Global Awareness Project

I don't know about your classrooms or Social Studies curriculum out there, but ours... is a bit dry.  We use Harcourt Social Studies for our text books.  It's really hard with first grade.  It's reading a lot of text and then comprehension questions at the end.  A lot of my grade level peeps have been searching and making up more "meat" for the Social Studies this year.  We need something else... more hands on!

I then found out that one of my team mates does a global awareness project each year.  It's a simple way for the kids to check out what's going on around them and then come back to class and share.  I liked it a lot, so I am trying it this year.  Each week I chose about four kiddos to share an article they thought was interesting from a newspaper, kids magazine, Internet, or local new broadcast.  They are to find something they think is worthy and put it into their own words to share with the class.  The only thing they are asked to not share are things with violence or politics.  I made one as an example for them and then I made copies of it to send home with the intro letter to parents so they can see how it can be done.  At the end of the presentation, we are going to make a class book out of all of the articles.  This book can be shared from year to year. 

Parent Letter- Download Here

Rubric for Presentation- Download Here

Reminder Letter for the Week Before it is Due- Download Here

Class Sheet for Presentation Dates- Download Here

Dr. Seuss

Our first week back to school has come and gone.  The kiddos enjoyed having mystery readers and also enjoyed creating their own Seussical kind of work.  We made a class book, compared stories and characters with venn diagrams and created a new door.  I love decorating my door this year.  This time it's super cute and I just may leave the stuff hanging until it all falls down.  I really like to display the work done by my class.  I think it gives them a sense of ownership and belonging to our class. 

Our class book was based on Dr Seuss' "There's a Wocket in my Pocket".  Ours was called, "There's a Zass in my Class".  

Chart paper for us to record our thoughts.  The kids brainstormed things in our classroom and then had to match a rhyme. 

Front of the book...

Pages from the class book...

Also using "There's a Wocket in My Pocket", the kids created their own pockets with characters in them.  This was a great idea I found on Pinterest.  Door decorating is right up my alley and we needed a project for fun Friday. 

With the new common core standards coming out, our school district is finally going to make the big change this next school year.  One of the new standards from the reading objectives is: RL.1.9. Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories.  We used a venn diagram to compare "Cat in the Hat" and "Cat in the Hat Comes Back". 

I'm Baaaaack!

So it has been about three weeks since I have posted.  My track out was pretty good and I had family come visit.  The boys and I did some fun stuff and now it's back to the grind.  This week and next I am going to celebrate Dr. Seuss and Read Across America in class since it happened while we were on vaca.  My class is super excited and they all have brought their own books from home as well.  There is a slew of Dr. Seuss books in my classroom as we speak.  I'll be posting later in the week with some of the things we finished but for now here is what we started out with upon returning Monday.

I sent out an e-mail to school adminstration, specialists, and counselors to invite them in as mystery readers.  Each day there will be someone different coming to read a Dr. Seuss book to our class.  The kids squealed when I told them who was coming tomorrow.  "MR. PRINCIPAL... "  {not using real name for privacy purposes as I am sure you guessed already}.  You would have thought a movie star was coming to class... but in their eyes, he is a movie star.  :)  Once all of the school staff has signed up for a time, I then used Sugn Up Genius to invite parents in as well.  {By the way, http://www.signupgenius.com/ has really made life easier for me this year}.  After our guests come to read we are going to send them a little note with our class picture.  On the note we put a little diddy from a Mailbox Magazine suggestion I found a few years back. 

Thank you, thank you

For reading to us.

Please read again soon;

It is a must!

You made our class happy.

You made our class glad.

That was one of the best story times

We have ever had!

We LOVE our Dr. Seuss and we're really enjoying books we may not have heard before.  My goal is to have myself or our guest readers share all forty four books before the end of next week.  Do you think we can do it?  {Actually the question is... can I find or access all forty four stories?}

Tracked Out

I've been a little preoccupied with sick children at home, at school, and a sick hubby also.  HE was worse than all of the others put together.  {shaking my head}  Since I am at a school that is year round, we had our "track out" or vacation right before Valentines Day.

My class celebrated on the 8th.  We made boxes at home and brought them in to exchange goodies.  The kids also did a Valentine by following a glyph.  I wish I had pictures but with all that has been going on, I just plum forgot and quite honestly, was not in the mood. 

Usually before a track out my brain comes to a hault.  So with that being said, I won't be posting on here until the beginning of March when my vaca is over.  I am planning lots of cool things to do with Dr. Seuss though.  We'll be coming back right after his birthday... lots of stuff floating through my head!  LOVE Dr. Seuss so stay tuned!

Groundhogs and Shadows

The night before Groundhog Day I had my students vote in class whether or not they thought the Groundhog would see his shadow.  They all voted that yes, he would see his shadow... and they were correct, on some accounts.  Punxatawny Phil and Sir Walter Wally (our Raleigh, NC groundhog) both saw their shadows. So six more weeks of winter it will be.  I tried to get a LIVE stream in the classroom of one of the events going on but no luck.  The Punxatawny Phil web site was not working and the Raleigh event was not on until later in the day.  But I tried...

Kiddos did not seem to mind because we were going to go find our own shadows.  They made stick groundhog shadow puppets and made some predictions as to why only sometimes a groundhog sees his shadow.  We used the scientific method to discuss and discover shadows.  They were WAY into this.  Their groundhogs went out to recess with them and they played shadow tag.

To be even more into Groundhog Day we made a craft.  We learned a new poem, illustrated a couple pictures, and made a groundhog... that kinda looked like a beaver/bear.  :)