100th Day of School! Hooray!!!

Friday is our 100th day of school and our students have been busy getting ready for the big celebration!  Last week students wrote paragraphs about what life would be like when they were 100 years old.  Today we finished the project by having the kids make collage portraits of themselves at 100!  They are a crack up!  

This week's homework is also centered on 100!  We are having our first graders collect 100 things.  They are then sorting their collections into groups of 2, 4, 5, 10, 20, or 25.  We made a worksheet to have them record how they sorted their collection.  You can grab the worksheet for free by clicking here!  Hope you have a happy 100th day of school as well!!!

Groundhogs Galore

Groundhog Day is rapidly approaching!  We took a break from snowmen and did some fun groundhog learning activities.  First off, we created heart groundhogs and added an adorable math activity to help our students master adding three numbers.  

After reading The Day it Rained Hearts by Felicia Bond we decide to have Phil the Groundhog poke his head out of his hole on February 2nd and see that it was raining hearts.  This made our rooms look festive for both Groundhog Day and Valentine's Day which will be here before we know it.  Our students glued red, purple, and pink hearts onto the top half of their paper around their groundhogs.  Then they completed a math writing frame.  To differentiate we had some students write the entire problem on their own and other students complete several models and frames before deciding on the problem they wanted to display with their groundhog craftivity.  If you like this activity you can get it at our TPT store or by clicking here.  We included several different versions of the math writing frame and publishing paper for your more advanced students.  Also included is the template for the groundhog craft.  

Today our classes made Groundhog Grub!  They were sooooo excited!  We used the experience to motivate our students in writing a How To paragraph on How to Make Groundhog Grub.  We have included the recipe for Groundhog Grub, a recipe mini book, How To Rough Draft writing paper, publishing paper and a non-ficition Yeah! It's Groundhog Day mini book in our unit.

Happy Birthday Dr. King!

This week we learned all about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  We had our first graders read a mini non-fiction book we wrote about Dr. King and then they watched the Martin Luther King Jr., movie on BrainPopJr.  It is a freebie and they loved it!  They made us play it twice!  Students then wrote a paragraph about Dr. King. We started by brainstorming several different ideas for a topic sentence.  Then they went to work on their paragraphs.  Some students looked back through their mini book for ideas while others wrote about things they had heard in the movie.  Once they had completed their paragraphs they edited their work with a teacher and recopied it.  Yesterday we had made collage portraits of Dr. King so we attached the writing below the art activity.  This would make a great bulletin board for January!

 If you like this activity it is available on our TPT store or by clicking here!  Have a great 3 day weekend.  Happy Birthday Dr. King!!!

Snowman Math Glyph Craftivity

Wednesday was a hot day in Malibu!  To cool off we created a wonderful snowman glyph to display on our door!  Luckily our snowmen didn't melt away!

On Tuesday, our first graders began by completing a glyph worksheet.  We have found that completing the worksheet the day before the project makes the preparation for the glyph easier.  We tally up how many of each piece we need and what colors things need to be.  This time we put all the supplies in a ziploc baggie with the students name and glyph worksheet in it.  It made the set up so easy!  The students began by writing their names on all their pieces and then cutting them out.  Once everyone had everything cut out be began to assemble the snowman one step at a time.  Once they had made their glyph we completed a graph worksheet about our class based on the information provided by the glyph.  The graphing exercise was hard for them.  We used the pocket chart and little snowmen die cuts to show how many students belonged in each category.  The students then recorded the information on their individual graph.

 Once the graphs were completed the students answered questions about the graph.  We decided to hang the snowmen on the door with the Glyph Key and asked parents to find their child's snowman.  Students were dragging their parents up to the classroom to make them "guess"!  They all had a lot of fun.  If you want to try this glyph it is available on our TPT store or by clicking here.  Continuing with our snowman theme we also have a great skip counting snowman freebie.

 You can grab that here.

Winter Wonderland

Winter has blown through our rooms in Malibu and we are hoping that all of our snowmen don’t melt in this unusually warm weather.  We feel for all of you who are having to endure the cold and all of those snow days. 

We have been trying to get back into the routine, but it is always challenging after the two week break.  Winter is our theme and we have been busy!

These adorable math snowmen were so much fun to make, and the students practiced their writing and math skills at the same time.  We gave them a writing template to follow and emphasized correct letter formation and punctuation. 

After writing their word problems they each made a snowman and then added the snowflakes to solve the problem.  We found this great stamp set at Target for $1.29. What a great deal…right?! The snowflake stamps were a perfect addition for this project and it sure meant less work for us in cutting out paper ones!

If you like this project it is available at our TPT store for only $3.50.  It comes with practice word problems and snowflake manipulatives!