Inferencing in First Grade

The past couple weeks we have been learning about making inferences.  I introduced the concept and we talked all about what it meant.  Then we practiced by playing an inferencing game.  I gave some clues and the kids had to try and figure out what it could possibly mean... like "you are sitting at your desk doing work and suddenly you hear a loud ear-piercing noise.  We all get up and leave."  The kiddos guessed all kinda of things like the bell to go home to a fire drill.  The next one was kind of funny, "your dad stomps in the living room, frowns at you and turns off the TV".  The kids came up with all kinds of answers for that one.  The book this came from was The Cafe.

After going through the main lesson, I went to the famous books about David to help us inference.  We used No David by David Shannon.  This was a neat lesson and the kids did very well.  I began by reading the book itself and discussing page by page what the kids thought.  Then we went and charted it all on chart paper.  I think they now know what it means to inference and hopefully they can do it independently when they are reading books.

Please excuse my horrendous drawing.  I tried my best... as I ask of the students all the time. 

100th Day of School

This past Tuesday was our 100th Day of School.  I actually had to miss it all because my youngest was home sick.  I always feel torn when it comes to my babies at home and my kids at school.  I have a responsibility to both but I know my responsibility to my babies at home is far more greater.  I do the best I can when I plan for what to teach and I know my teacher assistant partner is the best there is so the kids are always in good hands.

So for the 100th Day, I had planned the day out and it all went on without me.  When the kiddos first came in they were going to make some crazy 100th day headbands... they turned out to look pretty cool.  Our IT person at school was teasing me that the FBI was going to show up because I was printing out counterfeit hundred dollar bills.  :)  They pasted a hundred on their headband, then added ten crazy strips and added ten things to each strip whether it be stickers or drawings.

The next activity they worked on in class was a bucket list of what they want to do before 100 years old.  Now these are the cutest things I have seen in a LONG time if I do say so myself.  This idea came from Pinterest.  It was a bit hard for some of them to come up with ten things though.  We'll have to think of how to revamp this for next year.   But here they are... and I think I look pretty dang good for 100 year old.  ;)

There were a couple at home projects for them to work on also since there is not a whole lot of time IN school (at least for first grade) to hold centers revolving around the 100th Day like I used to do in preschool or Kindergarten.  So at home I had them make a collection of 100 items to bring in to share.  We also decided to make our 100th Day part of a service project.  Each student from my class brought in cans of food (other classrooms on my grade level did this as well so we could reach 100 cans) and we are going to donate to our local food pantry. 

This child used CHOCOLATE covered raisins for his collection.  I sure hope he asked his momma for permission!  That's chocolate abuse in  my book.  :)

My class brought in approximately 45 cans... they are so thoughtful.

I also have a song I do each year that is sung to the tune of "Jingle Bells" but I did not get to share it this year.  But I wanted to show you all out there.

Winter Theme Part 2

Winter is one of my favorite seasons to teach in.  There are so many things to do in winter and you can easily mix it in with reading, writing, and math.  There is not a lot of time to do crafty/fun stuff all the time in first grade so I try to make activities the kids can do each week plus I have what is called Fun Friday.  If they get all of their tasks complete for the week then on Friday I cut my literacy block down to half the time and the rest we spend making crafty things.  This past week we made these snowy pictures.  The kiddos made a math story problem about snowflakes falling and once they solved it they had to make that many fingerprint snowflakes falling on their snowman.  LOVE these... and yet again it was an idea from Pinterest!  It was kind of funny though, we made the snowmen on Friday and hung them up right away.  Then I was hanging with the family on Saturday, on the way to the mall, and I was thinking about these snowmen.  Guess what?  I realized we forgot to put ARMS on the poor snowmen.  What snowman does not have stick arms?!  Not ours... so this morning  when I got to school, I ran into the hallway and drew on all the arms. 

Another thing we worked on the past couple weeks has been descriptive words.  I have a poem about mittens I share with the class each year and we then make winter descriptive words with them.  I asked them what words would describe winter and the kids really do come up with good words... like cozy, chilly, crunchy, and frigid (WOW!). 

I took advantage of our mitten and descriptive word theme we had going on and rolled it into a writing and math activity.  The kids had to pretend they lost their mittens and describe them using math words (color words, patterns, position words).  These also turned out super cute!

Lesson Plans

I have been at this for close to eleven years and each year I spend crazy amounts of time trying to discover different formats and way to do lesson plans.  I have tried to do strictly computerized formats and I just do not have the time to sit at the computer to do all of it.  I like to have the control of changing things when I need it.  As we all know, sometimes teachable moments show up and you have to go with it even if it is not on the lesson plan.  I have to say that last year I found a format and I am STICKING TO IT!  I really like it.  It's partly typed and partly hand written.  We constantly have schedule changes in year round school, so this format is great to use for handing in to the office as well as using for a substitute.  It lays out all of the parts of the day with details and then I can hand write specific lessons for the day and change it if I need to.  I love it!

The beginning of the year I do a lot of hand writing review, phonics, and spelling while I build stamina for Daily 5.  So I use this lesson plan format for the first quarter only...

First Quarter Lesson Plan

Then after we build stamina and we have covered beginning of the year "business", we jump right into writing workshop and full rounds of Daily 5.  So this next lesson plan is for the remainder of the school year.

Second through Fourth Quarter Lesson Plan

Compound Words

This week we have started compound words.  I made a quick wrap around game and wanted to attach it here.  You are more than welcome to grab it if you need a quick activity to do with compound words.  The kids loved it and asked to keep playing it.

Compound Wrap Around Game