Descriptive Writing

It's been a hectic several weeks.  We are preparing for our accreditation visit and I am on our continuous school improvement committee.  We have been prepping reports, data binders, evidence binders, etc.  I will be glad when our visit is over next week.  In between all our prep work, we have been able to teach somethings.

We have been focusing alot on using adjectives in descriptive writing.  We started by writing adjectives for popcorn using a popcorn container for our graphic organizer.

After brainstorming ideas for adjectives, we wrote a class paragraph describing all aspects of popcorn.  We started with our topic sentence, added four or more good details, and concluded with a wrap-up sentence.  Once we wrote and discussed our descriptive writing, we partnered our students up and gave them a choice between Skittles, M&Ms, or Starbursts.  Each person got a brainstorming web.  With their partner's help, each student brainstormed adjectives that described their candy and wrote their ideas on their web.

After brainstorming their adjectives, each student, again with their partner's help, wrote a descriptive paragraph using the adjectives.  They had to start with a topic sentence, add four or more good details, and conclude with a wrap up sentence.  After writing, editing, conferencing about and re-writing their descriptive paragraph, they mounted their writing on white construction paper and created a construction paper collage of their candy.

Our students were very proud of their work and obviously wanted to display it for the whole school to see.  Here are two examples of the finished pieces with their brainstorming webs.

This is our gallery of work in the hallway.  Our students love to see their work on display!

St. Patrick's Day

On Friday, our students brought their Leprachaun Traps (a home project) to school and presented them to the class.  They told us how they made them, how they work, and why the leprachaun would fall for their trap.  They were very excited about the prospect of catching a leprachaun.  They are in for a real treat tomorrow when they come to school.  All the students will find a room that has been "visted by the leprachaun".  He was very naughty.  He left green footprints, shamrocks, and leprachaun glitter everywhere.  He also set off all the traps (none of them actually were successful at catching him though)and turned over a bunch of our chairs.  Their faces will be priceless as they try to figure out what happened to our pod. 

Dinosaurs

Our students read "Mr. Bones", a story about a real life paleontologists during our literacy block.  After reading the story, we discussed what a paleontologist is, what they do, and what tools they might use.  During our science center that week, our students got to act as paleontologists.  They received a chocolate chip cookie (their dig site) and their tools (a "brush" and a tooth"pick").  Then they had to dig out their fossils (chocolate chips).  They had to use great patience and delicate movements, ensuring they did not damage their fossils.  They got a small glimpse at what it would be like to be a real paleontologist.

After students finished digging out their fossils, they had to write the steps that they went through to excavate their fossils.  They thoroughly enjoyed this activity -- especially when they got to eat their fossils and dig site (their cookie - ha ha ha!).

Writing Center

After completing an interactive writing goals chart for our students, we decided to make an interactive bulletin board to accompany our writing center.

On the board, we have an interactive goal setting chart to help the students remember what they are working on to improve their writing.  We also have two anchor charts and interactive story starter cards.  This helps our center stay organized and gives the students helpful reminders about the writing process.

Plant Life Cycle

In first grade we study about the parts of plants and the plant life cycle.  To wrap up our unit of study, the students created a semi- 3-d "model" of the parts of a flower and wrote the steps of the plant life cycle using their sequencing vocabulary - first, next, then, after that, last, etc.

To create the flower petals, students cut slits in a cupcake liner.  In the middle of the liner, students glued real flower seeds to show where new flower seeds are produced.  The stem is a pipe cleaner.  The leaves were cut from brown construction paper.  The roots are drawn on with marker.  In the past, I used brown yarn for the roots, but this year magically I lost my yarn.  Markers will work just as well.  The soil, grass, and sky are layered construction paper.  Students fringed the green layer to appear more like grass.  Students then add labels for each plant part.  If they want, they may add embellishments like a sun and clouds.

Pointillism

For reading a couple weeks ago, our students read the story "The Dot" about a little girl who created a series of paintings of dots for an art class.  After reading the story, we made a connection to Georges Seurat and pointillism.  Our students were amazed that it took Georges Seurat two years and over 3million dots to create his famous park scene.  With the background set, our students drew and painted a picture as if they were Georges Seurat - only using dots, not brush strokes.  They loved the project so much.  With their painting complete, the students wrote a short paragraph telling about their painting - describing it, telling how they created it, and/or what they learned about Seurat.  Our pointillism art gallery turned out super cute!  Here is a portion of the art gallery.  (It is in our center hallway which isn't very wide so I could get a picture of the whole thing.)

Tattling vs. Reporting

 This past weekend, I spent an immense amount of time of Pinterest.  I would like to thank all those teachers out there who are willing to share their great ideas.  One idea that I saw over and over again was a T-chart showing the differences between tattling and reporting.  This year in our pod, an epidemic of tattling has exploded.  To help combat this problem, my teaching partner and I did a quick lesson with all our students going over the differences of tattling and reporting.  We then created a poster to display in the class to help as a reminder to our students.  Next to the poster we also posted a picture of "Tom" (a free hand creation of mine).  Tom tells our students to tattle to him and not the teacher.  He tells them to think before they tell the teacher.  Hopefully having "Tom" to tattle to will help alleviate this tattling epidemic.  I will keep you all posted to see if it helps.