I have an awesome freebie for you today! I wrote a short Reader's Theater about story elements. This really helps my students with the vocabulary of story elements and serves as an anchor all year.
I seriously can ask my students in May, "class, what's a solution?" and everyone answers "how they fix the problem!" with some hammering to follow. :)
Click here to download the file from Google Drive.
This week,we will be working on diving deeper into the Story Elements to "describe" the characters, setting, problem and solution.
Check back soon (or follow me!) for a great close reading lesson that focuses on describing characters!
Meanwhile, enjoy this short video of my kiddos performing their reader's theater. This performance was in our classroom 5 min before the bell on Friday; so, it's a little rougher than the performances we took on the road earlier that day. :)
Hi friends! Happy Presidents' Day Weekend!
For those of you who are new to this blog, I love integrating the Arts into my curriculum. I have been so fortunate to have had many trainings in integrating Dance, Drama, Visual Arts and Music with content. Using the Arts is so engaging for the students and helps learning "stick".
Last week, I gave a math test to assess my students before conferences. Here's a look at the test. I included the many different word problems we have been learning that are included in the Common Core.
If you're interested in the test, let me know. It gave me great information about my students. However, I was shocked that my firsties had forgotten how to use the greater or less than symbols. :(
Last weekend I came up with an idea to help them.Don't you love a teacher's brain?All of a sudden, this idea just popped into my head? I wanted to come up with a lesson that would be engaging and allow them to be up and moving so why not make them be the symbols!
I decided to give 2/3 of my class a number card between 20-100 and the other third became the greater or less than symbol.
I played music and the students danced around the room to the music. Once the music stopped, the students had to get into groups of three - 2 numbers and a symbol. After each group assembled, I called out " compare". At this cue, students put themselves into a number sentence and the greater or less than symbol would have to figure out which way to point. We then read the number sentences around the room.
The kids then switched jobs and we did it all over again!!!! So fun!
The next day we played this dice roll game with 20 sided dice in partners to practice.
Hi everyone!!!
I have something so fun to share with you. I wanted a better video but this will have to do. I've tried to get someone in to video this lesson and it isn't working out. Due to the fact I'm videoing myself, it's hard to see the whole room and I had to use my CD player that skips rather than my iphone. I was bummed you can't play music and video. I need to write Apple...
Anyway...
Here's the fun, super simple dance to teach your students!
Warning: you will want to try this immediately!
I have been teaching the Doubles + 1 strategy for a few years now but noticed many students could use the strategy in isolation but wouldn't apply it on a worksheet of mixed facts. I thought the reason could be that students weren't able to find the "neighbor" ( numbers next to each other in sequence: 2and 3,3 and 4,4 and 5,etc.) So, my arts team and I created this quick dance to help with this concept.
1. Students get a number necklace to wear ( 1-9).
2. They dance to the square dancing music while its on.
3. When the music stops, they get back to back with a "neighbor" to their number.
4. The teacher says, " Howdy, Neighbor!" The students bow to their neighbor and repeat, " Howdy, Neighbor!"
5. Do-si-do for 8 counts
6. Solve their answer using the doubles +1 strategy.
7. Stand silent back to back when they have their answer.
8. The teacher calls on each partnership to make sure the problem has been solved correctly.
9. Switch numbers with the partners next to them and dance again!
Watch the video to see it in action. Sorry again that the music is skipping because I couldn't play it on my iphone and that I didn't get the whole dance because my phone died! If I get a better video, I'll replace this one!
Dont't forget to enter my big giveaway! You still have one more day!
Hi everyone!
I just wanted to pop by and check in. I've been so bad about posting. I really wonder how these amazing bloggers can keep up with it all!
Anyway, I love this time of year! I always put on a Christmas Play with my students. I wrote my own script a couple of years ago based on the book Who'll Pull Santa's Sleigh Tonight?
Here is a You Tube video of my students performing. It's kind of hard to hear but it's a super cute play and easy to teach 1st grade at this point in the year. If you want something like this for your classroom, click the pic above to check it out on TPT.
Free tip: Never give your students jingle bells to wear during a performance!!!
We perform songs and dance as well. Here's some clips of those if you're interested. If you live in AZ we have a cute Phoenix Wonderland song. Let me know if you want it.
This week we worked on retelling and our story in our Treasures reading series was Little Red Hen. We made a retelling strip for the Little Red Hen as an anchor so that students would learn the components of a retell. We started with a picture of the characters, the setting and then a picture of all the events and glued them on a long strip of paper. The students used their retelling strip to practice retelling the story to a partner. It was a great activity because it helped them use the vocabulary of a retell. I wish I had pics. I need to get used to taking pictures of everything. I find myself saying that would be a good post if I had taken pictures!! Does that happen to anyone else?
Anyhoo...the next day we sequenced the story using the retell cards from the series.You cansee them in the pocketchart in the pic below. I then broke the students into groups and each group was responsible for creating a tableau ( frozen picture with bodies) about one event in the story. They planned their tableau and created it with their bodies in under 10 minutes. Then on the third day, each group came up in sequence so we could retell the story with our bodies. Here are the pics of their tableaus. FYI: the carpet was the "stage" and the audience is around the rug.
Little Red Hen planting seeds. See the child rolled into the ball... she's a seed! The others are the lazy animals!
Little Red Hen getting water from the well. See her pulling the "pail"!
Little Red Hen threshing the wheat.
Little Red Hen mixing and mixing. I wish one of their group members hadn't been absent because she was the bowl and it looked awesome!
Little Red Hen pulling bread from the oven surrounded by hungry animals!
Little Red Hen trying to be very firm by telling the animals they can't have any bread because they didn't help! Look at those cute begging animals.
If you want a little more info about using Tableau in your classroom, see my post about using tableau to retell Stellaluna here! Tableau is so great because it is so much faster than acting out and more powerful as students have to think about body position and facial expression. They begin to think about how their character would look and feel.I love this strategy.
Hi Friends,
I have been really having a hard time posting but I have so many post ideas so hopefully I can get back into the habit. First, I wanted to share some pics from Friday. We had Monday-Wednesday off so I taught about Columbus Thursday and yesterday. We read and talked about Columbus and then acted out the story.
Here's Columbus asking King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to pay for his voyage.
Here's Columbus and his men aboard the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria.
Here's Columbus and his men trading with the Native Americans at the Bahamas.
We had a lot of fun acting out history!!!
We practiced three times and the whole thing took us 30 minutes tops. Consider adding some drama into your teaching... so powerful!
I also wanted to share a poem I wrote for my first graders that they love! My three year old even sings it and can now spell October!
Click on the pictures to download. There is a bw full page, color full page and a small bw student copy. Please leave a comment if you download. Thanks!
I also wanted to share Katie King's No Tricks, All Treats Giveway! Click the pic to link to her blog and enter!!!! There will be 8 winners!
Before I share a fun strategy for ordering numbers. I wanted to show you what I spent all night doing... I cut my Apple Activities Pack. I put it on sale this week so go check it out here!
To practice ordering numbers, we use our bodies since ordering numbers with just a paper and a pencil can be pretty boring.
First, every table is assigned a decade ( teens, twenties, etc.) The students must choose a number in that decade that is different from everyone else's at their table. This ensures that everyone in the room has a different number for this activity.
Once everyone has their number written on a post-it note, we move around the room to the music. Once the music stops, the students freeze and listen for their challenge.
I will then call out a direction such as "Make a group of three" and I count back from 10 and they have 10 seconds to find two others.
Once in their group and I have reached zero in my count, they wait for the next direction which is "order". This cues them to order themselves from least to greatest. The students have to position their bodies to represent their order as well. For example, the student whose number is the least will be shortest, the number in the middle, a little taller and the greatest number the tallest.
Here are some pics of my kids after they had ordered themselves.
Hope that gave you an easy way to make a mundane skill more engaging and fun!
Hi everyone! I hope you had a great Labor Day weekend! I mentioned before about it being so hard to post since school started, but I think after 4 weeks, I'm finally getting back in the groove! I have 28 students this year which has been an adjustment but I also have two who need my constant attention. So, my goal is that I post more than this one time in September!
Now on to something you can hopefully use...
My teammate and I usually do a Seasons Unit the 2-3 week while we are working on months of the year and student birthdays.
First, we read What Makes the Seasons.
The next day we read, My Favorite Time of Year.
I don't have this book but it looks great and it's now on my wishlist!
After reading about the seasons, we created a Circle Map together to show what we know about the seasons.
I then created a few season circle maps without the season listed in the middle. Students then had to infer the season that would be in the middle of the circle map by looking at the pictures describing the season.
Next, we created our own seasons movement showing what we had learned. I took my students to the dance room this year just because I have so many students and space can be an issue. For the last two years, I have done this in my own room though.
I start with a movement activity to help students understand how the seasons change. I have the class stand in a circle and choose one to be the sun in the middle. I then chose another student to be the earth and model the earth rotating and orbiting the sun. We all then pretend we are the earth turning every day as we revolve around the sun for the year. We tip our bodies closer to the sun to show why summer is hotter and tip away to show why winter is colder.
Next, we begin to create movements for each season. The students create all the movements themselves. I just use questioning to get them thinking about each season and how we could use our bodies to show our learning.
Here is a video of our movement. This was done in one class period!!!
Here are a few seasons resources I found if you'd like them. Click here to get them from Google Docs.
The first is a cute sorting activity that my teammate found on a blog. She doesn't remember where she got it but if you know, please tell me. I'd like to give credit.
We also make these adorable season books. First, cut pink, green, orange and brown construction paper in half. 1 of each color for each child.
Then use q-tips to paint the leaves onto the trees to show the seasons. Make sure the students color the tree trunks brown first.
Add a cover...
Staple together and voila! ( Note: In my haste to post these pics, I forgot to color my tree trunks brown. Shame on me! :)
Click the link above if you want to make this book and save time finding trees and a cover. Leave me some love if you can use any of these resources or ideas!
I have been so busy this month since going back on the 8th! I am struggling to keep up with this blog and school work. How do you all do it? :)
Well, since I've been MIA I have a couple of random activities to share.
First of all, I wanted to share a class book we made. We read the book It's Okay to be Different and then brainstormed ways its okay to be different. The students then finished a sentence frame and illustrated a picture. One of my students said "It's okay to love Jesus". So adorable!
In the front of the class book, I had all the students stamp their fingerprint and we discussed whether finger prints are more similiar or different. I included a magnifying glass in the class book envelope so as students are sharing it with their family, they can use the magnifying glass to see the different finger prints. I asked that the parents point out that even though our finger prints look alike, they are all a little different and that makes us unique!
Click here if you'd like to see my whole I am Unique Unit from TPT.
Since most of my students didn't know what letters were vowels (gasp!). We made vowel art after our lesson on vowels. I gave students black construction paper, foam letters, bright crayons and letter stencils. Then they got to make their own art using a,e,i,o and u. They loved it!
The last activity is for those who are needing to build beginning place value concepts as well as number sense with numbers 1-20. Many students were struggling with teen numbers so we used this activity to build their number sense. I prepared a bag of unifix cubes for each student with numbers ranging from 9-20. Each student had a tens and ones mat and a bag of unifix cubes. They built their ten (if they could) and then placed the left overs on the ones side. They then wrote the number of cubes in the bag. This activity really showed me who was still counting each cube and who could count using tens and ones. Once everyone had built their number and written it on their board with a dry erase marker, I called out "switch" and the students responded " Uh-oh! Switch!". They then passed their bag to the next person and started to build tens with the cubes in their new bag.
I hope to be back soon! Hopefully someone can use these activities to help their kiddos!
My favorite drama strategy is called Tableau. Tableau is just a french word used in Drama that means "frozen picture". I first teach my students how to express objects, actions or feelings with their bodies individually. So we would stand in a circle and I would call out objects such as "tree" or "chair". The students would use their bodies to become the tree or chair. Once they can do this, we move through feelings and actions such as "happy", "scared", "running", "surfing" etc. When they can do all three with their bodies individually, I teach them how to work in groups to create a frozen picture or Tableau. After these initial lessons teaching them about Tableau, I use this strategy all year. Tableau works great for vocabulary words, stopping to check for understanding during a read aloud, or using a series of Tableaus for retelling a sequence. The uses are endless!
I know that noise can be a deterrent for using Drama in the classroom. That's why Tableau is so great; once the initial group planning of the Tableau is over, the students are quiet and frozen.
You can extend from the frozen picture to have students explain their thinking and what was going on in their scene either orally or in writing. In first grade, we mostly discuss orally but by the end of the year they write as well.
When students are creating Tableaus, they are working collaboratively, employing higher level thinking skills and engaging in learning conversations ( insert other education buzz words here). This strategy also fits in so well with the new Common Core expectations.
Here are a few pictures of my students in Tableaus.
These two students are working together to make a question mark.
These next two tableaus are during our learning about the jobs of bees. The girls to the left are a nectar flower and the group below are showing the Queen Bee along with her guard bees.
I also wanted to share a video of my students performing Stellaluna in October for another first grade class on our school stage. Notice their concentration while performing; it's amazing!
I've found that my students have a deeper understanding of sequence and characters when acting them out in this way. They have to think about what the characters were doing/ feeling in each scene when they create a tableau.
I hope you can use this strategy in your own classroom! I will be posting more about it throughout the year.
Hi friends! If you read my first post yesterday, I mentioned that I was able to get canvas on sale at Joann's and it sparked some inspiration! As you read my blog, you'll notice that I am completely sold on Arts Integration as a way of teaching- not just a few lessons here and there but everyday. I started my blog to share those ideas because I know that students who are creating, collaborating and evaluating the Arts ( poetry, dance, drama, visual art and music) are developing critical thinking skills and an appreciation for learning. I just went to a fabulous Arts Integration workshop this past week that focused on using visual art in the classroom and I will be sharing ideas from that experience this next week. We also talked about how to share the creating process with others and parents because many times the process of creation is undervalued and just the product is recognized.
This got me thinking that I want share my core values and beliefs as a teacher who uses the Arts somewhere in my room.When others walk in, I want them to know what is important to me as teacher. I also want my students to understand my hopes for them and to see these beliefs put into practice within the classroom.
So... I decided to think of three words that I thought would encompass the type of classroom I want for my students.
I thought of "inspire" first because obviously every teacher wants to inspire. We definitely aren't in it for the money! However, I also want my students to inspire others and have the desire to make a difference.
The second word I thought of was "create". This really is about my belief that students should be creating in the classroom. Students should be doing something with the information we are giving them. Creating stories/poetry, art, dance, music and drama that demonstrates their understanding. I also like thinking they are "creating" memories in our room. The meanings could go on and on.
After that I was stuck! I called my friend for help. We were coming up with words and then out of nowhere it came to me... "imagine". I love it! I wanted "think" but "think, create, inspire" just didn't sound as powerful to me. Imagine fits perfectly because in order to create, one must use their imagination. I also like that it can by synonymous with "think". By the end of the year, I just hope that I have taught my students how to think.
So that is how I came up with " Imagine, Create, Inspire". The three words can stand alone or they fit well together because the three words actually describe the process of creation. When someone "imagines" something and has the motivation to put that idea into action, he or she "creates". When the creation touches someone emotionally, that person will hopefully become "inspired" in their own way.
I added foam stickers, spray painted the canvas black and then when it dried, I sprayed it with glitter.
When I peeled off the letters, it wasn't clean and I wanted some color so I spray painted the foam letters.
This is a canvas that I'm going to hang on my wall. I think I am going to brighten the blue though.The words Imagine and Inspire are pink so it will be a nice contrast! I may be adding more to these... any suggestions? What words describe your classroom?
