Apple Week: Part 2

Hello Friday! I think this must be every teachers favorite day of the week. I had such a fun week with my little firsties. We had tons of apple fun! I promised a second post with the rest of this weeks apple activities. So, here it is:). 

Thursday was Johnny Appleseed Day! So, of course we HAD to make applesauce. What's Johnny Appleseed Day without the smell of cinnamon apples cooking in the classroom?

The kids mixin' up the ingredients!

The apples are finally done! This is when the fun really started...smashing the apples:). I think I may have earned the "cool teacher" award with this:).

Time to taste our cookin'

Delicious!!! They loved it:).

We continued drafting our opinion papers this week and finished up our final drafts today. I think this is the most writing my kiddos have done so far! They worked so hard all week. Despite the moans and groans about second drafts....they did it:)! "What, we have to write it ALLLL over again???"

Hard at work:)

The final copies came out awesome!

Johnny Appleseed craft in the works.

They turned out so cute:)!

Whheeeww....ok, that was a lot of apple activities:). We are done with apples. Not to worry...we'll be moving on to pumpkins and leaves and scarecrows next week. Everything fall!

Our tree got a lil' fall make-over after school:).

Happy Friday!

Jamie

Apples, Apples, and More Apples!

Apples, apples, and more apples! This week has been off to a very sweet start-literally:). In honor of Johnny Appleseed Day, we are spending the week tasting, cooking, reading, and writing about apples. So much fun...fall is definitely my favorite time of year! Since we will be having so much applelicious fun this week I've decided to break this week's post into two parts-I don't want you to have too much apple fun all in one post:).

We started the week with a pretty sweet and sour apple taste test to determine which color apple they (the kids) like best. As part of the new common core first grade standards, first graders now have to write an opinion paper. The kiddos are having their first experience with the writing process this week. They are each writing about which apple tastes the best-in their opinion.

Here's a couple pics of our taste testing. I'm so bummed I didn't capture any of their cute little faces when chomping into the green apples. It was bitter-sweet:).

Apple smiles:)

Each kiddo decided which apple was their favorite and they added their apple to the tree.

Our mini-math lesson using our cute little apple tree.

The kids came up with these descriptive words to help with writing. Mouth-watering is definitely my favorite:).

I gave each student this graphic organizer to put in their writing journal to help them understand the format for writing their opinion paper. We are working on one section a day. That might not sound like a lot...but it is. Trust me:).

This morning I read this super cute story:

Our red house, with no doors, no windows, and a star inside:). 

The kids were in amazement:).

Follow-up activity.

Today's apple treat was dried apples-definitely a new experience for the kids:).

Stay tuned for lots more apple fun this week!

Jamie

Monday Math Madness

Ahhhh....Monday is here again! The weekends always seem to go by so quickly! My weekend went by especially fast because the hubby and I spent the weekend re-doing our living room floor. 

I'm tired. 

Really tired. 

But, it was worth it. I absolutely love my new floors. My lil' firsties were so well behaved today (thankfully :)). I didn't have to drink nearly as much caffeine as I anticipated.

Here is the new floor. In case you're interested.

During the project (I forgot the before picture...but just picture old beige carpet:) ).

After:)

On to Monday math centers! My kiddos are starting to become a little more independent and I've been introducing new math centers each week. They seem to really enjoy this time of the day...especially if its their day to build play-doh numbers! 

Here's what our math centers look like:

This is the class fave! Play-doh numbers. You can pick up your own copy of these at Mrs. Wheeler's blogspot.

At this station the kids practice additions skills. They use the ears for the addends and the sum goes in the middle of the plate. Something about a cute little animal plate makes adding so much more fun:).

At this station the kids practice counting and making tally marks. Note to teachers: It's a good idea to use all colored popsicle sticks or all beige because sometimes the kiddos argue over who gets the colored sticks. For some reason the colored sticks are so much cooler.Which reminds me...I need to buy more colored sticks:).

This station is just more addition practice using manipulatives. You can pick up a copy of these awesome math mats at Confessions of a homeschooler blogspot.

Roll a dice to make a house-my new favorite station. The kids roll two dice and add up the numbers. Then they draw the picture that corresponds to that number on the house (by using the key). I plan to create these as seasonal activities. Hmmm....maybe roll a dice to decorate a pumpkin or haunted house?Any-hoo...you can pick up this one at The teeny tiny teacher's blogspot. I just love her blog!

The skip counting caterpillar!

Give me a beat addition! You can buy this activity on TPT, by Hope King. Each student has a set of cards face down, they flip two cards over, add up the numbers, write the number sentence, & the answer. More adding fun:)!

Look how hard my little firsties are working at math stations! On task students=happy teacher:)

Happy Monday!

-Jamie 

Hoppin' Around!

It's almost Friday! Yay! An even bigger "YAY" for my students who  can now successfully add single digit numbers...all by themselves! We've spent many days hoppin' around to find the sum. Hoppin' you ask? Yes, hoppin'!

We created a number line on the floor. I wrote addition problems on the board

(4+3=__) and the students would come up to the number line and hop to find the sum. For example, if the problem was

4+3 the student would start on the 4 and take 3 hops to find the sum. Of course this was more fun than a worksheet and more importantly they got to get some wiggles out! Boy do they NEED to get those wiggles out! 

We read this story this week:

If you aren't familiar with the story, it's a great book to get the kids moving! By moving, I mean get more of those wiggles out! Are you starting to see trend? Yes, I have the "wiggliest" bunch of first graders. Each page of the story names a different animal and movement for that animal. Who doesn't love pretending to be an elephant, or a gorilla, or a giraffe:)? I haven't met a first grader yet! 

To accompany our story the kiddos chose an animal to write about. We used the same format the book used for our sentences. This was our first experience with water paints! The kids were awesome! Nobody painted their hands, or arms, or another person, or even the desks! 

Happy Thursday!

-Jamie