“See you Later” not “Goodbye”

Today was my last day in Mrs. Ambrosino’s first grade class. It was a bittersweet day as we celebrated the time we spent together. Thank you for sharing your child with me and helping me grow as an educator. I look forwarding to taking the lessons I have learned this year  along with the memoires of a wonderful year in 1^st grade. Today in their backpacks, folders, or pockets you will find a small card like the one below. I gave each child 3 sunflower seeds to plant and take care of this summer. Sunflowers are extremely easy to take care of and so much fun to watch grown during the summer months! I also told the class that this is a see you later not a goodbye as Mrs. Ambrosino has already invited me back to come be a guest teacher a few times before the school year ends. I look forward to coming back to Ann Arbor to spend some quality time at Burns Park.

The Bad Beginning

Being that Friday is my last day the class has been suggesting every extra moment we have as a time that they could listen to me read. I love how attached to the story they have become, and highly suggest you take up the rest of the series at home. I can’t wait to finish the book with the class on Friday and talk about how they felt about the book. Below I have attached the list of the entire series for you and your families if you are looking for some good reads.

 

The Bad Beginning
The Reptile Room
The Wide Window
The Miserable Mill
The Austere Academy
The Ersatz Elevator
The Vile Village
The Hostile Hospital
The Carnivorous Carnival
The Slippery Slope
The Grim Grotto
The Penultimate Peril
The End

 

Transitions

Today marks the end of my time as lead teacher.  Mrs. Ambrosino and I have decided to slowly transition back to her being in charge of the class to make it easier for the class. It is refreshing and also sad to not have the responsibilities of teaching the entire day. I continued today teaching social studies as I have been the past few weeks. We are studying families and writing all about books to tell why our families are special. Today one of our first grade friends suggest these books become presents for a special day coming up in May. Since we deemed these books as presents that kids have been feverishly working on them in order to show you their best work!

A7 Poetry Café

I was so happy with the amazing turn out we had tonight for our poetry open house. Thank you to all the parents who came and listened to our poetry. It was a nice surprise to have students who wanted to share more than one of their poems. I hope this means they enjoyed the unit. I took a fun panorama of the whole experience for those of you who missed it.

 

Next week we will be starting All About… books. On Monday in Social Studies we began studying families, and we will write our first All About… book about our families.

Sneak Peak

Here is a small sneak peak for our open house tomorrow. Watching this video makes me so proud, and I know you will feel an even bigger rush of pride when you see your child up on stage tomorrow. From 6-6:15 will have the stage closed for mingling about the classroom. Your child will be allowed to show you all their poetry and anything else in our room. At 6:15 we will be starting our performances. Your child will sign up for a slot when you walk in if they feel like sharing.

 6 Word Memoir Video
(For privacy reasons, this is an unlisted video. Only people with the link can see it.)

In other news…

We have been working away on money and counting change in math. On Friday we will have our Unit 8 assessment and pick up next week on Unit 9.

Thursday this week will be participating in Washtenaw Community College’s Math Carnival in the afternoon. The kids love all the activities they bring, so make sure to ask them about it when they get home!

Friday will be the 5^th grade Market Day. Our class will be visiting the market after art in the afternoon. I’ve never experienced a Burns Park Market Day, but from what I hear it is incredible. Students will actually get the opportunity to purchase items from the market! I will make sure to take photos to share.

 

 

Setting the Stage

All week the class has enjoyed creating new and powerful six word memoirs. Today they all chose one memoir and recorded their voice reading it. This weekend I will put together the video in preparation for our open house. In addition we wanted to decorate our room for the open house. I hung a plastic table cloth as a curtain and each student created a light for our stage. We have already begun using our stage to practice presenting out poetry.

 

 

Dissecting Fruit

As we continue our study of living things, we dissected fruit today in order to find the stem, skin, and seeds. Everyone loved getting some hands on experience with the fruit and their scientific drawings turned out great!

 A7 Open House

Today in your child’s folder we sent home an invitation to our poetry open house. Next Wednesday, April 17^th, we will be hosting our families to celebrate our study of poetry. The first few minutes will be a time to mingle and view our 6 word memoir video. Starting at 6:15 students can sign up for a stage slot to read their poetry to our audience. We would also like to invite family members to bring any poetry they would also like to share. Apple juice will be served and feel free to bring a small bite to add to our celebration!

Rain Rain Go Away

With more rain today our students stayed inside AGAIN for recess. Indoor recess makes for a long day in first grade. This afternoon we played a brain break game to get our “sillies” out. Buzz is a game where you pick a number and then how you will count to that number. For example today we counted to 20 by 2’s, round and round the circle we counted and each time we reached 20 that person called out buzz. This means they are out of the game and then we start again counting at 2. It gets pretty excited and the students who get buzzed out still love watching the game continue. Here is a picture of the final round of buzz.

6 Word Memoirs

Today we began our 6 word memoir project and I couldn't have been happier with the work the students produced! After I showed a few examples it was as if a fire ignited. One student shared a 6 word memoir he created right on the rug. Counting the words on his fingers as he spoke, the other students took this structure and used it to support their thinking. Instantly the class began counting out their 6 word memoirs. Before I knew it students were rushing to their seats to get their thoughts on paper. Below are a few examples of the AMAZING work the students created today. Later this week we will begin recording our voices in preparation to create our 6 word video.  

A7  Time Capsule

After a rainy start to our day we had a very productive afternoon. Because the playground was still wet we had to have indoor recess in the afternoon. I love hearing the buzz of our busy first graders during indoor recess. From working on their number scroll to making cards for their friends and family everyone manages to keep themselves busy. I took a fun panorama of what indoor recess in our room looks like.

After recess we created our class time capsule. We’ve been study classrooms from the past, and I thought a nice way to end the unit would be to create something that will help classrooms in the future learn from us. Each student filled in an information sheet so everyone felt that they had contributed.

I gathered materials from around the room and several students also brought in items to add. After we filled our time capsule (an old chlorine buck from my parent’s garage) we discussed when the time capsule should be opened. After MANY suggestions we decided to wait until 2024, the year this class will graduate high school. While I didn't end up burying the time capsule, hopefully someday someone will learn something about what 1^st graders were like in 2013.

Back to School, Back to Poetry

I am excited to get back to school tomorrow after a relaxing week. Tomorrow in poetry we will be starting our 6 word memoir project. I can’t wait to see the poems our class creates tomorrow. Over break I did some research on other elementary classes who did this project and found some great examples to show the class, here are a few examples.

6 Word Memoir Examples

While some of the above examples are little advanced for 1st grade I think it will be a fine place to start. Specifically we are going to start by writing 6 word memoirs about spring. I think once the students gain confidence in the structure of the poem they will run with this project.

Spring Break Fun Day #8

Jack Perlutsky is another one of my favorite poets. Read his poem “Beezer’s Ice Cream” and make up your own silly ice cream flavor! Feel free to share your flavor in the comment section so we can all see what crazy flavors you have come up with!

Bleezer's Ice Cream

I am Ebenezer Bleezer,
I run BLEEZER'S ICE CREAM STORE,
there are flavors in my freezer
you have never seen before,
twenty-eight divine creations
too delicious to resist,
why not do yourself a favor,
try the flavors on my list:

COCOA MOCHA MACARONI
TAPIOCA SMOKED BALONEY
CHECKERBERRY CHEDDAR CHEW
CHICKEN CHERRY HONEYDEW
TUTTI-FRUTTI STEWED TOMATO
TUNA TACO BAKED POTATO
LOBSTER LITCHI LIMA BEAN
MOZZARELLA MANGOSTEEN
ALMOND HAM MERINGUE SALAMI
YAM ANCHOVY PRUNE PASTRAMI
SASSAFRAS SOUVLAKI HASH
SUKIYAKI SUCCOTASH
BUTTER BRICKLE PEPPER PICKLE
POMEGRANATE PUMPERNICKEL
PEACH PIMENTO PIZZA PLUM
PEANUT PUMPKIN BUBBLEGUM
BROCCOLI BANANA BLUSTER
CHOCOLATE CHOP SUEY CLUSTER
AVOCADO BRUSSELS SPROUT
PERIWINKLE SAUERKRAUT
COTTON CANDY CARROT CUSTARD
CAULIFLOWER COLA MUSTARD
ONION DUMPLING DOUBLE DIP
TURNIP TRUFFLE TRIPLE FLIP
GARLIC GUMBO GRAVY GUAVA
LENTIL LEMON LIVER LAVA
ORANGE OLIVE BAGEL BEET
WATERMELON WAFFLE WHEAT

I am Ebenezer Bleezer,
I run BLEEZER'S ICE CREAM STORE,
taste a flavor from my freezer,
you will surely ask for more.

Feel free to share your peom below in the comments section so I can see what great work you're doing!

 

 

Spring Break Fun Day #7

Color poems are another fun easy way to create poetry. Here are few different templates you can use to create your own color poem.

Brown

Brown is a chocolate cake and a chocolate Labrador
Brown is a chocolate milkshake.
Boxes are Brown
Brown is a feeling on a winter day,
It's mud, it's a turkey
a cow, Cocoa Puffs and a dirty pig.

Color Poem Templates:

Have you heard the sound of (color)?
(List three things that your color reminds you of)
-
-
-
That's the sound of (your color).

----------OR-----------
Have you heard the sound of (color)?
If not, then,
Can you hear the (something your color reminds you of)?
Can you hear the (something your color reminds you of)?
Can you hear the (something your color reminds you of)?
If you can,
You have heard the sound of (your color).


Feel free to share your peom below in the comments section so I can see what great work you're doing!

Spring Break Fun Day #6

Sometimes just listening to a good poetry reading can really brighten your day. I have a few poems that are personal favorites of mine that I think anyone could fall in love with after listening to them read by the poet who wrote it. When we return from break we will continue writing poetry but also start learning about performing poetry. Watch and enjoy!

On this site, Kenn Nesbitt has several poems preformed via podcasts.

http://www.poetry4kids.com/blog/category/podcast/

Spring Break Fun Day #5

This is one poem everyone can write. Why? Because it's so easy and so much fun. All you have to do is to make a list of your favorite excuses/complaints you make every time you’re ask to “____________”

Children

-Clean your room

 -Do your homework

-Eat your dinner

Parents list might look like this…

-Clean up the house

-Pay the bills

-Make the dinner

Whatever poses a constant battle in your house can magically turn into poetry, add just the right title and ending and voila! You've written a terrific list poem.

Here's how it might turn out:

I Can't Write a Poem

Forget it.
You must be kidding.
I'm still half asleep.
My eyes keep closing.
My brain isn't working.
I don't have a pencil.
I don't have any paper.
My desk is wobbly.
I don't know what to write about.
And besides, I don't even know how to write a poem.
I've got a headache. I need to see the nurse.
Time's up? Uh oh!
All I have is this dumb list of excuses.
You like it? Really? No kidding.
Thanks a lot. Would you like to see another one?

Feel free to share your poem below in the comments section so I can see what great work you're doing!

Spring Break Fun Day #4

April is Poetry Month! Today I thought we would celebrate with acrostic poems. They are often explained by using a person's name. Try writing an acrostic poem using a different noun like the examples below or even a verb!

Candy

Charleston Chew
Almond Roca
Nestle's Crunch
Dots from Mason
Yummy

By: Bruce Lansky

Garbage

Grounds (coffee)
Apple (core)
Rinds (mellon)
Banana (peel)
Anchovies (from a pizza I wouldn't eat)
Grapes (too ripe to eat)
Emptying the stinking bag (my job)

By: Bruce Lansky


Feel free to share your poem below in the comments section so I can see what great work you're doing!