Magical Monday

On Monday we (Basic Skills) discussed the story we read on Friday, titled Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. A great story that I read as a child, and was glad to see that the students enjoyed it as well. We have written down on a poster, "If I had a magic pebble I would..." and there were many creative answers. A popular answer was to become invisible, to own a lot of toys, or to become an animal. After we shared, we read a silly, fun book titled, Alice the Fairy. Without real magical powers, Alice is a little girl with a huge imagination. The students really enjoyed this silly book, and then wrote and drew what their one magical power would be if they could have one.

Some of these reading comprehension activities were turned into a book, and some will be taken home (for Basic Skills). Skippyjon Jones was turned into a book, and the students helped me to sequence them using, "first," "middle," and "last," in the order of the story. Each paper was held up one by one, and students were able to compliment each other on their art work, as well as bragging rights for seeing theirs shown in front of the whole class. :) It was great to see first graders looking through the work of their classmates and "re-reading" the story in their peers' voices and illustrations.

On Wednesday, we read The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs! by Jon Scieszka. The students were to think about whether the wolf was really "big and bad," or if he was telling the truth and was nice. Students were to write what they thought about the wolf after hearing his side of the story. It was interesting to see what they thought, and 12 of the students thought that he was actually innocent and nice, while 8 of the students thought he was really a bad, mean and lying wolf. They did a great job on the illustrations too!

In Math for the Kindergarteners, we have been measuring objects in the classroom using different tools. A couple days ago we traced and cut out our foot onto paper, and used that to measure. The students enjoyed using that, a ruler, and unifix cubes to measure. Tomorrow we will be doing a review on graphs, and make our own involving pets that we have at home.

On Friday, we plan to read (K/1) Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and write what we predict for the future. "In 100 years, I think..." and they will fill in what they think it will be like in the world, and also draw a picture of what they imagine it to be.

I came across this site, which allows students to write words in a virtual pencil, save it, and play it, meaning that they can see how they wrote the letters. It is a really great tool to learn words, letters or numbers, and to practice writing from the top. This can even help students with using a mouse on the computer. Here is the link below, enjoy!

http://www.kented.org.uk/ngfl/games/writingRepeater_v5.html