

And so to the parents of my students I have a little "homework" for you.  Try not to look at it as "yet something else that we don't have time for."  Look at it as a moment for creativity and expression and heart-to-heart conversations.  It's that time of year to make our Valentine's Day boxes!  Get out the red and pink papers, break out the glitter glues and ribbons -- it's time to think of something fun together.  I've added some example photos I found online to get your creative juices flowing -- but a shoebox, some paper hearts and and glue will do the trick, too.  Whatever you choose -- choose to have fun and to truly enjoy the moment with your child.  Valentine's Day is February 14!!

Doubles plus one equals what?!?

After attending a great math conference in Chicago last week, I couldn't wait to come back and try out all the new strategies I had learned.  I'm happy to say that just in the short time I've had this week, I'm already seeing some positive changes and more "lights" are turning on!  Today we continued to work on doubles (2+2=4, 4+4=8, etc) and how we can find a double (new strategy) in an addition problem in order to help us add the numbers together.  For instance, we can look at 5+6 as 5+5+1 -- finding the double and adding one more.  We can look at 5+7 as 5+5+2 -- finding the double and adding two more.  It all sounds as simple as can be, doesn't it!?  Well, try to get 26 first graders to catch on and you've got yourself a challenge!  We made doubles flip books today to help students remember their doubles facts -- they practiced and quizzed each other afterward.  They are learning more and more that math is not just about numbers -- it's about patterns -- taking things apart and putting things together.  I never looked at math that way when I was first learning -- I certainly wish I would have -- it would have been way more fun!

The Christmas Spirit of GIVING!

Our first grade classroom successfully collected A LOT of toys and money for the Otsego County Toys for Tots program. (It's hard to tell from this picture, but there is a lot there!)  We chose this charity to help this season because of a recent fire that destroyed their entire donation collection.  I'm sure many people and groups came together to replenish what was lost, but my students only saw the pile of toys in our classroom grow day by day and it made them feel very proud!  Many students and members of our staff helped collect donations and they were all picked up today by Katie Liedtke who volunteered to drive them over to Gaylord for delivery!  THANK YOU to everyone who gave toys and money!  Your Christmas Spirit is ALIVE!

We Rocked the VOTE!

 

This week in first grade we have been talking about today's big election and I expressed to my students how important it is to go out and vote.  The electricity in the air today was magnificent -- they were all so excited!  It was the first thing they asked me about when they walked in the classroom:  "Do we get to vote now?"   We discussed that being able to vote is not something every person around the world has the right to do, but we here in America do and should exercise that right.  The girls in the class were all completely confused when I told them that women did not always have the right to vote and for some reason we had to fight and argue in order to receive that right.  So today each student in my classroom checked off the box for who they thought should be our President.  We took a look at PBSkids.org yesterday and read up on some facts about each candidate and today they made a choice.  Tomorrow we will see if their choice matched up to the rest of America's.

 

We also wrote today about what we would do if we were President.  Here is a sample:

 

 

Bits and Pieces...

I was up in my classroom on this rainy Sunday evening, attempting to make a dent in what I need to have prepared for the week when I remembered that I should post something new and exciting to our First Grade Fan Club blog.  Hmmmm....something exciting on a rainy day....what could it be? What could it be?  I looked around the room, congratulating myself for cleaning up the place on Friday before I left rather than leaving it for later....it looked as if homecoming and Halloween exploded in my room and there were bits and pieces of it everywhere.  Bits and pieces....I started looking around and thinking that there are several bits and pieces in the room that are exciting to me as the teacher.  I don't know if YOUR socks will be blown off, but mine were!   My students started writing focused pieces last week -- we went from writing two words about something to writing four sentences in a week!  I was proud of that!  We paired up our cat writing with a water color painting -- I love how we all painted the same thing, but each one looks so different from the next.  We also did a pumpkin writing.  I had students re-write and illustrate the writing.  We hung them on the wall and they are all proud.  I also noticed our Writing Pride wall is full -- each child is coming to me daily with something else they have written -- whether it be a little book about farm animals or all of our word wall words copied down -- they are excited to write, which gets me excited!  We also had an afternoon last week where the weather ruined our Science plans, so we had to come up with a Plan B.  My Plan B is always ART.  :) I can't help it.  We made some quick scarecrow paintings and again...they are all so creative.  I'm was also made very proud this past week with my students and how they conduct themselves during our (modified) Daily Five.  They are expected to work independently -- and that scared me to death at first.  But, I decided to just let them go and see how they would do with such a responsibility:  they did great!  My socks were blown clear across the room!  First grade is all about change and it all happens at a fast pace -- if you blink you might miss some of the most important bits and pieces!

I'm a Teacher!

The classroom is quiet.  The kids have gone home.  I'm sitting here eating my almonds and looking out over the room.  I love seeing the "aftermath" of a great day:  new writing hanging up on the Writing Pride wall, all GREEN cards looking at me from the behavior chart, things put back in the actual places they belong, and a nice stack of papers for me to check.  The room is now empty, but I can still hear the voices of little learners coming to me with their work held up in my face, asking me to look at what they accomplished.  I smile at the thought of my little mover & shaker sitting still for 24 minutes and busily completing his work.  I've never seen such a look of concentration on his face.  When he finished I praised him for such great work and asked him how he felt.  "I feel pretty good!" he replied.  I gush at the moment today when members of our classroom started to tell another student that they "believed he could do it" when the student was feeling he had enough work for the day.  I grin at the thought of my little girl who has such a hard time sharing offering her snack to a student who came without today.  Yes, she offered because she "hates those darn cheese things," but the fact is: she SHARED.  It's days like these when I look around the room after the kids have gone home, smile and I think, "Yup.  I'm a teacher."