What a great start to the school year! It is exciting to be back in the classroom with the kids. While I didn't have a chance to visit with first grade the first week of school, we hit the ground running this week with some fun activities.
In reading / language arts, we began a unit called Postcards from Dr. Seuss. This fun unit has Dr. Seuss "communicating" with the class through postcards. The postcards give information about one of Dr. Seuss's most famous works, which we read as a class. Students are then challenged to complete activities that involve critical and creative thinking (guided by Bloom's Taxonomy of Cognitive Development and Williams' Taxonomy of Creative Thought).
This week's book was The Cat in the Hat! Students helped Mrs. Dickinson read this fun story, and then they each drew an activity from the cat's hat to complete. Activities included:
Activities for Flexible Thinking:
What if this story were called The Pig in the Wig? Create a new story, using that title.
Activities for Risk-Taking
What do you think the children's mother would say if she were to find out about the cat?
Activities for Complexity
How is the fish important to the story? Draw a picture of the fish then tell why the fish is needed in the story.
Activities for Imagination
Imagine that the cat came to your house. What rules would you make for him to follow?
Activities for Analysis
Are you more like the fish, the cat, or Thing One and Two? Draw a picture of who you are most like and tell why.
Activities for Evaluation
Would you want the cat to come to your home? Write a letter to him, letting him know why he should either come to your house or stay away from it.
Students did a great job and came up with many thoughtful ideas!
In reading / language arts, we began a unit called Postcards from Dr. Seuss. This fun unit has Dr. Seuss "communicating" with the class through postcards. The postcards give information about one of Dr. Seuss's most famous works, which we read as a class. Students are then challenged to complete activities that involve critical and creative thinking (guided by Bloom's Taxonomy of Cognitive Development and Williams' Taxonomy of Creative Thought).
This week's book was The Cat in the Hat! Students helped Mrs. Dickinson read this fun story, and then they each drew an activity from the cat's hat to complete. Activities included:
Activities for Flexible Thinking:
What if this story were called The Pig in the Wig? Create a new story, using that title.
Activities for Risk-Taking
What do you think the children's mother would say if she were to find out about the cat?
Activities for Complexity
How is the fish important to the story? Draw a picture of the fish then tell why the fish is needed in the story.
Activities for Imagination
Imagine that the cat came to your house. What rules would you make for him to follow?
Activities for Analysis
Are you more like the fish, the cat, or Thing One and Two? Draw a picture of who you are most like and tell why.
Activities for Evaluation
Would you want the cat to come to your home? Write a letter to him, letting him know why he should either come to your house or stay away from it.
Students did a great job and came up with many thoughtful ideas!
Numbers to 50
While many students were reviewing numbers to 15 this week, we pushed our number knowledge to include numbers to 50!
Students helped Mrs. Owen fill in a hundreds chart where some of the numbers were missing. Then, students were shown a random number between 1 and 100 and were asked to write the number either before or after it (they even did great when asked for the number that was "ten more" than the one given :-)). Next, students worked in teams of two to carefully count sets of objects in order to figure out the mystery number each bag represented. We discussed problem solving strategies - separate the objects into groups of five, then count by fives and ones....separate the objects into groups of ten, then count by tens and ones...etc. Finally, groups who accurately counted and matched the correct mystery numbers with the bags, had to take all of the mystery numbers and order them from least to greatest!
Awesome job mathematicians!!!
Students helped Mrs. Owen fill in a hundreds chart where some of the numbers were missing. Then, students were shown a random number between 1 and 100 and were asked to write the number either before or after it (they even did great when asked for the number that was "ten more" than the one given :-)). Next, students worked in teams of two to carefully count sets of objects in order to figure out the mystery number each bag represented. We discussed problem solving strategies - separate the objects into groups of five, then count by fives and ones....separate the objects into groups of ten, then count by tens and ones...etc. Finally, groups who accurately counted and matched the correct mystery numbers with the bags, had to take all of the mystery numbers and order them from least to greatest!
Awesome job mathematicians!!!