House of ING

Today our classroom was transformed into the "House of ING."  We used the Chinese New Year to enhance our learnING.  First we watched a Reading Rainbow video on the Chinese New Year and read a wonderful book called Goldy Luck and the Three Pandas.  Go to the Reading Rainbow link on the top button bar if you would like to check out these wonderful resources.

Our morning work was learning to write the numbers 1-10 in Chinese characters.  We also filled in a message with tons of missing INGs!  Perfect for the residence in the "House of ING."  We became ING ending experts.

One my favorite activities today was spelling.  The students practiced adding ING to words with the added challenge of chopsticks.  We had Chinese take out boxes filled with words.  The children had to use chopsticks to pull out a word.  They read the word and added -ING.  Next, the students glued the word with -ING to the paper plate and read the new word.  They worked so hard at the reading and spelling until their plates were full!

 

A big thank you to Panda Expresss.  They gave me the take out boxes to fill with our words.  They also gave each of the children a fortune cookie!  What a great day for Chinese New Year and learning in the "House of -ING!"

Royal Readers

Presenting our Reading Royalty for the last two weeks.  Amazing!  All the kings and queens so far have logged over 350 minutes in a week to earn their crown!  Spectacular!  We will not be doing a crowning this week because of the upcoming break.  Thanks for your amazing home support.  The extra reading at home makes a significant impact on your child's reading.  Keep up the hard work.

Officiating Learning

We used the excitement of the upcoming Super Bowl to officiate learning.  We made referee signals for different punctuation marks.  Then we read and built sentences and used our signals to referee editing.  The students were awesome!  Here is a quick video of the children demonstrating the signals with a punctuation poem.


Of course, we just had to do more learning centered around the theme.  We did some Super Bowl spelling, a math menu to earn the laces on a football, and let's not forget predicting the outcome of this weekend's game!  I can't wait to hear what the children have to say on Monday!

101 Days of School

     We had so much fun on the 100th day of school that we kept the learning celebration going! For 101 we celebrated Dalmatian style! The whole first grade participated.  First grade is the best!
     Our day began with a hidden number picture.  Each child had a hundreds chart.  There were equations laying in the middle of the carpet.  One by one, a student chose an equations and read it to the class.  Each of the equations were a number in expanded form, a skill we have been working hard on in math.  The class solved the problem and highlighted that number on their hundreds chart.  When the students had solved all the equations the number 101 was revealed.

We made a cute Dalmatian craft.  The students had to really think because each puppy needed 101 spots.  It was interesting to see how the students organized their counting.  Many students had to count the dots over and over to get it just right.

The students used their iPads and the app Word Wizard to see what words they could create using the letters D-A-L-M-A-T-I-A-N.  Word Wizard is an excellent spelling app.  One of the features of the app includes a movable alphabet that the students could use to easily manipulate the letters and create new words.

On the hundredth day of school, we wrote 100 words around the room.  For the 101st, we made a little more of a challenge.  The students were asked to write 101 nouns.  The students used their book box and poetry binders to read through and find nouns.  Our best support was our 3rd grade buddies who came and helped us get started.  See if your child can give you some examples of nouns.

Later in the day, we solved 101 math problems.  The students were a little overwhelmed at first but soon realized they could preserver.  Luckily, Ms. Claudean had made us some puppy chow to help us through! 

We also made dog tags.  How many fruit loops do you put on a 101 dog tag?  101 of course!  The students decided the best way to organized the dog tags would be 50 on one side 51 on the other.  Again, the students had to work on organized counting strategies.  Look at all those piles of 10!  The activity also required fine motor control.  101, another awesome day of school!

Super 100s Day

We are 100 days smarter! 

 We had a super 100s day!  The capes were so creative and we had a blast counting and learning all day long! We started our day learning and dancing to Jack Hartman's "Zero the Hero" song. Our Hundred Day Heroes marched the hallways in a parade. As they marched, we counted to one hundred by fives and tens. Every time we hit 100 we did our best super pose. Mrs. Crum thought we were awesome. Check out our great capes!

Free picture slideshow made with Smilebox

Of course, we did lots and lots of counting! We counted out different hundred collections. We counted 100 pennies, blocks, links, puffballs, crayons, and more.

 

The silly 100 hats we made were a hit! Each hat had 100 little drawings.  We wrote 100 words and sang and read 100 day songs and poems. The children loved their special 100 day snack.

In the afternoon, we had a 100 Hershey kiss hut. The children worked in teams to find 100 kisses around the classroom. Then we had to problem solve how to share the 100 kisses with 18 students. Of course, don't forget the building of 100 cup structures! Again, the children worked in teams to build structures with 100 cups of different sizes. It didn't take the children long to figure out that they needed a wide base to fit 100 cups in their tower. All in all, the whole day was SUPER!