Dinosaurs!!

We had a reading story a few weeks ago about dinosaurs.  I knew this chapter was coming up back in December so I ordered a dinosaur dig set from the book order.  Man, I did not expect to have so much fun and spark such a competition with these things!  The class was divided into 2 teams and had to work together to dig the dinosaur bones out of the rock.  They used wooden picks to dig through the rock and paint brushed to dust the bones off.  Team A was digging up a T-Rex and Team B was unearthing a Triceratops.

How the set arrived

Team A working hard

Team A

Team A

Team B working hard

Team B

Team B

Team B

Team A

Once all of the pieces were dug out and dusted off the teams used water and paint brushes to get all of the bones clean.  It was very precise work- even using toothpicks to dig dirt out.

Team A finished their digging and cleaning first- there were more team members.  We worked together to build their T-Rex.  We discovered that a tail bone must have been left behind in the rock and accidentally thrown away (FAIL on my part!)...

Team B then finished cleaning their Triceratops bones and we tried putting their model together.  The T-Rex was the first time I had ever put something like this together and I may be a "one hit wonder"!  I cannot get this Triceratops together for the life of me!  When I am down to one piece left everything falls apart.  I may have to resort to super glue : /

I am using these dinosaurs as rewards for reading in January.  The top 2 readers for Accelerated Reader will get to take home the dino of their choosing.  If I do not have the Triceratops put together by Wednesday, I will be sending the pieces along with the directions home to someone who is hopefully more capable than me!

We also got to play with some 4D Augmented Reality dinosaurs this week.  They each got to choose their favorite dino picture and pretend they were holding it.  We did a cute writing assignment then telling why that dinosaur was their favorite.

We just so happened to be learning about space and the planets at this same time so we got to play with the planet Augmented Reality cards too.  Even I got to hold the whole universe in my hand!

We had such a super fun week with our Dinosaurs and Space unit!  Technology can make anything SO much more interesting!

~Ms. Anglin

Winter Wonderland

Man, we can really tell it is winter here!  The negative temps and snow accumulation have made for a long month of January, let me tell ya!  We got the new year started with a chilly bulletin board display.  Each firstie got to choose a shape and turn it into a penguin.  I just love this bulletin board each January!

We got right into the swing of things in our centers this month.  We had contraction puzzles from School and the City which are amazing!  There are all kinds of grammar puzzles there and I can't wait to use more of them this year.  There were also centers with file folder games featuring contractions.  Now I am noticing apostrophes showing up in words that don't need them... hmmmmm

Flashlight Friday is still a favorite activity in the new year.  These kids work so hard on Fridays so we have some extra time to just sit back and read.  Today they got about 20 minutes of free read time and they loved it.

I read the story Snowmen at Night to the class and they created hallway art and writing.  They had to say what they would do if they were a snowman that came alive at night.  There would be lots of dodgeball with snowballs, drinking hot chocolate, sledding, and ice skating.  They made their snowmen by tearing paper.

Our reading story this week was called Honey Bees.  As treats all week long we had honey flavored teddy grahams.  One day I also brought honey from home and had them try it.  Surprisingly, most of the students had never had plain honey before.  A lot of them preferred to dip their teddy grahams into the honey, and some licked their plates clean!

We used tens and ones manipulatives in math this chapter.  To make sure we had plenty of space to keep all of our materials handy, we spread out on the floor to work.  A small change of scenery was such a treat for this lesson.

During some free time I partnered the students up and had them read a book together.  I told each group to find a spot anywhere in the room to read to each other.  I am going to take a wild guess here but I think this library area is a favorite- 3 out of 4 groups chose to squish in this space to read.

Another animal came for show and tell!  Leah joined our class for a little bit one afternoon.  She was freshly bathed and still a little damp!  She was so interested in all of the kids, she could smell their dogs on them.  Georgia was a very good pet owner and answered our questions about Leah.  Georgia's dad brought her to town just for us!

Peyton brought a new Christmas gift as her show and tell.  It was a cute bear that you could feed.

One lesson in our SS unit was about landforms and bodies of water. We made a neat landform flap book filled with information on the landforms and bodies of water. We touched on mountains, hills, plains, islands, lakes, rivers, and oceans.

Hope you are staying warm!!
~Ms. Anglin

Christmas Catch-Up

Wow, I'm only a month late posting about our wonderful Christmas season!

We had our Christmas Concert at the beginning of December.  They were such wonderful singers!

Right before we went to sing

Everyone got to be a reindeer for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Ready to begin

Some of our projects in December were Gingerbread kids for the Bulletin Board and Santas for the hallway.  They had to write what they would do if Santa got stuck in their chimney.  A lot of these first graders would just pull him out!

When technology doesn't always cooperate, I sometimes have to improvise!  I couldn't add pictures to this slide for some reason so I propped the actual books up on the board for the students to choose their favorite and make a graph.

The last week of school we had a couple of really fun days.  They earned a popcorn and movie party for having excellent behavior and for everyone passing all of their addition math fact quizzes.  Needless to say, they were very excited to watch Zootopia during school-

-and then everyone from Kindergarten through 3rd grade got to come to our classroom for a movie/Christmas party.  It was a full house and The Secret Life of Pets was awesome!

One of my favorite parts of the Christmas season in school is helping these kiddos create keepsake presents.  I let them give their gifts to whomever they choose.  We make a calendar for the next year and color a picture for each month.  We also make a picture frame, complete with a picture from the concert when they are looking so sharp.  New this year, and probably a keeper, we made coasters with pictures of them throughout the year.

I hope everyone had a blessed holiday season!
~Ms. Anglin