community helpers and apples!

We finished up our study on community helpers and apples. I just love these little community helpers by Julie Lee. We made little teachers, bakers, doctors, and firefighters. For shared reading we used the big book Miss Bindergarten Takes a Field Trip. Then I asked the kids what they want to be when they grow up.

We made mail bags and wrote letters. Then we pretended to be mail carriers and deliever mail to other students in the room. The poem says . . . See the mailman dressed in blue, will he bring a letter to you? He works when it rains, and when it snows, he even works when the wind blows.

We made doctor bags and glued inside a band-aid, cotton ball, tongue depressor, and a cotton swab.

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We made applesauce and wrote the steps using shared writing.

They wrote their own how to make applesauce. Then we graphed our favorite apple product (apple juice or applesauce).

We described apples and wrote apple list poems.

We learned all about Johnny Appleseed and practiced nonfiction writing. This little Johnny and our circle map was inspired by Julie Lee.

We read The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons. Then we sequenced the life cycle of the apple and made this apple pocket to keep our pieces. The apple sequence pictures are from Cara Carroll.

We had a labeling mini lesson and labeled the parts of the apple. Chart inspiration by Cara Carroll!

I pulled out my picture cards I had from my five senses unit and used them to explore an apple.

 

all about me! and coconuts and freebies!

We spent time writing all about me books. Then we made ourselves and attached the book to the shirt. They turned out looking adorable. This idea is from Deanna Jump. Before all that I read them my all about me book. Here are a few of the pages.

 

We also read A My Name is Alice and followed up with this craft. This idea is also from Deanna Jump. We used bingo dot markers to make our rainbow names.

 We read these cute books to introduce our theme.

We also measured our friend with yarn. This adorable idea is from Julie Lee.  

We did our first science experiment . . . Will a coconut sink or float? Here is our graph we made to record our hypothesis. We followed up with the recording sheet below.

Grab the free recording sheet by clicking the picture below.

 Chicka chicka boom boom! Will there be enough room? I got this adorable idea from Kim Jordano.

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Because you all asked you can grab a free copy of the setting anchor chart here or by clicking the picture below.

 You can also get the character anchor chart here or by clicking the picture below.

 

The first 2 weeks of school

We spent a lot of time teaching rules, routines, and procedures. This is critical when managing a classroom full of 24 kiddos. We learned right away how to walk in a hall. This is our hall chant we repeat to remind us how to walk in a line. After we built the anchor chart and modeled what a good line looks like and sounds like I had the kids glue the hall chant into their poetry journal and illustrate what a line looks like.

 

 We also learned how to use glue bottles. We practiced making raindrops and not rain puddles. We sang this cute song to remind us how to use glue. They also glued this into their poetry journal.

 We read Chrysanthemum and talked about characters. I made this little anchor chart and gave each child a mini anchor chart to glue in their reader's workshop journal.

 After reading Chrysanthemum we did the wrinkled heart activity. While reading the story we thought about the character's feelings. Every time someone said unkind things to Chrysanthemum we wrinkled the heart. When the story was over we opened up the heart and tried to smooth it out. We talked about always using kind words. Everyone put a Band-Aid on the heart and glued a mini heart in their reader's workshop journal.

We graphed how many letters are in your name.

Here are some anchor charts we completed.

I love the way Life in First Grade did her number anchor charts.

  You can find the Chrysanthemum activities here.