Leapin' right through this week!

Hoppy Leap Day!!!! The weak is flying by. We have sooooo many fun activities to do this week with, our George Washington Cake, Abe Lincoln pancake log cabins, Dr. Seuss' Birthday, and Leap Day!!!! Have I ever told you how much I LOVE first grade? 

Today we discussed Leap Day. We also watched a Brain Pop video on it. After we filled out a little activity, the kids took a little survey with their classmates. They had to figure out which animal that leaps would be the best pet. They then practiced their graphing skills with the information. 

After they finished that little activity they made these so cute frogs and wrote their favorite facts about Leap Day.

We finally had time to schedule in this surgery!  We put on our gloves and masks and did some cutting on  these words. Such a fun activity!

We had a guest author this week! 

Tom Angleberger  came and spoke with us this week! It was so much fun, he is by far the best author I have seen present to young children. I was a bit worried since he is a chapter book writer. I was thinking that he would be better with the older children. I could not have been more wrong. He completely had the children engaged the whole time! He even showed them how to make their own oragami yoda. =)  Here are a few pics.

Friday, we will be having funny socks, p.j's and Dr. Seuss snacks and books all day long!!!! To celebrate Read Across America Day we will be reading all day and making yummy snacks to honor Dr. Seuss. Jackson, got a little confused and wore his socks today!!! He is so cute, he gets extra credit points for doing it twice.....lol.

Okay, I just HAD to put this pick in. Look how big he is getting. Where does the time go? He moved up to the next classroom at his pre-school and now I am trying to get him to wear shoes.....bahahaha (He hates them and pulls them off as soon as he gets in his carseat).

 Have a great rest of the week!!!! Sorry in advance if your child comes home all sugared up on Friday! HEHE

Our Fab February

I hope everyone is doing well this fine hump day! Here are few things we have been working on.

Jackson in our room has family from New Orleans! He and his family went back for Mardi Gras and brought us back some beads!!! How fun! We also made some Mardi Gras Masks also.

Our intern Alyssa read this book to us:

 For Presidents day we had a syllable sort:

 And.....I drew(copied) this wonderful life size Abe and hung it in the hall. It really helped them see that he was REALLY tall. =) We also started our Presidents booklet. We have George Washington and Abe Lincoln as one of our SOL's.

These are examples of the Orange project we will be starting tomorrow. 

Today in Math we paired up and took data on our bag of blocks. They then made a graph and shared it. This chapter is going crazy fast. I hope you can see with the homework that everyone is really understanding graphing.

Look at this spectacular find I found at TJ Max (my fave store). This timer is green when it is counting down from 60-10, yellow when it is counting down from 10-1, and red when it is counting down from 1-0! So GREAT for those kiddies who need help with time management. I saw a huge difference today. 

On of my groups created a Word chart today on the website Wordle. They thought it was so fun! (sorry upside down)

 Thanks a bunch! I hope everyone enjoys the rest of their week. As usual if you need anything call, text, or email me. =)

Parent Survey

Parents,

Please click the picture to take a short ten question survey about our classroom. This will allow me to fix and change things that need to be tweaked a bit. =)

Thanks a bunch! Let me know if you have a question.

Mrs. Ridgley

I am in love with technology!

The technology in our room is giving us limitless options. We are loving how much we can do with our toys. 

 In this picture, Chloe is filming herself reading. She then will go back and watch herself to see how she can improve her fluency. This is a great tool for them to hear themselves and to set goals to get better.

I was in the library the other day and noticed these smart clickers. I instantly became excited and started listing all of the fun activities we could do with them.  One of my team members and I are going to start making up tests for these wonderful little motivators.  Look below to see how engaged they are! LOVE!!!

Another fabulous toy we have is an app called Splashtop Whiteboard. It is a remote desktop app! It allows us to interact from the I Pad to the smart board! SOOOOO COOL! This week we wrote math problems from it, highlighted rhyming words from the poem of the week. Read our fluency passage as we underlined the words. Ohhhhhh boy, my head is spinning with all the fun we have been having with this amazing little invention. You can read more about it here:  http://www.splashtop.com/whiteboard

Another really cool website/app we have been using is called "Class Dojo".

 

It is a behavior management system that allows you and the kids to keep track of their behavior throughout the day. It seems to be working quite well and we can control it from our I pad and my I phone. here is a pic of what it looks like. 

Last week before the Super Bowl, I had the kids predict who they thought would win. After they predicted who they thought would win they made this guy! 

Last week we also worked on an experiment called "Keep it Clean" Each group of students had four solutions. Dish soap and water with a steel pad, taco sauce, vinegar and salt, and window cleaner. They had to make a hypothesis about which solution they thought would clean the penny the best.

The really like this experiment. Most of the students said that water and dish soap would do the best job. They were very surprised to see how clean salt and vinegar actually worked. If you would like a copy of this form they glued in their science journal email me. =)

This week we discussed "Splash words". We discussed how the words: good, fun, and went, are all so boring. They all pledged to be better writers and use more descriptive words. We put together these charts and I hung them on the wall so they could refer to them when they need to. 

We have been working on our math facts. As you read in a previous blog post we started some timed tests. They seem to be going well and no one seems to stressed out yet. Here are a few of the ways we have been practicing those facts. We throw the ball and say a math fact and the student who catches it answers the equation and throws the ball in the hoop (aka laundry basket). It is a great way to reach those kinesthetic learners! Another way is tossing a bean bag back and forth with a buddy saying our facts. 

Well, I am off to my sick baby. =S He AGAIN has a double ear infection. He is also so lucky to have thrush for the third week and on top of everything else he now has pink eye. I plan for both of us to be back at school tomorrow as long as his fever is down. I hope his immune system strengthens up soon. I am running out of sick days. -)