First Grade CELEBRATES Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

This week in First Grade, we celebrated, honored and paid our respects to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  Let me just say, the students were FASCINATED to learn about him and about the time in our history in which he lived.  During each story that I read to the children about his life, you could hear a pin drop.  They couldn't imagine a time where people weren't treated equally.  You could literally see the empathy pouring out of them when we would have discussions about what segregation was and how people were treated differently based on the color of their skin.

The picture at the top of this post is from a powerful lesson that we completed on diversity and equality.   We took a brown colored egg and a white colored egg and talked about what made them different.  Then, I cracked open both eggs to show what they looked like on the inside...which is exactly the SAME.  We related this to ourselves and learned that we may look different on the outside, but we are all the same on the inside.  Therefore, EVERYONE should be treated equally!!!

As we read and learned new facts about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. we completed this anchor chart to organize our information:

Here are some of the books we used to gather our information:

As we read these books, we also learned all about the text features of a BIOGRAPHY...

The students then took the information we gathered to complete Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. posters based on his important life events...

What a wonderful week we had learning all about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  And, I will end this post in the powerful words of Dr. King..."Love is the key to the problems of the world."

Snowmen at Night

This week in First Grade, we read the story "Snowmen at Night".  It's a story about a boy who wonders what happens to snowmen at night when the rest of the world is sleeping.  It's a funny story of how snowmen have snowmen races, go ice-skating and drink ice-cold cocoa made by snowmen mothers.  You can find the story here click on the link below:

Reading of "Snowmen at Night"

After reading the story several times, I posed the following writing prompt to the students: "If you were a snowman at night, what would you do?" The children were then sent to their desks to complete their "sloppy copy".  Next, we had a lesson all about ADJECTIVES.  We discussed that writers use adjectives to help the readers visualize what the writer is describing.

We even played the following video to help us remember all about ADJECTIVES:

Adjective Song

After our mini lesson on adjectives, we took a look back at our sloppy copy of "If I were a snowman at night, I would...".  We highlighted all of the nouns that we wrote in yellow.  Then, we added adjectives in front of our nouns to make our writing more descriptive.

After we were finished working and revising our own essay, we partnered up to see if we could add anything extra to each other's writing.

Next came the fun part!!! We created our Snowmen at Night paintings!!! We created our masterpieces by using MARSHMALLOWS to paint our snowmen.  We used chalk to create the background scenes.  Can I just say we had SO.MUCH.FUN completing this project!!! Now, no project using marshmallows is complete without a little marshmallow snack on the side!!!:)

Finally, we put our paintings and final drafts together and hung them on display...I am so PROUD of how well these projects turned out!!!  This class is turning into quite the creative writers!!!!

 First, I will sleigh ride sown the bumpy hill.  Next, I will eat fluffy marshmallows.  Then, I will eat some plain pizza for lunch.  Last, I will make hot, milky chocolate to drink.  

 ~Kayden

First, I will go on a red sleigh.  Next, I would have the best snowball fight.  Last, I'll drink cold cocoa. ~Aiden

 First, I will drink cold cocoa.  Next, I will snow board down a snowy mountain.  Then, I will slide down a chilly hill.  Last, I will drink cold lemonade and eat grinch cookies.  

~Robert

First, I will have cold cocoa with chocolate chip cookies.  Next, I will play a snowball game down the bumpy mountain.  Last, I will go back to my snowy home.

~Jordan

New Year's Toast!!!

WOW...We started 2014 with a 1 day school week!  A major snow storm hit our little part of the United States, causing us to have a SNOW DAY on the second day back from Christmas vacation. However, in that quick little day, we completed our first craft/writing project of 2014.  Since New Year's Day, was the day before, we learned about what it means to give a toast.  We began our learning with a simple anchor chart explaining what a "toast" is...

We discussed many different things and people that we can make toasts to.  The students then had to complete the writing prompt at the bottom of the chart "Here's to our school.  May it always..."  They had the liberty of writing anything that they wished for our school.  Some of them were very sweet, and sentimental.  Others, were very funny!!! I love watching the creativity that spins in their minds. Then, we discussed that "toast" can have different meanings, such as the bread we eat for breakfast. We put both "toasts" together into a little craftivity.  Here's a little peak of our finished examples...

 Here's to our school.  May it always be full of love. ~Larissa

 Here's to our school.  May it always be the best school, and full of fun. ~Joseph

Here's to our school.  May it always serve pizza. ~Aiden (so funny!!!:)

Here are all of the completed projects on display in the hallway:

Happy 2014!!!

Elf on the Classroom Shelf

During the month of December, the First Grade class of OLP had a special little visitor from the NORTH POLE...can you believe it???  We were so lucky that Santa sent us our own special elf friend.  On the first day that he showed up, be promptly added himself to our classroom jobs chart as Santa's Helper:

We took a vote, and the students decided to name our special elf "Mikey McFirstie"...here are some of his antics during his visit:

 Marshmallow bubble bath time:

 Here, Mikey added himself to the project display board:

 Mikey observed that we were having trouble using kind words to each other, so he bandaged himself to our wrinkled heart to remind us to "Think and be smart, because it's hard to mend a wrinkled heart."

 Here, Mikey got a hold of my camera, and took a picture of himself.  He then copied the picture for each student and wrote them a special note that they were aloud to keep!!!

 On this day, Mikey brought a special gift to the class:

Here Mikey got into the post-its and left a message for the class:

 Mikey was a little tired from his trip, so he took a nap in the tissue box:

Mikey added himself to our birthday chart:

Mikey was all set to help celebrate Polar Express Day

We had so much fun with Mikey, and we were sad to see him go!!! But, he did leave a special treat for each of the students to use on Christmas Eve to guide Santa to their houses:

Happy New Year!!!

Hello friends, let me just start by saying sorry.  I am so sorry at my lack of posting!!! But, let me just say, Oh.My.Word I literally feel like a fast-forward button was pushed and Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's came and went in a flash!!!  I'm going to do a picture summary of all the fun we had in First Grade over the last few weeks.  I'll start with the most recently completed activities, and work my way back...

During the last week of school, we celebrated "Polar Express Day".  On this day, the students wore their PJs, and watched the movie at the end of the day.  During the movie, I set up a "cold-chocolate" toppings bar for them to enjoy along with the movie:

Also, during that last week of school, we completed a writing prompt "Dear Santa, I would make a good reindeer because..."

We also celebrated "Grinch Day" where we read and watched Dr. Seuss's "How the Grinch Stole Christmas".  We talked about how the Grinch's character changed from the beginning of the story till the end of the story.  We also learned that "Christmas doesn't come from a store, maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more."

We even made njnewstoday.net for our Grinch Day Celebration!!!

http://njtoday.net/2013/12/12/photos-grinch-day-lady-peace-school/

(click the link above to take you to our article!!!)

We also completed my {favorite} writing prompt of the year..."If I Saw Santa Stuck in the Chimney, I Would..." I just love hearing all of their responses, and seeing how creative they are!!!!

Going back a little further, we created our pilgrim project for our writing prompt "If I Traveled on the Mayflower, I Would Bring..."

We also celebrated our 50th Day of School, in true 50's style.  The students dressed up in their best 50's attire, and participated in various activities that focused around the number 50.  The teachers set up the cafeteria up in different stations, then the children rotated around each station.  Now, no 50's Day celebration can be complete without a root beer float (which was my teacher station!!).  Here's a look:

There it is in a nutshell...we had so much fun in all of the activities we completed leading up to winter break...these are just the highlights, but I think my New Year's Resolution is to keep this little blog updated much more often!!!  

First Grade Salutes our Veterans

November 11th...the day we celebrate our Veterans for their service to our wonderful country...and keeping the freedoms that we all have...Thank You!!!

First Grade spent the week leading up to Veteran's Day, learning and celebrating these brave men and women.  We began our week with an anchor chart to list and describe all the characteristics of a Veteran...

We used information from our anchor chart to write a Thank You letter to our Veterans...the students had to pick three things to say thank you for...

Here are all of our Thank You letters on display in the hallway...

In our teacher directed center for the week, we did a guided reading story about Veteran's Day.  We practiced reading and discussed all of the freedoms that we have because of our military:

After we read the book, we practiced putting Veteran's Day themed words in alphabetical order...

For our read the room center, the students traveled around the room reading various Veteran's Day words, and figured out how many syllables the word had:

Thank you Veterans!!!