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