Starting Centers!

School has been in session for about 3 weeks. I'm ready to move to centers. I have 9 boxes for the students to choose from. Computers and a listening center will also be added. Students will need to complete a 'must do' before they make a choice. I found some activities at the Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR). I used owls and labeled how many students can use each box and a title of what is inside.


This is my agenda for the day.
My focus wall. I laminated a large piece of chart paper and list my spelling words. I also took page protectors and taped them onto the green paper. I cut the top, folded over and added my labels. This way when I write my lesson plans, I type my 'I can' statements. They slide right in.
This is my wall right by my door. I have our lunch tickets stored in the jewelry bag hanger. I used double stick tape to tape numbers for each child. Each child has the same number taped to their name tag. I also have a list of students with their numbers and a partner list hanging their too.

Welcome Back to a new school year!

Above is some reading posters. Text to self, Text to Text, Text to World. How to choose partners and how to pick books to read. They are right next to our Word Woods.
This is my Saxon calendar math.

Each table has an animal name...Bear, Raccoon, Squirrel, Moose and Frog. Crayons, pencils and other items will be stored in our drawers.

I plan on students handing in homework in this area.
My door! I added a "Welcome Forest Rangers." cloud above the moose.
My tent!
Looking straight in from the door. The sink is to the left.
Looking from the door to the far corner where my desk is.
This is a bit blurry, sorry. This is the board in front of my room.
View from the sink area. You can see my word wall and my reading board.
This is a quiet reading area in my room.

It's that time of year...getting ready for a new bunch of first graders. I participated in a math grant and a reading grant this summer. I am excited for our new school year. Here are pictures of our classroom. Enjoy!

I still have lots to do. Nametags, lesson plans and making copies! :)

School is out! Lots of professional activities planned for the summer. Looking forward to 'getting' into the blog thing for the next school year! Watch for more plans for the upcoming school year.

Thanksgiving Bracelet

On our last day before break we sat in a campfire circle. I had a poem about Thanksgiving which I passed around. We created a bracelet using pony beads and a pipe cleaner. The different colors represented something special to Thanksgiving. White stands for the sails of the Mayflower. Blue is for the ocean. Green is for the land and the black is for the soil for planting. Red is for the cranberries, orange is for pumpkins. Yellow is for the corn, the class thought the yellow looked just like a piece of corn. The last on is brown for the turkey. Everyone enjoyed the bracelets!

Estimation

The first thing we did was to take a piece of paper and estimate how many cranberries were in the bag. We then took the bag of cranberries and split them between our 5 tables. Students had to work together to count sets of ten cranberries which we then traded for a 10 stick. As we proceeded we had 7 loose ones. After we had our 10 sticks and 7 loose ones, we then traded 10 ten sticks for a hundred's block. We then modeled our number of 177 cranberries in the bag. Morgan had to closest guess with 151 cranberries.

After this activity we then discussed cranberries and how they are harvested. Then we created a graph if our cranberries would sink or float. We had lots of fun exploring with cranberries!!

Mystery Bag

We had our first mystery bag. The class plays 20 questions and asks specific questions about what is inside of our bag. Here were some of the questions that the class asked. The answer in the bag was cranberries! After we figured out what was in the bag, we then estimated how many cranberries were in the bag.

Indian Corn

One of our activities was to see what would happen to our Indian corn. We discussed that corn is a seed. It took 10 days for us to see the roots and the green stems growing. The class was excited seeing the corn grow.