Christmas Break!

Today was the last day of school until the new year.  The kiddos are out for Christmas Break until the 3rd of January.  I think we all are excited about some much needed R&R!

This week in first grade most of the teachers planned fun filled craft days for the students.  A lot of our families do not have many ornaments to decorate their Christmas tree with, so it's nice for the students to be able to make some decorations to use at their home over the holiday.  Crafting with a room full of riled up first graders is not an easy task... needless to say, I am exhausted from all of the festivities.  However, the kiddos created some really cute stuff that I would like to share... so it was worth it :)

The first ornament we made was integrated with a cultural read aloud about the origin of the poinsettia.  I read Tomie de Paola's The Legend of the Poinsettia, which explains how the flower came to be in a Mexican Christmas story.  It was a lovely story and the students really enjoyed learning more about the traditional Christmas symbol.  We created a poinsettia ornament using a coffee filter, red paint, glitter, clothespins, and pipe cleaners.  I think they turned out really beautifully!

Poinsettia Craft 

Last week we read Jan Brett's Gingerbread Baby and Gingerbread Friends in class and compared it to the original Gingerbread Man story.  I promised the kiddos we would get to decorate our own gingerbread babies in class.  As a treat, I brought in gingerbread cookies, icing, and lots of candies.... the students had a blast decorating and eating their gingerbread babies.

A student carefully arranging an assortment of candy on her gingerbread babies. I provided icing, peppermints, chocolate chips, strawberry lace, mini sweet-tarts, and M&Ms.  MMM! 

Gingerbread Cookie Recipe

Here are a few more crafts the students created with the help of an adult... mainly because a hot glue gun was needed to complete the product.

A wreath ornament made with mini muffin tins and a small paper plate.   

Peppermint Ornament Craft
**I altered the methods slightly--- I used hot glue instead of icing and I used beads/sequins/rhinestones instead of red hots (because I could not find any)

Ice Cream Cone Craft
I modified this one as well... just to make it more kid friendly. 

Snowman Popsicle Stick 

As a gift to my students, I made baggies of homemade Hot Cocoa Mix and Homemade Marshmallows.  It took a little bit of prep work, but the kids thought it was so neat that I made my own marshmallows. My assistant and I also created mice ornaments made out of Hershey Kisses to give to the students.  I thought they were very sweet looking.  

Mice Ornaments

I think it is safe to say that I am a bit crafted out at this point.  The kids had a good time and I think they are proud of the neat-o ornaments they created.  I hope that everyone has a peaceful and relaxing Christmas vacation and a wonderful New Year!

Love,
Mrs. Cook

The Countdown to Christmas...

We just concluded our last full week of school before the kiddos get out for Christmas Break.  It's hard to believe we have been in school for 76 days already!  We are approaching the half way point very quickly.  This past week I had the opportunity to read lots of wonderful holiday themed children's books and do some fun activities with my cookies.  We didn't just do crafts though... the students got lots of good holiday spirited writing and math practice.  Next Monday and Tuesday we get to really focus on the crafts :)


The kiddos created their own math problems based around how many different colored ornaments they were going to use to decorate their Christmas tree.  The students would start with a number between 10-20 and then choose two colors they wanted their ornaments to be.  The learners then figured out a possible combination of the two colors so that the total number equaled the first number they chose.  Last, they wrote a number sentence and decorated their tree accordingly.  We have been working hard at composing and decomposing numbers in first grade--- this was a great activity to assess which students understand how to make different combinations of numbers.

It read:  My Christmas tree has 11 ornaments.  It has some yellow ornaments and some purple ornaments.  It has 10 yellow ornaments and 1 purple ornament.  Isn't it beautiful?  10+1=11

This week students also practiced their listening skills when we made Gingerbread Man Glyphs.  We read Jan Brett's Gingerbread Baby and then created our own.  The students listened to different questions and colored each part of their gingerbread man according to how they answered the question.  For example, the boys colored their buttons blue and the girls colored their buttons pink.  This would tell a viewer if the child was a boy or girl.  The poster below explains how someone can find out information about each student by "reading" their gingerbread man.  After we made our glyphs, we practiced graphing data to find out about our classmates based on how the gingerbread men were colored.

Our Gingerbread Man Glyphs displayed in the hallway.

An explanation of our Gingerbread Man Glyphs.

The last neat thing I would like to share from our classroom this week is our Wish Tree.  I had students trace their hands on green construction paper, cut them out, and then write a wish on their hands.  I explained that each hand would make up a part of our class's Wish Tree.  I really enjoyed walking around and listening to the children explain what they wished for.  Some of the wishes were very typical such as, "I wish I could  fly" or "I wish for a million bucks."  Other wishes really tugged at my heartstrings.  I work at a Title I school, which mean that my students that live in a high need area.  One of my students wrote, "I wish my mom would find a job."  That kind of awareness in a 6 year old just makes me so sad.

My class's Wish Tree.  

I started tearing up as I was reading the wishes with my kiddos in class.  It reminds me how important school is to these kiddos... its a place where they can get away from their worries for just a little while, and it's nice to know I can offer that to a child.  No matter how tough it is being a teacher, I know that some of these kids have a pretty tough job too.

Love,
Mrs. Cook

P.S.  Mr. Cook finally came by my classroom to meet my kiddos!  They have heard much about him already and they were "ohh-ing and ahh-ing" all afternoon.  He said "he felt like rockstar" because they all knew his name and were so excited to meet him.  It didn't hurt that he was in uniform--- these kids LOVE that!  :)

Honey Bees and Other Things

Hi There!

I am sorry about such a lapse in my blogs.  The past few weeks have been nuts-o at school!  I will try to catch you up.

Last week to go along with our Scott Foresman Reading Street Story, we studied our unit on honey bees.  The kids studied all about how honey bees make honey and about what goes on inside of a bee hive.  Of course we started the unit by making a KWL chart to set our goals and objectives for the week.

Our honey bee KWL chart.  

The kiddos learned some really neat stuff!  Did you know that honey bees use their saliva and beat their wings to help dry nectar so that it ripens into honey?  We all thought that was really interesting... and a little gross too!  I was very impressed with how well the students were able to understand the honey making process.  We practiced sequencing the order of events by writing about how honey bees make honey.  The kids used words like "first," "next," and "last" in their writing.  

First, the honey bees gather nectar from flowers.  Then, the honey bees take the nectar to their hive.  Last, the honey bees dry the nectar until it ripens into honey. 

One of my favorite parts of the week was reading Patricia Polacco's wonderful story-- The Bee Tree--- to my cookies.  It is a lovely story that teaches a very valuable lesson to the main character, which is that reading-- just like HONEY-- is sweet and rewarding.  Afterwards, the students got to eat biscuits with honey... just like in the story... as a sweet treat.

Comprehension worksheet on story elements from The Bee Tree.  Students were asked to describe the characters, setting, problem, and solution in the book. 

The Bee Tree by Patricia Polacco---- a beautiful children's book that teaches the importance and value of reading. 

Biscuits and Honey! A sweet treat to reward my cookies for being such good students.

 

This week we are reading lots and lots of fun books about Christmas and the holiday season.  I will add another blog very soon to keep everyone updated!  

Love, 

Mrs. Cook

Thanksgiving and More

Thanksgiving, Y'all!

This is is my favorite time of the year.  The weather is at the perfect temperature, holiday scented candles perfume every store, and everyone is in a festive mood... not to mention all of the delicious foods that are available.  I crave Starbucks peppermint mochas and gingerbread lattes all year long.  This is also a really fun time to be a teacher!  I love teaching about holidays and special observances because the kiddos really connect and engage in the discussions.

We finally finished up our dinosaur unit by creating our own "fossils" out of salt dough.  The kids had a blast playing with the dough and then using plastic dinosaurs and shells to make imprints.  They have taken a while to dry... hopefully they will be ready to go home after Thanksgiving break.  You can see an example below:

Salt Dough Recipe:  2 cups all purpose flour,  1/2 cup salt,  3/4 cup water,  1/2 cup used coffee grounds.... mix it all up.  I let these air dry, but they can also be baked at 350 F until they are dry.

We only had two days of school this week due to the Thanksgiving holiday, so I decided that I would spend all of one day to talk why we celebrate Thanksgiving.  It's difficult to explain the religious reasons behind the Pilgrims' voyage to America and the complex relations between the Natives and the Puritans to first graders, but I used a variety of websites, books, and SmartBoard presentations to convey my message.  In the end, I think they understood that Thanksgiving is all about giving thanks for what we have rather than just about eating pumpkin pie and turkey.  Of course, we also talked about all the delicious foods we were excited to eat.  The kiddos were surprised to learn about the different kinds of foods that were served at the First Thanksgiving--- many did not realize the meal consisted of venison, a variety of shellfish, and plenty of veggies--- a far cry from today's version laden with sugary pies, mashed potatoes, and buckets of gravy.  I used the book below to help the students sequence the events that led up to the First Thanksgiving between the Native Americans and Pilgrims.  

In this story, the mice put on a Thanksgiving play to portray the events that led up to the First Thanksgiving.  Very cute and kid friendly! 

On a less serious note... we also made some super cute Thanksgiving crafts.  I mean hey, who doesn't love crafting?  My students work so hard, I thought they would enjoy a morning of fun crafts--- and boy was I right!  They LOVED it!  Here are some samples below:

The students used washable marker to color a coffee filter.  I sprayed the coffee filter with water using a squirt bottle and then set it on some parchment paper to dry.  The colors bled together to create a neat "tie dye" effect.  After they dried, they used construction paper to create the turkey body, feet, and beak.  

The students used dried beans to make a pattern on their corn.   

I hope that everyone has a wonderful and relaxing Thanksgiving!  I know I will!  

Love, 

Mrs. Cook 

Dinosaurs, Rawr!

This week in first grade my little cookie monsters are learning all sorts of neat-o stuff about dinosaurs!  Who doesn't love learning about dinos?  We are integrating science and literacy in a really fun way.  Below are a few of the activities we have done so far this week:



This is our Dinosaur KWL chart we created.  The students lovingly named him "Spikey."  I was impressed at how much the students were able to add in the "What We Think We Know" column.  They were also able to formulate some really good questions about what they would like to learn during our unit.  We are still adding new information to the "What We Learned" column each day. 

This was MY sample.



This is a student's finished product. 


This week in literacy I introduced contractions to my students.  This is a very difficult concept even for my higher level kiddos.  I thought it would be cute to design a dinosaur themed practice activity for our contractions.  Each half of the egg has one of the base words that makes up the new "dino" contraction.  The kids got a kick out of the activity and (hopefully) some good practice!  A lot of them didn't know dinosaurs hatch from eggs like birds, and so they were tickled to learn something new. 



These are two writing samples from my class.  They had to come up with a name for their pet dino and write it in the name tag.  Many of the kiddos named their dinosaur "Cookie," "Cook," or "Mrs. Cook."  Not sure what they were implying...



I read the classic Danny and the Dinosaur to my students and then asked them to close their eyes and imagine being able to spend the day with their very own pet dinosaur.  Next, I had them create original writing with the prompt "If I had a pet dinosaur..."  Their writing was fantastic!  Kids really thrive when able to create fun and imaginative writings.   

Students hard at work extracting chocolate chip cookies from the fossil dig site.

Today the students got to do something really cool!  They got to become paleontologists.  I gave each student a chocolate chip cookie and a toothpick and told them that his/her job was to excavate as many whole chocolate chips from the cookie as possible... just like they were digging out fossils from a dig site.  The kiddos were not allowed to move their cookie or eat the chips they extracted.  Many of them found it to be very difficult to do without breaking the chips.  Afterwards, of course, we ate our "fossils."  They recorded their information and observations on the worksheet below. 

This week has been a blast so far!  I can't wait to make some dinosaur eggs and fossils! 

Love,
Mrs. Cook

Sink or Float

Pumpkin week has been SO much fun... both for me and my little cookies!

Today the kiddos had a blast during "Pumpkin Science."  I purchased a medium sized pie pumpkin for the class to use and I let all of the students hold it to see how heavy it was.  I then asked them to predict whether the pumpkin would sink or float in a tub of water.  All but two of the students said it would sink... either because it was heavy or because it was big.  Needless to say, they were amazed when TAH-DAH!  The pumpkin FLOATED!  I asked them why it floated and they said that maybe it wasn't heavy enough to sink, but that was quickly debunked when I showed them how a tiny yellow crayon sunk straight to the bottom.  The experiment blew their first grade minds!  It's nice to really wow your students with something so simple :)

They were so curious!  I have a classroom full of mini-scientists :)


This week has also been "Red Ribbon" Week... meaning that we have been participating in school wide activities to promote anti-drug/alcohol use.  Each day has had a different theme.  Today was "sock it to drugs" day.  We were encouraged to wear crazy or mismatched socks to show our anti-drug  stance.  Even I wore some knee high argyle socks!  One of my kiddos really went all out with his socks though... it was picture worthy :)

 


I hope everyone has a great Friday!

Love,
Mrs. Cook

Pumpkins, Pumpkins Everywhere!

Hi Folks!

This week in first grade we have been busy, busy, busy learning all about pumpkins in honor of the upcoming holiday.  We started off the week by making a Pumpkin KWL chart.  It turns out that my superstars already know a lot about pumpkins!  No worries though, they still had lots of things that they wanted to find out before the week was over.  On Friday we will add all of the new facts that we learned throughout the week to our "L" section of the chart. 



Pumpkin KWL chart we created as a whole group when I introduced the unit on pumpkins.

 One of the first things that we learned about pumpkins is how they grow.  We discovered that a pumpkin's life cycle is very similar to an apple's life cycle.  In fact, pumpkins and apples have lots similarties.  We made a pumpkin and apple Venn Diagram to discuss the similarties and differences between the Autumn fruits.  Both apples and pumpkins start as seeds, have flowers, start off as green in color, and mature into a fruit.  My favorite similarity is that they both can be made into pies!  We discovered that one way they are different is that apples grow on trees and pumpkins grow on vines.  On Friday, many of the kiddos are going to learn that the fruits taste much different too! 



Pumpkin life cycle ordering activity the students did to review.

Yesterday, the students got to watch a story via YouTube called The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin.  The gist of the story is that Spookley was a square pumpkin that was constantly teased by the other pumpkins in the patch. One day Spookley blocked a square shaped hole in the fence to save the other pumpkins from rolling into the nearby bay during a terrible storm.  Spookley was a hero after that and the farmer decided to only plant seeds from Spookley to create more square pumpkins.  The farmer had a crop of not only square pumpkins, but all sorts of shapes and colors as well.  I had my kiddos to design their own square pumpkins after watching the story.  We used tissue paper and a glue/water mixture to create a "stained glass" effect for our colorful square pumpkins.  Check out a couple from our pumpkin patch below :)



The kids did a great job making their square pumpkins!  Our windows are beautifully decorated now!




This is a photo of some more of the Leaf Man stories the kids created last week.  It is displayed outside of our classroom in the hallway. 



I think that's all for now!  Have a happy Wednesday!

Love, 

Mrs. Cook 

Leaf Man

Hi!

This past week in first grade the kiddos did a really cute writing acitvity after I read the story Leaf Man by Lois Elhert.  It is one of my all time favorite Fall themed books because it is beautifully written and the illustrations are gorgeous (photos of real leaves are used to create the pictures).  Lois Elhert never disappoints with her children's literature.  The gist of the story is that a "leaf man" is being blown all sorts of places and is seeing all sorts of different things along the way... 
                                      
                                           "a Leaf Man's got to go where the wind blows" 

After we finished enjoying the lovely story, I had the children to create original stories either from the point of view of the leaf man or as if they were a leaf person.  They came up with some really awesome ideas!  I encouraged them to be creative about what places the leaf person might go and whats sorts of interesting things he/she might see along the way.  Many of them even went so far as to describe what their leaf person looked like.  They did a great job!  Below is a sample of one of my kiddo's work. 


My Leaf Man is going to the pond.  He will see ducks and alligators.  My Leaf Man will see the park.  He will trees, people, and grass.  My Leaf Man is going to the zoo.  He will see monkeys, a gorilla, and an elelphant.
(translated my me)

 This week we get to explore and learn about pumpkins!  I can't wait :) 

Monday Morning

Hello to all!

I apologize for being so remiss about posting new blogs!  Last week was incredibly hectic for many teachers.  We have new 6-week grading periods and so last week I had to create and distribute report cards as well as conduct the first round of parent-teacher conferences.  I have also been battling some kind of awful crud that just did not want to go away!  I lost my voice one day and had to call in a sub for the kiddos.  Thankfully, I think I am much, much better now.  I am ready to start a brand new week!

Last week in conjunction to our reading selection "Animal Park," we explored the continent of Africa and learned a lot more about the animals that live in the different habitats that it offers.  We read a super cute book called The Hungry Elephant to get the students to think about what kinds of food elephants eat in the wild.  We also had a great discussion on the difference between carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores.  I am impressed at how well some of my superstars picked up the difficult vocabulary!

 
    The students have also been doing lots of fun things with pattern blocks.  They have been exploring all of the different shapes and the different combinations of shapes they can use to fill in outlines.  I remember this was one of my favorite activities when I was in school, and I can see that they are having a blast also.

    Today I am excited because my mother is driving all the way from Greensboro to volunteer in my classroom all day!  It will be so nice to have another set of eyes, ears, and hands in my room!  It should be a really fun day!  

Well I need to finish getting ready for school!  I hope everyone has a great day!

xoxo  Mrs. Cook

Happy Birthday, Johnny Appleseed!

     Monday, September 26th was Johnny Appleseed's 237th birthday!  My class celebrated Johnny Appleseed by learning all about apples this week.  On Friday we had an "Apple Fun" Party where we graphed the different types of apples the children brought, used our fives senses to describe various types of apples, and we even made our own homemade applesauce using my slow-cooker.  At the end of the day we sampled various apple products including apple cider, apple pie, apple butter, and of course our apple sauce.  One of my students said that I needed to be on a cooking show, which made me laugh.  Our desks and fingers got a little sticky with all of those sweet treats, but all in all it was a great success!

 

     It was not just about eating tasty food though, we learned lots about Johnny Appleseed's life as well as about how apples grow throughout the different seasons.  During our math we played "Apple Pie Addition" using a dot cube and green/red "apples" (linking cubes).  We also practiced weighing different colored apples using bear counters.

     I think one of students' favorite things was when I read the story called "The Little Red House."  The abbreviated story goes like this... there was once a little boy who asked his mother for something to do because he was bored.  The mother sends him to solve the mystery of a little red house with no doors, no windows, and a star inside.  He asks a little girl, a farmer, and a granny about it without any luck.  Finally the wind points him to an apple tree.  He brings the apple home because it is red without any windows and doors, but he does not know how to find the star.  His mother then shows him how to find the star by cutting it in half.  I demonstrated how to cut an apple to find the star and the kids just "oooh'd and ahh'd."

It's hard to believe that we are already into the month of October!  The weather is becoming cooler and the leaves are changing colors.  It's one of my favorite times of the year.  It also means that our first six week grading period is quickly coming to a close... and that parent-teacher conferences and report cards are right around the corner.  I still have lots and lots to do before I am ready for all of that.  I better get busy!

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Love,
Mrs. Cook

First Day of Fall

Friday marked the first official day of Autumn!  This is one of my favorite seasons!  I love the ripe apples, plump pumpkins, and beautiful leaves in the Fall.  In class we discussed the many different characteristics of Autumn and celebrated its arrival by playing some fun Fall-themed games on the SmartBoard.

Next week we are going to continue celebrating this wonderful season by starting a unit on apples.  Not only are apples delicious, but they are also great educational tools.  I have all sorts of fun things planned, including an apple product taste test.  

The weather has been pretty rainy for the past few days, which means that the students have not been able to go outside for recess.  Instead, I have been letting them have play centers inside.  One of the choices is quiet reading on the carpet.  I caught the students being really cute on Friday...

I turned around and found them in this cozy position.  It was too cute to not document. 

Folk Tales and Heroes

Hi there!

    We have had a great start to our week!  Today we began learning about heroes and folk tales during our literacy and writing.  The children were very familiar with modern super-heroes such as Batman or Spiderman, but were surprised to learn about one of America's most well known tall tale heroes, Paul Bunyan.  We learned some interesting facts about the larger than life lumberjack...

Did you know...

• Paul Bunyan loved flapjacks (pancakes) with maple syrup
• Paul Bunyan had a giant ox named Babe, the Blue Ox
• Babe was blue because he was stained from the Winter of the Blue Snow
• He also had 7 helpful loggers that were all named Elmer (we practiced calling for the Elmers in class)
• Paul Bunyan is said to have built many famous American landmarks such as Lake Michigan and the Grand Canyon (we viewed images of the Grand Canyon on the SmartBoard) 
• When Babe had to be shod by the blacksmith, Ole, it took an entire iron mine

     This week we will also learn about different kinds of farm animals by reading and discussing different books together.  Additionally, we learned about Habit # 4 today- Think Win, Win.  We met another friend from 7 Oaks named Lily Skunk, who taught us the importance of making a plan that lets everyone win in the situation.  We used our new knowledge to brainstorm how we might "think win, win" at school and the students came up with some great responses.  Many students contributed ideas on how we might share limited resources and materials amongst each other in a fair manner.  I am proud of them for displaying such wonderful leadership skills already!  

    As a reminder, tomorrow will be a half-day for APS.  See everyone bright and early! 

         Love, 

      Mrs. Cook   

Friday!

Well, we finished up another week of school and I think I managed to teach the children a couple of new things today :)  This week we read several stories about pigs eating chocolate... who knew there was more than one book?  We really focused on discussing how some fiction stories can be realistic, whereas other ones are fantasy.  The kiddos really did a great job talking about the fantasy elements of our stories--- such as how pigs can't make pudding, pigs can't walk on their hind feet, or pigs can't talk.  Today we finally got to learn about some real pigs though!  We learned why pigs like to roll in the mud (to keep cool) and how much food they eat a day (about 8 lbs).

To go along with our mini-unit on pigs, we got to do a lot of chocolatey activities!  Our Hershey Kiss math was a big success as well as our writing activity with chocolate pudding.  The students wrote step by step directions on how to make pudding using vocabulary words like FIRST, NEXT, and LAST.  We also talked about our ingredients and the tools we needed to use (mixing bowl and a whisk).

Mmm Sugar Free Jell-O!  The folks at Harris Teeter are used to me running into their store at 6:15 am to pick out random items like pudding, hershey kisses, and marshmallows.  

In math, we started talking about using greater than and less than symbols when comparing numbers.  The students are learning that the "crocodile" (< or >)  loves to eat the bigger number.  We even added in some crocodile snapping motions with our arms to help us learn about these new symbols.

I have added some new pictures from our classroom.  Take a look-see!    

This is our "Compliment Chain."  If another faculty member gives our class a compliment then I add a chain link.  Right now we only have 4 links... we are working on getting more!

These are our Tattle Can Rules.  Students must tell an adult if their "tattle" could be dangerous and they must not use the Tattle Can if they have not tried to work it out using nice words. 

This is our Tattle Can.  Students can write down trivial tattles on a post it note and put them in the Tattle Can.  This is to prevent unnecessary disruptions during my instructional time.  I try to address the tattles at a later time, but mostly encourage the children to work it out on their own.    

This is our APS School Pledge.  Students recite this every morning and our class rules are largely based on this pledge.  It is also called R2S2.


Next week we will begin a unit on farm animals and folk tales!  I can't wait!  Have a fabulous weekend, friends!

Love,
Mrs. Cook   

A Glimpse Into My Classroom

Hi There, Folks!  I posted a few pictures of my classroom activities since the start of school.  I will hopefully get many more uploaded before too long.  We are really rockin'-n-rollin' with our studies!  Tomorrow (Friday) we have some special activities planned... including writing step by step directions on how to make chocolate pudding and then making it!  MMM!  I can't wait!!  

"I Spot 7 Healthy Habits"-- my Healthy Habits display to go along with my polka dot theme in my classroom. We use the 7 Habits to build leadership skills in our students.  

This is our "Kiss Your Brain" jar.  If students do something really exceptional, I will tell them to "kiss their brain" and go get a kiss from my desk jar.  

"Check Out Our Fresh Batch of 1st Graders"-- This was my classroom display for our Open House.  Each cupcake has a child's name on it.  

These are our "Kissing Hands" that we made to represent the diversity in our classroom.  We were inspired by Aubrey Penn's popular children's book  The Kissing Hand, which is about going to school for the first time.

This is a Hershey Kiss mat we used during our addition game for math workshop.  We roll a die 2 times, then put the corresponding number of kisses on either side of the mat.  The students count how many kisses they have to complete their number sentence.


That's all for now!  I must get some rest to finish up the week strong!  :)

Love,
Mrs. Cook