My Thankful Turkeys

Our unit of study about harvest, ended in a brief celebration of Thanksgiving, due to the huge winter storm. 

In our brief time, each student acknowledged something that they were thankful for, after we had a whole group discussion about being fortunate. 

Students wrote about it, and then decorated their "Thankful Turkeys."

The First Snowfall

Students entered the classroom today, bubbling with excitement over the weather!  It was snowing!  One by one they came in off the bus, bundled like little Eskimos.




Many students this year in our class are new from Puerto Rico and have never witnessed snow before, let alone play in it!





We worked all morning, and I watched as they looked longingly out the window, at the beautiful, peaceful snow, falling to the ground. 






So at recess, they bundled up again and went out to play in it...just for a little bit.

Some students made snow balls, some were trying to make little snowmen.  It was wet snow, and it fascinated the students that it stuck together.  We got some fresh air and some exercise in our winter wonderland. 

Students catching snowflakes.

Celebracion de Puerto Rico

Ayer nuestra escuela tuvo nuestra celebración anual de Puerto Rico y su cultura. Este año nuestro tema era alimentos de Puerto Rico y platos tipicos.

We began preparing by researching information about foods from Puerto Rico.  However, when we showed the students photos of the foods, the students had more than enough information to contribute about the foods. 

We immediately recognized that these students needed to share their experiences during the show.  We also incorporated a song, and several students interviewed staff about their favorite Puerto Rican dish. 

Our Puerto Rico Day celebration was a success!

Agricultural Center

Recently, students in first grade were given an opportunity to visit the Agricultural Center on the Hamburg Fairgrounds.  The theme was "Farm to Table," but really exposed the students to many different aspects of Agriculture. 

There were three stations.  My group began with some holiday favorite foods such as pumpkin and cranberries.  The students discussed the characteristics of these foods and formed hypothesizes about their qualities (sink or float, will it bounce, texture, etc.). 
Meanwhile, two large turkeys observed their conversation with the instructor from behind!
The session ended with a turkey craft.

The second station was about vegetables.  The instructor talked about, passed around, and eventually the students tasted three new vegetables. This session ended with a game.  It was a "turkey footprint" version of musical chairs inside the garage.  The students had to step on a footprint before the music shut off, and they had to "gobble gobble" like turkeys to the music in between.    

The last station was about Thanksgiving.  The instructor read a Thanksgiving book to the students, and then had a discussion with them about the holiday traditions celebrated in their homes.  The students created a pilgrim hat, and ended with a Thanksgiving Bingo game. 

We would like to extend a thank you to our new friends at the Fairgrounds.  They provided this field trip to our students for free.  My group enjoyed themselves. 

Community Brochures

Students in room 120 just finished a unit on community.  We have discussed, and studied the characteristics of community, including places, jobs, and members.

In Native Language Arts, we read an informative text about the community of a young girl.  Throughout this story, students were learning to identify the difference between a fiction and a non-fiction text, and also some of the key features of an informative text.  For example, students learned about photographs, captions, subtitles, etc. 

Our final project for the unit was to create a brochure of our community, using the same characteristics in an informative text.

NYS: CCLS:ELA & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, & Technical Subjects PreK-5, NYS: 1st Grade , Reading: Literature
Responding to Literature 11. Respond to literature by employing knowledge of literary language, textual features, and forms to read and comprehend, reflect upon, and interpret literary texts from a variety of genres and a wide spectrum of American and world cultures.
	11. Make connections between self, text, and the world around them (text, media, social interaction).

NYS: Social Studies Core Curriculum, NYS: 1st Grade , My Family and Other Families Content Understandings
My family and other families
	Families and different kinds of families exist in all communities and societies though they may differ.
Challenge of meeting needs and wants
	Communities provide facilities and services to help satisfy the needs and wants of people who live there.
	Through work, people in communities earn income to help meet their needs and wants.

 
 
 
 
 

Fall Celebration!

Whether it's pumpkins, candy, or putting on a costume, there was a lot of excitement today during our harvest celebration!
The students began by working together in small groups to design a face for their pumpkin.  Most students chose a happy face, some a spooky face. They chose geometric shapes in their design, and then the team had to agree on which student's design would go on the pumpkin.   


One group had difficulty choosing.  Both students were adamant that their design should go on the pumpkin.  The discussion was getting heated.  I told them that they had to decide, or that their pumpkin would not get a face. 

About ten minutes later, they called me over.  The one little boy said, "Yeah Miss, I decided to go with M's design.  His looks good too, and we will use mine next time."  Thumbs up to this group for their problem-solving skills. 


We carved a total of fourteen pumpkins between two classrooms!  Many students said they had never carved a pumpkin before.  Students loved exploring the squishy, slimy pumpkin pulp today, as they separated the seeds.




In the afternoon, some students chose to wear costumes and some students had their faces painted as we celebrated the end of autumn in a parade around the school. 

Burchfield Art Center

Today we traveled to the Burchfield Art Center.  The students were so excited to be outside exploring nature.  







Students were instructed to pay attention to their senses; What did they see?  What could they hear?  smell?  How did different objects feel?




My group began by exploring the creek.  It was very shallow, but slippery.  Two boys immediately began exploring the different rocks under their feet.  I listened as they compared the shapes and sizes of the different rocks.  


 
Other students enjoyed throwing them into the water, trying to skip a stone.  They were experimenting with the different ways to throw the stone, in order to get it to skip in the water.  Yet another student really enjoyed trying to climb up the embankment.


Next we began our hike through the woods.....although any chance of running into an animal was lost on our group. They were so excited to begin exploring, many were running and yelling down the trails.  I think I actually saw animals running for cover when they heard us coming. 

The students were very observant; they commented on the leaves, the sticks, the bird houses.  We discovered several arrangements of branches that could be forts for the children to play under. 

The colors of the leaves were really accented by the dark, gloomy skies.  As we began our observational drawings, the collection of beautiful leaves that had fallen to the ground, became a fun game, and also souvenirs of our trek through the woods.      

My friend Orfrelis was captivated by this
sculpture, and insisted that he had
dreamed about it.