Habitats

The students have been learning about different kinds of habitats: forest, rain forest, desert, and oceans. I was asked to create a lesson that "wrapped" it up and gave the students the opportunities to make connections and illustrate what they learned.
I created a SmartBoard activity where the students reviewed by dragging the different animals, terrains, and plants to the habitats where they belonged.

Before the activity I had found 24 pictures of animals to represent the habitats, 6 from each habitat. As the students selected the animal that they drug to the habitat I handed them a picture of that animal to keep at their desk.

I told the kids that I was buying a zoo except I didn't really know how to take care of the animals and which type of habitats I should build for them so I needed their help! The picture of the animal I gave them was going to be the animal they were in charge of at my zoo. I handed out a worksheet I created and they had to glue the picture I gave them to the bottom right corner, draw a picture of what the animal's habitat would look like at the top, and write a description telling me about the habitat and the animal. When they were done with their habitat paper I gave them a necklace with a Junior Zookeeper badge attached to it where I wrote their name and the animal they were in charge of.

Election Day

Grave vs. Duck

To introduce the election process and what it means to vote we read our Weekly Reader which discussed who was running in the campaign this year and the four procedures to voting when you're an adult. I then read to the student "Grace for President" and "Duck for President" and we made a list on the board of the characteristics of each book that they liked. I modeled to the students what a campaign poster would look like by showing one of Obama and one of Romney that I found on PBS kids website. The students then were able to make their own campaign posters to represent which book they thought was the best.

 We then held out own voting session where each student received a ballot where they could vote for either Grace or Duck as the best book. They cast their ballot in the ballot box and then we posted the results after lunch. Grace won by a landslide!

The next day we read "What Does the President Do". We introduced the presidential candidates to the students not by their political "facts" but by fun facts about them posted by PBS Kids.

We held our own presidential election allowing the students to vote who they think would make the best president. Obama won with a vote of  20-3. To extend the lesson students were asked to write about what they would do if they were president. Then they drew a picture of themselves as the presidential candidate. 



Subtraction Math Centers!

I am currently working in Decatur for clinical hours and I had the privilege to be able to create Subtraction Math Centers for the first grade classroom I'm in! These ideas can be changed and adapted for any grade level.

Jenga Subtraction!

I put labels on each jenga block and when the kids pull the block out they have to say the subtraction problem and answer correctly to be able to end their turn. If they get it wrong they have to go again and take the risk of knocking down the tower!

Shake & Spill

Each student gets a cup of 10 counters, they shake their cup and spill the counters on the ground. Once the counters are spilt they create a subtraction/addition problem from the red/yellow counters that are in front of them. They record their data on the sheet.

 Popsicle Sticks

I wrote subtraction problem from 0-10 on Popsicle sticks. Then I wrote the number 0-10 on cups. The students lay out all the sticks and pick them up one by one. When they pick a stick up they do the subtraction problem and place the stick in the cup that represents its answer. When all the sticks are in the cups they check their answers by looking at the bottom of the cup to see how many sticks should be in each cup.

 The Number Line Game

For the number line game, I created four number lines, one for each student in the group. Everyone gets their own die and a pawn. They all play together as a group taking turns. Each student starts at 20 on the number line and they roll the die to see how many numbers they have to move backwards (subtract). The first person to 0 is the winner.   

 Independent: Scarecrow Subtraction

For the independent center, students worked on their own cutting and gluing the correct answer to the subtraction problems on the sheet. After they had cut and glue all answers they could color until it was time to rotate to another center.