November 7, 2012

What a fantastic day it was, despite the horrible weather!

Today in project, the kids prepped seeds to put in the greenhouse. 

First, they had to poke holes in the bottoms of old milk containers.  This will allow for drainage when the plants are watered.

 

 

Before doing anything else related to actual planting, they smelled all of the seed choices.  They were planting herbs and spices, and many of the kids had never used or seen or smelled them.  They smelled fennel, cumin, caraway, mustard, poppy, dill, and celery seeds.

 

 

Next, they added soil to their milk cartons.

 

 

Then, they labeled popsicle sticks when they chose which seeds they would plant.  And, finally, they planted their seeds of choice in their containers.

It was quite a production, but the kids worked hard to stay calm, be patient, and be neat.  It will be interesting to see if these seeds grow!

Another wonderful thing that has happened involves the introduction of more games into the classroom.  I bought a bunch of board games for Grandparents' Day, and they're fun, cool games.  The kids have been INCREDIBLE about sharing, taking turns, and including each other in their play.  Today, they had a longer recess because it was project day and they were playing so wonderfully together.  They did games, blocks, and crafts.  I taught the kids how to make paper hats, and they really got into decorating them!

 

I was really pleased with how well the kids did today, academically, socially, and emotionally!

Grandparents and Special Friends Day

Today was Grandparents and Special Friends Day.

It was a really nice day.  The kids started off by making Ants on a Log.  Some of them decided to teach their grandparent or special friend how to make them, and others just munched all day long.

After that, they had the opportunity to play some new games.  The games ranged from Snakes and Ladders to Trouble to an Angry Birds game.  It was exciting for the kids to get to play games they hadn't seen before, and to share them with their loved ones.

They also colored pictures together, did word searches, explored the book fair, and got their pictures taken.

Sadly, I didn't have an opportunity to take any pictures today, but there are many on SSCPS' facebook page!  Check them out there!

It was a wonderful opportunity to see the kids playing so well together, including each other with their family members, and to meet so many more people!

Pre-Election Day

Because tomorrow is Grandparents' Day, I decided that we would hold our class election today.  I started by teaching the kids about the electoral college.  I used pie:

I likened a vote to a piece of pie.  Then I explained how each person gets a piece of pie, and the states with the most pie get to cast the most votes.  Then we split up into towns.  Rockland had 7 kids while Marshfield had 3 and Hanover had 1 (etc.).  I showed them how the kids in Rockland had a choice of who to vote for, and whoever got the most votes in Rockland would get ALL the Rockland votes.  Same with each of the towns.  Using pie helped the kids to understand the electoral college.  How cool!

After that, the kids got to vote. 

They had to stand in line, just like a real election.

They got their ballots...

Then they voted!

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Everyone was happy to have voted!

And our results!  

Scott Brown beat Elizabeth Warren by one vote!

And Barack Obama had a decisive victory over Mitt Romney!

It was a great experience to vote and learn about the electoral college.  The pie wasn't bad, either!

Friday skills and centers from Michelle

This week the first graders have been having a pausing point in skills. This means they have finally finished the first book Snap Shots! Their fluency with reading is really starting to develop! We have been reviewing all of the concepts we have learned so far. We will continue with this part of next week as well. Please keep studying tricky words at home!!

In centers for our calming strategy today we discussed humor. We talked about how humor can help if your stressed, angry, sad or if your engine is low. We also discussed how if your engine is high humor may make you too silly. We took a poll of how everyone was feeling, watched a funny movie clip, then took another poll and compared. We talked about things that make us laugh and told a few jokes. We will add a joke book to our calming basket.

Hope everyone is recovering from the storm and Halloween.

October 25, 2012

Today was a good day!

In skills everyone is working hard to increasing their reading fluency.  For some groups, that means extra reading that's outside the curriculum (extra practice always helps!), and for others it means reading and rereading stories to work on pacing and phrasing.  In addition, the groups all continue to work on learning new sounds and mastering old ones.

The Screaming Mustaches have now covered spellings for long a (ai, ay, a, a_e), long o (o, oa, ow, oe, o_e), long i (i, ie, y), and today they started long u (ue as in cue, u as in unit, and u_e as in mule). 

The Zesty Wombats are working on spellings for long a (ai, ay, a, a_e).

The Organic Squirrels continue to work on digraphs (th, ch, sh, ck, qu).

The Ice Dragons have finished The Mouse and the Motorcycle and are doing some artwork to go along with what they've read and learned.

In writing, the kids worked on their farm journals.  They wrote about learning all about compost, from its origins (rotting vegetables, leaves, and paper products) to its completion (rich dark soil with lots of worms), and how to sift it to ensure that only good quality, completely decomposed compost is used.  They also wrote about raking leaves to put into compost, and using the compost to add to garden beds that they cleared.  They drew beautiful pictures to go along with their sentences.

In social skills we brainstormed more ideas about what makes a good and bad friend.  Then the kids drew pictures and wrote about what makes them a good friend.  This will be a mini-unit in social skills about friendship, making friends, and maintaining friendships. 

Today was a day where the kids worked hard all day.  They were focused and quiet and made a lot of progress on completing their work!

Social Behavior Mapping

Aaand we're back!

With all the parent meetings that have been going on, it's been hard to stay on top of the blog, too.  My apologies.

We've been doing some social behavior mapping.  Social behavior mapping is going through a behavior and breaking down how it affects others and oneself.  We go through the behavior (whether expected or unexpected) and talk about what that behavior looks like.  Then we talk about how others feel when those behaviors are done.  Next we talk about consequences from how others feel.  If others are proud and happy and someone's doing the right thing, the consequences are positive.  Last we talk about how they feel about those consequences.  When the consequences are good, so are the feelings.

Conversely, we also talk about unexpected behaviors, and go through the same discussion:

This is helpful for the kids because it helps relate their behavior to their feelings and to their peers' feelings.  All of the kids want to be liked, and want to feel good about themselves.  They're starting to understand that when they make expected choices, they have more positive interactions with the people around them and they feel better about themselves.  It's a win-win!

How Busy for a half day!!

Today was very productive!
The morning was full of earthquake stories!
Amy was out today and our wonderful sub. Kristen filled in!
Everyone worked hard in skills.
Then, in centers, the kids worked on reading fluency, iPads and went to the library.
Math seemed to fly by and before we knew it our busy day came to an end.

In first grade skills the kids are continuing to read Snap Shots. They are working on double letters in words remembering that they only make one sound (Ss, ff, ll, zz etc.) . They have been working very hard answering comprehension sentences in complete sentences. We have also been working on story elements and sequencing stories. The list of tricky words continues to grow and all students should be practicing as part of their nightly homework.

Hope everyone was able to enjoy early dismissal and take advantage of the beautiful weather.