Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful women that these precious children belong to. I hope you have a wonderful day spending time with your family. Thank you for giving me that chance to be a part of your child's life. Their smiles keep my cup running full. 

As we come to the last few weeks of school, I cherish every second I have with my class. Our journey is almost over together, but they will carry a piece of my heart with them as they move on.

-Stephanie

Lucky Charms, Crayons, and MAP Testing....OH MY!

We started MAP testing in math today. Please make sure your student is getting a good nights sleep and a healthy breakfast. Hopefully, this crazy weather won't wake them up at night anymore!  We are also going to be testing out of our TPRI booklet on reading fluency and comprehension. Start paying attention to the binders. Sign-up's for our last conference will be coming soon.  

                                      We just finished our graphing unit in math. The students have learned about drawing conclusions from the data in surveys. To wrap up the unit, the students had to graph the marshmallows found in Lucky Charms. Note to self: picking the marshmallows out of the box takes forever. Every student can now read and create picture, tally, and bar graphs. I think they finished their work in record timing so they could eat the Lucky Charms. It was hard for me to hold back on eating them all by myself.

Our next unit will be on financial literacy. Next Friday, on May 6th, our students will be going to the "Movie Theatre" a.k.a. the Learning Commons to watch a movie. They have been earning income from different tasks that they do throughout the day. The students have created a budget of how much it would cost the go to the movie theatre and get the concession snacks that they prefer. Some students only need to earn $9, while others need $20! (I wish that was the case when I go to Studio Movie Grill.) If any parents would like to volunteer, please let me know. We need help at the front door with the tickets and concession stands. The concession stand will consist of: 

• Goldfish
• Small bags of popcorn
• Capri Sun
• Small snack bags of M&Ms
• Small bottles of Water
• Animal Crackers.

Any donations of these will be grateful! We will be watching Inside Out at 12:30.

Last, thank you to Miss Stanford for finding such an engaging activity for writing letters! I read the story, The Day the Crayons Quit, to the class. It teaches the students about characteristics, feelings, and personification while modeling what letters look like. We learned about different types of greetings, closings, and where the punctuation marks go in a letter. I explained to my students why letters are important, such as helping a person get a job from an employer. 
I modeled to the class how my PINK MARKER would write a letter. The students got a kick out of how the pink marker has a crush on the blue marker and wants me to draw them together on lollipops and cotton candy. When it was their turn, the kids were able to write in crayon for the first time- and only time- in Mrs. Adams' class! I read the voice in each crayon that wrote a letter to their student. Here are a few examples from Mace, Jacob and Ryen.

Open, free prize inside.

Scroll down for FREE PRIZE.

First set of news, we will start the last set of MAP testing this week. Make sure your student has had a good 8 hours of sleep and a healthy breakfast each morning. We will begin the Language Arts MAP on April 18th and Math MAP on April 27th.

Each student was given the chance to do an extra writing assignment at home. No one likes extra homework, but many of them did it! What was the secret ingredient? TOYS! The students had the opportunity to write a speech about their favorite toys and show the class their prized possessions. Everyone wants to bring their toys to school! Many students brought their cherished stuffed animal. Ryen brought a Minion, Sarah brought her favorite Shopkins. Mace brought a Storm Trooper, I think? Some guy from Star Wars. (Husband rolling his eyes.)


We finished our last lesson in science for the animal characteristics unit. Next week, we will start dissecting parts and functions of plants. This week, the students learned about how animals depend on each other and the ecosystem around them to survive. As a class, we did an activity with a simple ball of yarn to express an intricate food chain, including the decomposers that eat the top predators, such as the anaconda, of the food chain.  This model represented how intricate the chain of life can be. Dominic was the leaf cutter ant. When he pulled on his string, the students could feel their string pull and made them realize how the ant phases other animals and plants throughout the web. If one animal became extinct, it could effect the whole ecosystem in the jungle. Props to Lilou who took the picture of our web, and Makaela who controlled the PowerPoint with the animals,

We also created our own ecosystem. With the effort of all our first grade teachers gathering the supplies, we made a two-story terrarium. On the bottom story, we had fish eating the live moss. On the top story, we had worms, crickets, and potatoes. Unfortunately, we never named the goldfish. Their new home is right next to the gerbils. That poor cricket is trying so hard to get out of there alive.

FREE TREASURE BOX CHANCE!!!!
Zaption has been a great tool of technology that I have started to dabble in. The students have taken a Zaption quiz as a whole class, but now here is an opportunity for your child to show you what they know at home. Click on this website, and find an interactive Disney video that will quiz your student. At the end, it will ask for your child's name. I can see it on my Zaption account. If they take the quiz, they can get something out of the treasure box. Let them show off what they know!
 CLICK HERE FOR THE QUIZ

Last, but not least -my favorite moment as a teacher this last week.

With a little extra time, I introduced a logic game to my students called Four in a Row 3D. The students all played together against me. There is countless possibilities to make four-in-a-row: vertically, horizontally, diagonal vertically, etc. It was great to see the students communicate and think a few steps ahead to try to beat me. My kids can get competitive. So far, no one has beaten me yet. =] However, when they worked together, they game me a run for my money.

We are Biologists!

My favorite unit in science is life science! We are almost finished wrapping up our animal characteristics lessons. The students are learning about characteristics of mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and fish. They have learned about the importance of each animal's environment and how they fit in the food chain. We have learned about the life cycle and the stages of different groups of animals: fetal, infant, juvenile, and adult. This past week, we have dug deeper with our aardvark feet to connect the functions of a body part to the importance of the animal's survival.

One fun activity the students had the chance to do is build themselves into a new animal. If you go to this website, your child can give you a tutorial and you can create your own new animal.

Build Your Wild Self Website

 The students were able to use the printer (a new and exciting privilege to a 6 year old) and write about their new animal slash human. They loved it! Here is an example of what Madi created. She wrote a whole page when she was only expected to write four sentences. The students were so engaged in the assignment, many of them wanted to create another one and write about it again. This was a great writing prompt!

We have also had the chance to read a yucky book about bugs! It says potty words like poop and fart! EW! The students learned about ten insects that have gross habits in order to survive. Did you know that there is an existing caterpillar that flings his feces away from him so wasps will go towards the smell instead of the caterpillar? Or that the decapitation fly puts its eggs inside an ant's head and the larva eat the ant's brains? The students wrote about which bug was the grossest in their own opinion. They had a chance to vote online and see the results. If you would like to check it out, here is the author's website. How RUDE!
 
Another great way to tie in writing with science had to do with a few other books. As a class, we read What If You Had Animal Teeth?! The students had a chance to write about themselves having animal teeth in their own life. We traced ourselves with animal teeth. Students came up with some great ideas. Once they had the hang of it, we read What If You Had Animal Feet?! Here are some great responses:

"If I had animal feet, I would have the mountain goat's because I can climb trees and hide from my brother. My things are in the trees in my backyard." -Lilou

"If I could have animal's feet, I would have the white rhinoceros feet because I could stomp on the ground cracks that are on the road. I could carry my friends without a car." -Ryen

"If I could choose animal feet, I would have the fly's feet because if you played soccer it would stick to your foot and no one would get it until you get it in the goal. Then you would score again and again and your team would win because of you. You would win trophies every year and month."
-Jordan

"If I could choose an animal's foot, I would have the Green Basilisk Lizard feet. We will go to China and buy a house so we can live in China. Then I will run to the beach with dust to find a shark to ride it. Last, go to a swimming contest and win." -Jackson

"If I could choose an animal's foot, I would have a Green Basilisk Lizard because if we went on vacation, I can run across the ocean." -Mace

"If I could choose an animal's foot, I would have aardvark feet. I can dig new gems. I could have fun without electronics. So I can have an equal day on and off electronics." -Braylon

We have one more week until we finish our animal unit. Then we will start the life of a plant. Overall, I am very proud of these kids and am glad they share the enjoyment of learning about animals with me. To end this blog, here are my two favorite animal videos that I share every year with my kids. This class loves British accents -not sure- why- and enjoyed that aspect as well.

The Power of Yet

Last week, we had our third Spirit Assembly at Christie Elementary. I was blown away by Mrs. Ransom's ensemble she created to show students how important they are, even when the STAAR test comes around. I saw some of my older students up there, and they did marvelous. I was very proud of them as their former teacher! They showed their hard work and practice from the previous weeks can turn into something purposeful. Overall, Mrs. Ransom directed the assembly over Growth Mindset.

She started of the assembly with this adorable video that the kids and myself enjoyed.

I loved the message. "You cannot do something...yet." WHICH MEANS YOU CAN EVENTUALLY! I started looking up the Power of Yet. Wow! There's a TED Talk over it. I have always tried to teach our children that they have to work to be smart, being smart does not mean anything anymore if there is not a challenge to grow more behind it. I do not tell the students, "You are so smart." If they do not do well, they infer, "I'm dumb." Instead, we need to teach our students that they are working hard and us teachers and parents can see it.

Here are some things you can help your child with at home. Changing the way students think can help them even when we are not around.

Last but not least, congratulations to Azar for winning the third Cubtastic Award. He has worked hard the past few months at school and at home to strengthen his reading. Plus, his smile always brightens my day. #faceswap

Next Week's Festivities

Group pictures will be on Thursday, February 4th.

First grade will be celebrating the 100th day of school on Friday, February 5th. There will be many fun activities going on that day. Student may dress up to look like they are 100 years old. Here are some ideas....

Party city has hair spray in grey and white.
Wearing glasses (especially with decorations on them)
Putting blush on cheeks
Rollers in hair
Buying a cane. (Goodwill is a great place to look.)
Wearing a quilt as a shaw
Pearls
Fedora hats
Suspenders
Bow ties

I went on Pinterest and found plenty of pictures to reference.

I need your help! Any donations of these few items would be helpful for our celebration. Anything you can bring, it would help if it was here by Thursday. I will be getting the rest that afternoon. Here are the items: sealed red-lipstick, cotton balls, Fruit Loops, and Goldfish.


Here is a very late congratulations to sweet Jackson for being the second Cubtastic winner right before the winter break. He showed so much resilience, hard work, and courage during our Thanksgiving Performance. A friend with a speaking part went home sick. Jackson stepped up and practiced the part in less than three hours. Way to go buddy!

Last thing, my e-mail has changed.
I am about 91% positive that parents can still e-mail me on my old address. However, this is the new one.

stephanie.adams@pisd.edu

FLASHBACK FRIDAY

It has been a busy semester. Here's some of the highlights of first grade so far!

Let's flashback to the 50's!
On the fiftieth day of school, the students chose to dress up in 1950's style. We learned how to do the Twist. The kids played Sock Hop Pop- each student picked a popsicle stick with a word on it. If the stick had POP they had to all do the twist to the legend, Sam Cooke. We also compared trends from the 2010's and the 1950's decades. The played math games racing to 50.

With all the compliments, the class won a popcorn party! The students voted on the popcorn they preferred. The winner was....GHOSTBUSTER POPCORN! It was the easiest thing to make. Some kids did not want to try it due to all the green gooeyness, but it turned out tasting awesome if you like rice crispies.

Eliana making silly faces.

Pioneer Day
Just before the break, we had our traditional Pioneer Day. All the kids in first grade learned about what it was like to come to America as a pioneer, having nothing here. We compared the lifestyles for children that lived in the 1600's compared to now. The students went in rotations to each room learning and creating new activites. Thank you to all the wonderful parents that made this day possible. We could not have done it without them. (Thank you Mrs. Evans for twisting off and on all those baby food jars. You were a trooper!)

Marian, Mrs. Lujan, Sarah, and Mrs. Evans celebrating Pioneer Day

Top and Bottom Left: Carly and Lilou showing off their work from quill writing. Jackson creating a picture which was not the easiest task. They used a feather and black ink to write. Top Right: Ryen learned how to make soap. Bottom Right: Dominic and Braylon played a game with their new toy. The goal was to get the washer in the cup.

Top and Bottom Left: Jordan, Mace and Sarah working on more quill writing. Top Right: Jacob was creating a necklace out of dyed noodles and string. Bottom Right: The best station! Madi made her homemade butter. They tasted it with crackers. Overall, it was yummy!

After all the fun activities, we had a lunch together in class. All students brought something to contribute to our soup and fruit salad. There was none left! They gobbled it all up. 

Learning Commons

We have taken trips to the Learning Commons a few times this year. My favorite time we went to the Learning Commons was when the students created buildings in the community. First write, then build.

The kids could have spent hours in there building. I was impressed by the collaboration between Mace and Braylon. Together, they created the Texas Union Bank. Braylon started on the "layout" while Mace created the fence around the bank. They created cameras around the bank with facial recognition. There was room with a chair so the security guard could watch all the cameras. If the guard saw something wrong, he had an alarm button and an escape route. Such detail!

Last but not least...The Engineering Expo

During science, we have been learning about wind energy. Our essential question was "Why is wind energy important to us in everyday life?" During the same time in LA, we have been comparing different stories to the folktale The Three Little Pigs. Integration, viola.

The students had to find a way to keep the second pig's stick home stabile from the wind energy from the Big Bad Wolf. Ask your child why we didn't focus on the first pig.

We tested what objects moved and stayed by blowing our wind energy on them through a straw. We recorded that heavier objects stayed, which means we needed to find objects for our pig homes that were heavier than the sticks. 

Red group added gummy bears and many more sticks on the roof. 

Blue group added heavy dominoes to their Pig House 2.0. They even created a hole on the top that only the pig could fit through. They made a latter out of sticks to get to the top.

Green group's first home was heavy, but top heavy. They moved all their weight down to the bottom with erasers and gumdrops.

Yellow group used marbles to keep the home stable. However, the first home was stable on one side where the marbles were, but would move on the other side. Pig House 2.0 had marbles distributed on all parts of the house.

During the Engineering Expo, Makaela did a wonderful job explaining to the older students the steps of process. She tested out the pig home by using the blow-dryer. As a class we learned about the Fujita Tornado Scale. We decided that the wolf blew the stick home down on a scale of F2, hard enough for wood, but not brick.

It has been a great semester so far. We have done so much! Only a few more days to another glorious break! Thank you for all the support you have been giving your first grader at home!