I LOVE Poetry Notebooks (and so do the kids). Every Friday we add 1-2 new poems to our Poetry Notebooks (3-ringed binders). These poems usually have something to do with something we have been learning about, an upcoming holiday, or a season. I purchased some great poetry packs appropriate for first grade on TeachersPayTeachers.com. We read the poems together then the students work with their reading buddies and highlight any words in the poems with our sound of the week. When everyone is finished, we read the poems again and discuss the words the students highlighted.
In this picture is our small group area and our job board. Our theme this year is superheroes so I created our job board to look like a city skyline.
This is our superhero expectation bulletin board. It includes our classroom rules we created together as a class, our superhero promise, and our reward boxes. Every time the class follows an expectation as a whole group, I let one person color in a box that spells out a certain reward. For example, game time. When all of the boxes are colored in, the students earn that reward.
Today I took a group of students to the Youth Watershed Summit at the Thunder Bay Marine Sanctuary in Alpena. We set up a display showing our work from Thompson’s Harbor State Park and we submitted a video taken by my students highlighting our field trips to the state park. The students had to present all of our hard work and what they have learned.
Today I took a group of students to the Youth Watershed Summit at the Thunder Bay Marine Sanctuary in Alpena. We set up a display showing our work from Thompson’s Harbor State Park and we submitted a video taken by my students highlighting our field trips to the state park. The students had to present all of our hard work and what they have learned.
What did I do on our snow day? I trapped my students in snow globes! So much fun! The students wrote about what it would be like if they were trapped in a snow globe and what they would do. Then we took pictures of students posing like they were trying to get out of a snow globe. For the finishing touch, I glued McFlurry lids donated by McDonalds over top of the pictures. What a great mini- writing project!
What did I do on our snow day? I trapped my students in snow globes! So much fun! The students wrote about what it would be like if they were trapped in a snow globe and what they would do. Then we took pictures of students posing like they were trying to get out of a snow globe. For the finishing touch, I glued McFlurry lids donated by McDonalds over top of the pictures. What a great mini- writing project!
Students were given a battery, a battery holder, wires, and a lightbulb and were asked to use these items to light up a lightbulb. They were so excited with the results.
Today we did an on-demand piece of writing. We had 15 minutes to write a fictional story about a gourd that I placed on the students’ desks, a turkey, and school. I use these on-demand pieces of writing to gauge progress on our writing goals.
Today we visited our fishing vest exhibit in the Besser Museum in Alpena. Every year my class does a Great Lakes Species Research Report and we make fishing vests to display them. The students must also choose some activities to do that go with their fishing vests. For example, fish poems, fishy jokes, fish tall tales about how the big one got away, a list of fishing terms and definitions, etc. A couple of years ago I was asked if I wanted to display some of the students’ fishing vests in the Besser Museum. Finally, today we were able to view the exhibit. Great display, Besser Museum! I will post the rubric I use for the Great Lakes Species Research Reports soon.
Snack Time! 