earmal Reports

This last nine weeks the first graders studied about animals and insects. We did a K-W-L chart to start off our lesson. Then the students had to choose an animal that they wanted to learn more about. Students then googled their animal and read about their animal and decided if that is what they wanted to learn more about. Their assignment was to find six facts about their animal that they did not know anything about and write their facts down on a worksheet type of form. Some of the students chose to go to the library and find books about their particular animal. We spent a lot of time working on this because their final product was going to be an animal report that they had written after finding all their facts. We did some editing, using correct spelling, punctuation, etc. The students then re-wrote their report in their best handwriting and drew a picture to go with their report. Then we had an author's tea where we invited our parents to come in and listen to their child read their report. I found images of their animals off of Google and took pictures of their animals and made flipcharts for each one of the animals the students chose. When the parents came to our author's tea, I projected the image of their animal using the promethean board. This way the parents knew what animal the author was reading about and they could see the image on the board with the author's name (for example Bears by Carlos). The parents were very impressed with the student's work and this was a way of getting parent involvement. We served refreshments to our parents after our author's readings. I also posted one of the students work on podbean.com. I recorded four of my students reading one of their facts regarding their animal, but only posted one. It was a good experience for me. The students also were impressed with their images being projected on the promethean board as they read their animal reports. We had a good turnout of parents and the parents were also impressed.

Snakes

This is a photo of a first grade animal report on snakes. Click on the link to hear one fact from the author's report.

http://titamartinez1.podbean.com/mf/web/haikp3/snakes2.mp3

Since our first graders are learning about simple maps, I found a video on United Streaming entitled, "Understanding Maps: Key to Everywhere." My class watched the video on the promethean board and discussion followed. We had previously read a story from our Houghton-Mifflin anthology book called "Me on the Map." The students then had to go home and draw a simple map of their bedroom. We have also made a map of our playground. The video gave an overview of maps, explained distance, scale, elevation, and grid maps. It also demonstrated points on a compass, how different types of maps show different things, what symbols are, and what a globe is. I feel that this video really helped my students understand maps in other ways besides the simple maps we are creating in the classroom. The video was 15 minutes long and so it kept their attention.

Jon Fisher and I have done a collaborative fall project together. Jon set up the wiki site and our classes did a fall project together. We took some fall pictures, collected leaves, did leaf rubbings, and wrote fall poems. Jon sent me the lesson plan format. He also sent me a copy of the book that I needed for this project. Jon has been very helpful. Anytime I had a question, he was there to answer it for me and to help me with the project. I feel that I am taking a big risk by trying to do everything that is expected of me as a Global Learner, but I feel that without Jon's support I would not be able to do things on my own. Our project is on the wiki site projectfall.pbworks.com. I have shared the pictures and poems that Mr. Fisher's class wrote with my class. My class was very excited about seeing the poems on the site.

I am really enjoying using the promethean board. I use it on a daily basis to do calendar. The calendar for October had weather graphing, message for the day, math ideas such as "Tell me everything that is true about the number ___. I use the number of the date for that day and the children are coming up with some great answers. I write them as they dictate them to me.
We are also doing a collaborative fall project with Jon Fisher's class. I have not yet posted anything on the Wiki site because I'm not sure what to do and have not had time to ask for help. Last week we had fall break so that put us a little behind. I'm going to see if the librarians at the middle school can help me since we do not have a scanner in our building.

I have been using the Promethean board for math. I found a neat flipchart on skip counting by 2's and I start my math lesson every day with this flipchart. It's a good review for my students because I drag a square to a certain number on the hundreds chart and then the student that I pick has to continue dragging every other square all the way to 100. Then we count by 2's from that number. At the end of the lesson it has a Skip Counting Quiz that we could use with the Activotes, but we have not received them yet. However, we still do the quiz. I call on different students to answer the questions. Keeps the students on their toes!

This is my 9th day with my first graders. I found a flipchart with the calendar to use in the classroom. I had to make sure that I could find it every morning and we could use it before I took down the regular calendar that I used to put up. I modeled for the class and each week I choose a student to do calendar. They have learned how to drag the numbers to make up the calendar and it also has patterns that they have to drag. It is really neat because they are learning their numbers, patterns, yesterday was, today is, tomorrow will be...and they have to drag the days of the week and put them where they go. A couple of mornings I've had problems getting the flipchart going, but we keep trying until we get it. I have had to ask a couple of the Global Learners from Center for help. I'm beginning to feel more comfortable with the flipcharts. Tita Martinez from Haskin Elementary