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.
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| 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.
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| Our Gingerbread Man Glyphs displayed in the hallway. |
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| 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.
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| 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! :)
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