Red Carpet Award Night

Tonight we celebrate all the struggles that have been overcome, the successes that have been accomplished, and the moments and memories that will forever be in our hearts.  Student attended our 1st grade Red Carpet Awards night with their families tonight.  We shared projects we had made on our iPads, growth in academics, and memories from throughout the year.  Students and parents were FINALLY able to see our Mystery Ninja Video.  It was truly a Red Carpet Event!

Junie B Inspiration

This week we have been working on Junie B. Jones like narratives.  Students have been working all quarter on writing narratives.  After reading several of the Junie B. Jones books and our recent field trip to see the musical we were inspired to create our own stories like Junie B. Jones.  We are using Book Creator.

Inventions Ideas

We have been working on learning about simple machines and inventions in the last few weeks.  My students have drawn a sketch of an invention they would like to make and told a little about it.  What imagination some of them have!

Mystery Solved

This week we worked on finishing up our Ninja Mystery.  The students finished their illustrations for their page of the mystery.  They also worked very hard on memorizing their text for their page.  Mrs. Powell came to help us practice using the green screen.  The kids were totally excited and can hardly wait for our final recording date.  Here is a sneak peak of the illustrations and practice recording.

The Mystery Continues....

This week we started writing our mystery. We had so much fun using our imaginations to come up with our characters, setting, and plot. Each student wrote their own page and they very quickly memorized their parts. My kiddos are so excited to make their illustrations and eventually record. This has been one of my favorite projects.

Click on the link to view our mystery script: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wlTZoWMi8pmP8PmXoWlNMbkCeuZlLTpMxPvjdgD2TlE/edit?usp=sharing

The Mystery Begins

This week we worked on the elements of a mystery. We enjoyed reading some great mystery books! We are learning about mysteries to prepare for our next big project. In this projects we will use some super cool technology to help us with writing and publishing. You will have to tune in next week for more clues.

Easter Bunny Stories!

This week's project focused on students being able to use their imagination to create an Easter story.  We read Peter Cotton Tail and students were able to brainstorm ideas of where Easter eggs could be hiding.  After doing a graphic organizer, rough draft, and final draft students were able to use their artistic skills to draw a picture to go with their writing on SeeSaw and use that picture as a background as they read their writing! Viewing these videos was a great end to the day before we headed off to Easter Break!

Flipped Leprechaun Writing

This week we did some flipped creative writing on trying to catch a leprechaun. It was quite the hunt and the kids even celebrated today with some leprechaun treats.

Best Toy for a 1st Grader

Students were able to using their opinion writing skills to persuade classmates of their favorite toys for a 1st grader.  Student had a great time planning, writing, creating, and finally getting to bring their toys in for show and tell.  Here is an example!

Fairy Tale Endings

This week we finished our Fairy Tales.  The kids loved doing this project and were so proud to share their hard work.  I will let their examples speak for themselves!

Here is a link to one of my kiddos books!

http://epubreader.1bestlink.net/

The Fairy Tales Continue and Virtual Field Trips

This week we continued to work on our "Cinderella" stories.  Students were able to add backgrounds, graphics, and drawings.  They are very proud of their work and getting so excited to share!  Students have continue to work on updating their blogs every morning and many of them come in very excited to update.  This week our story was A Trip to Washington DC.  We were able to extend our learning by taking a virtual field trip of the White House.  The kids loved it and asked when we would be able to go on another field trip!

                         

Going Digital with Fairy Tales

The next few weeks we will be working on fairy tales and creating our own "Cinderella" stories digitally.  Last week we read several version of Cinderella.  We also talked about the elements of a fairy tale and brainstormed the characters, setting, and plot for our own "Cinderella" stories.  During our tech time this week we did a refresher on Book Creator.  We are looking forward to composing and publishing our "Cinderella" stories.  To finish off our project we will have a "book signing" party to celebrate and share our accomplishments. Stay tuned for our stories and pictures from our "book signing" party!!!

Blogging in 1st Grade!

This week we tried something new during our morning work time! I showed students my blog and challenged them to help me create a classroom blog for themselves. This week we tried to upload a drawing and recording of something they wanted to share with the class. This was very simple but yet very powerful! We viewed these together at the end of the day and the students also had the opportunity to comment on each other's blog entries throughout the day! Next, week I am going to continue this by asking students to add a sentence to their drawing and read/record that sentence for their blog post. The goal of keeping this blog will be to eventually use it to reflect on their learning (especially in writing) throughout the rest of the year!

 Here is the link to our classroom SeeSaw blog:  https://blog.seesaw.me/blankenship1516

Opinions galore!

This semester we have been working on opinion writing.  This last week we have been working on trying to write a four sentence or more opinion piece.  In the first sentence students state their opinion.  In the second and third sentences they give their reasons for their opinion.  In their fourth sentence they conclude the piece and restate their opinion.  We worked on this piece for two weeks.  Students were asked to choose a book that they would recommend to their peers.  They would try to convince their classmates to read the book by writing an opinion piece and then creating a "book trailer" based on their opinion piece.  To get everyone excited we viewed a few Disney movie trailers and the students were very excited to make their own videos.  After all students were finished we had a "Viewing Party" and students were able to vote on which book they would like to read!  This was a really engaging and motivating way to incorporate a book review and opinion piece.

Productive Week

We had a very productive week this week.  We really got into using our workstations menu and the kids LOVED it.  The kids were very engaged, motivated, and excited to finish each task!  We had some visitors this week and I was impressed and proud that my students could explain their workstations menu and what they needed to do to accomplish the week's tasks.  This week we also used Shadow Puppet to create a presentation of the butterfly lifecycle to go along with our story. To end the week we celebrated the 100th day of school.  We had a great time using the aging booth app to make ourselves look 100 years old.  Students then used this picture as inspiration to write what it would be like to be 100.   It was a great week and I am looking forward to what excitement this week holds!

I DON'T want to be 100!

Student Choice

This week we only made it to school two days with our snow days!  I felt that these were two very productive days for my students.  This week I endeavored to give my students a "menu" of tasks to accomplish during their workstations time.  At this point in the year my students are more able to complete tasks independently.  They are also able to read simple directions which is such a blessing!!!  So, I am ready to give them some freedom!  I am a firm believer in student driven classrooms.  I want my students to be in charge of their learning and giving them a choice of the order of the "must-do's" they have to accomplish and allowing them to choose and design optional learning tasks is a great way to do that.  The first day I gave the students the menu some asked to work during their recess! Over the snow days some of them accomplished assignments at home! Others are already planning their optional projects for as soon as they complete their "must-do's".  We are only two days into the five-day story rotation so we will see how this process continues to develop!

Getting Excited About Projects!

The second semester in 1st grade is very excited!  We have learned so many valuable things in 1st quarter.  The kids are able to read and do more tasks independently.  I love to see how they grow.  During the second semester we have more projects because the routines, procedures, and basic reading skills are in place.  It is now time for me to let go of my little ones and see them soar.  This week we took on retelling with Sock Puppets.  I love this app!  It is not only good for retelling it is good for creating stories and practicing reading fluently.  I really enjoy seeing the motivation, engagement, and creativity shine through in these projects.  

New Year! New start and new challenges!

This was our first week back.  It was great! This week we were learning about facts and opinions in preparation for our opinion writing unit.  Mrs. Powell our instructional specialist gave us the great idea of using SeeSaw to state winter facts and opinions.  My students were very excited about making their own videos!  Not only did we make videos students were able to expand their audience for their videos by sharing the via SeeSaw.  My student were very engaged as they created, viewed, and even commented on their classmates videos.  This was a great start to the New Year!

Here is an example of one of my student's winter fact and opinion!