more Kevin Henkes and Landforms

These past 2 weeks have been so great for my students with reading comprehension.  This week we finished up our Kevin Henkes authors study.  Our focus this week was plot along with beginning, middle, end and character analysis. 

Each day of the week we read a different Kevin Henkes book. 

Monday:  Wemberly Worried

Tuesday:  Owen

Wednesday:  Lily's Purple Plastic Purse

After each story the students did a journal entry about the story {We journal all the time. Gives us extra practice with our comprehension skill for that week.}

On Thursday we started our "plot projects".  They chose a character from one of the stories we read.  Then, filled out the plot graphic organizer and made their matching character.  The kiddos did so well and really learned alot. {Funny story, my class came back from the library this past week with TONS of Kevin Henkes books! love!}

 

If you would like the mouse template or the plot graphic organizer, click here!

Sad to see Kevin Henkes leave, but for the next 2 weeks we are doing an author's study over Cynthia Rylant.  Hello Henry and Mudge!!

This week we have also been learning about different types of landforms and water.  We talked about each one and discussed characteristics of each using this anchor chart. Then the kiddos illustrated their own landforms.

A few days later we had a little recording sheet {for a grade}. YUCK! I dislike taking grades.

Click Here for the recording sheet.

Have a wonderful weekend fellow bloggers!!

 

Chester's Way... A little bit of Kevin Henkes AND a report card request.

So who doesn't love books by Kevin Henkes?!?  I know I do!  I can't get enough of those little mice.  For the next 2 weeks we are doing an author's study over Kevin Henkes.  This week we started off with Chester's Way and Julius, The baby of the World.  We have been working on describing characters and the reason for their actions.  It can be difficult at times to get a first grader to dive deep into critical thinking about what is taking place in the book and why the characters do what they do.  We started off by reading Chester's Way and really taking a close look at the 3 main characters.  I wanted the kiddos to describe the characters and tell about their actions and make text to self connections.  They did pretty good with this to start off with and got much better by the end of the week.  I started off with anchor charts.  I gave each student a post it note.  I wanted them to write either a description of the character or one of their actions.  

After diving deep into each of the main characters they did a journal entry in their reading journals.  They had to write a discription of each character using the sentence starter... Chester is ___.  Lily is ______.  Wilson is ______.  The write what happen at the beginning, middle, and end. (Spiraling back to that.)  I try to have them complete a journal entry a week independently over the skill and story we have been working on.  
{forgot to post a pic of this...will do that next post}

Now that they have a good understanding of the characters, we are going to start discussing the plot of the story and how the plot can change depending on the characters actions! More mice activities coming soon!! 

I forgot to post last week, but we had to make these super cute MLK's and new year resolutions. I got this fabulous idea from The First Grade Parade!  Just LOVE her blog!! ADORABLE!

SOOOOO my team and I are wanting SOOOO badly to get away from numerical averages for first grade.  This is our chance and we were asked to propose a report idea that we would like to use.  After sitting together for quite some time we still had nothing on paper.  If you use a report card/grading system that is scale based (1-4) or something like mastery, proficient, needs improvement etc. could you PLEASE let me take a peek to get some ideas.  We are stuck and need some guidance of what other teachers and districts use.  If possible could you email to me? jaymeelaymance@gmail.com...  Or leave a comment on where I can go to find it? 

Next week will be more post about Chester's Way with some plot activities and printables!
Happy Friday!! YAAAHOOOO!!

"HAAAAPPY FEEET"

This 6 weeks we have been studying expository text.  When I told my sweet first graders that we were going to be learning about penguins, the first thing they said was "HAAAAPPPPYYY FEEET"!!!! They were OH so excited!! 

I got this fabulous wintery unit idea from Mrs. Jump.  She has created a super cute unit with printables that is a MUST see! All of the printables in my kiddos books came from her "Penguin Unit" on TPT! Make sure you check it out!!

I started off the week by making a KWL chart with my firsties  Some of the things they knew about penguins was sooo adorably cute!! Like... they "wabble from side to side like this.."{and of course they stood up to show me the wabble}, they "can click clack their feet" and the best one of all... they "are REALLY good dancers"!!  Ohhhh I love first grade thoughts!! Sadly, I completely forgot to take a picture of our anchor chart, but is was your typical KWL format. 

After our K and W portion of the chart I read a few non-ficiton penguin books.  There is something about non-fiction that my students this year more than in years past just LOVE! They much rather prefer to read non-fiction, which I think is wonderful! We jotted down some facts and details from our book on a penguin fact chart, that I sadly forgot to take a picture of. 

After the facts chart the kiddos filled out their individual penguin flow chart from Mrs. Jump's Penguin Unit.  They learned soooo much and enjoyed every step.

Then it was time to make our very own non-ficiton  books!!! Boy were they excited! It was so wonderful to see everything they learned!  The pages in these books came from the penguin unit by Mrs. Jump.

Here are our wonderful books!!

     

 Here is the template for the penguin on the front cover that I used.