Starfall

Hey Parents,
I hope you have found time this year for your student to take advantage of the site Starfall. Much of the site offers resources for beginner readers for FREE! This week during computer time many of the students have been reading or listening to these short plays from the site. As a class we read the play "The Lion and The Mouse".  Click the link below, and it will take you to the short plays so if they have not had a chance to listen to them they still have a chance to do so:

  http://www.starfall.com/n/level-c/plays/load.htm?f

 

Mrs. Barnes



Becoming Authors

This week we have been busy reading "If Your Give a Pig a Pancake" by. Laura Numeroff. It is a student favorite. We also read "If You Give a Moose a Muffin". We then created our own "If You Give a _____ a _____". We did one as a class, then as a group, finally as an individual. Our group/ class versions were done very simply on big paper folded into eighths.  You can see below the class one then the group ones.  The top was done as a class. On the group one they got to add pictures. Then the last image is some individual ones.

 

If your child would like to try this activity again you can right click on the picture below and print the image! Enjoy!

 

 

Sight Words- Fry 100

I am always trying to find new ways for them to practice their sight words. Our most recent venture has been a cut and paste "Guess The Fry 100 Word". I love how this also helps them with their coordination with the cutting and fitting of the letters. These are the words that you see come home every week on the top of the homework packet. Tell them to be a cheerleader and cheer the words for you! They will know exactly what to do!

Jellyfish

 

Jellyfish are one of the things I love studying with my students and was part of our ocean unit. We made Paper Mache fact and opinion Jellies (top picture). We had studying about them discussed the difference between facts and opinions and recorded. This is a great stepping stone for us as later this year we will be doing animal research.

 

We also have been working a lot on math story problems over the past 6 weeks. We did many ocean themed math scenes. The above ones were of a subtraction problem where Sea Horses got stung and died by some Jellyfish!

Author's Purpose

Hey All! I am having to play a little catch up here on posts. In November and going into early December we were learning about the ocean. I like to tie what we are learning about in science or social studies into reading, and math. Above you can see our Author's Purpose whales. We learned about how author's have three different reasons for writing; 1. Persuade 2. Inform or 3. Entertain. We read a short selection together as a class about an aquarium. We decided that the reason for the author writing this selection was to inform. We made little Author's Purpose Whales explaining what the author informed us about!

A Bad Case of Stripes- Story Structure

As I discussed before in our "Mac The Cat" post we have been working on story structure. Last week we dug a little deeper with it when we read as a class "A Bad Case of Stripes". This is one of my ABSOLUTE favorite children books. We created story structure houses to help us think about story structure. If a house is missing a foundation, a door, a roof ect. is the house going to work very well? No! Just like a story, if a story is missing characters or a setting then it won't flow or sound right.

 

In first grade we are all working at different levels, and I love that. The growth in first grade is amazing!! Above you can see examples of two different story houses. 1. The student wrote it out 2. The student drew pictures to represent the characters and ect.

A Day at School

 

 

We read the story "A Day at School" this past week. Each student got a chance to be an illustrator, and we recreated the pictures of the story in partners. It was so much fun, and they now know this story inside and out!

Plot with Fly Guy

Over the weekend I picked up the most recent Fly Guy book at a book fair in another elementary school. I have an obsession with books by Tedd Arnold. He is one of my favorites, and one of the class favorites too! We read it together then they each got to draw out the plot in pictures. Didn't they turn out great!?!

Mac The Cat- Story Structure

Last week we had the story "Mac The Cat". We did a lot with story structure. We focused on the setting, characters, and plot. We made a class poster to represent all of these things from the story. The students also individually got to record in their reading journals about story structure.

 

Kevin Henkes ~ Chrysanthemum

 

I just love the author Kevin Henkes. Over the next few weeks we will be reviewing some important reading strategies while studying his books. Today we started off with his much beloved book "Chrysanthemum". We talked all about Chrysanthemum and what she is like. They then did a Venn Diagram and compared her to themselves (text to self).  I don't know if you can make out what they wrote around her, but some them really are a hoot such as "She needed tougher skin".  

 

 

Weaving Details and Conclusions

About a week ago we read the story "The Goat in The Rug" it is a Native American Tale. In the story we learned about the process that goat fur goes through to become a rug. We were also learning about details and conclusions. So we weaved our own rugs of details and conclusions.
Check it out Below!:

Penguin Unit

We have been having an absolute blast doing our penguin unit these past few weeks! WOWZA, we have learned so much! We spent time measuring out the 5 different penguins we learned about. Each student also got to learn 5 different poems about the 6 penguins we researched. After doing all of this they got to each pick one of the penguins, and write about why they wanted to be that penguin and what it is like. When they were finished they got to make that penguin.

 

When all was done we split into small groups on Monday, and got to create a habitat for each type of penguin. As you can see below some kinds live on a sandy beach instead of the ice cold snow.

 Chinstrap Penguin

 Emperor Penguin

 

  Little Blue Penguin

 Macaroni Penguin

 

Rockhopper Penguin

 

 

 

 

 Little Blue Penguin

 

 

 

 

Penguin Chick

We have been learning all about Penguins this past week! It has been a blast!!! The other day we read the story "Penguin Chick". We wrote the main idea and details in these cute little penguins. So if you get the chance as them what the story was all about.

No Marley, No!

Have you ever heard of Marley the dog? Maybe you have seen the movie "Marley"? We had a blast reading "A Very Marley Christmas" by. John Grogan as a class. We laughed as Marley the dog made a mess of so many Christmas decorations! We then wrote Marley poems! About what we didn't want Marley to get into during Christmas at our house. Some of the ideas really were hilarious. It was also a great way for everyone to practice contractions as they were telling Marley what he ; can't, won't, don't ect.. do!

Jellyfish Life!

 

I really wanted to get to this post sooner. Oh well here it is now. We made fact and opinion Jellyfish a while back. They were so fun. You can see some of the steps they went through to create their Jellyfish. They first colored the bowl with washable marker, then they covered it with paper mache! So much fun one of my favorite reading/art projects of the year. :)



Ocean Creature Projects

The Ocean Creature projects we had were AMAZING! Above you will see some of the brochure's on display. We also had posters from many students as well. Talk about A+ work. WOW!

The class is now ocean creature experts after all these projects!

Contraction Jellies

                                   

We have been learning all about Jellyfish and contractions.  We made these fun contraction jellies to help us remember contraction. Also feel free to ask the students about Captain Apostrophe and Captain Contraction!