Presidents Day

 

For Presidents Day, the students explored several different books on George Washington and Abe Lincoln.  We also looked at interesting facts about each president and played a fun trivia game on an app called Presidents vs Aliens.  In the app, students have to answer questions about the presidents.  For example, which president preceded Teddy Roosevelt?  The students used different resources in our classroom to look up answers.  If they answered a question correctly, they get to fling a president to knock down cartoon aliens.  Ha!  I know it sounds silly, but the students were so engaged and getting really good at using different non fiction resources to find answers quickly and efficiently.   

The resource the students are using above is a presidential timeline.  On the other side, is a beautiful map of the United States.  A big thank you to Floberg Real Estate, MSU Billings, Wells Fargo, Billings Gazette, and AlphaGraphics for this year's Maps for Kids.  Maps for Kids is a program spear headed by Floberg Real Estate.  Every year, they make sure every first grader in Billings is given a United States map and every fourth grader receives a Montana map.  These first graders were so thrilled to get and use their new maps!  Besides Presidents vs Aliens, we used the maps to help us play a game (app) called Stack the States.  This app asks different questions about the United States.

The students used their maps to help them answer the questions.  When the children get the answer correct, they earn that state to "stack."  The object is to stack your states up to the finish line.  You can turn the states to be on the tallest, flattest side.  When you stack your states above the line, you get to move to the next level.  The students LOVED the game.  They did a great job reading their maps and working as a team.  Thanks again, "Maps for Kids!"

House of Cards

What is more February than the Queen of Hearts?!  For our after Valentines day STEM challenge we attempted to build the highest card structure using tape and playing cards. Before building we discussed the three dimensional shapes that might be used for a card structure, and we looked at different pictures of card structures.  Most students chose to build pyramids or rectangular prism shaped structures. Some students attempted the truss for their supporting foundation.  The challenge required precision and patience, it was a lot more challenging than the students had anticipated! It was great to see the students having fun and cooperating while exploring important STEM concepts like action/reaction forces, weight, balance, and stability.

Happy Heart Day

We had a lovely Valentine's party celebrating kindness and friendship. Our day was the perfect mixture of learning, fun games, and yummy sweets. We had a candy bar hunt. The students had to work as a team to find 5 candy bars hidden around the room. The candy bars had words on them. The students had to assemble the words to make a sentence. The reward....chocolatey goodness!



We had to mix in a little learning, of course.  We used candy hearts to count and compare how many letters were written on each candy.  We graphed candy hearts. We have been writing about all the things we love...learning is on the top of my list!

It was a short day packed with fun!  After recess we came inside for sweetheart floats!  Thanks for all the sweets! The students were so sweet and appreciative of all their cards.  They loved reading the sweet notes from their friends.  Here is a quick collage of our party!

 

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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!

And, look at this mathematician!  He made a graph at home to show the data from past Super Bowls.  The students loved writing facts about the graph and using the data to predict the outcome of the upcoming game!

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! We worked to solve a hidden number picture.  Each child had hundreds chart.  I uploaded different equations to an teaching app called ClassKick.  One by one, the children  solved equations.  For first graders, each of the equations were a number in expanded form, a skill we have been working hard on in math.  Second graders practiced double digit addition.  The students solved the problems and highlighted that number on their paper 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.

The students were challenged to write 101 nouns.  The children used their book box, dictionaries, words around the room,  and poetry binders find nouns.  See if your child can give you some examples of nouns. We also solved 101 math problems.  The second graders even timed themselves to see how fluent they were.  The students were a little overwhelmed at first but soon realized they could preserver.  We had a 101 Hershey kiss hunt.  I hid 101 kisses around the room.  The students worked in 4 relay teams to collect the kisses and match them to the write number on the 100s chart.  Then, the second graders worked together on how to divide 101 kisses fairly among 16 students.  They were so sweet.  They found that they could give 6 to each student and divided the remainder among staff members like Mrs. Crum and Mrs. Wolverton.



We also made dog tags.  How many Cherrioes 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.  The activity also required fine motor control. 



When students finished their "dog tag" they played a game called 101 and out.  This would be a great game to play at home, it works on addition and builds number sense.  In the game you get six rolls of the die.  When you roll, you get to decide to use the number as a 1 or 10.  For instance if you roll a 4, you can write down 40 or 4.  You must roll and add 6 times.  The player closest to 101 without going over wins!  101, another awesome day of school!

Spy School

The 100th day was EPIC! We had the best day!  Our classroom was transformed.  We were not first and second graders today, we were special agents attempting to save the hundredth day from the devious Agent 99.  Let me back up.  The intrigue started the day before our spy school.  Mrs. Wolverton came down to our classroom.  She had mysterious TOP SECRET message for each student.  The messages were dropped of by a special agent.  The children were so curious.  When they got the envelopes home, they found a message in a puzzle.

The students were so curious. Wednesday, when they arrived, our classroom was blocked with caution tape.  Students had to do a fingerprint scan with Agent N before being allowed access to spy school.  Inside...WOW!  The new agents had a case file, dark sunglasses, an ID badge, and a glow stick.  There was a secret black box locked with four different combination and key locks. It was finally time to learn about the mission.

The mission for the day was introduced with a short video message from command central. We learned that Zero the Hero had been number-napped.  We would not be able to celebrate the 100th day without Zero.  In our briefing, we heard a ransom note from Devious Agent 99.  The only way to rescue Zero and save the 100th day was to complete missions that revolve around the number 100.  Our morning held 6 different missions that unlocked clues to the combinations on the locked box. For instance, one station was writing to 100 with our secret agent black light pens.  Another station had students glow bowling (empty water bottles with glow sticks and a hamster ball with glow sticks).  Students had to work as a team to knock down 100 pins.   Then, students had to use magnifying glasses to identify the models of numbers.  Still another station was highlighting hundreds in sea of numbers.  Highlighter really makes a visual impact in black lights.  So cool.

  
 
With all this hard spy work, the agents were lucky to have a station to make a snack.  At the "Hot on the Trail Mix" station, students counted out 10 of 10 different snacks to get exactly 100 in their mix.  They also got to mix a spy potion drink of orange soda and 7up, then a sprinkle of explosives (Pop Rocks).  Thank you parents for all the snacks and drinks. The spies couldn't have done their important work without you.

A favorite station was analyzing fingerprints.  We had some cups with Agent 99's fingerprints.  The students watched a short video about fingerprints.  Then they worked together to dust the evidence for prints.  They lifted fingerprints from the cup and analyzed the patterns and shapes.

After the morning missions we completed, we took a closer look at our case files and gathered our clues.  The students were able to crack a few of the codes and unlock three of the locks.  After completing the fingerprint stations, students were given a coded sentence.  One of the words, was five letters...nines....one of the combinations was five letters.  Hmmmmm!



Then, students found three number 3's and one number 9 written in invisible ink at the top of different papers.  When this super spy put together that 3+3+3=9, he had to stand up and let everyone know.  Yes, that is right, the combination lock had been solved.   



By lunch, there was only a lock with a key left.  The students' afternoon missions were designed to help them find that key!  The afternoon missions included making 100 cup STEM towers out of different sized cups and 100 second timings.  In the timings students predicted how many times they could do something, like write their name, in 100 seconds.  Then, the students had to test their predictions.  

After the four afternoon missions, the spies received another top secret envelope.  It had letters in it.  When the students unscrambled it, it said....."ZERO?"  Now the students were really confused.  They had a combination for another 5 letter lock but they needed a key.  Here it was 1:30 and they students had not found the key to save the 100th day.

However, just when all hope seemed to be lost the students went to library.  As they were telling Mrs. Jensen about their missions, she decided to ask them about a mystery she had.  She had received a strange black box with, you guessed it, a 5 letter combination lock!  The students turned the combination to ZERO? and it opened!  Inside.....THE KEY!!!!  Now the spies had all they needed.  Inside the large mystery box, each student received their very own spy kit and a 1-0-0 snack!  They unlocked Zero the Hero and saved the 100th day!  Amazing day!