dental health

The last 2 days of February, we focused on dental health. I found a nice *free* mini unit of literacy centers from Doodle Bugs Teaching's Tpt store that we used and a couple of ideas from other places on the web.

We made a diagram of a tooth and labeled the different layers -
We wrote How to Brush Your Teeth -
We made a cute toothbrush and wrote 3 facts on the bristles -
We wrote about what we think the tooth fairy does with all of the teeth -

celebrating president's day

This week has been fun-filled! On Monday, we went to the Atlanta Zoo and Wednesday, Thursday and today we learned about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. I found 2 really good clips about these two presidents and a fun song that the kids loved watching on Pinterest. (You can check out the other cool president's day things I pinned here). Seriously, we listened to the president song ALOT! We learned lots of facts about these two presidents and recorded 3 facts onto a recording sheet for each president. These handy-dandy recording sheets came from this awesome and *free* president's day pack from first grade fanatics. We made George Washington, too. I saw how to make his hat at the first grade parade.

We also made Abraham Lincoln and did a writing activity to go along with his hat. I printed the pattern for ol'Honest Abe and the writing sheet from this awesome and *free* president's day pack. We learned that President Lincoln used to keep important papaers in his hat, so I had the girls make a list of things they would keep in their hat. I love it!

Gracelyn's list read - "In my hat, I would keep - a book, a snack, my water bottle, my cat, a marker, a pack of gum, money, my camera, MobiGo, movies, TV, iPod and phone."

We talked about the difference between common and proper nouns. I printed off these neat sentences (also free) that we used to help us distinguish proper nouns from common nouns from here. I also had the girls do a writing activity about what they would do when they become president that came from one of the packs.

100th day ~ woot woot!

To celebrate our 100th day, we broke from our "normal routine" and had some fun! We put 100 gumballs into a gumball machine with our Do-A-Dot markers. By far the highlight of their day :)

We also played a tally mark game with dice and a recording sheet. This activity was a great way to reinforce tallying and counting by 5s. We worked on a 'I Can Write 100 Words' book throughout the day that I got from first grade fever, drew ourselves at 100 and made a 100th day trail mix! I printed off the tally mark game, drawing paper and estimation recording sheets from what the teacher wants.

it's groundhog day!

We actually did all of our groundhog activities yesterday because today we are celebrating our 100th day of school! Woot Woot ~ only 80 more days to go for this school year!! More about our 100th day tomorrow.
We started our morning off by writing down what we already know about groundhogs. The girls knew 2 facts - they are mammals and live underground. Not too bad :) Then we looked up information about them on the internet and recorded the new information onto index cards. After we got the factual stuff out of the way, we had fun with the tradition of groundhog day! We talked about predictions and predicted whether or not we thought the groundhog was going to see his shadow. We called some of the grandparents and aunts and got their predictions and recorded all of our data onto a graph that I printed from Growing Kinders. Today, we have to write a sentence about what really happened.

We wrote 6 facts onto this adorable graphic organizer that I also printed from the groundhog pack from Growing Kinders.

Then they drew burrows and did a little creative writing as if they were the groundhogs.

We did a word search that I printed from a cupcake for the teacher.

To finish off the day, we did a little quick and easy craftivity ~ a groundhog made from hearts, googlie eyes and a black pompom. Easy Peasy!

walruses

This week we are focusing on walruses! Do you know much about these creatures? Well, we didn't and we have been finding out all kinds of cool stuff about them. Like - did you know that walruses use their tusks to help pull themselves up out of the water? That's pretty cool and I love how God created each animal uniquely and gave them things that they would need to help them survive in the wild.

We started the week off pretty much the same way with me asking the girls what they already know about walruses. They were able to come up with 4 facts which I recorded and placed in our pocket chart. We read some information on them from a book we picked up from the library and wrote down the new information we learned and added those facts to our chart. Then we got on the national geographic kids website and read more facts and watched a short clip about walruses and then wrote down even more facts!

I think I came up with this idea for the walrus craft. I did see something similiar on a website, but I tweaked it a little and came up with the idea to make him or her into a paper bag puppet. I had the girls write and draw 3 facts that they have learned so far about walruses on this journaling sheet from Mrs. Jump.

They ended our walrus learning by labeling a walrus. I found the image on google and created this sheet in Word, but was totally inspired by Jennifer at First Grade Blue Skies and Mrs. Jump! Jennifer, by the way, makes the cutest label it sheets EVER! Go check them out here :)