A Man of Many Hats

It has been a busy few weeks!  This past week we had our first grade program and my was it a big production!  One of the teachers on my team let me use her son to model all of the darling hats we made. Our school has an emphasis on history, so we sang various different songs that highlighted our history curriculum and used these hats to match. The kids looked SO cute!  You can see the program below.

Paul Revere Style Hat

Revolution Style Hat

Columbus/Sailor Style Hat

Native American Style Hat

Colonial Woman Style Hat (bowl w/ doilie & ribbon)

Queen Crown

King Crown

Next up.... FLAT STANLEY!  My kids are in love with him.  Our history curriculum includes learning about several different ancient civilizations, so a few months ago we read Flat Stanley and the Great Egyptian Grave Robbery.  A few weeks ago when I saw the entire 9 book collection of Flat Stanley's Worldwide Adventures in our Scholastic bookorder I couldn't pass it up.  My kids are hooked.  They beg me to read it and complain when it's time to stop and go to lunch or recess!  Haha.  We're just finishing the last chapter of Flat Stanley and the Japanese Ninja Surprise.  So... I created a Flat Stanley inspired unit.  I know a lot of people are already done with school, but we still have 2 weeks left, and we're pretty well through with our curriculum and testing, so we are going to be having lots of Flat Stanley fun!  I've integrated the unit with several subjects (reading/writing/grammar/math/social studies/geography...) so it'll be a great review and culminating unit for us. Next year (now that I have all the books) I think I'll spread it out and read/teach them throughout the year.  Anyway, here are a few preview photos.  I'll be posting the unit a little later today.

May*flowers (hehehe:)

Surprise! They're not flowers, they're Mayflowers!  Plus, it's not May yet.  But have your kids had the SpRiNg FeVeR? Because mine sure have!  Can you say CrAzY?!

Amidst all of the warm-weather-craziness I found time (@7pm last night...after I met with my Masters Project Committee Chairperson on campus, don't ask me why) to put together this cute display of our Mayflowers.  The clouds contain the words to one of the Pilgrims songs we sing... "The pilgrims boarded the Mayflower, September 1620...."  wish you could hear. 

Anyway, I just wanted to share!

Em

(See the previous post for Pilgrim freebies)

Thanksgiving in April? Freebie*

 

It's true... we have been learning all about Thanksgiving IN April, but it sure has been a lot of fun.  My school teaches the Core Knowledge Sequence, and we just finished a unit on Settlers & Explorers. Our next unit is From Colonies to Independence.  The kids and I have learned SO much.  Do you know the story of the Lost Colony of Roanoke?  What's YOUR theory? 

Anyway, we reviewed Christopher Columbus, then focused on the English settlements of Roanoke, Jamestown, Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay.  My little ones (boys especially) just soak history right up!  They love it.  Our school has a history emphasis too, so I love that it's such a big part of the Core Knowledge Curriculum. 

I made a few resources to go along with the unit and I wanted to share them with you!  I use a TON of music in my classroom, and I couldn't live without my CDs from Classroom Classics.  I usually make a PowerPoint with pictures and lyrics to accompany whatever song I'm teaching  (Next week we'll be doing one on The Ride of Paul Revere)! It's great for integrating reading practice and vocabulary.  The kids get practice using the words through singing, it increases their retention, and reinforces their reading and spelling. Plus the kids are always asking PLEASE, can we sing it one more time?! Please!!! I also let a student point to the words with my pointer, and another student is the designated clicker.  Oh how they love it. I just can't say enough about how great I think it is (obviously)!

....However, without further ado, here are two FREE worksheets I created for the unit.

 Here are the title pages of the PowerPoints. They are wonderful for telling the story of Jamestown the The Pilgrims.  Click the images to grab them on TN or find them in my TPT store! 

Be Possessed with Edible Apostrophes!

We learned about possessive nouns today.  It was a great review. We reviewed nouns and plurals, then compared possessive nouns to plural nouns. The students then wrote their own sentences containing  possessive nouns and used macaroni apostrophes. 

I gave them an extra to eat and it was pretty funny to hear the kids reactions. Some thought hard macaroni noodles were disgusting, and others enjoyed it.  Myself, I find the crunch of dry macaroni quite satisfying! The kids did a great job with it.  In the next few days we're also going to do edible commas and quotation marks.

 Last night I made an animated powerpoint to accompany a Christopher Columbus song I always teach my students.  They love it.  The song is from Classroomclassics.com.  I LOVE their music.  I own several of their CDs.  You can get the powerpoint here!

After lunch we finished discussing the Incas (part of the Core Knowledge Sequence), reviewed Conquistadores, and learned about Christopher Columbus and the kids made these cute puppets.

Back in the day of _______________

My school teaches the Core Knowledge Sequence (I love it!) and in first grade one of the things we teach is Ancient Civilizations.  We cover Mesopotamia, Egypt, Hunters & Gathers, the Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas.  The kids have been sucking it right up.  It has really been a blast to learn about.  Honestly, I'm a little embarrassed to admit that before teaching about it I didn't really even know what Mesopotamia referred to! 

We started by learning about what history is. One of my team teachers provided this awesome packet she purchased over the summer with excellent activities for each of the civilizations, and I've created a few of my own to supplement.
Then we studied Mesopotamia.  The kids loved writing in Cuneiform on clay tablets (i.e. playdough :) and we finished the unit by building a ziggurat out of sugar cubes!

We recently finished Egypt (pictures to come) and now we're finishing up the Aztecs & Incas and compiling everything in the book pictured above with pockets for storage.