What's with the box?

It's here! It's here! The excitement is like waking up on Christmas morning or your birthday! We have successfully made it to 2017! That means we are half way through the school year. We have used half of our learning time. We only have half our learning time left! Oh no! That turned downhill quickly! As I race to fit as much learning, fun, teamwork, and happiness into the rest of the year I wanted to pop in and give you a quick glance at our first day back. We crammed a ton in our day today and I can't wait to show you the awesome-sauce that resulted!

Backstory: Over break I worked on updating 7/8 of our school's iPad carts as well as working on getting 2 new carts setup. In setting up these new carts I got to inbox 60 new iPads. Can we say Christmas and birthday all wrapped into one! Well, let's just say my enthusiasm quickly fled when I realized the cardboard jungle I had then created.

So what was I to do with all of those boxes? Of course, I could just put them in the recycling but why not get some use out of them? Bring on the morning of challenges.

We started by challenging each table to try and create the tallest structure using the materials provided (each group received the same materials: 1 big box, 2 trays, 10 individual boxes). It was amazing to see them trying to figure out how to stack and stand without using tape.

Our Round 1 results are as followed:

So I walked around and measure these amazing structures. They were so excited thinking it was a competition against the other groups. Ha! Little did they know my plan was for them to compete against themselves. We discussed how different groups had tried different techniques and what they had noticed during the process. Then I challenged them to build another structure that was taller than the one they had in front of them. Their task: to beat themselves! Boy did they deliver!

 Each group was able to beat the height of their first structures! How cool is that!

For our 3rd and final challenge teams were tasked with creating the strongest structure. This would be tested with classroom textbooks. Let the building begin!

 In the end, we had two structures that tied at 24 books and counting. We simply ran out of time.

This was one of the best challenges that simply came out of nowhere. Students were challenged, resourceful, and had to work together. Who knew a box could be so fun?

Here's to imagination, creation, and collaboration!

Kid Bloggin' Thursday

From the teacher: Hey all! Thanks for stopping by the blog today. Our class worked in groups to give you this great blog post. This week groups had the responsibility of choosing topics, writing about their topic, taking pictures, adding the blog logo AND typing their content! They did amazing. Check out what we've been up to lately!

 
We are going to do a play.We are going to use costumes.We are going to do the play for our class.We have puppets for the play.In one of the plays we drop an apple on sum one head.In one of the plays Gabriel is a ant.

This month we have a book tournament.The Pigeon Needs A Bath Is v.s I Can Read With My Eyes Shut. The tournament is big.There are a lot of books.Can I Play Too beat Happy Birthday To You.

There are red ,blue ,green I pods. The iPods are fun! The iPods are pretty. They tell weather.we use them for listening center.

Typed by the teacher Flowers have foots. Flowers are pretty. Flowers have stems. Flowers also journal. We planted rye grass. We love science!! Now we are planting wheat.

Kid Bloggin' With Our Groups

Hey all! I hope you all are doing fabulous! Today was a beautiful day here and we were able to get outside for our recesses and enjoy some good ole sunshine! I don't think I complained about the cold once today ;)

To switch things up a little bit for our kid bloggin' session today, I had the students work in groups. This was the first time we've really amped up our groupwork. Table groups were tasked with agreeing on one topic to write about that they thought you all would be interested in. They then had to produce at least 5 sentences together. Afterwards they had to agree on who would take the picture and of what. There was a little frustration and hesitation at first but then they dove straight in. I thoroughly enjoyed watching them work and problem solve together. So, without further ramblings from me, here are their creations!

Green Group
We like math centers. We like computer it's fun We like hexigon center because ipads. We like oval center because we make puzzles. We like rectangle because we make towers.

Yellow Group
Our table likes p.e. we enjoy P-E- because we like to play. We play with balls in P.E. We play with jump ropes. We also play tag too! We also run to the lins. P.E. is fun.

Pink Group
We color in a minute on the clock for calender. We add a tree to the calender. We add a staw to a cup on calender. we add a penny to calender. We add a dot to a tens frame. Other people should know about it because we want them to know what we do in the morning after jornal.

Glue Group
We get to yos defrent tips of pant. We get too mec piurs. we get scetls. We gat too pat. We get to do dojo ponts. (We get to use different types of paint. We get to make pictures. We get Skittles. We get to paint. We get to do dojo points.)

Here's to #happyclassrooms and more group blogging days ahead!

Our In-School Snow Day

If your area is anything like ours then you've had a few encounters with snow already. I'm going to be completely honest, I am over the snow and winter already. Now, I realize we still have a good amount of winter left. I'm not crazy. I understand that. However, I would be completely happy with the cold weather if we could hold off on any more snow. We all know what happens when it snows....
- playgrounds get covered up
- we have inside recess for days (maybe even weeks)
- we may get a snow day
-we may not get a snow day....when we totally should have

The last scenario was our reality last week. The weather wasn't great but we still had school. I'll admit that it could have been much worse but the conditions weren't the best for continuing to require school to be in session. So what do you do when you should be having a snow day but are stuck in school? Well, you have an in-school snow day of course!

Since we couldn't be out in the snow all day we brought it in and made the whole day focused around snow! We started the day doing a little persuasive writing during our journal time.

Then we did a little expository writing. To connect with our previous unit on sequence we wrote the directions to making a snowman. Students were challenged with giving detailed directions to correctly sequence the building of a snowman. We then tried to follow these directions to see if they would result in a snowman.

We learned that when giving directions we need to be very specific. So we tried again as a class and found success!

During reading we worked through a ton of books that were snow related.

Then we had science. Student groups were tasked with forming a plan to melt a cup of snow. Their goal was to find the fastest method. Groups each came up with a different plan of attack.

After plans were made groups were given their cup of snow and began. It got intense extremely quickly!

Afterwards groups went around and observed how other tables' methods how worked. We then discussed what worked best and why.

When it came to math, we kept with the snow theme and had a snow ball fight! Now, don't worry. This was an indoor fight and no I didn't bring snow in for this. I don't think that would go over well with a lot of people. So I took an idea from a wonderful colleague Ashley Smith and we used paper to write our math facts. We then tossed our snow balls around. Students then found a snow ball, solved the equation and wrote their answer down. They then crumbled their snowball and threw it again. We will definitely be having more inside snowball fights!

So while I'm not a huge fan of school days when I consider the weather to warrant a snow day....I can say that we will be prepared if another one rolls around!

:)

Kid Bloggin' Wednesday: Farewell

Note from the teacher:
Our second to last day was full of learning. I apologize for just now posting. Here is our last Kid Bloggin' post from the 2014 - 2015 school year. These kids were a blast to work with and I can't wait to see what they do as second graders!

Yellow Group

• favorite part of first grade: sock party
• least favorite part of first grade: purple bags
• what we will miss most: Miss Messick and our book buddies
• advice for next year's first graders: Don't talk in the hallway!

Green Group

• favorite part of first grade: recess
• least favorite part of first grade:  writing
• what we will miss most: the class
• advice for next year's first graders: Don't run in the hallway!

Pink Group

• favorite part of first grade: Junie B. Jones
• least favorite part of first grade: long tests
• what we will miss most: Miss Isbell, Miss Messick, and the whole entire class
• advice for next year's first graders: Clean up the floor!

Orange Group

• favorite part of first grade: Art
• least favorite part of first grade:  homework
• what we will miss most: our friends
• advice for next year's first graders: Read the alphabet!

Blue Group

• favorite part of first grade: math
• least favorite part of first grade: journal
• what we will miss most: poetry
• advice for next year's first graders: There are a lot of tests.