Farewell to Ms. Yang and Gingerbread FUN!

We were so lucky to have had such a wonderful University of Iowa practicum student, Ms. Yang, be placed with us this semester! She did a great job and we wish her luck next semester during her student teaching journey. She will certainly be missed in first grade! Our class put together a little "survival kit" for Ms. Yang as she begins student teaching in Texas next month! :)

Good-bye and good luck, Ms. Yang! :)

As I mentioned in the last post, the first graders have been very busy comparing and contrasting fictional stories. This week we read four different versions of the gingerbread man. After each book, we recorded the characters, setting, ending, and refrain on the big gingerbread house (pictured below) so that it was easy to refer back to when we were comparing elements from each story. This unit on gingerbread stories was a HUGE hit! :)

In addition to keeping busy during our comprehension time, students have also gotten the chance to engage in partner activities during math. Below are some pictures of students working together to play winter-themed math games! They did a great job!

Counting by 10s to 120!

Counting by 5s to 120!

Addition problems

Addition matching

Subtraction game

Filling in the missing number

True/false equations

Finally, Elfie has been awfully sneaky these past few days! I'm sure he has several more tricks to play before the week is over! :)

This is the letter we wrote to Elfie telling him "how to build a snowman"....Elfie wrote us back and even tried it out!

Each day students journal about the silly things Elfie did! :)

Whew...long post but so much happening in the wonderful world of first grade!

Elfie is Back!

Last year, Elfie the Elf made an appearance in our first grade classroom. He returned again this year in a green package straight from the North Pole! Elfie's job is to watch over students and make sure they are doing good deeds and showing great behavior. However, he is also a sneaky little elf and tends to do tricky things in our classroom. Each day, students will journal about the silly adventures of Elfie! Today, Elfie surprised us by creating his own little house out of our recess blocks! :) We can't wait to write about his shenanigans the next week and a half before winter break!

Author Study: Jan Brett

Before diving into updates on our classroom happenings in December, I would love to give a quick update on a personal life event! A group of friends along with my husband and I decided to make the trip to Indianapolis to cheer on our very own Hawkeyes in the Big 10 Championship Game verses Michigan State. While the outcome wasn't what us Iowa fans would have liked to have happen, it was an awesome experience and I have never been more proud to sport the black and gold! And in the end, a bid to the Rose Bowl wasn't too bad of a consolation prize either... :)

Isabelle says Go Hawks!

Game Day in Indianapolis!

Go Hawks!

Now.,..for our classroom happenings!

The past few weeks the first graders have been introduced to the wonderful author, Jan Brett! We have read several of her stories, including classics, The Mitten and The Hat. Students are working on the Common Core standard of comparing and contrasting the adventures and experiences of characters. Jan Brett does a wonderful job of making her characters come to life in addition to providing every story with wonderful illustrations that have hidden clues on each page. Students also helped create large anchor charts that showed story elements from each book. After reading The Mitten, students got the chance to retell the story to a friend by pulling the animals through their very own paper mittens!

We also compared the classic fairy tale, Golilocks and the Three Bears to Jan Brett's story, The Three Snow Bears. Students had a blast reading both of these tales and once again did a wonderful job comparing and contrasting them to one another!

This week we will continue to work on comparing and contrasting stories, but with a focus on gingerbread stories, including two of Jan Brett's originals, Gingerbread Baby and Gingerbread Friends. More on this later! :)

On a fun note, we often take brain breaks in our classroom and utilize the website: gonoodle.com. Students get to dance and exercise to fun songs! Below students are pictured rocking out to Jingle Bell Rock!