Math Centers

During our Learning Launch class this week, First Grade is focusing on Math Fact Fluency. To help my group with mastering their addition facts, we have been doing center rotations that allow the students to practice their skills in various ways. The photos below show the students hard at work gaining fluency with their facts.

 These students are practicing their math facts using flash cards on the rug.

 They loved taking turns being the "teacher"!

 These boys are timing each other to see how many facts they can complete

 correctly in one minute! They love a competition!

These boys are playing "Memory" with their math facts. They are having to try to match an addition problem with its sum. They loved this game!

 These girls are playing a matching game that has them match two addition problems that result in the same sum. It was challenging, but they did a wonderful job!

The last center, and probably the students' favorite, had them practicing their math facts on Fun4thebrain.com. Learning can be fun!

Hairy Harries

During our unit on plants to kick off the Spring Season, we had a little fun growing our own plants called Hairy Harries. The students took clear punch cups and drew a face on a piece of paper to wrap around the cups. They then filled the cups with soil, planted rye grass seed, and made sure they got plenty of water and sunlight. After a few days, our Hairy Harries were hairy, indeed! Check out a couple of the "after" photos below!

Jump Rope for Heart

Here are a few photos from our fun-filled Jump Rope for Heart session. The kids (and I!) loved getting to jump rope while also helping out such a good cause!

Dr. Seuss Reduced!

Our class had the opportunity to go to the local high school to watch a play put on by the Drama students called Dr. Seuss Reduced! We got to watch the play after studying Dr. Seuss in a week-long unit at the time of his birthday. The students loved watching the high school students perform the play they wrote which summarized some of his most famous stories in creative ways. We had a blast!

Presidential Research

In celebration of President's Day in February, my students spent a week learning all about two of our most famous presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. In the pictures below, you see them working hard researching the presidents on their devices or the school computers. Students used everything from BrainPop videos to kid friendly search engines to learn and record as much as they could about each president. It was a great opportunity for them to learn to use their devices for more than just games! :) 

Once they finished researching the two presidents, the students were asked to decide which president they liked more and write an opinion paragraph explaining why he was the best. Whether they liked Abe because of his beard or George for his ivory teeth, they all had their opinions and were able to support them with great facts from their research!

Valentine's Day ♥

              Here are a few photos from some of our Valentine celebrations on Thursday. You can see the children working hard on the cards they took home for parents! We had so much fun making these in addition to exchanging our Valentines with each other. Such a fun (but stressful!) day! :) 

Reader's Theater

 

             In our most recent Learning Launch rotation, each of the classes has been focusing on reading fluency. What better way to enhance fluency that Reader's Theater?! I was so excited to get started on Reader's Theater with my group which was full of already great readers when they came to me. I split them into groups, assigned them scripts and parts, and let them get to practicing. I let them practice their scripts for about 3 days in Learning Launch before we began presenting them to the class. The groups did a wonderful job and really learned the importance of all aspects of fluency...not just reading quickly but with expression and intonation as well. This was my first experience using Reader's Theater in my own classroom, but I absolutely loved it and will certainly be using it again!