Self Portraits and Choice Time

We have ended our days with time to work on our self portrait project and choice time. Our self portraits will take a while to complete, but it'll all be worth it! They always turn out well and then hang on our walls all year. We are using the collage technique to make the self portraits--cutting and gluing paper. First, students had to create a background with warm or cool colors using watercolor paint. Then students mixed red, yellow, white, and black paint to make their skin tone. They then traced the shape of their head and shoulders and cut it out to glue onto their background paper. Next week, students will complete their self portraits by adding facial features, hair, and clothing.

Reading Workshop

I told students on Tuesday that they are so lucky to be first graders because they get lots of time to read and explore books every day during our Reading Workshop (and other times during the day too). They seem pretty excited about Reading Workshop so far. We've started talking about the kind of readers we are by sharing our favorite books, finding books to read about topics we're interested in, and discussing and drawing our favorite places to read. Here are a few pictures from Friday's Reading Workshop. Enjoy!

A peek at our Writing Workshop

This video will give you a glimpse of the independent practice portion of our Writing Workshop. This is when students work on their writing pieces, and I go around to several students per day and hold writing conferences. I try to meet with each student once or twice a week for a conference. Enjoy the video!

Sketchcast

Today, students practiced number formation for the numbers 1 and 2 in math. They got to use their Everyday Math Journals for the first time! I invited children up to our interactive whiteboard to write one of the numbers for the class. Everyone modeled top-down formation. That is, we always start at the top when forming letters and numbers. They loved using our "Magic Pen" on the interactive whiteboard (which we refer to as the "Smartboard").

Tomorrow, students will review number formation and I will be modeling number writing using Sketchcast, a great movie-like tool available online. Check out a sample below. My microphone is not currently working, so you can't hear my voice. If you could, I'd be "coaching" about how to form numbers 1 and 2. And I was "writing" with my mouse, so pardon the shaky-looking number one! :-)

A few photos from Week 1

Here are a few photos taken during a choice time last week. Students had many choices, but pattern blocks were the most popular by far! We began work on our big self-portrait project, which goes along with our "All About Me" science/social studies unit. Students chose warm or cool color paint for their backgrounds. Please keep checking back for more photos and information!

Our Classroom Jobs

Here's a photo of our job chart. Students have a different classroom job each day. Ask your child which jobs he/she has done so far!

Happy Friday Morning!

We have a great new technology tool in the classroom called a Flip Video camera. I took a short video of the students in line, right before they came into school today. Check it out!

Testing, testing, 1-2-3!

I am testing a great new photo-sharing application. These are photos from our Step-Up Day back in June. Please note two of our students were not there. :-(

Please stay tuned for more photos from this week! Coming soon!

The First Week of School

Wow! The first few days of school really flew by! I have really enjoyed getting to know all of the students, and I am looking forward a great year in first grade. This week, we wrote a newsletter with highlights from the first few days that will be sent home in your child's green folder on Friday. Each time we write a newsletter, I will add a link on the left side of this page for you to see this week's newsletter. Eventually, I hope the blog can take the place of a printed newsletter. But first I need to get into the new routine of blogging and figure out if this mode of communication works for most families.

Enjoy the long weekend!

Open House is Coming!

I am happy to say that the classroom is now all ready for students! Our Open House is this Tuesday, September 1st, from 8:00-9:00 a.m. I hope to see everyone there! Remember, school starts on Wednesday morning at 8:30, and it looks like we'll have a gorgeous day. We'll be sure to get a little extra outdoor time to help ease back into the school routine. Enjoy the last few days of summer! :-)