Seuss Week and Currently

Join me in the awesome, Farley's Currently.  See below to find her blog.

We had a week long celebration of Dr. Seuss!  1st Grade loves Dr. Seuss.
On Mixed up Monday, we created and wrote about a mixed up animal or character that would fit well in a Seuss book.  We also, pretended to be doctors (which Seuss technically was not), and performed surgery on various parts of speech such as verbs, adverbs, nouns, and adjectives.  We dressed up like doctors to do the activity, of course.  Thanks, Kim Bearden for the inspiration in this activity!!!

 My daughter demonstrating what my students wore.

On Top Hat Tuesday, we read The Cat in The Hat and made paper top hats that discussed the plot of the story.  Below is an example of what I used to do- now I changed it to plot as we really needed work on understanding problem and solution.   I also enjoyed dressing up as the Cat in the Hat....because I could.

 

On Wacky Wednesday, we wore silly socks, read Seuss books and created silly rhymes.  Then I stayed extra long after school- cleaning up and working on taming the paper monster that was living in my drawers.  It is sooo much better now!  I walked out to my car around 7 p.m. and saw this....nothing but my car.  I thought it was funny so I took a picture.

On Theodore Thursday, we read biographical information about Theodore Geisel (Seuss' real name) and read his first book And to Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street.  Below it shows an activity I used from someone's blog (too long ago to remember who) where the kids silently figure out which star belly sneetch was their sum match.  It was fairly tricky for them doing it silently but most got it.

On Funny Food Friday, we watched a short video of the read aloud, Green Eggs and Ham. The kids ate green hardboiled eggs with Sam I Am apple juice.  We also discussed how characters change and used a character mapping page to demonstrate that information.

Queen of Hearts Valentine STEAM Party

We had a Queen of Hearts Valentine's Party in my class yesterday.  It was full of fun things.
So of course, I took the opportunity to dress a bit differently!

Here are each of our STEAM station activities...

Science
The kids learned about pollination through a cute little song.  They dissected parts of a carnation and when there was time, labeled the parts.  They discussed how seeds are made and enjoyed taking a peek inside something they hadn't before.

Engineering/Math
The kids built a house of cards with the challenge to make them 3 levels high...no one got to that high but a few got to 2 levels.

The kids built a rabbit tunnel with the game marble run.  Their challenge was to make the rabbit hole as fast as possible, so the White Rabbit would not be late.  They were timed and then had revision time to try to make it faster.

Art
The kids used fat needles and yarn for thread to sew cute little hearts (and sneak in some good fine motor work).  They were pretty little cards when they were finished.

I hope your Valentine's Parties were a good time.
Have a great weekend!

GingerSTEM Party and Grinch Day

I'm joining Doodle Bugs Teaching in a 5 for Friday...finally/again...and on a Saturday.  It's been a awhile.

My class had their holiday class party on Wednesday.  I created a green screen movie with the kids, so we watched the completed movie together while the kids ate.  The following are the stations we did for the winter STEAM party:

Our first STEAM station was to help the GingerSTEM Man get across a river without getting wet.  They had to engineer a boat using recycled materials, popsicle sticks, straws, tin foil, and coffee filters. 

 

Our second STEAM station was creating an artistic Gingerbread Man cookies and tree.

Our third STEAM station was engineering a trap to catch the Gingerbread Man using recycled materials.

Our fourth and final STEAM station was measuring ingredients for the gingerbread playdough that they got to keep.  

We had a fun surprise day.....

Since our class party was on Wednesday, I had Friday to have a bit of fun.  I decided to surprise the kids with a Grinch Day.  Here is what they saw when they walked into my room.

We watched a read aloud style video of How the Grinch Stole Christmas on Kidtastic Apps, using the Promethean.  We ate popcorn, had hot apple cider, and Christmas cookies.  

We also discussed (using the Grinch theme) place value, doubles plus 1 and 2, character analysis, text evidence and phonics.

It was a VERY busy day and the kids were super energetic, but on the whole, they did a great job with getting their work done.  

Finally- #6, tehe

I gave the kids their presents from Anna (our elf) and myself.

They were able to pick a holiday or winter pencil, a hackey sack style ball and stationary with a pen (which made them all beg to write....yup 1st graders were begging to write- love it!)

 

It really was a good week before holiday break.  I am happy to have some time with my daughters but will certainly miss those crazy kiddos for the next 2 weeks.  

Happy break teachers!!!