Today we were "Pumpkin Investigators" It was a lot of fun! Before we cleaned out the pumpkin we estimated how many seeds might be in the pumpkin. We recorded our estimates on the form below.

Click here for "How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin"

Pumpkin Investigation

It's that time of year. . .PUMPKINS!! I love pumpkins, and really anything to do with Fall.

 Here is an observation sheet for students to use when examining a pumpkin. . .

Click here to download Pumpkin Investigation Page!

Magic E Practice

Here is a new activity for the "Magic E". It can be used in a large or small group. If you put them in page protectors, then the children can write the word after adding the "e" to the word. I made the "e"s in colors the match the words so that the kids can look for the one that has the matching color, they can put their pieces together, read the word and write it.  

 Click here for Magic E on Teachers Notebook!

Mrs. Lemons' Clock Numbers

I just found the cutest digital numbers to add to your classroom analog clock!

Thanks to Mrs Lemons!

She also has some other great ideas. Go check our her blog Step into 2nd Grade.

Writing with Voice

We get a lot of our writing lesson ideas from this book:

Get it here.

In it there is a really fun lesson for the writing trait "voice." It goes with the book "Mr. Tannen's Ties."

Get it here.

We decided to take the lesson a step further and let the kids show their own voice by creating their own ties. They turned out pretty marvelous if I do say so myself!

Mrs. "Bossy"

Mrs. "Bossy" is really Mrs. Vasi, who teaches kindergarten at our school. Most of the kids can't say her name correctly so she becomes Mrs. "Bossy." She has been up to some really fun things. Her bulletin board in the hall had the most darling portraits and we were going to take a picture of them today, but she beat us to it. She had replaced the portraits with this:

I think these are just as cute. I love how individualized they are. You can almost match the child to the artwork. She said she got it from Deanna Jump. How fun would this be? I'm almost upset that she did it this year, now I can't do it next year!

I also saw this when I was talking with her this afternoon:

It is an environmental print word wall. The students are bringing in products that start with each letter of the alphabet. She is hoping that someone will bring in an eggo waffle label for e soon! She said she read about it in one of her writing books. I thought it was pretty darn cute!

Jumstart's Read for the Record

Today our class participated in Jumpstart's Read for the Record.

 This year's book was "llama, llama red pajama" by Anna Dwedney. It was fun to be part of such a large undertaking. I really enjoyed sharing this book with the kids. It is so lyrical, and each kid can easily connect with baby llama. Think about participating next year.

Get your copy here.

ERIN CoNdReN LiFe PlaNnEr

So, YES! I couldn't help myself. . .I ordered the Erin Condren Life Planner! I am so excited. . . it is supposed to ship on October 10th. I can't wait to see it. If I love it, maybe I will try her version of the Teacher Plan Book next year. I will post photos when it arrives. . . oh and be sure to check online for available coupon codes.

ERINCONDREN.COM

Web of Understanding..

Since we have been practicing activating our schema, I decided it might be fun to use a book about SPidErs, being October and all...So we thought hard about what we already knew about them. We knew lots of stuff already. Such as they have 8 legs, they are hairy, they have long legs, and they are poisonous. My favorite, they are scary and creepy crawly... (which I think they totally are) After we activated our schema, we read a book about spiders. We learned lots of neat information about these fun animals. After we were done, we made a web of understanding. Each first grader had to say something they learned when they got the ball of string, then throw it to someone else.Presenting our web of understanding.

Hiking boots at a WeDDinG?

So I wanted to teach schema to my students I was kinda bored with my same old lesson, and there are such great things out there for like everything imaginable, so I decided to google it. I came across this site.

http://teacherweb.com/fl/mcdonaldelementary/mrscervone/schemaunitofstudy.pdf

I read through the lesson and thought it would be perfect to help my little firsties schema. I totally wish someone was watching as I did my lesson. It was perfect. It went the way you always want your lesson to go. I did the part with the shoes, and we made an anchor chart. It was a lot of fun. I had the kids rolling with laughter as we talked about my stinky, smelly, hiking boots going to a wedding or my high heels huffing through the forest.

We also made the T-chart with a place that the students were familiar with and a place they were not. I chose our aquatic center, because I knew most of them had been there. I had my students do a think pair share. They were so excited talking about their favorite part, what they like to do, ect. Then we wrote their thoughts on the T chart. Next I wrote Yellowstone on the other side of the T chart and had them think pair share. They were so quiet... when I asked about their thoughts, all I got was stones and yellow. We then talked about why they were so quiet and how important schema is for helping us understand the story.

They were so curious about what Yellowstone was, I found a short book on it and read it to them. Then we watched Old Faithful on youtube. They loved it.... I can't wait to try some of the other ideas in this lesson.