100th day and Powerful Learning

Boy am I ever in love with my new blog layout.  As you can see, I dedicated a lot of my free time this weekend to updating and enhancing our class blog.  I hope you all like it.  I mentioned that I taught a little social media class to my colleagues this past week.{What did you all think of the youtube video I posted?  Pretty mind boggling huh?!!}  I guess my presentation pushed me to want to make some changes to my blog.  I am a big penny pincher so I am all for freebies and I completed all these blog updates on my own thanks to some great tutorials that I found via Pinterest and some of my all time favorite bloggers. 

Aside from blogging this weekend, I was a pretty busy lady.  Cleaning and taking care of two little ones is enough to fill up my days.  However, on top of the usual I was preparing to be out of the classroom on Monday and Tuesday to attend The Powerful Learning Conference.  As a team PLC leader in my school district, I get the opportunity to go to this conference every year.  I am very much looking forward to learning from some exemplary schools.  I'll be sure to come back and let you in on some of the fab things I'm sure to learn.

My little firsties were very busy this past week.  We continued making inferences this week in reading with some of my favorite poems written by Eloise Greenfield.  The kiddies were in love with these poems as much as I am!!  I love it when their little minds get so revved up for learning. It was also the 100th day of school on Friday.  This kids came dressed liked they were 100 years old {another fab Pinterest find}.  They were so adorable.  We completed the activities that were in Deanna Jumps 100th day unit.  You can check it out here. Here's a little peek at what we did this past week.

We dressed like we were 100 years old on the 100th day of school!

Writing 100 words.

Race to 100 game from Deanna Jumps 100th Day unit.

Visualizing with Honey I Love

Visualizing with Honey I Love

Next week, I plan to pull out my little Inference Investigations.  This is a great follow up activity pack to your introductory lessons on inferencing.  If you haven't checked it out....it is a MUST.  Head on over to Abby's store now and pick it up.

We have finished our little unit on Martin Luther King, Jr. so I am getting ready to teach our weather unit to the kids.  I LOVE teaching about weather.  I have been busy creating a nonfiction literacy unit on weather.  I have officially got it posted to TpT....FINALLY!!!  Here's a little sneak peek at what's inside.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Primary-Weather-Literacy-and-Science-Activities

New Look....continued

I've been playing around with the look of my blog today.  I was finally able to get the fonts changed on my title and date!  So excited about this.  I also changed my signature line again.  A BIG thanks to Kevin and Amanda and The Cutest Blog on the Block for their amazing tutorials.  I never would have been able to do these things if it wasn't for their awesome help!!!

New Year...New Look

The first month in the 2013 year has almost come to an end.  I taught a class to my colleagues on social media.  Specifically how to set up a Facebook class page {you can search for our class by typing in Mrs. Hogan's Fabulous First Grade in the search box}, using Pinterest in education, and setting up and managing a class blog.  I decided after the course that I would change the look of our blog for the new year.   I also added this fancy little signature line to my posts.  Just thought I would try it all out today.  I have lots of pictures to post from this week, so I'll be back sometime this weekend to get that up.  In the meantime, enjoy the new layout and have a great weekend!

Honoring MLK, Jr.

This past week I introduced Martin Luther King, Jr. to my firsties.  I introduced this great civil rights leader with a little video of the book Martin’s Big Words by Doreen Rapport.  I got my little video from Streaming Discovery.  Click HERE to see it.  {WARNING:  This site requires a subscription to view}  If you’re a teacher you definitely need Streaming Discovery if you don’t already have it.  I use it so much for my little ones when teaching Social Studies and Science.  The video clips are amazing and it brings the concepts to life for my kiddies.

I got this FAB unit from Megan Mitchell at TpT called  MLK, Jr. Unit for Primary Teachers.  It’s a great little unit.  My kiddies were in LOVE with the Martin Luther King, Jr. Song.  We sung that thing several times and they didn’t want to stop I tell you!!  I heard them humming and singing the words to the song for the rest of the day. 

I’ve read lots of books on Martin Luther King Jr.  We’ve also learned about some of the other famous individuals of that time through literature, such as Rosa Parks and Ruby Bridges.  We added some interesting words to our words chart such as equality, freedom, hope, change, dream, world.  We made these cute little MLK, Jr. silhouettes.  The students had to choose three of our new interesting words {vocabulary words} to add to their silhouettes.  We then glittered them all up to make em’ fancy and voila we have some Kingly Words to add to our hallway décor.

                     

 

                    

We also did this little MLK, Jr. Was, Had, Wanted chart to display our learning on Martin Luther King. Jr.  The kiddies LOVED our little egg experiment too.  I bought some brown eggs and white eggs at the store, brought them into school, and discussed their differences.  Of course the kids mentioned the color and size of the eggs.  Cracked em’ open and let the kids see that they were the same in the inside.  This prompted a great conversation on equality.  LOVE my little firsties and their innocence.  They were truly appalled to learn of some of the things that happened in that time frame to individuals of color.  They have so much love and kindness for all….as it should be! 

In the eye’s of a child you’ll see….the world as it should be!  Source:  unknown

What's in Mrs. Hogan's Bag?....Making Inferences

I love teaching the kids about inferences.  I'll give you a sneak peek on one of our lessons on using our schema and clues to make inferences.  I want to give a shout out to Abby over at The Inspired Apple .  She posted this lesson on teaching inferences and I just had to do this with my kiddies.  Click HERE for the original post on her blog.

To start the lesson we looked through the contents of one of Mrs. Hogan's bags.  The students then made inferences on what all the stuff meant. {Why was it there?} It was a nice introductory lesson.  We will continue with making inferences next week.   We've started making inferences using texts in class and I can't wait to show you the learning that is taking place in our classroom! You can see what we did last year HERE.  Also don't forget to check out last weeks post.  I finally updated with pictures of what the kids did for math stations and also put some more information out there about the math stations we did in class.  You can check out that post HERE.

Station Sensation

Wow!  What a busy week it has been!  I feel like I am just trying to play catch up.  In early December I attended the MO First and Second Grade Conference.  I came away with some exciting ideas for starting math stations.  My goal was to come back home and try and figure out a way that I could squeeze this into our already busy schedules.  So, I rearranged some time/activities that take place in our rooms and voila!  math stations have arrived in our classroom.  We didn't just start math stations, we also added another station into our daily 5 rotations.  The students now go to Read to Self, Work with Words literacy and phonics stations, Read to Someone, Listen to Reading, and Work on Computers stations (once a month).  During math, the students are taught a mini-lesson before they complete their assigned work.  After they complete their math for the day, they are then able to complete the math stations.  The kids are in LOVE with the new stations and they work really hard to get through them every day.  

I have also decided that since we only have the computers for one full week each month that I would try to incorporate a little more technology into our daily routine.  Next week will be our first week for our iPad Station.  Students will use the iPad as a reading station for one full week each month as well.  Some of the kids noticed the iPads in the room earlier today and asked if we were going to use them.  They were beyond excited!  I just know this is going to add the extra something they needed to keep them motivated throughout the rest of the year.  

The following week, I will introduce iPods.  I have four iPods for fluency stations in my classroom.  Students will record themselves reading and listen to their reading.  They will then try to improve their fluency.  With the computers, iPads, and iPods our class will be using a variety of technology throughout the remainder of the school year.  Keep coming back for more updates on how this technology is improving the learning in our classroom.  

It seems as if the PTO movie night was once again a success tonight.  My daughter loved the movie {and the running around}.  We are now home lounging on the couch, however, I failed to bring my device with the pictures of our math stations and work with words stations home.  I'll do my best to get those posted by the end of the weekend.  Enjoy the coming weather and be safe.


Here are some of the pictures I got of the students doing some of their math tubs this week. A lot of these great stations have come from units I have purchased off of Teachers Pay Teachers.  Some of my favorite authors/teachers are Cara Carroll, Deanna Jump, and Abby Mullins.  I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE their creativity and the students always enjoy their literacy and math stations.  I also got some great ideas for math games and daily 5 in math from Shannon Samulski.  Pictured below you will see the kids playing Bump.  There are many variations of this game, but since this was the first time the kids had played it we did the *simple* version.  {roll the dice, add the numbers, cover the sum}  This great activity helps kids with exploratory learning.  I love the idea of the kids being able to continually practice and review what has been taught.  These activities really get the kids thinking about numbers and what they mean.  LOVE!!!  You can check out her great things at Strategic Intervention Solutions.  Check her out HERE.

Kids playing bump

Coin Toss {writing addition sentences}

Non-units standard of measurement {How many snowflakes tall are you?}

Fall 2012 Picture Review

I hope your holiday vacation left you relaxed and ready for 2013.  As I was thumbing through all my photos for the year, I noticed several pictures that I failed to post.  Therefore, I decided to post these pictures as a review of some of the great things we did this past fall. Some of the pictures that you see are repeats {I previously posted them} and others are newbies.   I am ready for the spring semester and am looking forward to what 2013 will bring for your child.  Happy New Years!

Christmas Graphs, Glyphs, & Gingerbread Houses

Thanksgiving Feast

Santa and the Star Search {Thank you to Susan Williams for the pictures}

Class List {2012-2013}

So happy to have you all in my class!

Jitter Juice {first week of school}

Writer's Workshop

Recess

Recess

Read to Someone

Math Grahing

Writing Craftivity

Listening Station

Reading, Writing, Social Studies

Verb:  That's What's Happening

Nouns

Paws for Reading {I will get updated numbers for you and show you our final board...it's quite impressive}

Retell Rope

CAFE Board {beginning of the year}

Angry Verbs

The Making of Pete the Cat

Editing

Habitats

The end result of our Pumpkin Investigations Day