Science Investigations for Fahrenheit Friday! 

Who doesn't LOVE science? My first graders get so excited when I tell them... "Guess what? Today you get to be scientists!" They would cheer and applaud! They would know that they would get to wear their lab coats and get to do a fun hands on experiment or investigation. I do my experiments on Friday and I call it My Fahrenheit Friday. If you haven't had a lot of experience with experiments (try saying that 10 times fast) then I'd like to share with you some experiments and investigations that I've done with my first graders. I like to teach in themes, so these experiments fall under a big umbrella unit. Before each experiment or investigation, I always start off with a mentor text to get the students "hooked" into the science skill or activity. Here are some of the science books that I like to read to my students: 

Science Read Alouds

I guess you can see that I LOVE Gail Gibbons! I just think her science books are amazing and they are so easy for the students to understand. And... she makes learning so much fun! These books are a perfect segue to our experiments and investigations. 

Some of these you'll see templates for the students to cut out and glue into their science notebook, and some you'll see a lesson plan template. Each of these experiments you can find in my Thematic Units on my Teachers Pay Teachers store. Are you ready to be a scientist? 


Beginning of Year:

Flower Experiment: 

5 Senses Investigation using Popcorn: 

 Fingerprint Investigation: 

Weather: 
Tornado in a Jar: 

Cloud in a Cup: 

Properties of Apples
Apple Investigation:

Maps and Columbus
Sink and Float Experiment: 

Magnets: 

Corn Investigation: 

Feather Investigation: 

Evergreen Investigation: 

Arctic and Winter
Ice Experiment: 

Blubber Experiment: 

Objects in the Sky

Shadow Investigation: 

Rainbow Experiment:

Constellation Investigation: 

                                              

Phases of the Moon Investigation: 

Texas
Oil Experiment: 

Rain forests
Terrarium Investigation:

Plants
Tree Investigation: Deciduous and Evergreen

Sunflower Investigation:
Seed Houses

Rocks and Soil
Volcano Experiment: 

Oceans and Sea Life
Whale Investigation:

Shark Investigation: 

Shell Investigation: 

I hope you have gotten excited about science! 
If you are interested in seeing more of my experiments and investigations, click on my thematic units below on TPT:


Texas Our Texas: Thematic Unit

Rainforest Research: Thematic Unit

Ocean Commotion: Thematic Unit

Rockin' Inside the Earth: Rocks and Soil Thematic Unit

How Cold Can You Go? Arctic Thematic Unit

How Does Your Garden Grow? Plant Thematic Unit

It's Raining Cats and Dogs: Weather Thematic Unit

All About Me: A Back to School Thematic Unit

1492: Maps and Columbus Thematic Unit

What's Buggin' You? An Insect Thematic Unit

Apples Are A "Peeling": Thematic Unit

Love,
Kara 

                      

All About Me: A Beginning of Year Thematic Unit Grades 1-3

I know its only June, and school just got out and your thinking ahhh summer is here! What am I going to spend all of my free time doing? Well, if you're like me and you have any down time... you start to think about school! I've been thinking about how I'm going to arrange my new classroom, how to decorated it and try many new organizational tricks and activities to try with my first graders. I'm very excited because we are moving into a brand new school next year! 
It just goes to show that no matter what's going on in your life, your teacher brain is still at work. 
So, if you are thinking about August and are wondering... hmmm I want to try some new ideas, I'd like to share what I do for my unit All About Me. I created a packet and here's some ideas.

All About Me Cover Page

Some craftivities that I do with my students are learning their initials. A lot of students do not know what their initials are, so we talk about it and then we do a craftivity. I read the book: A My Name is Alice. My students love this book and it makes them laugh!  Here is a picture of our initials: 

Initials Craftivity

The students use a white crayon to write their initials really big on the black construction paper and then pick two different colors of squares to make a pattern around the letters. You can have them use whatever pattern you want.

Another craftivity that we do is to make our family tree. I read the story: Me and My Family Tree. This story talks about different people in your family and how they are related.
Here's a picture of our family tree craftivity:

The students color and cut out their family and glue it onto the tree.

I also have a theme center in my classroom where I change my theme out every two weeks. Here's my All About Me theme center:  

My students get to visit my theme center and learn about their emotions, 5 senses, sharing, learning their phone number, families and also get to read All About Me stories. 


In math, we graph many, many different things: 
Our Names
Our Hair Color
Our Eye Color
Our Fingerprints
How We Get Home
Our Birthdays

Here are some of the graphs that I use in my classroom: 

I use different templates for each graphing activity. This is the template I use for the students to color their types of fingerprints and graph on my chart: 

This is the template I use after the whole class has graphed their fingerprints and we record our data. They cut it out and glue into their math notebook. 

In poetry, I have All About Me poems... of course! We have a focus poetry notebook that we glue our poems into. Here are two examples: 

When we talk about the 5 senses, I pop popcorn and we use it to experience sight, smell, taste, touch and hear. This is the template that I created for the students to fill out and glue into their science notebook. This is so much fun for the students! I mean, who doesn't LOVE popcorn! And what better way to explore our 5 senses! 

I hope you got some great ideas to use at the beginning of the school year! If you enjoyed some of these, then check out my All About Me Thematic unit below on TPT. 

All About Me Thematic Unit Grades 1-3

Love, 
Kara

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Linking Literature with Rosie's Walk 

Have you ever had a book that you just didn't know what or how to use it in the classroom? Well, if you have the book Rosie's Walk by: Pat Hutchins... your in luck!  Here are some ideas that you could use with this book. Here's an anchor chart that I created that lends itself to Interactive Writing: 

Prepositions

I use post-it notes on this chart so I can reuse it every year. After reading the story, I teach my students about prepositions and they write them on the post it note to complete the sentence.
You may ask, what are the rest of the students doing on the carpet while some are writing on the chart? Here's a template that I created that helps the others stay engaged:

This keeps all the other students accountable for the lesson and this is what they will turn in to me for a grade. Or, if you are an interactive notebook fan, you could shrink this down and have them cut it out and glue it into their writer's notebook or journal. The students sit on the carpet with their clipboard, template and pencil. 
I also teach my students the preposition song. It's to the tune of "Yankee Doodle". Many of you probably have heard this before, but the students LOVE it and remember all the prepositions! 

Preposition Song

After completing this activity, you could also have the students make a craftivity that shows Rosie's Walk around the farm. It has pictures and labels: 

Rosie's Walk Around the Farm

Okay, so we've covered reading and writing... what about science?
If you want to extend this book and talk about the chicken life cycle, here's a template you could use for your science notebook or journal:


These are just some suggestions that you could use with Rosie's Walk. If you are interested in these activities, click on my packet below:

Linking Literature: Rosie's Walk Grades 1-2

Love,
Kara

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Show Me The Money: Behavior Management Using Bonus Bucks

Everyone always compliments me about my behavior management. Well, I have to say it's all because of the bonus bucks I use. This is like candy to a little kid... they crave them! My students will work really hard to earn these bonus bucks just so they can go to the treasure box! Crazy right? Well, it works, but the trick is, to be consistent, practice what you preach, and show fairness to all. If you do that your students will know that you mean business and will work even harder for you. Bonus bucks are kept in a cup on the students' desk. This cup is just for their eyes and hands, and they are not allowed to touch any other students' cup of money. Here is a picture of my bonus bucks: 

Bonus Bucks

Every week the students earn their bonus bucks by saying "Thank you" when called on, being a secret walker, winning the pack 'n stack race, winning desk contest, being a good helper and peer facilitator, and having great quality work. However, they can also have them taken away by not listening, not following directions, and not being respectful.  I tell my students it's just like in real life... if you get stopped by a Police Officer because you were speeding in your car, you have to pay a fine. Well, same goes here in the classroom, if you break the rules, you have to pay a fine. This really helps the students understand the importance of following the classroom rules. Once they have to give you their bonus bucks, they are very careful not to make that same mistake again. Every Friday the students get a chance to go pick something out of the treasure box. Each week I set a certain amount of money they need to have. If they do not have that amount of money, they have to wait until the following week.  I also tie this into real life situations. I tell them if I go to the store and I see something I really want to buy, but I don't have enough money, then I will go back home and save some more money and work hard and then when I have enough, I will go back and buy whatever it was I wanted. Hard work pays off!
Here is a picture of my treasure box: 

Treasure Box
Isn't it cute? I ordered it and the jewels off of Amazon. I just hot glued the jewels onto the box. Inside the box I have: stickers, stuffed animals, books, trinkets, jewelry, cute pencils and pens, holiday toys and much more. At the beginning of the school year I ask my parents to donate some toys to help our classroom.

Another positive reinforcement that I have in my classroom are my clip cards. Each student has a clip with their magic number on it. Every day all the students start on green and we go from there. If the students move UP to blue or purple, they earn 10 bonus bucks. But, if they move DOWN to yellow, orange or red, they owe me 10 bonus bucks each time. This also really helps in managing the students' behavior and having them stop earlier and make a better choice. If they are down below green, they can always move back up again. Here is a picture of my clip chart:



If the student moves down to red, they will need to write a reflection. This reflection is then put in their behavior folder and taken home for parents to sign. Here is my template:

If I want to gain the attention of my students... I don't use my voice. I use Mr. Clicker Attention Getter! All I do is click it three times when a student is talking, and they all have to look at me immediately. If I am looking at that table because they are playing or talking they have to pay me bonus bucks at the end of the day because they earned a point for our Desk Contest. This is where they compete with each other to see who the quietest table is. If they do not have any points at the end of the day, then they get 10 bonus bucks, but for each point, they owe me 10 as well. This really works great during guided reading time, or writer's workshop time. 
Here is a picture of Mr. Clicker Attention Getter: 

You can get this at the pet store! It has really saved my voice. 
If you are interested in more of my tips and tricks for behavior management using bonus bucks click on the link below.

Show me the Money! Behavior Management Using Bonus Bucks Grades 1-3

I hope you can find something helpful and useful for your classroom! 
Love, Kara 

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  LITERACY CENTERS: A way to spiral the skills! 

In my first grade classroom I have 24 literacy centers. I spend the  first 9 weeks of school teaching my students how to complete each center. Each day from the first day of school, we sit near that specific center and we talk about it, show what to do, show where to sit, show what task to complete and what to bring to their centers. This is very important to set the tone of what it looks like and sounds like at each center. I want my students to whisper at centers, so I model whispering as I am explaining the center. 
For each group of students, they have four centers to choose from each week, and at the beginning of the new week, I switch their group to a different row. This way they are never bored at the same centers. 
Here is my center rotation chart in my classroom: 

Here are some pictures of my literacy centers in my classroom: 

Word Work Center

Theme Center

Author Study

Writing Center

Read and Write the Room

My students are responsible for bringing these items to their centers: Green Center Folder, pencil, crayon box and clipboard. At every center, I have an activity page they need to complete. After they complete their page, they color it and put it in their center folder. Each time they visit a new center, they need to complete their center template. At the end of the month, I collect all their completed center pages, and for each one I give them a bonus buck. Boy, this sure gives them an incentive to complete their pages! They can in turn use their bonus bucks to go to the treasure box. It's so wonderful to see them working hard at centers! Here are some of my center templates:

If you are interested in more of my literacy center templates, please click on the link below: 
Literacy Centers: Templates, Pictures and Activities Grades 1-3

I hope you find these ideas helpful! 
Love,
Kara

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FOCUS POETRY

Another amazing component of balanced literacy is Focus Poetry. With poetry you can teach so many different skills: fluency, rhyming words, parts of speech, creating mental images, comprehension, author's purpose, rhythm, grammar and conventions. I have a poetry center in my classroom with my Focus Poem up on the bulletin board. On each side of the bulletin board I made index cards with parts of speech words or punctuation words. I staple them together to make a ladder. I call these my Parts of Speech or my Punctuation Ladders. I use these cards to spiral skills with each poem. I change my poem every week. So, whatever my theme is for science or social studies, my poem correlates. For example if my theme is Oceans, then my poem will be about Whales. If my theme is about Texas, then my poem will be about Mockingbirds. If my theme is Martin Luther King, then my poem is about dreams. Here is a picture of my poetry center with my focus poem. 

Focus Poem: Dreams

Poetry Center

At the beginning of the week, I read the poem to my students, and then we do a shared reading together. Students can either sit at their desks or sit on the floor, which ever you prefer. We read it about 4 times to practice fluency, rhyming and rhythm of the poem. If it's a song... then we SING!  After we read the poem, then we go over the Punctuation Ladder. We count all the periods, commas, exclamation points, capitals, colons, ellipses, and many others.
Then, we go through the Parts of Speech ladder which has rhyming words, nouns, verbs, adjectives, contractions, compound words and many others. I ask the students to help me find these words and they put their thumbs up if they see it.
We do this for about 5 minutes.
Last, I give them a challenge to find a certain word in the story to highlight. It may be verbs, contractions, rhyming words, or whatever the skill is of the week I want to focus on. Hence the name Focus Poetry!
I hand out a copy of the poem on colored construction paper, and the students cut it out. They take out their red poetry journal and glue their poem in on the left hand side. On the right hand side, they illustrate a beautiful picture that they created a mental image for in their mind. At the bottom of their illustration they write a caption.... "I drew.... or I illustrated" depending on the time of year. Around their poem, they illustrate a border with marker. I show them different borders that I want them to illustrate. Here's the anchor chart that I made for borders:

Here is an example of my students' focus poetry journal:

If you are interested in seeing more of my focus poetry and acrostic poems, then click on my Focus Poetry Packet. I have instructions, materials and poetry to last you the whole school year for all the holidays and seasons. Enjoy!


Focus Poetry and Acrostic Poetry for all Seasons Grade 1-3


Love, Kara

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