A few updates. . .

So I have figured out that I am only able to blog/blogstalk during the wee hours of 2:30 and 5:00 a.m.  My school computer has been acting up when it comes to blogs, and of course from the moment I get home from school my attention, time, and energy are focused elsewhere!

Last week Sol insisted on wearing one of my vests.  Finally I decided to just let him wear it around the house!  Christian had on a gray one, but he was too busy flying through the air like a "superhero" to let me get a picture of him!

O.k. first things first.  So we had a fun little "reveal" party last weekend with family and friends.  I cut the cake first then we watched my 3D/4D sonogram dvd to check out our new addition.  

It's a BOY. . .and he wasn't one bit shy!  We're not sure about names yet, but we have a few in mind.  

If you haven't checked in at Kohl's in a while, they have a great new selection of books by.  

You can get more information here.

Last week we finished up our graphing unit, and I tried a few new things.  .  .

I dumped the m&m's into a baggie so that I could assess a few things without m&m's flying all over the room.  

I checked out sorting. . .

counting. . .

 and graphing. 

The students also had the chance to create their own pie graph. 

Here are a few pictures of some graphs/charts that the students worked on in small groups.  They surveyed the class, analyzed the information, and recorded it in the form of a bar graph, pie graph, or picture graph.

  

We read "Sam's Sandwich."  In this story Sam puts just about "everything" on a sandwich that he's making for his little sister.  Each student voted on their favorite kind of sandwich.

My class also worked really hard to write reports about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  I was so proud of all of the information that they learned and how sensitive they were in response to the class discussion and literature.

brown egg

white egg

inside they look just the same. . .

I love this TLC project.  You can find the instructions here.  It's a link on Little Giraffe's.

Have you ever taught a topic so much that you dreamt about it?  Well, we studied "rocks" and "soil" for about four weeks!  The reason we stayed on the subject so long is because we teach science and social studies every day.  So instead of going back and forth between the two of them, we spend about 20-30 minutes on both of them every day.  One of my teammates used to be part of a land judging contest so she is very very very knowledgeable about topsoil, clay, sand, silt, pebbles, and just about anything else that has to do with rocks!  I tried to keep it interesting for my kiddos. . .here are a few of my favorite activities.

Every day we shook this tennis ball container with cookies in it to show the process of "weathering" and "erosion."  I didn't do a good job of taking pictures along the way, but little by little we could see the transformation from "rocks" to "soil."

We made some snowman "sand" art pictures and brainstormed the *many uses of rocks!

And of course. . .after studying rocks and soil for all that time we deserved a treat, so we made dirt cups!  The class enjoyed eating them while watching "Magic School Bus Rocks and Rolls."  I wish I had a magic school bus!

That's all for now. . .happy teaching!  

Martin Luther King Directional Art

So many fellow bloggers have loved the MLK directional art.  This is a link to "Little Giraffes."  There is a copy of the directions which was free and listed in the TLC archives.  Happy Martin Luther King Day! Make sure you click on the one that's FREE.  Those are the dimensions that I used.  

http://www.littlegiraffes.com/martinlutherking.html

Celebration Time

This afternoon we worked on some activities that gave me goosebumps!  

First we wrote a "how-to" about making an ice cream sundae. I used one of the pages that Mrs. Walksy created.  Take a look at her post about directions.  Thank you Mrs. Walsky for this wonderful resource.

http://first-grade-teachers.blogspot.com/ 

Then the students added toppings to their ice cream and went to the whole group meeting area.  We used the sundae's to celebrate Dr. King's birthday.

  The class was sitting so quietly as I read "Happy Birthday Martin Luther King."  I know it was partially because they were eating ice cream, but I it was also because they were so engaged and interested in the text.  

After we finished the book, we discussed things that we've learned about Dr. King, and I was blown away by many of the responses.  I am so proud of each one of my first grade students!

Happy Birthday Dr. King

Since we've been working on expository writing, we created ice cream sundaes.  We listed the steps and wrote about "how to" make them.

The students thought about what "gift" they would give to Dr. King if he was still alive.  They were very sweet and generous!

This afternoon we'll make ice cream sundaes (real ones) and listen to this story as we have a birthday celebration for Dr. King.