The Living Museum

Today our firsties dressed up like a famous historic person that changed the world in some way. They chose their character about a month ago and have been researching their character at home. Other classes from around the school came to check out their hard work and ask them questions about themselves!  I was so proud of how much information each kid was able to provide! Check out these cutie bugs...

Juliette Gordon Low

 Henry Ford

 Steve Jobs

Walt Disney

Clara Barton

Neil Armstrong

 Florence Nightingale

 The Wright Brothers

President Washington and Lincoln

 Alexandar Graham Bell

 Thomas Jefferson

 Houdini

Chuck Yeager

Bill Gates

Kids Choice Read Alouds!

I chose some books from around the classroom Thursday morning that hadn't been read but that I thought the kids might enjoy just relaxing and  listening to. They voted on the which one they me to wanted to read and the winner was Giraffe's Can't Dance. This was such a great book! The kids had so many opportunities to infer unknown words and phrases and to really get into what they thought the author's message could be! 

Here they are taking pictures of the cover and recording themselves talking about what the author's hidden message is...they posted their recordings on Kidblog so be sure to check it out! 

The next book the kids voted on was Pete the Pencil and Eddie the Eraser. This book was written by a group of third graders in Lakeland Fl! The kids loved this book! They decided that the authors were trying to tell them to think win-win because the pencil and the eraser argued so much they hurt the main character and got him in a lot of trouble! There next idea was to write their own books! Some of them lost interest and opted out...but still how cute are these guys chatting about what characters are going to be in their book? 

The girls decided that they were going to hide a secret message in their book...can't wait to read it!

Nik and Ryan decided their book was going to be a Nonfiction book about a famous soccer player! So here they are researching more information and writing down the facts they think should be in their book! TOO CUTE!

Daily 5 LOVE

This year our class has adopted the Daily 5 model for learning. We have modified it to meet our needs...mostly because I am still a true believer in the workshop model. There is a reading/writing/ and phonics mini lesson each day and then the students have the opportunity to choose what round they want  to work on. We have a reading share time and a writing share time set up so that students can talk about what they are working on during each activity.  The daily 5 gives students the opportunity to choose what they are learning and when they want to learn it! The share time holds them accountable to their peers and to me! When you look around our classroom this is what you will see...

Nadia, Stella and Sasha working collaboratively to write their own children's book. They are hoping to submit it to the scholastic competition!

Ava curled up with a beanie baby and a book for her read to self time.

Reece and Diego making making words with the "chictionary" AP during word work.

Anthony playing teacher calling out words for Jackson and Gavin to spell with magnetic letters...I tried to be sneaky but they saw me!

Nik is researching bears for his read to self time...taking notes in his science journal!

Sophia and Xan snuggled up with fluffy pillows lost in their books.

Preston reading quietly with his frog pillow.

Jacob stamping out his spelling words and making sentences out of them.

Ryan shopping for new books and Mackenzie finishing up her Magic Tree House book she has been reading all week.

Luke and I having a reading conference together...chatting about his new goals!

I hope you enjoyed the sneak peak of how our classroom runs itself! I love watching these kids grow and learn while being so engaged in what they are doing!

Edmodo

We have recently starting using Edmodo in our classroom! The kids and I both LOVE it! We have been using it mostly during math. The kids watch a lesson on their Ipad, solve a similar math problem in their math journals and then either take a quiz or go on to play a math game! It is a great tool! Students that need to watch a lesson more than once to really understand the concept can, other students can move on or get extra help from me while I am walking around checking in with everyone! We are still in the trial phase as we are having some difficulties viewing videos from other websites...but I did figure out how to get around it! WOO HOO! Check out my little tech kids...

FETC fun

This week Mrs. Underwood and I had the amazing opportunity to attend FETC (Florida Educator Technology Conference). For REAL! A whole conference dedicated to helping educators embrace technology into our classrooms and inspire this generation of children!  At this conference last year I was sitting in a workshop listening to these educators talk about all the learning opportunities available in a 1-1 Ipad class. I decided that Cunningham Creek had to get on board. I texted our administrator and told him I was very interested in making this happen! He was sitting in a workshop across the hall and he was super supportive of this idea! I had no idea what kind of turn out we would get! Our hoping for one Ipad class turned into 2 full Ipad classes in first grade!

 

This year has been unbelievable so far! I love having the 1-1 class in first grade! It works especially well with our daily 5 rounds! My kids are always engaged! They are taking responsibility for their own learning and deciding what they will learn and how! I love to just sit and look around at them all working and learning...I can't believe it is already half way over! I'm so thankful for YOU ALL (parents) that have made this opportunity a reality! Your support means so much! Sorry I kind of went on a rant:)

 

This year we learned so much more! The great thing about this year at FETC is that we have classrooms that we can implement these new ideas into immediately!

Checking in and picking up our SWAG!

We got to meet Mobi from BrainPOP!

Blubber

Our classroom has been researching Polar Bears for several days now! The kids are really loving all the nonfiction research and videos! Our main essential question during our research has been to find out "How do Polar Bears Survive in the Arctic?"  We have learned about their multiple layers of fur, translucent hairs that attract and trap sunlight, and now we are learning about FAT or blubber :) Aren't these guys just super cute in their science lab coats? Love it!

We had buckets of icey water and blubber gloves!

Each kiddo got to try out the icey water using one blubber glove and...a bare hand!

I'm sure you can guess which hand was warmer!

Parker was so nervous!!!

Anthony cracking his knuckles...preparing for the cold!

Now we know first hand just how important Polar Bear's blubber is in the Arctic!