Yesterday we watched our Scholastic News video a hundred times and read through the issue. Once again, it was a good one. I can't say enough how much I love Scholastic News! I just wish they could make some kind of 1/2 split issue just for me..... because the reading level is way above my first graders, but the questions they ask are way below my second graders. Sigh. Still love it.
Today we made the little soldiers from Deanna Jump's Veterans Day Math and Literacy Activities pack. I bought this pack just for the soldier directions because I thought they were SO CUTE. It was a directed art lesson. My kids are incredibly chatty and can be difficult to reign in to give directions, but they were amazing during this activity. I think they were shocked that a little stack of rectangles could be made into something real. Here was the one I made along with them, so, the sample! {We made sure to make some female soldiers... even though I doubt they wear their hair down...haha!}
And here is our little display outside our classroom.
I don't have any bulletin boards outside my classroom so I just masking-tape stuff up on the wall...... The yellow stars I sent home yesterday for my kids to write names of veterans in their families so we can connect what we're learning to home! And, of course, to honor our veterans.
I am super excited about our Veterans Day activity for tomorrow! So check back for that. :)
And a little something extra - today was one of my first grader's birthdays, and they are ALL obsessed with Angry Birds. Some don't even know what Angry Birds are but they still love them, haha! Anyway, my first grader brought Angry Birds cupcakes today and they were cute!
And one last thing! I did the primary spelling inventory for Words Their Way yesterday and the results were amazing to me!! I mean, most of them weren't a surprise but I was kind of surprised at how incredibly high some of my second graders are. I would not have put them into the groups that the assessment indicated, so I'm glad that I did it! I'll start spelling groups next week after I have a chance to figure out what I'm doing! Lots of exclamation points!!
The soldiers look great! And so do the cupcakes...yum! (haha) Looking forward to reading your Veterans Day activity tomorrow. I would love it if you link up your post to my Veteran's Day Linky Party!! :)
ReplyDeletehttp://asurvivalguidetomiddleschool.blogspot.com/2011/11/red-white-and-blue.html
I'm so glad you took the plunge and gave the spelling inventory. I always find the same things to-that kids' spelling levels are not what I expect. One year I had one of my very bright students score really low. I think he had basically taught himself to read so he had skipped over a bunch of important learning and I was shocked that he didn't even consistently know vowel sounds. I've also had low kids score a lot higher than I expected, but I guess those are sometimes the kids we go over every little letter sound with a million times hoping it will help them, so they end up having a good spelling knowledge even if they don't read very well. It shows you that their reading, writing, and spelling levels can be pretty varied! I think you will love being able to differentiate and really meet the specific needs of each student!
ReplyDeleteKeen on Kindergarten
Great activities. No, females in the military don't wear their hair down (my daughter is in the Navy!) LOL
ReplyDeleteI came here from the "Teaching Blog Addict" site because this is a great idea for our Linky Party too this week. The theme is 'Veterans Day' this time.
Would you like to add your post to our site? We're somewhat new, yet getting good traffic already and ranking very well for the search engines.
We'd love to host your 'link' there this week too!
Pam Hoffman
http://conservationofeggs.blogspot.com/2011/11/5th-conservation-linky-honor-our.html
Thank you for adding your link to our link party at conservationofeggs.blogspot.com.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great art project for the kids. I hope this idea spreads to more schools and classrooms.