We've been tackling ~FRACTIONS~ the last two weeks in first grade!  I used to dread teaching fractions to 6 year old littles, but thanks to some extra CGI training on fractions...I love it!  

The biggest ah-ha I've learned over the years is that fractions and shapes go together.  They are all under the umbrella of "geometry."  Having math talks about shapes bleeds over into conversations about fractions and vice versa!

We spent the first week talking about the difference between "whole" and "half."  

The first day, I posed a CGI problem...

"Mrs. Shaddock has 1 cookie to give to 2 first graders.  How much cookie can each friend have to get a fair share?"

I love starting with this problem because it sets kids up for a problem....what are they going to call that part of the cookie?  In my experience, most firsties can tell, show or act out the fact that it's a half of a cookie...but not as many know how to label it.   I got a wide variety of answers once again this year...

*1
*1 piece
*1 cookie
*2 cookies
*half

We shared many of these and talked about the fact that if I just say "1" or "1 piece" I don't know how much that is.  When I just say "1" I'm assuming a whole cookie...If I told you I would give you one cookie, but I only gave you one small piece, you would be upset because you assumed I would give you the WHOLE cookie! 

Then, we start our whole/part anchor chart...
Of course, we didn't add the fourths until the second week.  Also, notice the emphasis on this anchor chart on "whole" and "part."  We worked on fraction CGI problems these weeks, but also some part part whole CGI problems and we were able to make some really great connections between these problems and fractions during our share time that made fractions easier to understand!

The next day, we did a few math talks about which shapes were divided in half using the math talk slides from my geometry packet...Then, the next morning, the kids did this sort for morning work (halves/not halves the first week and fourths/not fourths the next week)....

On the last "math skill" day of the week, we played "Pass the Pen," which happens to be the simplest game and one of my first graders' favorites....

Get this:
*Share the paper between your table group and choose a "pen" (or pencil or crayon) to share between your table group.
*One person starts and divides a shape in half/fourth.
*Then, they....wait for it...pass the pen...to the next person at the table who has to divide another shape in half/fourths a different or new way.
*They keep passing the pen until they cannot think of any more new ways.

It's definitely not rocket science, but they love it!  And this game is so good to use in pretty much any subject area!

If a kid doesn't know what to do, they other friends at the table can help him/her and tell her what to do, but can't do it for him....

We did one round of the squares and then shared pictures and talked about if they were halves/fourths and why or why not.  We talked a lot about being precise and how that affects the partitioning.  And for whatever reason, squiggly lines were quite popular this year, so we had to talk about that too!

Once we discussed the squares they flipped their paper to the other side and played the same game with circles.

At the end of the activity, I had them pass the pen to assess the squares together and then self-assess the circles as a group.  Love these smiley face grades! :)

Fractions came after all of our 2D and 3D shape exploration in geometry, and our next step will be symmetry...but that will probably be after Christmas break!  We are about to be in full on assessment mode in my world! #keepinitreal

Grab these activities and more in my complete geometry packet!
One of my favorite units to teach is fables.  My Common Core Unit I use for this is Life Lessons.  I love teaching kids to read and learn from characters' mistakes!  Plus, let's face it: fables are just some of the best stories to read...that's why they've been around so long!

I especially love when fables or other stories make it easy to weave in some economics into first grade because that means I can "kill 2 birds with 1 stone."

Last year, I blogged about how I use The Little Red Hen during Thanksgiving season.  But I love this book...and I just didn't have time to blog about everything I do with this book...so I'm back again this year blogging about more of the economics I tie in with this fable.  {Read last year's blog for more of the Thanksgiving stuff!}

We spent all last week reading this book...with a new purpose each day!

Day 1

We read The Little Red Hen with the purpose of deciding if it was a fable or not.  We had already discussed the elements of a fiction story and how even though this story was about animals, it was not a non-fiction animals book like we were used to from our previous animals unit.

{Grab these fiction anchor chart cards along with non-fiction anchor chart cards here.}

Then, we discussed and charted what a fable was and how it was a special genre of fiction...

After we read the story, we used our fables anchor chart to decide if it was a fable or not.

Day 2

The next day, we reread the story with the purpose of deciding what the life lesson or moral of the story was.  Then, we added our moral to our group sign....{each of my table groups are named for a fable from this unit}

These covers and moral cut outs are included in the Life Lessons Unit.

Day 3

On day 3, we reread the story and listened for goods and services the hen used to make her cake.  We charted them, and then they sorted in partners.  Then, we sorted and checked together on the anchor chart.

Day 4

Day 4 was a repeat of day 3 except with resources instead of goods/services.

Here's some partner work....

Our big idea board is already filling up with anchor charts after only a week into this unit!

Day 5

On the last day of the week, we reread the book and wrote about the characters, setting, beginning, middle and end and the life lesson of this fable.  We did this graphic organizer as a guided writing activity where they copied everything we wrote together...but by the end of the unit, they will be able to do this independently!  It's so fun to see the transformation!

Yes...this was a drawn out process for this book, but I've learned over the years that slower is better sometimes with fables.  My first year with this unit, I tried to cram in as many fables as possible and it just wasn't as effective as picking a few good ones and doing them well...this process will speed up to about 2 fables each week (or a new fable every 3 days) once we get better at the routine though!

Grab all of the materials for this fable HERE.  Or get the whole Life Lessons Unit with all 8 fables and SAVE!
   
Happy Veteran's Day!  We had a busy day in first grade celebrating our Veterans!

Tuesday, we read a Pebble Go article about veterans to build our background knowledge.

Today, it was all about honoring our Veterans.  I had 2 things I wanted to accomplish today...and we made it...by the hair on our chiny, chin, chin! {Ever had one of THOSE days???  Yep, that was me today!}


Last week, I sent an email to parents asking for any Veterans in our first graders' immediate family.  We spent the morning writing thank you letters {on this Veteran's Day paper!} to the 4 Veterans that were sent to me.  The kids really took a lot of pride in this and so it was a more time consuming project than I thought it would be!

Since we had 4 veterans to write about, each table group was assigned a vet to write to.  And I divided my extra groups up so that about 6 kids wrote for each person.  After we finished the letters, they worked in their group of 6 to make book covers for the letters.  I gave them the green construction paper with a military hat outline on it.  They used tear art to create a camo hat and fancy title letters for their cover!


We also made poppy pins to wear in honor of the sacrifices our Veteran's make for us every day.  We read the history of Flanders Field.  We watched the short video clip of Linus reading the Flanders Field poem. {And by the way, if you've never been to the WWI Museum in Kansas City to see the poppy field display, you've missed out.  One of the more moving things I've seen.}

Then, we made our own poppies!  Here's how...

You will need:
*2 red cupcake wrappers per child
*1-2 inch strips of green construction paper
*paper clip or clothespin
*black crayon

Steps:
1.  Flatten both wrappers.  Cut about 1/2 inch off of one of the wrappers.
2.  Add black "seeds" in the middle of the smaller wrapper.

3.  Glue smaller wrapper to the middle of the larger, uncut wrapper.
4.  Twist the green strip to make a stem.

5.  Hot glue the stem to the back.
6.  Hot glue the paperclip or clothespin on top of the stem.
7.  Attach the pin to your shirt!

So fun and the kids absolutely LOVED wearing these today!  Such a beautiful reminder of the sacrifices that are made each day!  Thank you Veterans!
To use my Arkansas lingo, we are "smack dab" in the middle of our Animals Unit, which means we are all about using non-fiction features in informative writing during writers' workshop.

I've blogged some about the graphic organizers I use to teach informative writing, but I wanted to give some love to some other anchor charts that are super important in my room during our non-fiction writing units!

We have been studying non-fiction texts and their text features during Readers' Workshop...

{still waiting on my crazy color ink to arrive so I can print these cards and hang them up....I've already taught them with kids and shown them the cards on our smart board...just waiting....still waiting... #thestruggleisreal}  You can grab those cards HERE and hopefully have yours up on your wall faster than I can! :)

As we read and researched animals and our human body during our Science Squeeze {aka...teeny tiny block of time dedicated to science....can I get an amen???}, we recorded topics that we became "experts" in so that we would have a class list of topics we could write to teach about!

In writers' workshop, after spending some time on our non-fiction graphic organizer {grab a copy HERE}, we moved on to teaching our readers like authors teach us!
{Find both of the anchor chart templates here.  Just print and fill in with your kids!}

Each day I taught a mini-lesson focusing on one of these points from the anchor chart.  We also connected each strategy to the text features we are studying during readers' workshop....

We teach with diagrams and labels because non-fiction authors use those text features....

We make our smart words bold print because that's how non-fiction authors teach get us to notice their smart words...

We also charted smart words as we researched birds this week to get some practice listening for and picking out smart words from a source!  It's easy to do when you are looking at the text because of bold print, but it's much harder when you are just listening or watching a video!  First graders easily confuse a smart word and a fact sentence, so this practice was really, really good helpful for my firsties!

And the last strategy...We write twin sentences because non-fiction authors use those to help define the bold printed, smart words...

I modeled writing using that strategy and then we practiced independently.  During share time, I chose students to share who showed the strategy we focused on for the day!  And they are really catching on!  Using real non-fiction text features during writers' workshop really has a way of engaging kids because it makes them feel like the "real" authors they are!

These lessons are from the writing portion of my Animals Unit and that packet includes anchor chart templates as well as detailed daily and weekly lesson plans for writers' workshop!
Hello November!  The leaves are gorgeous, and this crazy Arkansas weather is finally settling in to some cool, Fall weather so I can break out my boots and scarves!

Based on the hit video, my first grade mathematicians solve for box by singing...

What Does the BOX Say??

This past week, I used this because we have been focusing on the structure of our math mysteries with Math Practice #7: I can look for and use structure. {Grab the posters HERE.}

We've been mixing up our math mysteries by doing story problems with the middle missing to (missing addends, etc...)  I thought solving for boxes at the beginning, middle and end of our equations would be a great way to connect our fact fluency to what we were doing during math mysteries!

Just "new" it....LOVE!
I love that this packet makes kids notate their thinking and explain their strategies instead of just memorizing or copying off of a friend!  Takin' that math thinking on up to the next level, ya'll! :)

And while the kid samples above show lots of great thinking and strategies, most of my babies looked like this...

#keepinitreal

But that's okay...because now I know just from this little activity that we need to start talking about showing some flexibility in our strategies and showing lots of different ways to solve problems!

....good thing there are 35 pages of no-prep fun solving for box!  We've got a lot of growing to do!  Catch this steal of a dollar deal HERE...
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