Astronauts and Animals

  People, there are like 10 days of school left! Can you believe it? I can't.

In some ways, I feel like this year has flown by. But, when I look at my kiddos, I feel like I've been their teacher since the beginning of time... do you know what I mean? I'm sure gonna' miss them, I know that.

We've done two activities the last few weeks that I wanted to share.

We spent a whole week on outer space. The kids loved it! They were so interested in astronauts and the planets. We did a bunch of fun activities... but, I've been l-a-z-y about taking pictures lately. One thing we did do, though, was write about a trip to outer space. The kids used their writing flow maps to write paragraphs. Then, they made paper plate astronauts that I found on Pinterest.

 I kind of love them.

Here are some close-ups of their writing...

This next thing came from Pinterest, too. It's basically a way to start a new unit. I saw this way back in November and I tried it out with the third and fourth graders I tutor after school. They LOVED it and it was great way to start our unit on the arctic.

I've been dying to try it with my littles and this week seemed like just as good as any. And, since the news came in that I'm moving to third, I thought I better get my shot! But, honestly, I can't wait to do this with the third graders next year. My kids did a great job, but I think it's probably geared more for the upper grades.

Anyways...

I got five books from the library about animals and five big pieces of butcher paper. I put each book on a piece of paper and spread them throughout the room. I gave every kid a marker. I played some fun music and they basically walked around to each poster and wrote something they knew or a question about each animal. They all wamted to chat at first but then they got really into it!

This was suuuuch a fun way to build schema!

This is pretty much what they looked like when we were done.

After about 10-15 minutes, I had them stop at the poster they were at. Then, I had them open the books and read them as a team. I tried to choose easy books for them to read... but, some were a little long. They loved looking at the pictures, though, and all the teams had good enough readers that it all worked out fine. I told them they could add some interesting facts to their charts from the book.

To wrap up, I gave them all a circle map to complete about their animal. I didn't get any pictures of completed maps... but here are a few mid-way through.

Did my kiddos learn any ground-breaking information? No way.

Would I test them over something like this that they basically did themselves? Of course not.

But, I feel like this was a great way to introduce a new topic! I'm totally going to be doing this activity again and again. The kids were engaged, working together and they were searching all throughout those books to find new information! Imagine doing this before a unit on space or dinosaurs to build schema. I can't think of a better way to get the kids excited! To whoever came up with this, I salute you. Slow clap.

A Bug's Life

As I mentioned in my last post, this week in first grade was all about bugs. Which was actually appropriate because everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, bugged me this week. 

Does anybody else feel like the kids can sniff summer coming? I haven't mentioned to my kids that we only have 24 days left of school, but somehow... they know it's the end of the year. And, they're taking full advantage of my exhaustion. But, luckily, I adore them. So I can deal for 24 more days.... I think. They were actually really good today! So, maybe all my yelling  pleading has paid off?

Anyways... bugs.

I showed these in my last post, but we started the week off with an insect anchor chart.

We also talked about the butterfly life cycle.

(And, let me just go ahead and stop right here to make a disclaimer. You aren't going to see anything super creative or exciting in the remainder of this post. I had big intentions to do the butterfly life cycle with pasta this year. But, ya'll? I've done it literally every year since I started teaching and I just couldn't bring myself to do it again. How's that for a bad attitude? My kids didn't miss it, though. I'm 100% confident that putting some pasta on a paper plate wouldn't have helped them understand the cycle any better than just drawing it. And, I'm out of wall space anyway.)

So, yeah. We just drew the butterfly life cycle. They'll probably revoke my teaching blog privileges.

Then, I gave them a piece of paper and told them they needed to write about the butterfly life cycle. I pretty much always have them do some pre-writing when we write. I can count the number of times I've handed them a piece of paper and just let them write all on their own on one hand. But, sometimes, I think it's really good for them. I want to see what they can do on their own. I want to see if they can apply all the things we've worked on. And, honestly, I just wanted to see if they had retained the information and I wasn't too worried about the writing. So, here is some of their 100% independent writing...

Ahem. So, we've been working on topic sentences. I always tell them that the topic sentence should introduce what the paragraph is about. But, we usually come up with one together. I think the topic sentence above is HILARIOUS! Blunt, yes? Literal, yes? But, ya'll? He introduced the topic. What more can I ask, ya know?

Pretty exciting stuff, huh?

 I know you're sitting at the edge of your seat right now.

The second half of the week, we worked on insect research projects. One of our CC standards is to work on shared research projects. And, although it was great for the kids, I think it was even better for me. You see, I'm what you could call a control freak. But, I've been trying REALLY hard to just relax. The kids need opportunities to create things and work things out themselves. Who cares if the final product is cute, right? It's all about what they learn...

So, I just gave my kids a piece of computer paper and a book about an insect. And, I helped them divide the paper into 4 equal parts and we talked about the 4 things they had to figure out about their insect: where it lives, what it eats, what it looks like and a unique fact. They were in groups of 3 or 4.

They did such a good job of finding the information from their non-fiction books!

The next day, I gave each team a huge piece of white paper and these are the projects they created:

Dragonfly

Praying Mantis

Hopefully, you have x-ray vision. Otherwise, you won't be able to read that. And, this was AFTER their control freak teacher made them re-write it because it was too small. (I said I was trying... I never said I was perfect.)

Grasshopper

Bee

Mosquito

We had a tiring great week learning about insects.

Well, friends... that's all I've got. I'm off to enjoy the rest of my super-exciting Friday night. Which has so far consisted of blogging, listening to my brother's game on the internet and watching episodes of Parenthood on iTunes. Don't be jealous.

"I'll Never Let Go..."

 

This post is going to be all kinds of random. Hope that's okay with you. That's just generally what my life has been like lately... nothing is organized. But, whatever.

-I'm sure you're aware that Titanic 3D is now in theaters. It's the original Titanic movie (with Kate and Leo) with 3D. My friend Kristin and I went to see it together this weekend. Because, we? Yeah, we're big dorks. But, honestly, we've had a BLAST making fun of that movie all week with some of the girls at work. This picture perfectly sums up my RAGE with the movie:

She's all la-di-da laying on a HUGE plank of wood and her supposed love interest is FREEZING TO DEATH in the water. Scoot over, Selfish!

And, the whole movie, Jack is all "Never give up! I'm a fighter! We'll make it!" He tried ONE TIME to get on the wood and it flipped a little and he just gave up!!! I mean, it takes me about 5 tries just to get on one of these at the pool:



Jack's a quitter. There, I said it.

And, don't even get me started on all that "I'll never let go..." stuff. It kind of looses its effect when she pries his hands off the wood and pushes him into the water! Uhhhh.

ANYWAYS...

I said all that to say, we've had a lot of fun making fun of this movie. Kristin found a book about the Titanic in her classroom today. And, let's just say, we had a good time with it....

I'm kind of tempted to read the book to my littles. Will it terrify them?

-One of my cute little dudes was sick last week. And, I tried to call his parents but never got ahold of them. So, I did what any teacher who had a vomitting child ( and no school nurse) would do... I sent him to the bean bags to sleep. Then, I covered him with a blanket because he was cold. Oh, and I took pictures of his cuteness.

Poor little guy. He slept a LONG time.

-We did some activities last week with plants. We honestly didn't do too much because I was out half the week for the LBL trip. But, when I got back we planted some sunflower seeds and we talked a lot about the parts of a plant. I gave my kids some funky scrapbook paper and let them make plants to label. Then, they wrote about the parts of a plant and the jobs they have. They turned out really cute! Unfortunately, my classroom is FRESH OUT of hanging spaces. So, I had to get a little creative.

So, yeah. Our back counter is getting pretty junky. But, I can't help it. I love all their cute work and I love to display it!

Oh, and I found those cute pennants at Target during spring break. They were just hanging out in the party section... for like $4! I cannot even express to you how much I love them.

-This week, it's all about the BUGS! We started with an insect tree map.

Then, we segued into the butterfly life cycle. My kiddos were all about it! We made a chart to help us understand it.

I had my kids find a partner and then they worked together to make their own butterfly life cycle charts on computer paper.

Kiddos hard at work.

-My kids and Kristin's sang the entire chorus to Party Rock Anthem complete with mosh pit dance moves and background music on the playground today. And it was the funniest/cutest thing I've ever seen.

Between that and the Titanic shenanigans, we had a lot of laughs today.

As always, thanks for stopping by!

If Ever a Wiz There Was...

Well, people? I'm back. I know you've been waiting on pins and needles to hear what's been going on in Ms. Ridings' class. (Yeah, right.) Here's what's been  going on: The Wizard of Oz!!!

Let me go ahead right now and confess my undying love for The Wizard of Oz. It's hands down my favorite movie of all time. I love it. I sing the songs. I know all the words. I have Pinterest boards devoted to it. Not even kidding.

Oh, and the kids I tutor after school two days a week? They're putting on a play. The Wizard of Oz. So, we've been practicing it ALOT.

I've been reading my kids the chapter book since about October. Yeah, that was a long time ago. But, give me a break. It's hard for me to find time to just read without an agenda in my day. But, the kids were ENTHRALLED with the book. They could not get enough. Personally, I think the book is a little weird. But, to each their own...

Since this week was the week before Spring Break, a few teachers on my team and I decided to go full-on Wizard of Oz. We purchased Abby Mullins' awesome unit on TPT and we also came up with some great activities on our own.

Monday, we read the picture book and watched the movie. The kids were so excited they could hardly even contain their little selves. It certainly didn't help that we gave them popcorn with "munchkin treats" in it. Oh, and we worked on our character booklets. I made them all a book with some blank pages where they could draw each of the six main characters and write what they are thinking in a speech bubble. Here's what those looked like:

The front cover

We had lots of good invented spelling of "courage" this week! Ha!

Tuesday, we did some of the math activities from Abby's unit. They loved graphing their favorite characters and doing some of the math journal prompts. We also did a Venn diagram to compare/contrast Glenda the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch.

Wednesday, things got pretty exciting! In writing, we did the ruby slipper activity from Abby's unit. They turned out soooo cute! We even added some doilies to Dorothy's socks.

Pretty adorable, huh?

Also on Wednesday, we worked on a class mural. I had pre-made a yellow brick road on a big piece of butcher paper and labeled it with the places Dorothy went throughout the book/movie. The kids were so curious about it all week. They kept asking when we were going to work on it.

I basically just split them up into teams of three or four and gave them all a location. I had typed out some ideas of things they could make and encouraged them to brainstorm with their teams. I set out about a bazillion pieces of scrapbook paper and just let them go to town. Ya'll? I am shocked at what they came up with and what a great job they did! They were so into it and so creative! I must admit I helped them outline the Emerald City and the Witch's Castle... but, they did EVERYTHING else!

Here it is!!!

Close up of Kansas and Munchkinland

I typed out quotes from the movie and we added them to our mural, too.

The Cornfield, Forest and Field of Poppies

The Emerald City and the Witch's Castle

As we went through and retold the story using the mural, I had some of the kids write each part of Dorothy's journey on index cards and we glued those on, too.

The winged monkeys are my favorite, ha!

Dorothy, Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. And, Toto too.

I really never predicted that this would be such a great activity. I'd say it's maybe my favorite thing we've done this year.

As luck would have it, Mrs. Carroll over at The First Grade Parade posted this right in the middle of the week! So, we took full advantage and my kids got a great opportunity to use the mural to retell the story.

Poo. I just realized that the other pics of these that I took had some last names on them... so, I'm not going to post them on here. But, you can go get this awesome freebie at The First Grade Parade.

Thursday, I let the kids create their favorite character. All I did was cut out the circles for the faces so that the kids wouldn't make them too small. That's all I did. And, let me tell you. It was painful. I kept debating about whether I should cut out witch's hats and magic wands and Dorothy's hair, etc. But, I just decided no. It's okay if their artwork doesn't look perfect. They're kids. I just dumped out the scrapbook paper and let them go to town. I did give them some pics of the characters from the internet as a refernce point. But, I let them work in their teams and make them all on their own. I had to take a few deep breaths when all the Dorothy's came out looking like pigs. But, I'm so happy I let it go and just let them have fun. And, I think they turned out adorable.

Glenda and Wicked Witch

(You can click on the pictures to make them bigger if you want to read their writing.)

Tinman, Dorothy and the Lion

These friends right here were having a race to see who could write the most. Normally, I would stress quality over quantity. But, the day before Spring Break? Race on, friends!

That Dorothy looks totally like a pig, right?

I hung them out on the wall... along with our mural. And, they're going to stay there for a while because they make me happy.

We will FOR SURE be doing The Wizard of Oz every year from now on. My kids had so much fun... and, I may have had even more fun than them!

Now, I'm off to get my Spring Break started! Hopefully, I'll be able to blog some this week. Although, not about school. I'm not even thinking about school after I push the "publish" button to this post.