In Class: First Grade

'In Class' is a short-term blogging series which allows the reader to follow along with a class at Red Cloud Indian School as they learn, work and grow. In this series, we follow along with Miss Kylie's First Grade class at Our Lady of Lourdes Elementary School.

Do you remember what it was like to be in the first grade? It was a time when you spent your days working hard at your desk to figure out how to read the hands of a clock, or how to add double-digit numbers, or to understand how a seed turns into a tree. You could color for days without getting bored...and barely sit still because your best friend in the whole world sat in front of you and you couldn’t wait to play at recess.

Miss Kylie’s first graders are enthusiastically diving into their lessons each day and they want you to tag along!

Over the next seven weeks, follow along as Miss Kylie shares updates directly from her classroom, in

cluding photos and video highlighting her students’ progress.


 
Monday May 19, 2014

Time Flies When You're Learning!

The past few weeks have flown by and the kids have blossomed in so many ways! Last week we learned about measurement and used our one inch blocks to measure various things around the classroom! We found out that the width of our classroom is 743 blocks!  This activity was definitely a first grade favorite because they had the opportunity to measure desks, bookshelves, chairs and other items in the classroom--something to get their minds off of the osní (cold) weather that we had to deal with last week.

In reading, we learned some grammar catch phrases like “Drop the Y and add an I,” and how to add 'er' and 'est' to our base words. They loved thinking through all the possibilities and as we wrapped up our lesson we were getting fancy, fancier, and fanciest with our word usage!

As the year comes to a close we thought it would be appropriate to have the students reflect on the year—and their lives in general—by shifting gears and talking about timelines! First, we read about what time lines are, what they are used for and how to read them. The class did really well with this activity, so I thought to myself: "Why not have us make timelines of our own lives?!" The students loved this idea! You might be wondering, Miss Kylie, what did you use to make this timeline?!

Luckily, we had some old rulers in the classroom that we thought would work perfectly for this project. Using the inches side (Yes, this was a cross curricular activity!), we all constructed our own lives in the timeline converting inches to larger measurements like months and years!

Thank you so much for following along with our first grade class, it's been fun!

-Miss Kylie


 

Monday May 5, 2014

Spring Showers and First Grader Flowers

Our first grade meteorologists were correct!  According to their cloud calculations from last week, our town was supposed to have some horrible weather coming through. And ALAS! We had a snow day on Monday. To finish up our mini-cloud unit, we made our own cumulus clouds—with a little added personality. Some of the clouds have mustaches, others have smiles and others still have shoes to match their eye color!

Although Spring is technically here, the weather has yet to stabilize. We’ll have a day in the 70’s followed by snow! Everyone’s feeling a little stir crazy, but we’ve found a way to resolve this! By taking little breaks throughout the day to PAUSE and take a “brain break” with some exercise. We usually do some jumping jacks to help get the blood flowing and the students calmed down.

In writing, we created a “spring word wall” and then students wrote springtime poems. It was AMAZING to observe the class come together, helping each other spell words like rainbows, birds, flower, grow, sunshine, and pretty. It was a nice lesson because some students had recently been asking me how to spell some of these seasonal words words, but what’s better than learning from your peers?

Despite the snow early in the week, it turned out to be quite the spring-themed week. As we near the end of the year, I am continually witnessing each student blossoming a little more into the second grade flowers they are soon to be!  

Until next time, Hasta luego!

-Miss Kylie


 

Monday April 28, 2014

Who's that Lady with the Mustache?

There was a substitute teacher in the first grade classroom on Thursday… Just kidding! It’s just me in a mustache! Sometimes I like to get a little silly and dress up or use various accents to keep the class attentive to focusing on learning. One of the first graders brought in a HUGE fake mustache, so I put it on and began teaching.  Although it was a tad silly, we all need some laughter in our day :).  

We are finishing up our animal projects and moving toward learning about clouds in science!  Although clouds might not sound like the most interesting topic in the world (even to first graders), we found out that there are many clouds and that certain clouds mean different things!  Cirrus clouds, or clouds that are thin and wispy, mean that a storm or bad weather is approaching in the next couple days--this was relevant considering Thursday’s clouds were thin and wispy...do I smell a storm brewing?!

We put our critical thinking caps on in math this week!  Learning how to answer word problems will help the first graders transition into second grade and become deep-level thinkers. They love to use tables and graphs in order to solve these problems.

It was Earth day on Tuesday and every year Our Lady of Lourdes plants a tree. So this last week’s all school Mass was focused on saving the environment and we planted TWO Blue spruce trees!  

It’s a new week and the first grade will be making an appearance in Rapid City because we are going on a field trip to the CIRCUS!!!! Stay tuned!

-Miss Kylie


 

Saturday April 19, 2014

A Hoppy Day in First Grade!

Greetings from first grade!  Let’s just say this week hopped on by ;)  

Although we are in the second half of the fourth quarter, the first grade class still surprises me with their fantastic ideas!  As we were going through our morning announcements earlier this week, I was making a checklist for myself on the board to show the students what we would be focusing on for the day. I mentioned that a checklist is a tool to help remember important things and one of my students raised her hand.

“Teacher, I was just wondering, you talk about making checklists about things,” said Cante from the back row. “Why can’t we have a checklist?!  Like, when we get done with bellwork and assignments we can just check it off or something?”

Other classmates whispered with excitement. I was taken aback for a moment, by this brilliant idea.

“You’re right,” I said.  “We should have a checklist. Raise your hand if you would like me to create a daily checklist from now on.”

Because they are in first grade, and simply because it was new, they were all on board. And thus, I created a checklist for Tuesday.  It seemed to immediately help those who were behind on assignments to complete their work. Bravo!

Lest you think our class to be simply a classroom of genius academics, we also had a fun theme for the week. What might it be, you ask?  A hint: They are soft, cuddly, and like to hide Easter eggs.  Bunnies, of course!  

To culminate the week, we set out on a writing activity. We learned about what bunnies like to eat, and found out that bunnies have extremely sensitive ears! After brainstorming, we wrote several sentences about these fluffy creatures and made our own little bunnies to frame our research.  Although it was a short week, first grade worked their tails off!

Until next time, have a Hoppy Easter from the first grade!

-Miss Kylie


Sunday, April 13

First Grade is Open for Business! 

Whew! This week flew by!  First grade has been on overdrive and absorbing all of the new information we have learned this week.  Some of them even were attempting to take siestas, or afternoon naps, during the last forty five minutes of class.  On the other hand, they could have been making a point considering siesta is one of our “words to use” this week for reading.

While continuing to learn about amazing animals in science, we took it a step further to learn about where each animal lives by researching about the animal’s biome.

Time is not a factor, or shall I say obstacle, for the first grade any longer. They have proven that they are the masters of time-telling by shouting out such statements as “It’s 10:38, there are only 12 more minutes until lunch!” 

We have now shifted into a new chapter that works with money—a new favorite subject!  Each first grader has the opportunity to own his or her own store next week. They will get to design their store front and draw the various objects they plan to sell in their store.  Miss Bekka’s kindergarten class is also being introduced to money, so we decided to “open shop” for the kindergarten class to visit the first graders’ storefronts and purchase items. I will let you know who ends up selling the most merchandise and materials. They are so excited. Let’s just say these little entrepreneurs may have found their new side hobby!  

Have a marvelous weekend!
-Miss Kylie


 

Monday, April 7

Telling Time & Reading About Animals

My 18 little first graders are growing leaps and bounds this week! Right now, our class theme is 'Amazing Animals'—and we’ve been reading and discussing interesting facts about various animals, such as what they eat and where they live. Last week, each student chose an animal that they wanted to learn more about. During science and social studies lessons, they each took time to research the animal’s habitat as well as its characteristics and behavior so that this week we can bring it all together to find out what a 'biome' is!  

These lessons help to develop the students' comprehension strategy, as we learn how to draw conclusions about what we've read. We remind each other that “good readers know how to put different details together and figure out a deeper meaning about the text.”

It’s not just about animals, though. We’ve been having fun during our math section mastering the art of telling time! We divided the classroom up into different stations and used a set of mini-clocks to work on this skill. The students really enjoy learning in stations because it gives them the opportunity to speak up and share more of their ideas in smaller groups.

Stay tuned!
-Miss Kylie

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