Possessives, puppets and books

Yep, it's almost been a month since my last post (and honestly it doesn't feel like it). Life has been a bit hectic.
Possessives:
I have some students that are able to use possessives in their writing, and some that don't have a clue. I found some 20 cute pictures in PPT, printed them and laminated them. I passed them out to each child. They had to then find 5 different students in the class, mixing girls and boys. When they found a student, they wrote about that student's item (ex: Jake's puppy is very cute.) The sentences were not the best quality, but the focus was on using that apostrophe in the student's name.

Then we have finished up our last hand craft project, hand made puppets:

Then finally they wrote their own stories, here are a few covers they made:

That's it folks!

Winter PE

Well it just doesn't want to get any warmer here yet.
We still have plenty of time for winter activities with all this snow and ice.
Our PE lesson today was again cross country skiing.

I then played two different games with the other half of the students that were with me. 
Again we played the food chain game. This student was the fox and she had found two hares.

The last game we played was a vole and weasel game. We first all had to pack down the snow and make paths that crisscrossed. Then once that task was done, the game rules are as follows:

All students are voles, except those that are chosen as weasels (tagers). Voles dig tunnels under the snow in winter, and weasels are clever since they too go into the tunnels to find food in the winter. Since the weasels are hungry and want to eat the voles, they are going to chase and tag the voles. Once a vole is tagged, it turns into a weasel and the game continues until everyone is tagged. Now the new weasels help catch the voles that are left. The game ends when they are all weasels. Then they come back to the starting point, and we chose new weasels and start again. Oh and everyone needs to stay on the paths at all times!
They enjoyed this game very much. It is good physical exercise running through that snow! It is also a good game for teamwork: how to capture the voles with your team mates. If on a path that joins another, then they needed to trap a vole from both sides instead of chasing the vole only from behind.

More Solar System

So this week flew by, but it still felt great! Woo hoo!
We finished up the week with some moon phases cookie activity. I'm sure you all have seen this before. Once students had made the 4 phases I required, they ate the cookies. I told them though that they now needed to draw those phases on their paper, after the cookies were eaten. They all thought this was the best day ever! Don't you love the enthusiasm?

Then for art students had a choice to make a rocket or an alien spaceship picture from scrap paper. We have made many projects lately, and I wanted them to use up the scraps left over. See the large bin of scraps!

We didn't have much time today to work on them, but here are two that are almost ready.

Another activity for art we did was critiquing art. I looked up some art from the Met, showed them to the students and we told what we liked about the art. Then I had in advance put one number (1-21)under each students art work, which was hanging on the classroom walls. Then I handed out a slip of paper that had one number (1-21). Once the students received the slip of paper, they were to go and give a POSITIVE comment about the art piece. The other rule was that it had to be specific, not just "It is nice".
Today's photos were taken with my iPhone since a fellow college had borrowed my classroom camera.

Solar System

Today I wanted my students to read the scholastic series books for Space. I have 6 books at grade 1 reading level. The students had to read the book with a partner, and write one fact on the fact sheet provided with the book. The books are Sun, Moon, Earth, Planets, Starts, Space. I'm sure some of you have them! But since I only had 6 books, that wasn't going to be enough activity for my other students. So then I just gave the other partners some activities.
1-blocks, build a rocket out of blocks
2-draw the solar system, color and label (an example was on the overhead to guide them)
3-write a poem about space, 4 lines (some did great, others needed coaching)
4-write what it would be like if you were traveling in space far away from Earth
5-draw yourself looking at the stars

We will continue this tomorrow for science. I am going to add a few more activities:
6-make an alien out of play dough
7-planet word search

Food Chain Game

Today was PE, and we were outside for cross country skiing. My partner teacher took half the group skiing, and I kept the other half playing games. The first game we played today was Red Rover. Only 2 students had to make it more physical by ramming into each other with too much force.

The other game was the food chain game. It's pretty basic. Take some clothes pins, I had 10 only this time. On 4 of them I wrote "plant", on another 4 I wrote "hare" and the last 2 were "fox".

I handed out the clothes pins by pinning them on the students jackets. Then everyone had to face the same direction at home base (no peeking), so I could release the plants into hiding. The rule is, if you are a plant, you go hide somewhere in the yard, but you cannot move from your spot. Plants can't get up and move.

Then I released the hares. Their job is to go find the plants (no tag necessary) and take the clothes pin off the "plant" student and attach it to their own jacket. Now the hares must hid because the foxes are soon on the loose. Hares can hide and move.

The foxes were then released. When they find a hare, they take both the hare pin and the plant pin, and pin them to their own jacket. Today we played in a small area, but it can be more fun when there are more hiding spots. Once a student has their pin taken from them, they return to home base and wait so the next round can begin.

I then told students to switch pins and choose one they were not before.
I am going to make more of them for my students, so they can play during the recesses.
Here in Finland this is a food chain that exists in our natural environment. Perhaps you can come up with a food chain with animals that would exist in your surroundings! I'd be delighted to hear if you come up with one. 

Valentine's Day

Well there is no huge Hooplah here celebrating Valentine's Day. Our junior high students sell lollipops, so that is about as crazy as it gets! Well us teachers decided that our 1st and 2nd graders would have friendship ice skating to celebrate the day together. It was great! We had the 2nd graders make cards for the 1st graders, and we delivered them. Then at ice skating we gave each child a number. Then we called all 80 kids over to us on the ice, and told them random numbers they had to make from the numbers they were given. Example, 13 (5+5+3). Once they made their number they went around the ice together in that group. We had an 1.5hrs planned for it, but by the time we had all the laces tied and everyone including the teachers on the ice, there was only 40 minutes to skate. The kids had a fun time, and it was nice to see them mingling with each other! Hope your Valentine's Day was great!

Main Idea

My students read one book a week for reading at home. Students then need to write about the story they read. Before they only had to write what they thought about the book, but now they need to tell me about the story as well. This week we worked on Main Idea in small groups. I first read out loud to them the story of The Shoemaker and the Elves. We then brainstormed together what we thought was the main idea. I told them it had to be one sentence, not retell the story. I wrote down what we came up with, and then we wrote what were the other details in the story.
Then I gave pairs a folktale/fairytale book to read together. After reading, they had to then tell me what the main idea was, and then write it themselves on the chart paper.

The students enjoyed reading together these familiar stories.