Pink Day with Elephant and Piggie

One of the books we read this week was Mo Willem's, A Big Guy Took My Ball. It's a sweet read about friendship, misconceptions and inclusion. 

Afterwards, the children drew Gerald (the elephant) and Piggie before adding speech bubbles with anti bullying messages for Pink Day. The art was photographed and the kids voices were captured as the pages were compiled into a digital book for sharing at the Pink Day assembly. 

100 looks like...

We celebrated our 100th day in first grade last week! One of the things we did in anticipation was to fill a bag full of one hundred things. I love how creative everyone was. We had fun labelling and sharing our bags. There was Monopoly money, jewels, cereal, rainbow loom bands, pennies and even more. 

Then we looked closely and compared the bags. We noticed that 100 can look very different from one bag to the next. Miss Jennifer brought in 100 unpopped corn kernels and 100 popped popcorn! That's was very cool...same, same but different. 

We have been practicing estimating in math. Understanding that the size of an object effects the amount of space it can fill has helped us become more accurate estimators. One trick we've learned, when estimating how many objects are in the estimating jar, is to eyeball what ten would look like and figure out about how many groups of ten there might be. 

We've also been busy estimating in our counting books and then counting the objects. The quickest and most accurate way to count is by twos into groups of ten. Then we can quickly count the groups of tens and the ones left over. We're getting better and better! And if we lose track we don't have to start all over again. We're working smarter not harder!

Map of My Heart

We read, My Map Book, by Sara Fanelli which inspired us to look at maps in a new way. While we chuckled at the 'map of my dog' and the 'map of my stomach' it challenged us to think about how we might create our own maps. With Valentine's Day on the horizon we narrowed our focus on the 'map of my heart' and thought, talked and shared ideas about what fills our own hearts and about the the things we love most in the world. 

The students ventured off to create their own personal maps to illustrate and represent what fills their hearts with love. White paper and a sharpie for all. The class settled. The room was calm and quiet as they worked busily on filling their hearts with love. Then came the labelling and finally the painting. 

We hung our maps in the hallway to profess our love for all the wonderful things that make us happy and fill our hearts. 

Gung Hay Fat Choy

Year of the Monkey - 2016

Here are the finished Lunar New Year pieces. They turned out fantastic. Students focused on using shapes to create the main body parts, beginning with a heart shaped face, round head and oval body. Long lines helped create the limbs and tail. Tangerines were added as a symbol of good luck and wealth.