Oak Galls

 Do you have a life science standard similar to this?

2c. Students know animals eat plants or other animals for food and may also use plants or even other animals for shelter and nesting.

One of the units we do is a study of oak galls. Do you have oak trees near you? We have  Valley Oak and Coast Live Oak trees in our outdoor classroom. First, we learned to tell the difference between them.

We went on an observation walk and did bark rubbings.

An oak apple gall.

We learned that galls are a swelling of plant tissue that provides food and shelter around a wasp larva growing inside.

This tiny wasp is only about a mm.

 

 I turned the photo in my iphoto but it still uploaded this way. Grrr...anyone know a trick for turning photos in blogger? I modeled how to draw as we talked through the life cycle.

We looked at some samples and identified and collected data on the many different types of galls: oak apple, candy kiss, jumping balls, saucer, caterpillar, spined turban.

Did you know the Declaration of Independence was written in oak apple gall ink?
Each student got a chance to write with a feather and real oak apple gall ink.

 

We brainstormed what we had learned on a circle map.

Ignore the messy handwriting. If I slow down to make it neat I lose my kids.

This was our first step-up to writing paragraph. I asked for the students input but clearly this was heavily led by me.

Hope you enjoyed learning about oak galls!

Happy Fall, Y'all

Happy Fall, Y'all! 

(Okay, I gave in to my secret desire to use y'all but I just don't think a California girl like me can really pull it off. Maybe I'll come back as a cute little Texan in my next life. )

Have you noticed your class is seriously lacking in fine motor skills? Do they hold the scissors upside down or move the scissors around instead of the paper? The only answer is to provide instruction on proper technique and opportunities to practice.

I teach art every Tuesday and many of those weeks we use directed art projects from TLC Lessons. I give step-by-step directions the students must follow like, "Pick up the largest brown rectangle. Hold it vertically. Cut off a triangle on the top two corners." This reinforces shape and positional vocabulary and I use my observations of how well they follow directions as a listening grade.

Last week we did a tearing project for fall although I changed the colors from the original TLC directions.

 The students decided how many leaves to put on and where.

WOW! Talk about F-A-L-L!

This one looks like it is nearing winter. :-)

I would not be able to manage this if it wasn't for my terrific parents. I have one mom who cuts all the paper at home and sends the project in all ready to pass out. I have other parent volunteers attend so they can walk around and remind children to hold their scissors correctly or get a new brown rectangle if the student had a hard time with a certain step (always have a few extras!) Especially in the beginning of the year there is some frustration and tears. It helps to have these parents to put out multiple fires.

I do admit I do need to manage the parents a little. I caution parents about helping their own child. I've found the parents are either overly tough on their child OR the child becomes a baby with the attention of their mother and the mom wants to coddle them. One boy started bawling last week and I told the mom point blank that I thought it was because she was there and as soon as she moved to the other side of the room and I talked to him he stopped crying and got to work. Unbelievably, I have also had to say, "Parents, please don't pick up the glue and do it FOR them. " But once I have the parents trained :-) it is all good.

If you are worried about your kids getting upset about how their artwork turns out, my advice is to read the book Ish.

I  posted about this before but it works wonders. When we tore the trees some of the kids were a little sad that their tree had a bigger chunk out of it than my sample. I said, "Does it look tree-ish?" and the other kids jumped right on. "Yea, it is tree-ish. Maybe that is where a squirrel lives!"

I also wanted to share some blog designs that we finished. I hope you don't mind me sharing these occasionally. Maybe you will find a new blog to follow? Click on the photo to go visit.

 

Finally, I fixed a long overdue problem on my blog. I now have all the teaching blogs I follow listed on my sidebar! I hadn't updated that gadget in forever and was feeling badly about not having some of my new favorites on there. They are listed by the most recently updated so everyone will get fair billing. Only 10 show at a time but you can expand the list if you are interested.  I so appreciate all the wonderful ideas you ALL share! I'd love it if you would add me to your sidebar, too.

Blurting Brainstorm

Anyone else ready for bed at 9 PM? My class is seriously wearing me out!

This came up when I googled exhausted. LOL! Umm...I wish I looked that good when I WASN'T exhausted!

I mentioned before that I have many students that were from a kinder class that a rough year. Things are getting much better but there are still a few darlings having a hard time with calling out every thought in their head OR making weird sounds??

Ready for my magic solution?

I start the timer running. If someone calls out I stop it (it makes a nice beep) and say something like, "Oh, calling out stops our timer" and write the time the class earned on the board. Then I start it over again and they try to go longer without calling out to beat their time. Time earned gets them out early to the next recess or lunch.  After a little while, I didn't need to say anything about the calling out anymore I just stopped the timer and the beep was enough. The offender usually clamps their hands over their mouth!

Here is the super secret teacher trick: I never show them the actual timer because I LIE. Yes, think what you will but I lie to my children. There is no way I am letting them get out TOO early so I make up the times so they improve if they should but not by so much that they get out earlier than I am comfortable with.

Hope my occasional idea is helpful to someone else!

Flashcard Friends

Do you have English learners who are still having a hard time getting their letter sounds down? I had one sweetie last year who I did flash cards with daily and she kept missing the same ones. When I asked her what the picture was on the m card, she said rat instead of mouse. On the q card she kept saying princess instead of queen. So those clues were no help at all! One day I realized she knew her classmates names better than many of the other kids did. BRAINSTORM!!! 

I quickly made these alterations to the flashcards:

Luckily I had a wide variety of names and could cover most of them. Now, she quickly learned the sound of M because of her dear friend Megan! Not only were the pictures more helpful but she was more engaged in practicing her flashcards!

I don't think I'll need this trick this year since most of my students are only missing a few sounds here and there (that darn short e is a tricky one) but I came across these cards and thought maybe someone else could use the tip. Worked like a charm for my sweetie. Isn't she a cutie?

Teddy Bear Day

If you use my daily editing math word problems you know that I like to incorporate interesting "holidays" into my lesson plans. This Friday was Teddy Bear Day. We made a day of it by inviting our bears (or other furry friends) to spend the day with us. We got in the spirit by making teddy bear headbands.

 

We recited this poem.

We made a class book introducing our furry friends. You can download a copy here.

 

There was a little drama when one boy's white teddy lost his eye. Luckily we found it!

I gave them the writing prompt: "Today my teddy bear came to life and..."

Today my tiger came (to) life and it was playing on the monkey bars.

They had a lot of fun coming up with what their bear would do.

Today my teddy bear came to life and my teddy bear ate my lunch.

Each child got a bag with 12 gummy bears. They sorted by color, made a bar graph, and then answered questions like which color did you have the least of? The graph I got from Teaching Heart.

 Of course, we also read some bear stories.

We didn't have time because we have music class on Fridays but I was also going to have them measure their bears with unifix cubes and then do some comparing.

It was a fun-filled day that I hope the children will remember fondly when they think back to first grade.

In other news, I would like to thank  Teacher Education Degrees for naming my blog to their Top 50 Early Childhood Education Blogs. There are so many wonderful teaching blogs out there I was greatly surprised and honored.