Student Teaching in grade 1!

It sure has been a great five weeks here in Mrs. Obach's class! The Grade ones have taught me so many new things like coding, how to use Book Creator, and how to do Daily Five ELA and Math. I have so enjoyed my time at HES and am very sad to be leaving.

Our last book for week 6 of the Global Read Aloud was Friendshape by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Amy Krouse Rosenthal used shape characters to remind us what good friends do. There were also lots of funny jokes that we really enjoyed. After reading Friendshape we decided to create our own friendshape pictures  and write about what we felt was important for a good friend to do. We used fun paper cut-out shapes to create our pictures. We sure had a great time doing this activity!

Amy Krouse Rosenthal has certainly become a favorite other for all of us here in grade one.

Discovery learning: Take 2

Last week in Grade 1, we tried out something new.  Discovery tubs were a big hit and both students and teachers learned a lot!  This week, Miss Dyck and I made a few changes.  For one, we decided to set up four tubs instead of three to make more "spaces" available and avoid "traffic jams" when there were students ready to change tubs and no spots available at the other tubs.

This week's tubs are shown below and also pinned on My Discovery Tubs board.

Discovery Tub Contents:

Book collection related to the seasons

Seasons cards showing seasonal pictures

Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter labels

Construction paper cut into cards

Magazines for cutting

Students at this tub could: sort the pre-made card by seasons, play seasons concentration game, cut and paste to create new cards.    

Questions to ask:  Why did you sort this card here?  How do you know that picture belongs in ____________?  What season does your card show? 

Discovery Tub Contents:

Toothpicks

Mini marshmallows

Sample 3D object created from toothpicks and marshmallows

Optional: label cards depicting 3D objects and 2D shapes

Students at this tub might: create 2D shapes or 3D objects, create a unique design or model (ie: one of my students designed a model of a catapult)

Questions to ask:  What shape/object have you created?  What shape are its faces?   How many vertices does it have?  How many faces does it have?

 

Discovery Tub Contents:

tangram sets

tangram puzzles 

paper for tracing new designs

Students at this tub might: solve pre-printed puzzles or design new puzzles by tracing around their own arrangement of tangrams

Questions to ask:  Where does this piece go?  Is that in the right place?  Does this piece go here?

 

Discovery Tub Contents:

Copies of nets for 3D objects such as cube, prism and pyramid

Model of a 3D object created from the net

Students at this tube may cut out nets and create a 3D object, create multiple objects and put them together (ie: a pyramid stacked on a cube) or cut out 2D shapes they recognize in the nets.  

Questions to ask:  What object/shape did you create?  How can you put it together to make a ___________?  Where should you fold the paper?  What will it look like when you are done?

A New Approach: Discovery Learning

Inspired by two wonderful teachers, Connie Lowe and Devon Caldwell, I set out to introduce discovery learning in our Grade 1 classroom this spring!  I had a great conversation with these two ladies the evening before the Awakening Possibilities conference.  (Our conversation helped me "get going" on this idea and it was a reminder that sometimes the professional development happens outside of the official conference sessions - just talking with other teachers gave me some very useful ideas.)  

Next, I did some reading and exploring online to find out more about discovery learning, ideas for discovery tubs and how to organize these activities.  Some resources I found helpful included:

• Connie Lowe's blog post about Discovery Time in her classroom
• Devon Caldwell's blog post about Discovery Discovery Bins
• Connie Lowe's discovery bins on Pinterest
• Eva Dowd's disovery bins on Pinterest
• Devon Caldwell's discovery bins on Pinterest

Miss Dyck, our student teacher, and I designed 3 discovery tubs related to our math learning about 2D shapes and 3D objects.  Once the tubs were set out at 3 separate work areas, I explained to students that there could be 5-7 people at a tub, they could choose which tubs to explore and when to change activities.  We discussed sharing, being kind and focusing on discovering new things.  Then, we got started!  Miss Dyck and I observed as students tried new things, worked together and created.  We took lots of photos and I put many of them into students' Evernote files to document their learning.  I took note of a few comments:

• "I'm making something."
• "Hey, watch this!"
•  "Try this"
• "Do ladybugs have antennae?" then, after an internet search and a close look at a ladybug diagram "So should I curve them (the antennae) a bit?"
• "Give me the cylinder."

I heard lots of math language and many interesting questions.  I saw enthusiastic, engaged students working together or alone, creating new things and designing, learning and discovering!  After we cleaned up, students gathered at the carpet to share questions and comments. I asked for some feedback and it was overwhelmingly positive "It was fun" and "It was awesome" and even, "It was the best thing I've done at school".  Judging by our first experience, I think we're going to have to continue with our discovery learning! 

Discovery Tub Contents: 

2D shapes 

3D objects 

household objects that are cylinders, prisms, cubes, spheres etc 

2D shape & 3D objects label cards ie: cylinder, prism, square, circle, rhombus, hexagon 

Blank cards 

Students at this tub experimented with different 3D objects to create towers and they also sorted 2D shapes using the label cards.  

Discovery Tub Contents: 
2D shapes
shape "tracer" templates made from cardstock,
variety of paper 

Students at this tub created different designs by tracing shapes or cardstock tracers and they put shapes together to create pictures.  It was the most open-ended tub and it was interesting to watch what the students discovered when there were so many possibilities for them to explore!

Discovery Tub Contents: 
sample "shape bugs"
shapes copied onto construction paper (circle, oval, rhombus, rectangle)
blank construction paper

Students at this tub replicated the shape bug in the tub using preprinted shapes and/or shapes they cut out, created a ladybug shape bug and/or created other new designs using various shapes.

 

These tubs, along with those I will create in the future, are pinned here.

Snowmen at Night Art

We read "Snowmen at Night" by Caralyn Buehner and used our imaginations to think of all different things that snowmen might do at night if they came alive.  (Some of my grade 1 scientists pointed out that it was not factual that snow would come alive and we discussed that too!)  Once we had brainstormed a big list of things snowmen might do at night, each student chose one idea to illustrate for an art project.  Using white crayon or pencil crayon on black paper, students drew their favorite snowmen at night scene!