Today we made balloon rockets. We blew up balloons and taped them to straws. Then we ran a ribbon thought the straws and stretched the ribbon across the room. When we let the air out of the balloons, they zoomed forward along the ribbon. It was fun to make predictions and record what happened. We used Scientific Method Graphic Organizers from our tpt store to write and draw what we saw.
Sentence Patterning Chart. Teach sentence patterns using color coding. This works amazingly well, and the kids love it! You use the color of the word at the top (for example, nouns are always written in green). I model using the chart, then have the students use it for a first draft.
Reunited is een verzameling van uni’s uit diverse collecties. Geïnspireerd door tijdloze en levendige materialen, tactiel en soms met een rauw randje. Van linnen tot grasweefsel en van organza tot beton. Van ruw tot glad, zacht tot hard en glans tot mat. Een rijk palet aan ingetogen en natuurlijke kleuren, zonnig goud, fris wit, tijdloos ecru, mosgroen en van waterig tot denim blauw. Kies met Reunited voor de subtiele kracht van de uni’s. Voor materialen die je muren verlevendigen met tastbare structuren, van zachtaardig tot stoer. Afmeting: 10 meter lang x 0.52 m breed Materiaal: vlies smartpaper Rapport: 53 cm - recht Geleverd per rol Kleuren: geel, oker Structuur: textuur, vinyl Lijmadvies: lijm voor vliesbehang Makkelijk te plakken Afwasbaar Levertijd: circa 1-3 werkdagen
The past few years I’ve had the opportunity to teach a course entirely through project based learning. Our local university approached a couple of schools in our district and asked us if we were interested in teaching a cross-curricular PBL program where our grade 12 students can earn college credits. Ummmm…. heck yeah! Basically, the ... Read more
another of the GLAD strategies that I am using in my class. From this we make new songs each day and they write their own leaf poems -- to be seen soon!!
This is my favorite quote! It is posted on a window in the library and Creekside Middle School. I'm so glad to see that others are promoting reading with these special words. The Guided Language Acquisition Design, so cutely acronym-ed GLAD, jam-packed my brain with classroom strategies for two entire days (October 1st and 2nd). I really took so much away from this training. These two days stood as an overview of the model, but I will be returning to Creekside Middle School (Woodstock, IL) next month for four additional days where I will be given the opportunity to see these strategies play out in the classroom. As a new teacher, I feel like a little sea sponge. I just want to soak up as much knowledge as I can. I am continually reflecting and evaluating my performance as a new teacher, so the more strategies that are made available to me, the more prepared I feel. After the first half of Quarter 1 comes to an end, and after much reflection on my beginning units, I feel ready now to jump in even more forcefully than ever. My Strategic Literacy class could have been much better planned, and I'm sort of kicking myself in the behind for not being better prepared; but I'm all-the-more motivated and encouraged to plan an out-of-this-world unit on the disastrous happenings of the Titanic. The bilingual department of District 205 sent me to the GLAD training, so initially I thought it was geared strictly for my ESL classes, but after learning about the many different strategies, I can (and will!) absolutely use what I've learned in my Literacy classes as well. The walls of the training room were plastered with TONS of example posters. I took ovre 75 photographs. I've included some of my favorites. This is an Inquiry Chart. It's similar to the KWL chart, except that there is no 'L' (which I enjoy, because how often to do really go back and fill in the 'L' column of the chart after we've finished the assignment?). In the left hand column, students are asked to write about what they already know about a topic. In the right hand column, students are asked to write about what they want to know about a topic. You can see the different colored markers. What's nice about this chart is that it will go up on the wall and stay there through the entirety of the unit. You will notice the orange marker. After students have learned more about the topic, the teacher can go in later with a different colored marker and add additional or new ideas (the 'L' comes into play here). This pictorial input chart is also really neat. Do you see how well-drawn this is?! One of the trainers began with a blank poster and made this! This chart is used as a great visual, especially for ESL students. Rather than simply lecturing at students, you can involve them with the learning by asking them to contribute to the picture, repeat what you write after you say it out loud, and add realistic pictures right on top of what you've drawn. I will have MUCH more to report after I begin implementing many of these strategies into my lessons this week.
One sunny day in May, I had the honor of attending a heartwarming Project Based Learning exhibition at a local retirement home.
Handtas CALVIN KLEIN. Verstelbaar kort handvat aan de bovenkant voor deze handtas, gesloten met klep, gesigneerd met de initialen van het merk CK op de goudkleurige gesp.Details • Vorm van de tas : schoudertas • Materiaal effect : glad • Met klep • Op de schouder te dragen • Aan de hand te dragen • Handvatten • Verstelbare schouderriem • Sluiting onder klep : Zonder • Afmetingen : H17 x L31 x D8 cmSamenstelling en onderhoud • 51% polyester, 49% polyurethaan • Onderhoud : zie etiket
These kindergarten anchor charts will give you the tools you need to teach math, reading, friendship skills, and much more!
Our family project this month was on Community Helpers. I sent home a paper doll with their picture on it; they sent them back decorated. They turned out awesome!!! We also did a writing activity about our project, "When I grow up..." You can grab it here. I also found a lot of great FREEBIES on community helpers here. Finally, we made some cute riddles about our community helpers! He helps people in a fire... Who am I? I build stuff. Who am I? I help people. Who am I? This was a great way to get my kids doing some higher order thinking. They loved it, and I was really impressed. Have a wonderful weekend!!! Becky
The whole concept of family dinner, if you think about it, is pretty elemental: you gather around a table in the waning hours, you and yours, and eat some grub, converse about your day and, if you’re lucky, life its ownself. But sometimes — or, most of the time — our dinners can resemble not so much a family of... Read more »
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Happy Tuesday friends!! We are half way through conferences and I am wiped out. PLUS I just broke the reservoir on my Keurig…tomorrow is going to be a rough one! Womp! Womp! I wanted to…
This week was our bear/hibernation theme. Lots of fun! If you have not read this book, you must! It is HILARIOUS! (Especially the ending... loved it! haha) Here are some of the nonfiction books we read this week to help us fill in our bear chart. We looked at these four types of bears: brown, black, polar, and panda. Here is the chart we created: When we talked about what bears ate, we did this fun little taste test/graphing activity that came from Rachelle over at What the Teacher Wants! Check out her bear unit here... super cute! I wish I had more time to do all of the activities. We tasted strawberry jam, tuna fish, and honey on crackers. We graphed our favourite bear food. Also included in Rachelle's unit, students coloured in their own graph and then answered questions about it. During our reading/writing time, we read the book "Goldilocks and the Three Bears". We compared it to the book "Growl!" and did a little T-chart about real vs. fantasy. The next day we read "The Three Snow Bears" and compared it with Goldilocks in a Venn Diagram. You can download the student version by clicking the picture below. We have been working on addition and just started talking about "Tens Partners". We created this rainbow anchor chart to help us remember them! In Rachelle's bear unit, she has this cute activity called "Bears in a Cave". One partner closes their eyes, the other partner uses bear counters (I used Teddy Graham crackers) and puts some in each circle. They write the total in the square at the end and then covers up one of the circles with a "cave" (paper cup or bowl). The other partner guesses how many bears are in the cave. You can use any number of bears. I had mine use all ten bears, so the sum always stayed 10. This was great practice for the "Tens Partners". When we started talking about hibernation, we read a book called "All About Hibernation". Then we created a large poster called "Where do animals go in the winter?". I got this idea from the very creative Amy over at Fun 4 Kids. See all of her winter animal ideas here! My students coloured the large background poster. Then they coloured the animals, cut them out with the labels, and glued them into the correct winter home. Then we added some cotton balls for snow! Super cute! If you would like a copy of the poster, click the pictures below. I print the background on white 11 x 17" paper. The animals/labels are on half of an 8.5 x 11". Amy also had a poem on her blog called "Winter Animals". It has some cute actions to go with it. We practiced the poem all week, then today we glued it into our poetry journals and illustrated it. Click above to download the poem. And last, but not least, we read the Bill Martin Jr. / Eric Carle books, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear", "Polar Bear, Polar Bear", and "Panda Bear, Panda Bear". Kids love the fun rhythm of these books. If you haven't checked out Mrs. Kacey @ Doodle Bugs Teaching, go there now! She has some amazing "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" centres and activities for FREE. Check here and here. I created an art lesson to go with these books. There is a simple pattern to use and you can create any of the four bears: brown, black, polar, or panda. Students use plastic combs (or a piece of cardboard) to create different paint techniques. Click on the picture below to download the full directions and patterns for free from TpT. These are the samples I created. I let the students choose any colour background. Here are my students working hard on their artwork. It was actually a pretty easy project to get all together. We did the painting one day and the assembly the next day. Here is the finally picture of them all together. (Our class is called 1T by the way, so the bulletin board makes sense....) They did such a good job! Although I don't know why a few of my bunnies thought that a blue marker was a good choice to use to draw the whole face.... hehe Have a great weekend, everybody!
This week at the School of ScotlandShop, we're finding out all about our great wee country with our activity sheet. Discover this and more in our School of Scotland Activity Sheet.
At my school, we use Kath Murdoch’s Inquiry Cycle. Many of our staff are new the PYP and new to inquiry-based teaching and learning, so we find this inquiry cycle provides some structure to t…
We are in the middle of our All About America unit and things are really getting going! For the past couple of weeks we have been focused on American symbols. This is one of those topics that he kids just get! Which makes teaching it so much fun. I read through a ton of books on the symbols, monuments, documents etc... (thanks Donors Choose!) and we learned all we could. I put this symbol page together for us to do after we had be discussing for a few days (click the pic to download!) We made directed art liberty bells... the plan was to also do a white house, bald eagle and statue of liberty but time is flying! Then we did our big group projects! This is by far my favorite activity of the entire year... I love seeing them working in small groups independently, figuring out how to function... it's great! They each received a "Top Secret" envelope that included books, pictures, articles about their symbol. Then in their groups they had to go through the information, work together to complete a worksheet and a poster and then work with me to create a presentation (at least one sentence per group member about their symbol). So dang cute! Here are pictures that document our two day group project excursion... I have a ton more pictures so share, but I'll spare you all! Seriously, aren't those posters cute as can be! And bonus... I had kiddos ask to do more symbol investigation and give presentations! LOVE IT! The next couple of weeks will be dedicated to heroes! And we will begin our hero projects... I can't wait! Hope you all have a wonderful week! Oh and... Miss Amberleigh please send me your email address so that I can send you the Dinosaurs in the Dark!
Tales of a first grade teacher
Let's get to the BIG news first! I promised I had a really good reason for my lack of blogging... Mr. Hubs and I are having a baby :) I just turned 15 weeks today, and we are so excited! We will find out if it's a boy or a girl over spring break! We could definitely use any prayers we can get, as we have had a bit of a rocky road in the past. Okay, so I do have something school related to post! We started our space unit and the kids are having a blast! We learned all about the sun and the moon, made some anchor charts together, and then we had our kiddos do some informational writing about each. And OMG! They rocked their writing! To make these awesome moons, each child needs a paper plate and a straw. You need to mix a little water, black paint, karo syrup and dish soap in a dish. Have the kids blow BIG bubbles with the straw, and push the plate on it. If you find that the bubbles aren't showing up too well, add some more black paint. You also may need to press the plate on top of the bubbles more than once. Here are photos of the process. {Just don't use a small, square dish, haha}. And you can't learn all about the moon without doing Oreo Moon Phases!! We just did half of the phases to save our parents from having to buy a gazillion Oreos! Also, we normally have our kids cut and paste labels for the phases, but we ran really short on time that day... Whoops! Live and learn :) I have no idea why that picture keeps loading sideways... Of course the kids thought this was the best day EVER! We tend to hear that when we do yummy activities :) This week has been all about the planets! We got some awesome sets of books about the planets from our PTA and Scholastic that we have been reading, along with my All About the Planets {Nonfiction Reader and Journal}. The kids are really enjoying space, and I feel like we could spend FOREVER learning about it! But, we must move on next week :) Happy Hump Day, everyone! We are almost done for the week!!
