It's great to be in 1st grade!

I have to apologize for not writing much lately. The testing has gotten the best of all of us!

Last week two really cute things happened...the kind of things that always make me realize how much I enjoy first grade. When completing morning work, one of our students really demonstrated the literal translation of vocabulary that we sometimes see. The problem of the day said, "Today is the 22nd day of the month and 22 is the number of two digit dates in January." I couldn't wait to see the range of solutions or examples the children would show. When I approached this student, I noticed a picture that didn't quite make sense to me. They quickly explained that two numbers were on a "date" sitting at a table. One number was a boy and one number was a girl. The second instance occurred during sight word assessments. Many students were commenting about words that had been on their spelling lists in the past (yeah!), but one comment was too adorable not to share with you. "Hey, wait a minute! I have these words at my house."

First graders are honest and amazing!

"SMART" in 1st Grade

Mrs. Glaspie and I made good use of our teacher work day on Friday. We rearranged, reorganized, and cleaned our classroom. In the middle of everything, we were asked to keep the new first grade technology equipment. We gladly made a place for it, and today we gladly put it to use.

Today our children were introduced to our new laptop, projector, document camera, and slate. We began slowly.

For morning work, we used the projector and laptop. The screen gave us the details for our number of the day. During math we played tic tac toe using the slate (basically a hand-held SMART board). The children were excited to play and will tell you that it took some time to get used to writing on the slate. Then we explored familiar activities from our first grade lives using the new technology. We did a making words activity (the big word was president). We colored numbers on a 100 chart, and we played an interactive game with base 10 blocks. We had a great time, and I think we all learned that the possibilities are endless for incorporating our new toys into our learning. We are all going to be "SMART" before the year is over!

Almost 2nd graders

I'm not sure what happens to 1st graders over the winter break, but something definitely happens. They come back to school as "almost 2nd graders." The quality of work improves. The quality of our discussions is light years better than before the break. Somehow they understand things that they couldn't before.

On Friday we read Diary of a Worm. I was a little concerned about the level of the humor in the book. They were laughing out loud and grinning from ear to ear (so was their teacher)!

Way to go, kiddos! You're almost 2nd graders.