Generating Questions

Students will generate questions.
Was anyone else worried about this Common Core standard?  Well, I was!  I think that I ask pretty good questions and my students usually give pretty good answers!  My students can even tell you if a question is a Right There question or an Author and Me question.   I mean, I teach the enrichment group, I ask them enriching questions and they give enriching answers:-).  But, have the students ask the questions?  First of all, I am the teacher, I ask the questions!  Second of all, they DO NOT understand what a question is.  You know what I am talking about.  During a lesson, on a field trip, when we have an assembly or guest and the students are asked, "Do you have any questions?"  They ALWAYS tell a STORY!!!

So, yes, I was a little worried.  Okay, a lot worried.  It is what I chose for my DP.... DPP...IPDP....that professional goal thing I chose to work on during the school year!
I have been modeling asking questions before, during and after reading all school year.  After Winter Break, I started handing the questioning over to the students.  Guess what?  They ROCKED it!

Here is what we did.
We made an anchor chart with question words.

I kept using "I wonder" as a stem.  This REALLY helped them generate question words!
Next I showed them the cover of The Hat by Jan Brett.  (We were in the middle of a Jan Brett author study.)  We came up with some questions.   Then I read the story.  I had the students raise their hands if they figured out an answer to one of our "before" questions or came up with new questions.  I wrote down any new questions.  At the end of the story we came up with some more questions.

The next day I showed the cover of Hedgie's Surprise.  This time I gave each student a sticky note and they had to write their own Before Question.  Most of them came up with some REALLY good questions.  They placed their stickies under Before.  Sorry, I don't have a picture of the poster!  We continued this activity with several other Jan Brett stories, focusing on the Before and During questions.  In the next few weeks we will be working on using deeper level questions and what to do if our question is not answered in the story.  And we are going to try this with non-fiction!

Beware of the word If!  They think it is a question word.  I let them use it at the beginning, but am now guiding them to choose a question word that can take its place!  (Notice it is on our anchor chart, but has a * by it!)

Moral of the story....first and second graders CAN generate questions while reading literature!  Several times this year, I have stepped back and given more responsibility to the students.  I admit that this is not easy for me, but every single time I have "given up control" I have been impressed with what they do and the discussions they have on their own!
Meredith

Florida Snowmen

It was 81* here today....It is January 12th!  Welcome to winter in Florida.  Mother Nature makes it a bit challenging to teach winter around here!   I decided to use this as a writing activity last week.

First I told the students about the snow I experienced in Indiana over Winter Break and showed them a few pictures.  Next, I read There Was and Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow.  You all know what happens at the end....a snowman pops out!  This led to a discussion about what would happen if we made a snowman in Florida!  (And of course, we ALL had to share our stories of playing in snow, being in a blizzard, etc.  Most of which were not true a bit exaggerated since most of my little lovelies have never been out of the state of Florida.)
I gave the students this planning sheet to write their own stories.

It is nothing fancy, but it worked.  (I MIGHT have decided to do this activity the last Sunday night of Winter Break and I MIGHT have whipped it up right before I went to bed so I would keep my sanity the first day back from having 2 weeks off.) The students added little notes to help them when they wrote their stories.  Click the pic ABOVE if you would like a copy.

FINALLY, we made these cute "Florida Snowmen".

Thank you Jennifer from First Grade Blue Skies for the adorable craft idea!  She has a lot of great ideas.  Go check out her blog!
Meredith

FABULOUS Flash Drive Giveaway

Check out this AMAZING giveaway at Rockin' Teacher Materials!  It is grade level specific, so it is perfect for everyone.  (My Winter Math Unit is one of the first grade prizes!!!)  Click the pic to enter.

Meredith

Blogging Resolution, New Unit, and a Giveaway!

No excuses but I promise not to be a blogging slacker in the new year!  Don't take it personally, I have neglected my classroom blog too:-).
I am in Indiana for Winter Break.  I said I wanted to see snow.....but um, I have seen enough and am ready to head back to the sunshine state!  I do have to say it is probably the prettiest snowfall I have experienced!

WAY too cold!

Siloh is not a fan of deep snow!  It went up to his neck
and that was before the additional 5 inches yesterday.

This winter weather did inspire me to create a Winter Math Unit.
Click the picture below to see it at my TPT store!

It is $6, but you can get it for free!  Leave me a comment below telling me your favorite winter activity that you do with your class.  I will choose 2 random comments tomorrow!  Make sure to leave your email address.

My team has a lot of great ideas planned for January.  I am doing a Jan Brett author's study right after break and then my favorite......PENGUINS!!!  I will share our ideas with you soon! 

Stay warm!

Meredith

Cranberry Day!

Why do the "short" weeks always seem so long?  And why do I always try to cram so much into them?  We had school Monday and Tuesday this week.  I admit I am a bit jealous of those of you who had the entire week off!  (Especially since I am blogging from an airport.  My flight doesn't leave until 6:00 tonight.  Then I have a layover in Atlanta.  Yes, I know it is the night before Thanksgiving and there will be millions of people in the Atlanta airport!  Am I crazy?  No, it was the most reasonably priced flight and I am a teacher.  You need no further explanation!)

On Monday, we had Cranberry Day.  We used a lot of the activities from the packet on TPT from Sailing Through 1st Grade.  Click the pic to check it out!

I started our day by showing a cranberry.  We created a bubble map about cranberries.  (Thinking Maps, anyone?)  Then we predicted if cranberries would sink or float.  

I was sooooooo impressed and excited that most predicted float and justified their prediction based on what we learned from the pumpkin and pumpkin seeds sink or float investigations!  We tested our predictions!

Next we watched a video from YouTube called From Bog to Table.  It was very informational and the kids really enjoyed seeing the bogs being flooded.  

A volunteer (Mrs. Fischer's mom who is a retired teacher....those make the best volunteers!)  read A Cranberry Thanksgiving to us.  It is a great book I enjoy sharing every Thanksgiving.

After that we did a taste test.  I tweaked the one in the packet.  We tried cranberry bread (the recipe from the book above), a dried cranberry, cranberry sauce, a sugared cranberry, and cranberry juice).

Of course we graphed our results!  I was surprised how many liked the cranberry sauce....I am personally NOT a fan!

The most popular activity of the day was The Freshness Test!  Did you know that if a cranberry bounce, it is fresh? We each bounced one and they all were fresh!

Look closely, you can see the cranberry in mid air!

There are lots of other activities throughout the day.  The packet includes a great printable book with lots of facts about cranberries.  I recommend it!

I have created a Jolly Jumbled Sentences activity.  It is available on TPT for $1.  Click the picture below to check it out!  

Happy Turkey Day!   (My first flight has just been delayed, lets hope I make it to Indiana before dawn!)

Meredith 

Thanksgiving Freebie....and a Teacher Confession

Yikes!  We only have 6 school days until Thanksgiving Break!  There are too many cute Thanksgiving activities to get done in 6 days!
I started creating my Totally Turkey Math Unit before Halloween.......and kind of got distracted.  I am a little sad since I had some great ideas and fabulous new Thanksgiving clip art.  Since now you will only have a few days to use the activities, I decided to publish what I have, make it a mini unit and make it FREE!
There are Roll and Colors, Skip Counting pages, and an Addition and Subtraction Sort.  Like I said...MINI unit!
Click the cute turkey below to head on over to my TPT store to grab it for free!  Just leave me some feedback here or on TPT.

Now for my teacher confession!  

Did you know there was a NEW JUNIE B. book?  Yup, it is a Thanksgiving one.  I found it in August and have been sooooo excited to read it to my class.  I didn't read it ahead of time, which has made my daily read aloud a little different.  Like most first grade teachers, I basically have all of the Junie B.'s memorized and have certain voices for each character.  This time, I am cracking up right along with the kids because I don't know whats going to happen next.  I am loving it!

Well, last Thursday I had a sub in the afternoon for my grade level's PLC time.  This means my sub GOT TO READ A CHAPTER OF THE NEW JUNIE B. BOOK....I reluctantly put it in my sub plans.  Then the sub walked in.  I just couldn't do it.  I quick pulled a scarecrow book off my fall shelf and said, "Here read this instead of Junie. B."  And might have hid the Junie B. book behind a math tub.  

Do any of you insist on doing certain activities with your class or am I a crazy control freak of a teacher?   

Meredith

We Survived!!!!

 I am talking about Halloween week of course!  I am still trying to find out who I send my petition to about having Halloween permanently moved to the last Friday in October instead of October 31st.

We always do pumpkin math and science activities with our classes to help us keep the students engaged and learning (in spite of the candy and goblins on our brains) but this year we stepped it up a notch!  On Tuesday we had Super Science Spooktacular Day!  Each class got to visit the teachers on our team for a science investigation.  The investigations were Halloween themed.  (One was fire safety since it was still fire safety month.)  This way the students got to do 4 investigations, but each teacher only had to plan and prepare for one!

Some of the activities came from the fabulous Deanna Jump, others were from us.  The day was a HUGE success!  How could it not be since dry ice, fire, water and spiders were involved? The activities were very cool and the kiddos loved them, but I was most excited that the students were able to tell me the science concept they learned in each room!
If you want to see pictures and get more details, click the monkey below.  It will take you to the post on my classroom blog.

Meredith