Science- Circuits

This has to be one of my favorite science activities!! CIRCUITS!  The first graders love the "light bulb" moment... literally, when their light bulb turns on for the first time! Although, circuits is a difficult topic to teach first graders- I found this is actually one of the easier concepts for them to understand, even my lower EL students really flourished!

I started by giving them the three tools they needed and asked them to simply light the bulb... after 15 minutes of frustration- I gave a few hints. After a few students got it, most followed shortly after!

If you haven't done this in your classroom- I highly recommend it!

The next day, I gave them a worksheet from our focused instruction guide that gave them pictures of different circuits they needed to try. If it worked, they circled it- if it didn't, the crossed it out. Another extremely engaging activity that challenged the students at their level.

Enjoy!

Exploring Shapes!

Our Math Focus is SHAPES!
Last week I had students explore shapes and how different shapes can be composed of other shapes.

I love the different results each student had! 

This was an extremely engaging lesson for the students! They loved the hands on activity and how each result could be different... and that's okay!

I hope this helps you with your shape lessons! 

Enjoy!

Owls Shapes and The Shape of Things :)

The math unit we are working on is on SHAPES!

To kick it off we did this awesome Freebie Silly Shaped Owls from Classroom Freebies.

We started off last week by making the owls and later this week we will be filling out the owl shape packet.

Since my room is owl themed, I couldn't resist this awesome intro to shapes! 

They turned out great!

To kick off this week we read:

It is a cute book the takes shapes and makes them into everyday objects. 

An example is:

A square is just a square until you add some windows and a door. Then, it is a house. 

So, I had my students replicate this themselves. 

I made a template of each shape on Word and typed up a sentence starter that the students just needed to fill in. 

It let students use their imagination and also identify shapes in everyday objects. 

Here is their completed work:

I really enjoyed combining these two ideas to introduce shapes to my class! 

 

Enjoy! 

 

PALS- Reading

My district purchased the PALS- Reading Strategies Program to assist students to gain an overall better understanding of decoding and be more confident independent readers. Best of all it is mainly peer lead.

Here is a link if you are unfamiliar with the program and want it at your school:
http://kc.vanderbilt.edu/pals/research.html#reading

 Here are some of my students doing their PALS reading!

I pair partners with a high and low- the high reads first. It is a coach/student approach and the students are very found of it. They love when it is time for PALS reading!

Enjoy!

A Little Halloween Fun!

Since I have so many students who do not celebrate Halloween in my classroom, we had a Harvest party instead- celebrating all things Fall!

However, the students really enjoyed a few activities we did, that were geared more toward the Halloween holiday.

The first was the poem, 5 Little Pumpkins, we made a chart together first and the students got to make their own to take home after. It was a huge hit! They loved it!

Here is the chart we made:

 

I found the Freebie template for the words and pumpkins from another Awesome blogger here:

http://teachitwithclass.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html

Here is the link to the Freebie the students made to take home:

http://stuck-on-glue.blogspot.com/2011/10/printable-five-little-pumpkins.html

Another easy activity that we did was read Scaredy-Cat, Splat! I added my own jack-o lantern and I hot glued both his pet mouse and the spider he finds in the book on it. (I also filled it with small candies that I gave out at the end) and the students Loved It!

Easy ways to add some festive cheer!! Enjoy!