Science inspired art

  The creating colour unit in science lends itself well to art projects. Here is another art project inspired by Gail. See here for her monster.
We did some activities to do with chromatography, and then an art project to finish up. This was for halloween, and the children did a descriptive writing project all about "My Monster".

 Students colour a coffee filter however they wish.

 Spray with a spray bottle and have a white sheet underneath, to make the circle for the face.

Mrs. Dunn

Teaching art through pictures

Most of my art ideas come from the amazing Gail at http://www.thatartistwoman.org/. This Fall banner was inspired by this activity.

As I am making my sample for each art project, I take pictures of each step and then post on my SMART board for students to see. Here is an example of how I show each step for this project:

Mrs. Dunn

Ketchup and Pickles!

It is always difficult to keep on track of work that students have completed and have not. I love this idea from First Grade Garden. I have a pickles bin on the top of the group bookshelf for complete work. Students will have a ketchup folder in their desk for incomplete work. They will also use this same system in their center folder. We then have "Chip Time" at the end of the week. Students who are complete work (Pickles) get to do free centers, and ketchup students have to catch up on their work.

Mrs. Dunn

Star of the Week

I got this idea from one of my favourite bloggers, Mrs. Carroll, at The First Grade Parade. I have a star of the week and each day they get to bring something to share about themselves. I also have the star of the week do important jobs for the class that week to continue on with the Leadership theme.

Mrs. Dunn

Classroom Jobs

I have always struggled with how to set up jobs in the classroom, as I often forget to change over the jobs, and half the time the students forget what they are supposed to be doing. I am trying a different management idea this year. I love Stephen Covey's The Leader in Me books, and he promotes leadership in the classroom. Students will be in groups of 5, and each will have a leadership job with a reminder card on their table. They will do this job for one week and then rotate.

The group line leader is fairly self explanatory, when the group lines up for the carpet or hallway they lead the line.

The materials monitor hands out materials and looks after keeping them organized.

The reader leader helps to keep the library organized and gets the privilege of sitting in the reading corner during DEAR time.

The hand out leader gives activities and booklets to the group.

The  group monitor is in charge of keeping their group quiet if I am busy (on the phone) and also in the hallway. A group point system will be used to help out with this.

Mrs. Dunn

Social Alphabet Book

I love to read alphabet stories to my students that are related to what we are studying. These two are my favourites to read in Social Studies class, and I thought, wouldn't it be fantastic if we could make our own Alphabet story? I made activities to fit with each letter of the alphabet that cover every outcome for the ENTIRE YEAR in first grade!

The first thing we needed to do was to get our notebook ready for the year. I like to use the Hilroy 1/2 plain 1/2 interlined books so they have room to draw pictures and write, but any notebook would work. I don't teach the letters in order, so they needed 2 pages designated for each letter prior to starting. When I first did these activities, I had the students write the letters in. At the very beginning of the year...in first grade...it didn't go so well. To solve this problem I made a page with all of the letters and we worked as a class to cut and glue the letter in at the top of the page. It is a great little assessment to see who knows their letters at the beginning of the year as well.

Once we have each letter in our book

I HAVE THEM LEAVE TWO PAGES FOR EACH LETTER

then it's time to get started!

I figured out an activity to do with each letter, and then grouped the activities into units that followed the Program of Studies. I used related literature, internet pictures/videos, discussions and real life examples to introduce a topic and then had students complete an activity in their notebook to accompany the lesson.

UNIT 1 I BELONG

1. F is for Family: Students bring in pictures of their family and we talk about how all families look different and why families are important. After looking at pictures students make their own family tree to show who belongs in their family. After they draw their family, students glue the picture into their Social Alphabet notebook under the letter F.                                                                

*CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO USE THIS ACTIVITY IN YOUR CLASSROOM!*

2. B is for Belong

3. S is for School

4. C is for Clothing

5. S is for Symbol

6. L is for Language

7. R is for Rights and Responsibilities

UNIT 2 MY COMMUNITY

1. K is for Key to Citizenship

2. I is for I take Care

3. E is for environment

4. J is for Job

5. D is for Decision

6. P is for Problem Solving

7. T is for Timeline

UNIT 3 MY WORLD

1. F is for floor plan

2. M is for map

3. X is for X marks the spot

4. A is for Alberta

5. G is for globe

6. O is for Oh Canada

7. W is for Where in the World

8. L is for land

9. U is for Urban

10. R is for Rural

11. P is for Postcard

12. Z is for Zoo

UNIT 4 NOW AND THEN

1. T is for tradition

2. C is for Changes

3. N is for Now and Then

4.V is for Venn Diagram

5. Y is for Young and Old

6. H is for Heritage

7. O is for Old Time News

If you would like to use the activities to go with each letter and try making a Social alphabet with your students click on the picture below!

If you make an alphabet book with your students, let me know how it goes and what it looks like in your classroom in the comments below!

Mrs. Dunn

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Literacy Center Organization

I have been working on my Literacy Center groups and bulletin board and here is what I came up with.

1. Listening
2. Puppets
3. Thematic Book
4. Journals
5. Guided Reading with the Teacher
6. Word Work
7. Writing
8. Game

I use The Leader in Me program, which is why I have the synergize poster. I got these wonderful posters from Little Lovely Leaders here. 

  

Mrs. Dunn