All About The Pilgrims & The Wampanoags

November 11, 2017
November has been flying by! I cannot believe that there is only one more week until Thanksgiving Break! 

 There's been a lot of little things popping up into our school schedule that I've been reverting to a "we will get to this lesson when we get to it" mentality more than usual. Usually I teach Pilgrims & Wampanoags in one week...this year it's taking about 2 weeks to fit it all in with scheduling!

We started our unit on Pilgrims by learning all about who the pilgrims were and what life was like on the Mayflower. This is a big research unit for my first graders. 

 To start learning about the pilgrims, I have the students act out what happened. I have some be the separatists/Pilgrims, one be the king, one be the businessmen who funded the Pilgrims journey.


Then, my Mayflower activities have always been a hit, so we did those same activities this year.


After the students make their chests, they watch about 5 minutes of Charlie Brown's voyage. After about 5 minutes, we pause the video and as a class we research more about what the Mayflower was like by reading this book. 


Basically, I read some more pages of the Mayflower book and then the first graders write about it in their own Mayflower books and then continue watching a little more of the video. 


Once they completed their books we talked about how in order to get off the Mayflower the Pilgrims need a smaller boat called a shallop because the water was too shallow. This boat also helped them explore different locations until they settled at Plymouth. We didn't have too much time this day so I had my students work on these shallop puzzles. 

I don't use too many videos in my instruction because I think that real life practicing is more efficient. My first graders do love going on their Mayflower journey with Charlie Brown. I pause the video frequently. When Charlie Brown & his friends are about to get off the Mayflower, I pause the video & my first graders must complete the "Life Of A Pilgrim" activities before we can continue on (and finish) the journey with Charlie Brown. 


Then, we continue learning about life in the New World by reading all about Squanto & the Wampanoag Native American tribe. After we read each section of the book, the students think about 1-2 facts they learned and they write it in their All About The Wampanoag booklets. The students are still working on these books and learning about the Wampanoags.
Andrea Sign

The Importance Of Design Thinking

November 05, 2017
Ever since I started teaching, I have wanted to add some type of “Maker Space” into my classroom. This year, I finally figured out a way to make it happen! I thought it would be helpful to share what I have learned from incorporating this type of area into my classroom and lessons.
1. Organization and easy access are key. First, I put my "Maker Space" in a cabinet. It was too hard for my students to get to the materials and for me to keep up organizing them, etc. Having "user friendly" organization also allows your students to take ownership of the entire space. 





2. There are certain simple skills that are helpful to teach to young students (in addition to the exploration time that they have with the materials). 

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 3. Design thinking lessons are vital to adding purpose to lessons that incorporate a "Maker Space."
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4. These types of designing lessons can be incorporated with any subject area!

 Below are some examples of lessons my students have done.

  • Reading: My students read "The Most Magnificent Thing" and then had to come up with a problem in their life to solve, just like the main character did. Then they designed something to solve the problem.
  • Math: When learning about Even & Odd, my students designed and create their own "Even Monster" and "Odd Monster" using items and technology available to them. 
  • Science & Social Studies: When learning about Properties of Solids & Fire Safety, my students thought about the properties of different solids and used those properties to make the tallest ladder they could. 

You can also find some other makerspace activities we love to do here.

Hopefully this helps you in your journey to incorporate new and exciting ways to add purpose to what your students are learning! 

Oh, and if you try out a new makerspace activity in your classroom, I recommend taking this course so that you can earn Professional Development credit for trying out the lesson!

Happy Teaching!

Andrea Sign

Happy Halloween!

October 31, 2017
  
Happy Halloween! 
How adorable is this sign that one of my homeroom parents made me a few years ago?! I absolutely LOVE putting it out each year!

  
Today was Crazy Hat Day at our school. I thought it would be so fun to make our own hats for the day! I googled "newspaper hats" on youtube & found so many great tutorials. My students were so creative! I loved all the hats that they made & how they showed their individual style as they created them. The parents seemed super happy too. Many said they were glad they didn't have to have finding a crazy hat on their plate with all of the other Halloween stuff going on.

This morning we had a class halloween breakfast. My homeroom parent came with so many great activities for the students to do! They are probably pinterest finds. 
  




 Monster Pencil Toppers
        
 
Roll A Monster 

These adorable Jack-O-Lantern decorations!


These ghost lanterns were so fun! The kids had such great ideas of what to do with them - some said they were going to put them in their jack-o-lanterns, some said they were going to use them as night lights in their room!

They also made a super cute spider & a web but I forgot to take a photo of it. :/
The rest of the day was filled with pumpkin fun! 

         

At the end of the day, it was time for me to take down my October classroom decor. I am "batty" for Octobers decor! 

Here's to a great Halloween!
Andrea Sign

Pumpkin Palooza!

October 31, 2017
It's a Pumpkin Party!


Today was filled with so much pumpkin fun!


We started out by reading all about pumpkins! 


 Then we spent time measuring how tall our pumpkin was, finding out it if would float or sink, measuring how wide it was, how many seeds were in it, and more! Unfortunately, we were so busy I forgot to take pictures! 


After reading, we talked about the pumpkin life cycle and created our own mini pumpkin life cycle booklet. 


We learned sequencing terms and did this pumpkin craftivitiy. 

Finally, we planted a pumpkin and are going to spend the next few weeks observing the life cycle of a pumpkin! We planted some seeds into a pumpkin and others into cups for each of the children. The pictures I took didn't turn out. I hope our pumpkins turn out as well as the one in the picture above!  

 We also made a pumpkin volcano which the students thought was so fun to watch! 
Andrea Sign

Around The World in One School Year!

October 30, 2017
During the year, I host an after school club. It is one of my favorite things that I do with my students. During this club we focus on one country each month. Last month, it was England. This month it is France.

This month we've been doing the same activities as last year. I've also added some new activities and twists on past ones.

I don't have any tissue paper readily available this year so we made these flags.
Next, I wanted to do something for the students to remember the lavender fields. So we made these cute lavender flowers.

                                        
We also went on a scavenger hunt around the school for Eiffel Towers, learned many different French words, and made our own nutella & banana crepes! 
Andrea Sign

How To Make Maze Bumper

October 30, 2017

1) Get a piece of card stock, folded it in 1/2 hotdog style. Cut on the folded line (so how they have 2 pieces). 


2) Take 1 of the pieces of paper. Folded it in half.  

3) Take the bottom (the side that wasn't on the folded edge) and folded the bottoms back about half way. (See picture above)

Repeat so it looks like this. 

4) Open the folds. There will be 3 folded lines. In between the 2 middle rectangles, put glue.  

5) Then fold the glued pieces together so they stick. Then the students unfolded the bottoms a little so that it was in a T shape. The kids all thought this was similar to making a plane. 

6) Cut the T flaps in half so that the T wasn't too wide.

Glue onto your maze!
Andrea Sign

How To Make A Kid Friendly Maze

October 30, 2017


Last week, my 1st graders made these Spooky Halloween Mazes as a connection to the book The Roll-Away Pumpkin. 

Here's how to make one of your own:

  1. Cover a box with construction paper. I used the box tops that go with the boxes that hold printer paper.
  2. Put some paint in each students box (whatever color they wanted). Then they each got 5 marbles. They put the marbles in the box top and rolled it around. This created a marble art background! This also painted the marbles - which I told the students were supposed to represent the pumpkin in the story.
  3. We spent about an hour making the bumpers.
  4. I gave each student a cauldron to place at the end of the maze. In the story, the pumpkin lands in a cauldron. 
  5. They placed their cauldron & bumpers where they thought they were like them. They had their finger pretend to be the marble and practiced running the maze to make sure the maze was how they wanted.
  6. They used stick glue to glue their bumpers down. 
  7. I hot glued their cauldron and also created a little ramp for the marbles to use to get into the cauldron. 
Andrea Sign