Who, Action, Finish Thought Writing & Fall Art!

We recently made scarecrow heads in our class and I thought I would share a few pictures. The head is made out of a paper plate and all the rest of the pieces are cut out of construction paper. The students got to use crazy scissors for the hay. Art is so fun at this age and the KIDS love it! Looking forward to many more fun art projects throughout the rest of the year. 

In writing we have been working on the writing trait of ideas. In the past few weeks we have been working on expanding sentences and focusing on ONE topic when we are writing. Yesterday my students completed an expanding sentence activity that was very fun. It is called a WHO, ACTION, FINISH THOUGHT activity. First I showed my students a picture of a boy diving into a lake. Then the students and I created a "simple sentence" from the picture. The sentence had to have a who, action, and a finish thought. Once we had our simple sentence created we talked about how we could add more details to our picture and to the sentence. The students LOVED this activity and did a great job on it! Here is a few examples of their work!

 I finally got around to changing the bulletin board in my coatroom. I got the idea from Pinterest. If you are looking for great fall decoration ideas, follow me on Pinterest. Here is a picture of my fall bulletin board in my front room, "Mrs. High's TREE-mendous Class" The tree is made out of tissue paper. It was a very easy bulletin board to make and the kids really like it!

That is all for now! Keep an eye out for our BUCKET FILLING movie coming next week! Also, take a look at the movie trailer, "Mrs. High's Stars" on my last post if you haven't yet. Have a WONDERFUL weekend! 

Mrs. High

We are STARS!

At the beginning of the year my students dressed up as MOVIE STARS to go with our Hollywood theme. Here is a movie trailer that I made to go with the pictures!

Enjoy!

Click on the link to see the movie!
http://www.youtube.com/embed/_HOu3Y-mlbs

We are BUCKET FILLERS!

Yesterday I read the book, "Have You Filled a Bucket Today" and showed my students these videos, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaddbqEQ1NE and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5R6-2m_qHk. The books talk about how bucket filling is when we do kinds things, share, say kinds words, and make others feel special in some way. Bucket dipping is when we are unkind to friends, when we are NOT respectful, or when we are a bully.  During the rest of the year I am going to do different acitvities to go will these two books. We are going to have a class bucket and have the students fill out the following slips and drop them in our bucket. 

Please list any ideas/resources you have used in your class to help your students become great bucket fillers!!! Also, PLEASE comment if you know how I can upload a word document into my blog! I have been wanting to post resources but don't know how to do it! Thanks :) There will be many more pictures and resources to come as I develop bucket filling in my classroom!

Summary Sam and Stuhr Museum Field Trip!

Summary Sam also know as Miss Kitty is the name of our classroom cat. She comes out at the end of IMPORTANT lessons and at the end of the day. Summary Sam asks students what the main idea of a lesson was or what the students thought was the most important thing they learned at school throughout a particular day. At the beginning of the year we talked about how she is a very sleepy cat and so he will ONLY come and visit us at the end of lessons and at the end of the day. I tell my students that Summary Sam has slept the entire time during the lesson and so he really needs some SMART FRIENDS to tell him what we did in Math, Writing, Reading....etc. Sam is a fun way to help students retain as much information as possible! THEY LOVE HIM and ask to get him out all the time! It is also a GREAT way to teach summarizing!

Here is a picture of Summary Sam used for closure! You could use any animal!

This past Friday we went on our first field trip of the year. We went to the Stuhr Museum and learned about the Pawnee Indians. The children got to visit a tepee, an earth lodge, see a buffalo, and put up and take down a tepee. In the earth lodge we learned about how the Pawnee Indians lived. The students got to try on Pawnee hunting gear and clothes, try out their games, and see how they made their food.

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Trying on a Pawnee girl outfit. 

Passing around hard cloth that the Pawnee Indians used for their clothes.

Trying on a wolf skin. This is what the Pawnee Indians put over their heads when they were going hunting. 

Playing Pawnee games. 

Sitting on a bed that the Pawnee Indians would have slept on. The beds were made out of soft animal skins. 

Reading a story using Pawnee symbols. 

Trying on a baby carrier! 

Ask your child about the pictures that they see and what they liked the most about the field trip. 

Making corn into corn flower!

The girls got to set up the tepee!

My WONDERFUL class :)

Sampson the Buffalo!

Tomorrow we are going to look at the pictures of our field trip and blog about our favorite part. SO EXCITED :)

Fall is Here!

I am finally getting around to posting about what has happened in our classroom during the first month of school. We have been very busy little "stars".  We started off the year reading different books about "stars" to incorporate my hollywood theme into our classroom. Each student got to dress up like a "super star" and decorated a star to decorate the front of our classroom. We also read the "No, David" books and created our own "Davids". The students got to write one rule that they wanted to follow this year under their David. We most recently got finished writing a fall acrostic and painting a leaf. I LOVE incorporating art and writing together! The students wrote the following acrostic and painted a leaf with metallic water paints.

Loving
Every minute
As a
First Grader!

The students LOVED this project and it is currently hanging up in our hallway.

*I will try and post resources as soon as I can! Tomorrow is the end to a busy, busy week! We are going on our first field trip and then the students are going to blog about what they did next week! My first attempt at student blogging! SO EXCITED! :)