Our class met a new friend today...
Meet Max. Our very own "Elf on the Shelf."
After reading the story The Elf on the Shelf, the kids in the Frog Room got to meet one of Santa's very own helpers. After taking a vote, they decided to name him Max. Max has an important job in our classroom and he takes it very seriously -- but you'll have to ask your son or daughter to find out what it is!
As you can see in the picture above, Max likes to surprise us by hiding in different places around the classroom (and maybe even the school!) Be sure to check in with your first grader to hear about where we find Max each day until Christmas Break!
As the parent of a first grader, you can probably recite any number of children's poems/rhymes/songs at any given time. As the teacher of 24 first graders, my poor husband has a hard time getting me to stop! It is not unusual for him to find me walking around the house singing songs about seasons and reciting poems about whatever our class is studying at the time.
The great news is: your kids are doing this, too!
In the frog room, we spend a great deal of time working on enhancing our fluency (that is, our ability to "read like we talk.") We do lots of shared, choral, and echo reading of short stories and sections of familiar text, and we also learn 2-3 new poems and songs per week. We use the poems and songs to review sight words, learn new spelling patterns, identify rhyming words, and to practice our "reading voices" and expression. The video below will give you a sneak peak into how I incorporate the poems and songs into our daily routines.
I am so thankful to have such a creative class this year; our dramatic interpretations are always entertaining and we LOVE to share the spotlight! The presentations at the end of the video are from the first week of school - when the kids were still getting comfortable. Don't worry - the more recent video clips (complete with costumes, a spotlight, and MUCH more confidence) are coming soon!
Thanks for all that you do at home to encourage excitement for reading and learning!
We couldn't do it without you!
After a fun-filled Friday, the Frog Room fired up for another day of Halloween festivities on Monday.
During reading, we worked on our fluency by practicing our Halloween songs and poems. We also read lots of silly and spooky stories
In writing workshop, we perfected our sequential, step-by-step writing by finishing up our recipes for "witches' brew." After that, we shared our recipes and actually made witches' brew in class! It was incredible how many descriptive words we were able to add after actually crunching on bat wings (fritos) and munching on skeleton eyeballs (cookie crisp). We also got to sample some spider sweat (sprite) and frog spit (fruit punch). Thanks for your generous (and creepy!) donations.
After lunch, our classroom filled up with another batch of fabulous helpers. With one parent volunteer at each table, we dove into an afternoon of Pumpkin Math. Using "The Great Pumpkin Investigation" books as their guide, each group practiced making and testing predictions on a variety of topics. Overall, we learned that pumpkins are lighter than we think (one kiddo guessed that his pumpkin was 115 pounds!), smaller than we think, filled with MANY more seeds than we think (2,840 seeds for roasting and tasting on Tuesday!) and the biggest discovery of all: pumpkins float!
Another BIG thank you to all who donated supplies, time, and lots [and LOTS!] of patience to help make our Halloween activities fun and memorable for all of us. What a magical time to be a child!
Enjoy the pictures!
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