Alphabet Books

We have been reviewing the alphabet letters and sounds by reading and writing alphabet books. Here are some of our favorite books. There are so many fun and interesting stories organized as abc books!  When we read the book A my name is Alice, we did our own version of a rewrite.  The students had to use the first letter of their name and find something they liked that started with that letter.  Then, they made a self portrait.  The pages turned out darling!  The children love looking at them hanging up in our classroom.

We also wrote a class alphabet chart and individual alphabet books. During these writing projects the students learned how to navigate their way through a dictionary...the ultimate ABC book!  The students used the letters in their names to make their own abc book.  They are dictionary experts!

There are some great apps that work on identifying letters and sounds and writing letters.  Also, the app Endless Alphabet is a great vocabulary builder set up as an alphabet book.  The kids LOVE it!  Click on the app name to be taken to more information. Letter School, Starfall, Writing Wizard, Sound Sorting, ABC Magic, Endless Alphabet

 

Alpha-School

As part of our Alphabet book study, we read this amazing Caldecott winner, Alphabet City.  The Caldecott medal is given to children's books for illustrations.  The book is full of city photos that have all the letters of the alphabet made from city scenes. The students loved the book.  We talked about how the author really had to concentrate on details to find the letters hidden in around the city.  We decided to be letter detectives as well.  We searched the playground to see if we could find the letters in the details.  We all worked together on the detail search.

 

The letter detectives did end up finding all 26 letters....although we had to get a bit creative on a few.  View the slideshow below and see if you can see the letters we found.  Thank you, Mrs. Dye for the photographs!

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An Apple A Day

Fall is officially here!  To celebrate, we did several activities with apples this week.  We started with some nonfiction text reading using our Scholastic news magazine.  We learned all sorts of interesting facts like the seeds are called pips.  We enjoyed an apple snack while we read our magazines.  The magazine had several nonfiction text features.  We made our own books about apples with nonfiction text features like a table of contents, labels, captions, and a diagram.  The students worked very hard on their books.

In math, we used the apple theme to practice addition.  We solved story problems and built equations with apples.  We also practiced the addition strategy of counting on.  Miss Schultz planned so many great apple activities that met important first grade objectives.  She even made the children delicious apple sauce.  Who knew math could be so yummy!  Thanks Miss Schultz!

Speaking of yummy, we also tasted different kinds of apples.  The students had to pick their favorite color of apple: red, yellow, or green.  After the students taste tested, they used an apple to stamp their favorite apple on a graph.  We love data!

Of course, we had to do some science with our apples.  One tool scientists use is a scale.  We compared the weight of an apple to different supplies in our desk.  In our science journals, the students sorted the objects into heavier than an apple or lighter than an apple.  The scientists did awesome.

We also got creative with apples.  The children really enjoyed this song made about the Dr. Seuss book Apples On Top.



After watching the song several times, the children set out to make their own "Apples On Top" book with a book making app called Scribble Press.  Scribble Press is an awesome book creator for $3.99.

To create their books, students had to be very techie.  They learned how to take a selfie, adjust the picture, import the picture to their page, add stickers, type text, and publish an e-book.