Fire Safety

October 01, 2016
This week we learned all about Fire Safety!

Even though Fire Safety isn't until "officially" for 2 more weeks, I have found that Fire Safety really hits home with the students when I plan these lessons during the same week as our 1st Fire Drill.


I did not have a chance to take pictures of the activities we did this year so I thought I would throw it back to the fun we had last year!

After reading a couple fire safety books and practicing our fire drill, we thought about our favorite fire safety tip and wrote about it!

We loved these asking & telling sentences from Alexandra! 



Some other activities we did this year included reading the book "Stop, Drop, and Roll," learning about the history of Dalmatians and firefighters, talking about how brave firefighters are and thinking about a time that we were brave like a firefighter, and of course a fire drill! 
Andrea Sign

Reading Buddy Fun!

September 30, 2016
Today was a day my firsties have been waiting for since the first week of school - Reading Buddies!! Finally we got to meet our 4th grade reading buddies! Both the 4th graders & 1st graders have been begging to meet their buddies so it was a happy day for all. 



In the past, my first graders meet with their reading buddies every other week.  However, this year schedules were hard so we are meeting once a month.  

If you have never done reading buddies before I would HIGHLY encourage you to reach out to another teacher at your school!! Not only do reading buddies promote a love for reading & practice read aloud skills, it also fosters an amazing community and helps bring the students of all grade levels, and school as a whole together! In fact, today one of my firsties was a little sad because his reading buddy from Kinder was in the class and he didn't get paired with him.  When he realized that he could still go up to his old buddy and say "Hi, it is nice to see you! How are you?" AND he could now get the opportunity to meet another person - he was so excited! Learning the social skill of being able to interact with people who you may not have seen in a while is so important!  



Today for our 1st reading buddies day, we made miniature versions of ourselves.  Since I have only taught 1st I was a little nervous that the 4th graders would finish super quickly or not be into the activity - they were SO excited! It even worked out perfectly because some of them had to make 2 (more 1st graders than 4th graders = some 4th graders having 2 buddies)  in the  (something that both the 1st graders & 4th graders really enjoyed!!). Thank goodness ;)


If you're looking for something to do with your reading buddies you can find the template for the people here.

Andrea Sign

First Grade Short I Activity

September 24, 2016
It's a raining day here so I thought I would light a few of my absolute FAVORITE fall candles and write a little bit about what we did in phonics this week.  
If you have not ever had these candles before, you MUST try them!! The pumpkin spice scent is my absolute favorite!! It just smells like Fall! 

This week my first graders spent learning about the short I phonics sound.  We ended the week by creating these short I mittens.  The students LOVED this activity! As I was prepping the next step of the craft I overheard one little boy saying "oh, I think we are going to be able to wear these mittens! Cool!!" They were SO engaged which meant that they really were on the look for the phonics aspect of the craft (because that allowed them to then make the mitten).  I would definitely recommend integrating phonics visuals into your phonics curriculum if you do not already do them - they first graders look forward to them, enjoy them, and form a connection to refer to when thinking about the phonics lessons.  


     
Andrea Sign

Applicious Place Value

September 23, 2016
Whew, what a busy week! I cannot believe that we have already been in school for about 4 weeks - the school year has just been flying by.  

This week we began learning all about place value.  We talked about the different ways to make the same number - expanded notation, base 10 blocks, writing the number, tally marks, tens and ones, etc.  To end the week, my first graders did this fun apple based activity - no matter what way you cut it, it is still an apple and no matter what way you write a certain number, it is still the same amount!

My first graders really enjoyed this activity, it allowed for differentiation because the students were able to pick their own number, and they enjoyed the challenge of putting the apple back together after they cut it into 5 pieces.



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First Grade Science Interactive Notebooks

September 22, 2016
This year I have started implementing science interactive notebooks in my classroom.  Let me tell you it is LOVEEEEE!!

During the first week of school, we did a science journal entry about what science is.

Last week, we learned all about our senses.  We did two journal pages.  One about what the senses are and another day we did one with a popcorn science experiment.  We used our senses to describe popcorn.
Today for the first day of Fall, we illustrated a picture of what a tree looks like in Fall and drew some of the symbols of Fall.



Happy First Day of Fall Y'all! 

Andrea Sign

Falling in Love With Place Value

September 21, 2016

Finally - I have been itching to put some fall decor into our classroom but have contained myself until this week.  

Place value is so challenging so we dive into learning about place value very slowly. 

We started the week by learning about representing numbers with 10s and 1s.  The big goal is things are grouped by 10s or 1s.

I wanted to make some fall decor and these scarecrows were PERFECT!

on the back...

 You can get this freebie here.

#allthehearteyes
Andrea Sign

We Are Family...

September 20, 2016
...I've got my sister, mom, dad, and me!

Not the right lyrics? Well, they work for this post ;)

Today we learned about families.

We started out by reading this precious book...


Then we talked about what a relative is and what families are.  We discovered that a family is a group of people that come together because of a common bond and family is made up of people who love and care for you.  

The students then shared with each other what their family looks like.  This was such a fun activity! We loved seeing all the different families - some with just immediate families, some including cousins, adopted families, etc! 

When my teammate did this, she had the students write "_____'s family" rather than "my family."  I am definitely going to do that next year.  
Andrea Sign