It’s February 1st, a month and a day from the start of my maternity leave. And things at school have kicked into high gear since New Year’s while I wind down my school year and try to fit everything in with the kids before I go. I’ll be back for 2 weeks in June, but really this is my end-of-year in a lot of ways.
Tag: 1st grade
So it’s Clementine season again with all of my first grade classes. We’re actually almost finished with the now-annual adventures of Clementine, Margaret, and the pigeons.
Before the holidays I took a page out of this teacher’s guide for the book and asked the kids to think about whether they were more like Clementine (messy, active, gets into trouble, comfy clothes) or more like Margaret (neat, nice clothes, tidy room, lots of rules, kind of bossy). Then the kids illustrated some pictures of their characters. I was surprised how many boys identified with neat and tidy Margaret, I thought for sure I’d see some more gender divisions there. It was great, and their pictures were pretty neat, too.
I can’t believe the end of March is finally coming this week. It’s always such a long month, but it’s also a great time with my students, knee-deep in library projects. Here’s what’s been happening in library class this month:
My special needs classes have been reading Dr. Seuss stories, and we made these Horton ears last week.
The kindergartners all took out books for the first time this week, we had a big checkout ceremony in each class. They were really excited.
The 1st grade classes are all up to chapter 5 of Clementine, and the 2nd graders have been learning the layout of the library. We’ve also been talking about how we pick the books we like. This week it was time for a scavenger hunt.
I really love this book.
I do, last April for National Poetry Month I used it with my 3rd graders. Because April is such a short month for us, we didn’t get very far with it. I love Jack Prelutsky in general, and I decided to give this one a shot with my 1st graders this year (my 3rd graders are still reading Hugo Cabret, so we kind of skipped poetry month to make sure we finish by June). For some reason after beefing up my Prelutsky collection this year I neglected to get Scranimals, which would have been a great companion with this. Next year.
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I love Sara Pennypacker’s Clementine books. LOVE. THEM. So I spent the winter this year reading the first book with my first graders, who now also love Clementine. I love her more than Junie B. Jones and, dare I say it, even more than Ramona. And the kids really related to her, it was very cool to see the mischievous kids pick up on Clementine’s good intentions and different view of the world right away. They really do get her.
Today was our Read Across America program (Dr. Seuss Day to the kids) at school. It’s the biggest program I organize each year, and this year I teamed up with our reading teacher to get the whole school involved.
This week was my school’s winter concert. The first graders (blurry to protect them) performed a song called “The 12 Days in the Rainforest” that one of the first grade teachers wrote. It was awesome, they sang about all the animals in the rainforest. So fun, and they did a fabulous job. Our computer teacher put together a great animated presentation to go along with the song, it was wonderful. The 4th and 5th grade chorus also performed some carols and other songs to get the holiday spirit going.
Yes, kindergarten and first grade had the same theme in October. But the two grades did completely different activities and books.
In first grade we started by reading Crockett Johnson’s classic Harold and the Purple Crayon and then the new Peter McCarty book Jeremy Draws a Monster. We had a big talk about all the ways drawing can help us open our imagination and make anything we want happen. We talked about how cool it was that Harold created his whole world with one crayon and only lines. I gave the kids paper and 1 single crayon and asked them what they would like to see happen if they drew just like Harold.
This month I’m doing a 1st grade unit on stories without words, and it’s wildly successful. This is the perfect time of year for it; all the kids and teachers have spring fever, and this is creative and low-stress. I let them tell me the story, and I just ask endless questions to get them talking (“Where do you think they are? What’s happening outside? Does so-and-so look happy or sad?”) I’m reading several books with the kids, including Barbara Lehman’s Rainstorm and Sara Varon’s Chicken & Cat. But I have to talk about the complete and total magic of Regis Faller’s Adventures of Polo. It’s a French book that I fell in love with when I first read it last year, and I still adore it. And I was dead wrong about it being too long for a program or lesson. It doesn’t take nearly as much time to read as I thought, and while it’s longer than many picture books it keeps children positively riveted. I think it’s hypnotizing.
Read more on Wordless Stories with 1st Grade and a Miraculous Book…