#classroombookaday UPDATE: Week of January 14, 2019

Another SUPER week in our first grade reading world! We’re up to 281 (woohoo!–more than halfway to the top!) and read some good ones this week. First check out the updated display:

Here’s what we added this week:

You will notice some more fraction titles, and a couple of Cinderella books I somehow forgot to post until now. What? I am so obsessed over this wall display I usually get the pics up the MINUTE we are done with them. LOL. Better late than never, I guess. :). We added a ShowMe nominee book–Seven and a Half Tons of Steel–during our library visit on Tuesday, and it was a great one. I had NO idea there was a ship made out of the Twin Towers! Art & Max delighted us with great illustrations (as David Wiesner books often do!), and since it was snowy recently, we read some great winter snow books, too. One of our favorites was Rodzilla (which I think kids love EVERY year!) and also a reread of The Invisible Boy. We’re excited to add more books about problem solvers to the wall for next week, so stay tuned for some great books about great people! 🙂

It’s not on the wall yet, but I hope to share the book Kate suggested in the comments from a few weeks ago, too–My Hair is a Garden. It was beautiful! Have a great reading week, friends, and don’t forget to leave us some suggestions for what we should add in our upcoming choices!

Winter Cultural Celebration 2018

A couple of years ago we had our first Cultural Celebration (which took the place of the traditional Winter/Christmas party) before we left for our Winter Break. It was SO MUCH FUN and based traditions that came from our class culture. We loved it!

This year we did it again, and again it was SO MUCH FUN! I think the thing I love the most about the way this celebration is planned, is that it all comes from the families in the class. Every class is different and special and so therefore so is every Cultural Celebration!

As I have done in previous years, I sent out a survey to families, and received many responses. :). This told me the direction of our gathering, building on the ideas for traditions and family favorites that they had shared with me in their answers.

After the Winter Sing-A-Long (which is definitely a tradition in our school culture), we all met in our room for some fun and togetherness!

Sing-a-Long Selfie with Avant and Mrs. Bearden 🙂

I am pretty sure that EVERY KIDDO had someone there to celebrate with them (we even had some siblings show up!), and even if they didn’t have their own family member, they had someone’s visitor, because we’re all one big happy first grade family!

In order to keep things low key, we offered several activities and had kids/families decide beforehand which one(s) they wanted to complete together. This was totally led by the kids, which I think added to the fun and originality of our party. Check out what we offered:

Making reindeer food: Did anyone besides me NOT know this was a thing? I don’t spend much time on Etsy or Pinterset, so maybe that’s why, but goodness–this was a hit! Getting ready for Rudolph and the others was high on almost everyone’s list!

Decorating sugar cookies: I mean, what says winter-party-fun more than cookies and icing? There were many different shapes, colors and as many sprinkles as you wanted, and goodness–kids could have probably stayed at this station FOREVER!

Stringing popcorn: Several families mentioned that they string popcorn every year for their Christmas tree. I haven’t done t for years, but I actually did this for several years early on in my marriage. IT was so much fun to watch families do it with their kids, although I’m not sure how much actually made it onto the string–MUCH of it just went right into bellies!! :). This station made me want to try it again at home, this time with my own kiddos!

Holiday Read Alouds: You know we HAD to include books in this celebration! Families shared their holiday/winter favorites, and I pulled many from our classroom library as well.

Gingerbread Playdoh:. I knew (because it was mentioned as a special love of many families) that I wanted to have something gingerbread related, but I wanted to make sure it wasn’t too cliche or too messy, or require too many materials. Ok, well, I may have lost on that last requirement, but Ms. Turken’s class has just made gingerbread PLAYDOH with their learning buddies the week before and that seemed like a SUPER idea for us to try, too. This one ended up being such a hit that it might have to become a regular holiday activity in our first grade room!

Our Cultural Celebration was just what I had hoped it would be, and everyone seemed like they enjoyed it so much! Enjoy some pictures of our winter fun!

What a great way to head into a relaxing Winter Break! 🙂

Mrs. Sisul Brought Us a Snowman Challenge!

Remember when I wrote about Catch of the Days? I should have updated you LONG ago, but our class is ROCKING AND ROLLING with these and already have almost 50! Along the way, there have been rewards (for example, at 10 is an extra recess, 20 was pajama day and 30 was game board day) and we’ve enjoyed every one of them. Once we hit 40 it was an even BIGGER deal because the prize was “admin’s choice!”

We emailed Mrs. Sisul and Dr. Wilson and asked them to come visit us. Today was the day, and Mrs. Sisul came with two of our favorite things: a book and a design challenge!

We read lots of snow/snowflake books on Friday (which was early dismissal day for weather!), but she picked one we hadn’t read yet (and yes, that is a feat in itself–GREAT job, Mrs. Sisul!).

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She read the book to us (which we enjoyed!) and then she gave us our challenge: just like the mice the story, build the TALLEST snowman you can….with one piece of paper. 🙂

We went back and forth on how much info we’d give them about how to do this challenge, but eventually decided we would give them idea that they could make paper chains (which reminds me of the comment Kate left the other day about how creativity abounds within parameters–thanks for that reminder, friend!). Otherwise, they may have spent all of their time just figuring out what to do and not actually building anything.

As we set off to work, I could tell kiddos were thinking about our last challenge (when we read the book Going Places last week), and they quickly began to find groups to work with, both so they could share their resources and so they could share ideas.

At the 10 minute mark, we had kiddos stop and do a gallery walk to look for ideas being done by other engineers that might help them in their own work.

Kiddos got back to work and we noticed that instead of several groups of 3, we now only had 3 groups altogether! I decided to see what they were all up to…

Interesting, right? This was the part that really reminded me of the work that happened with our other challenge–kiddos making decisions that they thought would help them, even though they weren’t explicitly stated in the directions. “They didn’t say we couldn’t….” was their rationale. 🙂

We finished our work (about another 5 minutes or so, and then work time was up. We laid our snowmen out on the rug to see who had made the tallest snowman.

Now…of course when you do a design challenge, the process is as important as the final product, so Mrs. Sisul then led us in a reflection conversation.

I loved watching their faces as they thought about what had happened and worked to decide what they would take away for next time.

I also really liked their answers to the questions and also how honest they were when they thought things weren’t fair or didn’t make sense. We just might try this same challenge again soon and see what happens differently!

And lastly, just for the record, Elena wins for cutest snowman. 🙂 She’s very proud!

THANKS FOR COMING, MRS. SISUL!! We love how much you love books, learning and coming to work with us! 🙂

Do you have any stories about design challenges you’d like to share? We’d love to hear them!

Cinderella from Around the World

During the last part of the fall/winter, we were busy in first grade. Busy reading, learning and thinking bout Cinderella. And culture. Many years ago I found a unit I really like that was focused on using Cinderella as a means of getting kids to think and learn about how other people live around the world. We learned a little about fairytales, and also compared and contrasted what the stories had in common (and of course, what was different). That first year we enjoyed it so much that when I looped with that group to 2nd grade the next year, I wrote a similar unit based instead on Little Red Riding Hood, which was also a big hit!

This year we dug in again to the Cinderella-culture connection, and another group of super kiddos got to hear many amazing stories (most of which were new to them!). We started with the story most everyone knew already.

We followed, over the next few weeks, reading many other versions of the story, from places around the globe. As we talked about each story, we also wove in geography lessons, and marked each country on a map together.

In the first version of this unit that I taught, I had kiddos choose a country that they wanted to learn more about, and then students worked in groups to learn all about the culture of that country. This time around, Ms. Turken (my co-teacher), and I decided that it might be a bit too much for some of our friends and we had a change we decided to make: we chose two countries we would research and then students could choose which one they wanted to learn more about. We offered Mexico and China for this part, and kiddos could work with either teacher for the study.

Once we had our groups, kiddos chose which PART of culture they were most interested in: religion, music/dancing, clothing, food, holidays, sports/games, school and art. Students worked in pairs to research their topic, taking notes as they went. (In my class we worked on Mexico’s culture, and Ms. Turken facilitated the study of China in Rm. 112; kiddos from both of our classes worked in both places).

After we had taken a few days using books, websites and videos to gather information, we worked to build a mural (of sorts) to share our learning with the other group. We began with a blank chart (below) and then kiddos had to work with paper to create a 2D representation of the things they found to be most important about their topic.

I always love to see pics of kids “in action,” and also love how they incorporate technology right along good old paper and glue. 🙂

Once we were finished, we met to have each group (Mexico and China) teach the other country’s group about what they had learned about the culture of each place.

We did a great job, but we also learned that our kiddos have LOTS to learn about how to present to an audience. :). No worries–there’s lots of time left in the year to work that out. 🙂

Also, as a side note, while our study focused on the cultural parts of the Cinderella story, we also read several versions that were just for fun!

I’d say (without any hard evidence except for my being there during the study) that this was a hit with everyone involved. We loved all the stories and everyone learned something they didn’t know before we started. 🙂

Following Directions Can Be Fun!

The last–or first–few days of the semester can be times when you slow down a bit, and try things that will be both fun and productive. (I know, I think everything I do is fun, but who knows, right? see hee)

A teammate shared an idea for a snowman picture to do for “fun,” and I decided that since everyone else was probably doing it I should take a look; even though I don’t typically jump on board just because everyone else is doing it. The big idea was that you lead kiddos in a drawing lesson to show them how to draw the snowman, and then also give directions for how they are to paint it–but they have choice in the colors they use and the patterns they add.

I agree, it was cute. And yes, it’s winter themed, and yes, it would look great hanging in the hallway. But I still had to ask the question about “why?” Why wouldn’t I just let them draw their own snowman? Why couldn’t we just paint whatever we want? Why wouldn’t I do any entirely different activity during that time? (I know, my teammates love it when I ask questions. LOL At least they understand that’s how I process and always assume positive intent in my inquiries. 🙂 )

Because I work with amazing people, they simply answered my questions. Well, you could let them just make their own snowman. You could absolutely paint whatever you want. And of course, you could do something entirely different during that time, but we’re doing it because it’s good practice in following directions (which of course my kids could benefit from, too!), and also there is lots of choice within the directions. It is cool to see how differently kiddos can interpret the directions and how even when we do the same kind of thing, they all turn out looking completely unique!

Ok, that was what I needed. We were in. 🙂

And just as I thought, kiddos did a SUPER job of following the directions, even though some of them were tricky, and kiddos had to try again or erase some lines as they drew. I didn’t have anyone who quit, or cry or tear up their paper (yeah, sometimes in first grade that still happens…), but instead everyone worked really hard to do their best and were ok when things went differently than they’d hoped. 🙂

And yes–it was fun!

As I drew my snowman on my big paper up on the board, kiddos followed along with their paper and their pencils.

The “plain” version ended up looking something like this:

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And then, artists were invited to paint their snowmen, using whatever colors and patterns they wanted. Really the only guidelines here were that the snowman should be left white, and the background had to be painted with a bright color. Otherwise, it was up to them.

And you know what? All of our snowmen we drew with the same directions looked so completely unique and different and BEAUTIFUL! Kids were so proud and I’m so glad we did it. 🙂

Check out our final snow-people! 🙂

And of course I need to say thanks to Proud to Be Primary for the idea, and also for the post (that I still need to read) that gives reasons why I should do more of these directed drawings. I’m excited to read!

#classroombookaday UPDATE: Week of January 7, 2019

Welcome back to school! We are getting back into our routine after a fantastic holiday break and I’m excited to share another great week of reading in first grade! Check out our wall and how fast it is filling up!

As of January 11, we were at 266 books!

Check out the books we’ve added since last week! 🙂

You may or may not be able to tell that we are working on fractions, problem solving, persuasive writing, and also did some learning about penguins. Going Places and I Built a House were included in some design challenges (which I will share soon!) and some were just for fun. :).

I have gotten a couple of suggestions for new reads, please continue to share your ideas for what we should read next! 🙂

**Sidenote: As I was adding the Twitter mentions for this post, I realized how many authors we read this week had written other books we already love! Thank you, Laurie Keller, for writing Potato Pants! Just realized you also wrote Arnie the Doughnut, which we loved form last year. Genius! And of course, I noticed when we read Mae’s First Day of School that it was the same author as Hannah and Sugar (you’re awesome, Kate Berube!), another one we love–which has a song we love from Emily Arrow! It’s worth a share here, since it’s so good. 🙂

Table Talk, Friendship Soup and Pumpkin Pie!

The months between Halloween and Winter Break are my favorite to teach. Oh wait–I think I will probably say that very soon, as I love to teach January and February, too. Ha! Maybe I just like teaching in first grade….:)

Anyhow, one of the things I love is the fun we are able to have with out learning and our community around Thanksgiving. This year we made Friendship Soup (which was a first for me!) as well as the pumpkin pie that has become a common tradition for my classes to make and share together.

Thanks to many generous parents who donated LOADS of things, we were able to work together with out friends in RM. 112 to make two whole crockpots full of friendship soup, which was actually PHONICS friendship soup, full of letters thanks to a recipe from our good pal, Rasheed. In the morning of our last day before we left for our long Thanksgiving break, we put it all in the pot to let it simmer while we worked on other things. It was fun to see what kiddos already knew about cooking, like who had heard of the spices we were using or who knew how to open a can with a can opener. It’s one of my most favorite things about cooking with kids–connections to real life and skills they’ll use forever! 🙂 And they did a great job with following the recipe and man did it start to smell good!!

On that same day, pumpkin pie was on the menu! Prior to this day we had read lots of books about pumpkins, carved jack-o-lanterns for Halloween, and used pumpkins for our Literary Lantern projects, too. Well, we ended up with several leftovers, which were PERFECT for our pie project. I had never used actual pumpkin for the recipe (usually it’s just organic pumpkin out of a can), but why not? It just made sense!

I have a great crust recipe from my husband’s granny that is just flour, salt and oil, which is perfect because our class has allergies to eggs, dairy, nuts and tree nuts. The pie is a vegan recipe (yep, vegan!) I ran across a couple of years ago–when I was baking for my niece and nephews who are also allergic to many things. :). The recipe was perfect! Besides the fact that most kiddos had never MADE a pumpkin pie before, there were some who had never EATEN pumpkin pie before, because it wasn’t safe for them. This was definitely a win-win situation. :). We were even able to have allergy-friendly “whipped cream” that was made with aquafaba (which for those who don’t regular eat this way is the liquid leftover from chick peas). It whips up just like heavy cream (ok, not just like it–my husband would DEFINITELY disagree that it’s as good–but it’s a great substitute if you can’t have the dairy kind) and is yummy with the pie!

While we don’t have a classroom kitchen (or a kitchen for us to use with our classes, which would be AWESOME!), we do have pretty a great kitchen staff who was more than willing (thanks, Rachel!!) to put our pie in the oven, and even watch it for us while it baked. Gotta love it when all the adults in the building support kid-focused activities, no matter how crazy they are!

Toward the end of the day, it was finally time for our Friendship Feast, which we had created with our very own hands. :). I hadn’t done this in such a formal way before (most years prior we just had pie and ate it in a hurry during our regular snack time), but my teammates went all in and set a big long table, complete with table cloths and everything, so I figured I’d join in at least part-way. :). I didn’t have table cloths, but I did create a table space big enough for us all, and Avant even put a flower on it to make it fancy. 🙂

Those pics are a little sad, though, right, because they needed kids! As they walked back in after specials, they were excited and surprised to see a table set for them and quickly sat down.

Before we were ready to eat, we reminded ourselves of some other things we had learned prior to this day. I thought that since we were going to sit at a table together, we should use it as an opportunity to learn about table manners. I have learned over lots of years with little ones, and by having my own kiddos at home, that you cannot assume that kids KNOW what to do in certain situations. So instead I read a great book by Julia Cook called Table Talk.

Just as was in the book, we waited for everyone to be seated, for everyone to be served and put our napkins in our laps. We chewed with our mouths closed, waited our turn to talk, and also remembered to be quiet and respectful at the table, rather than playing around or being loud and crazy. Before we ate, also, we went around the table and shared what we were thankful for. We listened carefully and then once everyone had had a turn, we dug in. :). And realized we had done a GREAT JOB with our Friendship Soup–it was YUMMY!! (Oh, and another thing we all did was at least take a “thank you bite,” which means you have to at least try the soup and then you are allowed to not eat the rest–as a thank you to the chef for making it for you. 🙂 ).

Most kids like the soup, and everyone at least tried the pie. Some decided it was AWESOME and had more than one slice, and others just had a bite–which is totally fine, of course. The big deal here wasn’t that we were great cooks, or that we were master bakers. Instead it was that we could work together, take time for each other, show kindness and respect to our friends, enjoy time with classmates and also see the fruits of our labor. Kids did things they didn’t know they could do and were so excited to see the results. They laughed together, solved problems together and listened to what makes their friends happy. We had table talk, friendship soup and pumpkin pie, and we did it all together. And for that I am thankful!

Literary Lanterns: 2018 version

I found this project a few years ago, and have tried it with three first grade classes now. 🙂 Last fall must have been a busy time in my life because the 2017 version of this project did not make it to our blog. 😦 Oh well–here’s another iteration of this awesome project, which is a great combo of fall, pumpkins and books!

As with the last times we’ve done it, we started with the explanation, and this picture:

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We talked about the possibilities for books and characters we’d use and made one really important rule: you can’t do anything in this example. :). As you might be able to tell, these are many of our favorite characters and EVERYONE would want to do them. This challenges them to think “outside the book” so to speak, and not just copy someone else’s idea.

Kids had time to check out our book wall (another GREAT reason to display them low for all to see!), and shared their book choice (either from one we’ve read or one they’ve read or just love).

After their books were chosen, and Ms. Turken and I had given them their assignment (with the idea of trying to make sure all our our lanterns were different), they were to draw their plan, including a list of materials they would need to complete their pumpkin. Learners shared their plans with us (and each other) via Seesaw. Here are some of them:

Once everyone had brought in their pumpkins (plus some extras via some very generous families!), we finally got busy with the decorating!

We were finally ready to share our creations after we’d gotten our displays together–including a picture of our book and a recording of who our character was and why we’d chosen them (can you say “thank you KSD for the fact that we are 1:1 with iPads? WE are able to do SO MANY GREAT THINGS because of that!). Here’s what a few of those looked and sounded like:

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We set up our Literary Lanterns and our iPads so that as kiddos from the other classes came through to see our gallery they could listen and look at our thinking. We also had a chance to go through and view our own class’ creations during the gallery walk. What a great end to a great Friday morning around Robinson school!

Ok, one last little slide show. :). Here’s a closer look at our creations! (It seems now that I’ve missed a few, but I will add them as soon as I get back to school!)

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Halloween Fun 2018

What a GREAT day in Rm. 111! I mean I know Halloween is supposed to be fun, but I really think the reason it was extra great this year was because Rm. 111 kiddos were so amazingly behaved and still worked like it was a learning day, not just a throw-out-all-the-rules or just-a-party day! They even did it in their PAJAMAS because we had earned a PJ Day reward for getting 20 Catches of the Day. Granted I also think it helped that we kept them busy and planned some really interesting things, but regardless, they stepped it up and totally rocked it. :). Let me share our day with you. 🙂

We of course spent the day (and every day!) with some books. On both Tuesday and Wednesday, we focused on books about pumpkins and then Halloween specifically. Check out the titles we read together:

We enjoyed all these (because who doesn’t look a good story, especially when it’s holiday-themed?!), and strangely it was the very first time I’d ever read The Little Old Lady Who Wasn’t Afraid of Anything. Not sure how, after all these years of teaching (and of being alive!), but I loved it and will definitely include it in my repertoire next year. AND we might decide to do the Breakout box I saw recently related to it. I’ll definitely share that here if it happens!

We had been working on a lantern project in reading, and because Mrs. Heisner blessed us with some extra pumpkins we had enough leftover to carve–even exactly the right amount for each crew to do one. Kids had a chance to plan their idea of a great jack-o-lantern as morning work, and then we planned to do a little flip-flop with Rm. 112 kiddos and Ms. Turken for the morning. She had a super Room-on-a-Broom-themed craft to do (which of course I have no pictures of since I wasn’t in there 😦 ), and so two crews when there while two crews were with me and then we traded (this is, by the way, an oft-used structure used in our co-teaching classroom). As each crew came to my table, we voted on the pumpkin plan we liked best in each group and then we began to turn our pumpkins into fabulous jack-o-lanterns. We would, by the way, use this experience as the basis for our how-to in writing today, which was another reason why I wanted to do this together. 🙂

And what fun this whole thing was, from pulling the guts out, to drawing on the faces and then seeing Ms. Pachan’s amazing pumpking-carving skills and then getting to see our finished products all on display! I was also super impressed with how well everyone worked independently and quietly while I was with groups. SUPER JOB, RM. 111 and 112 kiddos!

Check out the pumpkin work we did! 🙂

The jack-o-lanterns we ended up with were SUPER! Check out our amazing products!

Later on in the day we were able to participate in our annual Robinson Halloween Parade with the rest of our Roadrunner friends. Our costumes were GREAT and we had a great walk. It was a little chilly, but that just added to the late-fall fun!

Robinson teachers even got in on the fun!

We decided to do a team costume to go with our current science unit–Patterns in the Sky! Ms. Turken is the moon, I am the sun, Mrs. Kier is the earth, Ms. Dale is covered in constellations and Ms. Fry is a cloud. Such fun!

Ms. Pachan, our first grade teaching assistant was also part of a group of crayons, put posed for a picture with me before our parade. 🙂

Once we got back, we settled in for a snack and a movie. The day before I had asked this question as our morning work problem to get a little data:

While this was a great question for practice with tally marks and addition, I also used it to know what to shop for for our Halloween treat! Win/win!

It looked so pretty on the table, too, with all that natural color, don’t you agree?

Ok, so I know Oreos and Starbursts are NOT natural….look at the front of the picture instead. LOL

We watched Room on the Broom (which we had already enjoyed as a book and a craft!) and kiddos were so quiet and calm–even on Halloween and even after a parade
AND in their costumes. Joyous. :). Some friends who didn’t want to watch the video with us quietly made other choices like reading with a friend or writing. Yes, even on Halloween. :).

Here’s to the beginning of a great holiday season! Bring on November and December! 🙂

Principal Read Alouds: 2018-2019

We have a SUPER principal who LOVES reading and has a passion for getting kids into books. Several years ago she started offering opportunities for classes to sign-up to hear her read, and we jumped at the chance. We’re still going strong and ready to enjoy year #3!!

Our first PRA of the year was a great one, and I noticed that Mrs. Sisul must have a new focus this year. After seeing all of her book choices and reading experiences so far, see if you can figure out what it is. 🙂

PRA #1

I’ve Got the Rhythm by Connie Schofield-Morrison

PRA #2

If You’re a Monster and You Know It by Rebecca Emberley and Ed Emberley

As we prepared for the next PRA, I had a sneaky request for my teammates: what if we had ALL OF FIRST GRADE in the room when Mrs. Sisul came in?? We were all game and so when she walked in, she was greeted by almost 100 smiling faces who were SUPER EXCITED to hear a fun story! What a sweet surprise and a great way to start the day together!

PRA #3

Do Not Bring Your Dragon to the Library by Julie Gassman

PRA #4

The Truth About My Unbelievable School by Davide Cali

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Somehow I have NO pictures and no video for this one. What was I thinking? I really think I was so involved in the story that I was too distracted to record anything. :). This one is a new author to us, and is part of a series. We’re excited to hear more that are like this one. The pictures played a big part in telling the story, and if you didn’t pay close attention to them you missed a lot!

Can’t wait for the next one! Stay tuned to hear more about it! 🙂

20somethingkids and 1kookyteacher

Starting a 3rd Grade Journey

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