It's Face Time Time in First Grade!!

Group picture at the end of the presentation.

On April 19th, 2014, at 1:30 pm in Mrs. Misselhorn's classroom, the 1st grade team in C.B. Lamb Elementary School went out of their comfort zone to try for the first time ever to reach out to the World to enhance our students learning.  The first graders have been learning about animal structures, and also how to develop questions. I was able to coordinate a Face Time conference with Dr. Pedro Santiago, a veterinarian who has his practice in Orlando, Florida. This was quite an experience for every one involved. We were able to address several common core standards, global awareness, language arts, science. What a great experience!


At the end of the presentation, Dr. Santiago answered students' questions.

After the presentation, the students reflected on what they learned from this experience by writing on a piece of paper “One thing I learned from Dr. Santiago was…”, “I’m still wondering…” and thank you letters.  We are currently working on making a scrapbook with the group pictures we took during the teleconference.  The plan is to present Dr. Santiago with the scrapbook as a token of our appreciation for taking precious time from his busy schedule to enlighten our young minds.

 

 

A First grader asking a question to Dr. Santiago

 

  

This was a team effort, Mrs. Carmichael made available the library smart board and projector, and José helps us with the different technological aspects to successfully connect with Dr. Santiago. Thank you so much Mrs. Carmichael and José!

After this experience, the first grade teachers met to reflect and discuss the teleconference and capture the lessons learned (good and bad) to improve our plan for future experiences.  Without a doubt, this was a great experience and I’m looking forward to try it again.

 

We are Blogging!

I have to give credit to Lindsey Walsh (U.E.S.). Thanks to her outstanding technology training I was able to put together this Blog page and also create another blog for my students. Lindsey, if you get to read this, my 1st and 2nd grade students are really enjoying the blogging experience. The whole idea of making a blog for myself and my students was overwhelming. However, once you start playing with it, is not as bad. I feel like just as I eventually got use to computers, e-mail, texting, facebook, etc., I will eventually get use to all of this blogging. I am still in a "get used to it" stage.

I started to use kidsblog.org to have my students blog about what they are learning in class. I have been using it as an exit ticket in math, where my students take the time to think about what they are learning and write about it. They are very excited about all of this. They were able to pick their own Avatar, and right now we are learning about how to make sure to read my posts and add comments to the right one. I have been asking them very general questions such as what did you learn today, and  sometimes I post math problems for them to apply what they had learned and write about their thinking. This has been a great tool to integrate technology in my lessons, provide an opportunity for critical thinking/problem solving skills, and integrate literacy skills in other subject areas. I am very excited with the prospect of having my students blog in the classroom.   

Learning about Character Traits

During the month of January we have been learning about character traits. There are so many ideas out there that can be linked with teaching adjectives. After introducing character traits and talking about how as readers we pay attention to what the characters think, do and say we did several activities to reinforce our understanding about character traits. We made a chart of character traits of people we know and the evidence (think, do and or say) we used to determine that character trait. I can't remember where I got the idea from, but the students put together a nice craft activity where they made a list of their character traits and wrote a short paragraph about themselves. In addition to this, we took advantage of the Martin Luther King Jr. birthday and the students also practice identifying MLK Jr.'s character traits. Here are some pictures of some student's final products.

Super Improver's Team in December!

Making the "Biggest Snowman Ever"

We did lots of fun learning activities during the month of December. In these pictures, students work together to create the biggest snowman ever. I didn't had a chance to take a picture of the other part of this activity, but they used different objects such as counters, paper clips, and pencils to measure how high and wide their snowmen were.

 

Delicious December Adjectives

My Super Improver's Team made delicious snowmen with marshmallows, icing, pretzels, and foot long fruit snacks. They had a blast! They made two snowmen, one to take home, and another to enjoy in the classroom. While they were enjoying their snowman, we talked about adjectives that we could use to describe how our Marshmallow snowmen felt, tasted, smelled, and looked. Then, they wrote a small paragraph describing their Marshmallow snowman. This is a picture of my Super Improver's Team making their snowmen, and right before they devour their Marshmallow snowmen.

 

 





This is a picture of my students. They prepared Thank you letters and we will be sending this picture to DonorsChoose.org. to show them how thankful we are for the stability balls they so kindly donated to our classroom.

I am so excited about this blog. The more I play with it, the more I like it. I should be getting ready for my conferences...  This is a picture of my 1st and 2nd Graders in action.

Sharing the blog with my boys

Giovanni likes my blog. He likes the title and that I'm showing him my blog. Sebastian and Giovanni love the turquoise color of my heading.  We all like the silly song "What does the fox says?" What a clever writer... Such a silly topic and he made such a catchy song. I can't get it off my head now!! :0)