Beginning of the Year

So September came and went before I even noticed!  We have been BUSY, BUSY in our classroom lately learning all our new routines. My favorite new routine has to be our Kindness Challenge.  I stumbled across it on Instagram this summer and instantly knew we had to try it out this year.  

Every week we flip the card to see what our "challenge" will be for the week.  It is a great way to start a discussion about different ways to be kind to one another.  

This week I found a great book in our book order "What Does it Mean to be Kind".  It was a sweet little story about things that you can do to be kind to others.  

Today our challenge was:

It could be my favorite challenge to date because the class did a great job interviewing each other to find out 5 new things about each other.  After they were done we all sat in a circle with our partner and shared one thing we learned.  

We have also been doing all things Apple (in September) and love these activities by Linda Kamp.

We do a lot of acrostic poems at the beginning of the year because the kid get the hang of them quickly and they always turn out cute.  

We also learned a little bit about each other by making Tree-Mendous Things About Me

Peanut Butter & Cupcake!

If you've never read Peanut Butter & Cupcake! you need to - as soon as you can.  I was lucky enough to be given the book as a gift from a former student.  What a great story.  The pictures are so fun and it really has a great message about friendship.  It is the perfect book to read at the start of the school year when the kids in your class are just getting to know each other.  

For starters, it is an easy book to work on basic retell comprehension.  It works really well with my firsties as they are still just beginning to become comfortable with that skill, especially right away.

This book also leads to a discussion of what makes a good friend:
How does a good friend act?  What do they do for others? etc.

I wanted to do something that had the students working with a partner-preferably someone new to them so they could make a new friend (just like in the story).

For this activity the partners have to figure out something that is the same about them and something that is different.  For a challenge, have them come up with different same/different ideas.

Click here for a link to this activity!

Spring Writing!

We have been doing a lot of non-fiction writing lately and needed to change it up a little.  Here is Wisconsin it's definitely still 'Spring'.  Sunny and 75 one day and winter coats the next :-)
To get in the spirit of spring we did some 5 senses writing.

 I love the things they think about.  Their little brains are so much more creative than mine!

This was a pretty simple little activity but it gave us a chance to focus on using complete sentences, neat handwriting and proper mechanics.

Nothing says "Spring" like the taste of fresh air and fresh apricots.

Click here to get a FREE copy of this flip book.

Star Student

One of our favorite activities each week is Star Student.  We make these great little booklets that the students get to keep when it's their special week.

On Friday I send home the student's information sheet for the upcoming week.  They bring it back in on Monday and I hang up their completed sheet and any pictures they've sent in.  

We have our sharing day on Thursday (because we don't have any specials that day).  The kids share their sheet, pictures, and anything they have brought in to share.  We don't do Show-and-Tell so this is a their time to bring in something special to show the class.  When they're all finished I let them call on five people for comments or questions.  

At this point we make our Star Student Books.  They each fill out page on the Star Student-I have a few different sheets for the students to choose from:
______ is a good friend because, ______ is awesome because or ______ is special because.
  For their writing I like to have them write something special and specific about the Star Student, not just "She is nice."  While the class is filling out these sheets the Star Student gets to color
their cover sheet. 

When it's all done I let the Star Student pick a color for their book cover.  I laminate the cover sheet, their information sheet and the back cover.  Then I have the whole thing bound and the Star Student gets to take it home as a keepsake.

If you'd like to get the cover and writing sheets head over to my TPT page!

2-D Shapes

This was our first week back from Spring Break and we have been reviewing our 2-D shapes.  After they all had a good understanding of the attributes we practiced making our own shapes using toothpicks.

This project used a ton of toothpicks-about 30 per student-so make sure you get the big box.
It also used a ton of glue ;-) which is to be expected!

This was great for the kids to do because it's different than drawing or using pattern blocks.  It really challenged them, especially the hexagon.

If you want a copy of the shape labels, click on the picture below.  Some of my kids could squeeze in the 2D Shapes header, some couldn't-it really didn't make much of a difference to me.

Next we made Shape Monsters-which they loved!  I let each student pick whatever shape they wanted and then they had to trace their shape onto construction paper.  They turned out really cute.

After they made their monster they had to write about it.  They had to tell me what shape they chose, how many side and corners that shape had, and also give me a real-world example of that shape. 

Both of these ideas were from Mrs. Wheeler's page-if you'd like a free copy of the Shape Monster sheet, head over to her blog.

Have a great weekend!