Happy Habitat Place Value Practice

Hello Everyone!
Great day today!! We are really getting into our science unit on habitats, food chains, and have welcomed some new little guppies to help us understand all this and more!  We got one male and one female guppy, and set up their sweet little living space.  Of course we had to name them. Lollipop and Bob seem to be happy...even with 20 little sets of eyes watching them almost constantly!
Math today had to carry the theme through.  We are working hard on place value and multiples of 10 plus single digit numbers.  You know by now that I like to make things oversized when I want to emphasize something.  I made a giant paper fishbowl and some giant base 10 blocks. I had the kids close their eyes as I arranged a set of blocks on the fishbowl. When kids opened their eyes, they had to simply write the standard notation of what the picture was showing on their whiteboards. We learned through mistakes, reorganization, and trying it again. Then I had the kids write the expanded notation as well.

Then the kids got to work in small groups during our Math SOLVE it time using activities with the same ideas.

Here's a quick peek at this little activity.

 And here's a quick link to the 12 page activity :)

Have fun making math fun!!

Joyfully!
Nancy

Reading Between the Lines and a new unit!

Hello Everyone!!
My firsties spend a lot of time with their hands on books.  A huge part of our day is spent simply reading.  Research tells us that the more time kids have interacting with books, the better readers they will become.  I do not take that term "interacting" lightly.  Today we interacted with one of my favorite Valentine books, "The Biggest Valentine Ever" with a focus on inferring. Learning how to infer is a vital component in teaching kids the intricacies of literature, and diving deeper into comprehension.  With all of that in mind, I decided I needed to help that deep dive by incorporating some fun.  Inferring is like "reading between the lines" of the words the author gives us. 
I had to grab some of those funky lined glasses to use for this lesson!! Of Course! So, our anchor reminder chart includes that little visual.

 And the kids had a ball with them as well!

As we were reading, kids took notes on some of the tings they were thinking about or inferring.

sorry this pic got flipped!

Great job kids.  And yes, we will save the glasses for another time!!

And now I'd like to share my newest little unit.  We have begun studying about habitats, interdependence of living things, and the environments around us.  We have decided to start observing fish(guppies) in a fun little fishbowl. Of course I needed to connect learning with literature, so alas, "Memoirs of a Goldfish" by Devin Scillian came to the rescue!  This unit revolves around the themes included in this book. It is a unit that will take about three weeks or so to complete.  It includes poetry, literature response, science (of course), a couple of craft connections, and a ton of math tub and whole group activities. Here are a few pics.

Have kids write a poem, list, observations, whatever you are working on!

Skip counting starting at random numbers game

A take off from "I have, Who has?" game

Multiples of 10 plus single digit numbers game

Memoirs of a First Grader book for kids to write and make

Spatial organization on a number line game

poetry
For your free 100 page unit, swim on over and click here!

If I have already shared this with you, please re-download as I have added a few more games!! :)

Thanks for taking time out of your busy day to enjoy the peek into the life of a first grade classroom!

As always, thanks for your support and encouragement!  My hope is that you can glean even just a tiny spark of an idea from my sharings. Please let me know if this post was helpful to you  at all!!  

Joyfully!

Nancy

Balloon Found 1,500 miles away!

Hello Everyone!!

Can you believe it? One of our balloons from our 100th day launch was found in the Bahamas!! 1,500 miles away from our school! Seriously??? 

 We got a sweet e-mail and pictures from the little 6 year old girl who found the balloon. The balloon was actually still slightly inflated!

Great Guana Cay Abaco, Bahamas

Found at:  3:00 pm – 2/9/13

Teacher – 1-V

Student – AC

1,500 miles from Boon

We are so excited to respond to her e-mail, I hope as excited as she was to find it!  This is the first time in the eight+ years we have been launching balloons that one has made it outside of the continental United States!! This is going to turn into something more than what we have ever hoped for!  I think I see pen pals in our future.  Hmmmm.  I also think I might need to go retrieve that balloon myself! :) 

Anyway, stay tuned for my next unit! Hopefully ready to share tomorrow! 

Have a joyful evening!!

Nancy

100th Day Balloon Launch Honored with Visit By Congressman

Hello Everyone,

What a wonderful 100th day of school we had last week.  Along with all the fun counting, sorting, organizing, celebrating, designing, etc, etc, etc, we ended the day with our annual balloon launch. Each student (yes, the entire school!)  receives a balloon to launch, with each grade level represented by a different color. The balloons have an identification tag so whoever finds them can contact the school.  It's a wonderful geography/weather lesson for the rest of the year! Our first graders were able to launch some colorful orange balloons. I had the honor of launching an additional yellow and purple in remembrance of two sweet former students who will always be a part of my heart. (I love you, Angela and Carson!)  We were also honored with a visit from our US Congressman, Sam Johnson, a decorated war hero and distinguished statesman

 Sam Johnson, ranks among the few Members of Congress to fight in combat. During his 29-year career in the U.S. Air Force, Representative Johnson flew combat missions in both the Korean and Vietnam Wars. He endured nearly seven years as a Prisoner of War in Hanoi, including 42 months in solitary confinement. Following his distinguished military career, Sam established a home-building business in North Dallas from scratch and served in the Texas State legislature. Because of his background, our sweet Congressman has a special place in his heart for veterans.  Every year our school students make Valentines for Veterans, and he comes to pick them up to deliver to the VA hospitals in the area. It so happened that he came on our balloon launch day!  It made the day even more special.  One of my favorite days of the entire school year!  We can't wait to see how far our balloons travel this year!    

I am honored to release two other special balloons in memory of some sweet students who will always be a part of my heart!

Thank you, Sam Johnson for your service and dedication to our country!

Delivery of our Valentines for Veterans!!

Such a colorful sky full of love!

Have a great rest of the weekend!!

Joyfully!

Nancy

Valentine Minute to Win It!

Hello Everyone!
So sorry, but just a quick post again tonight. We are going to our high school's production of Oz!  Many of my former students are either acting, singing, designing sets, costumes, etc!!  I can't wait!!
I did want to share a quick little game we are going to play at our Valentine Party next week. We did it last year as well, and the kids had a blast!! If you grabbed my printable from last year, please download this year's.  It's much cuter! :)
Here's a pic of the gameboard and the directions.

Click here for your copy!! Have fun!

You'll need to gather a few things to play this fun game, but it is worth it!!  Last year I raced my room mom to see who could get through the obstacle course first.  We barely made it in a minute!!

Thanks for stopping by for a peek!! Stay tuned!  I'm working on a fun fish unit for our habitat study.

Have a joyful weekend!!

:) Nancy

Topsy Turvy word Toss

Hello Everyone!
A very quick post tonight...It's Book Club Night!! I love my book club friends!! Anyway, this week we are working on categorizing words. And today was the day to work on opposites, AKA antonyms, AKA Topsy Turvy Words! We talked quickly about what opposites, or Topsy Turvy Words were and then  played a quick Topsy Turvy Word Toss game. I simply gave each kiddo a paper with one word on it. They crumpled it up and tossed it gently!  Then I had the kids pick up someone else's crupple paper (similar to our snowball fights!), read the words and quickly had to find the topsy turvy word!  We then recorded all the pairs of words! Quick, easy and fun!

Want this quick game? Click Here!

There are more Topsy Turvy activities in my 100th Day of School Unit.  If you've already downloaded it, please do it again, as I have fixed some of the typos!
Please download an updated version of the 100th Day unit by clicking here!

Okay! Off to meet my Book Club Friends!!
Have a great evening!
Joyfully!
Nancy

Place Value Pop Up!

Hello Everyone!
Today we spent some time working on place value including expanded notation and standard notation. This activity was inspired by a similar one that Kim Sutton has in her collection. I am calling it Place Value POP UP! Each kiddo had a part of a one, two or three digit number. When I called out a whole number, the kids who had the place value numbers for it, POPPED UP and went to the front to build their expanded form and standard form of the number. 
Here are just a couple of pics. I didn't get many because we were way too engaged.

Add caption

This is definitely one we will play again!!  

If you would like the printable game, POP on over to here!! (click)

Now, off to get busy making tomorrow's mini lesson game.  Thanks for stopping by!!
Have a joyfilled evening!!
Nancy

Compound Word Snowball Fight!

Hello Everyone!
Thanks for stopping by for a quick peek into our first grade world!  Some may say we're having way too much fun in first grade, but I am a firm believer in incorporating as many senses and learning styles as possible into as many mini lessons as I can!  So, yes!  We're having another snowball fight!! We had so much fun with our 2 digit addition snowball fight the other day in math, I thought it would be fun to try it with compound words. It was a hit! I simply gave each kiddo half of a compound word written on plain white paper. They crumpled the paper like a snowball, and tossed it into the air!  On my count, they had to find someone else's "snowball" open it up and then find the match to their word. So fun! A quick, easy, and very fun review of compound words. 
Sorry, I didn't get any pics this time, but here are a couple pics of the little compound word packet.

Click here for your printable!!
12 compound words,(24 halves), plus 2 extra pages for you to load.  
Have fun!!

Joyfully!
Nancy