A classroom blog for parents and friends to let you know what is going on in Mrs. Wright's 1st grade classroom at Cypress Creek Elementary in Port Orange, Florida.
Thank you to these moms for allowing me to be with their pride and joy this year!
Thank you to the dads for sending in the yummy muffins and orange juice. It was so sweet seeing the kids serve their moms and everyone looked so nice. We started off with Kid President's message to Moms every where. Haven't seen it here it is.
I talked about my own mom and how she is the strongest woman I know. What better way to show that than the P&G Thank you Mom, Rio Commercial
Each one of our friends had something to say about their mom.
We made portraits of our mom and one extra special surprise was our good-bye...
Happy Mother's Day to all the special moms that help us everyday in every way possible to be a better person.
March was a BUSY month! Between Dr. Seuss and then St. Patrick's Day then Spring Break. Finally got some items from the class SeeSaw so I could share their amazing projects. Thanks to First Grade Blue Skies we learned how to draw a leprechaun and even gave them voices for a message to everyone.
The March family project was to decorate a rainbow or create a leprechaun trap. Here is a video with each of us showing your our project.
I love hearing the children explain their projects and all the family fun is a BONUS!!
St. Patrick's Day was our last day before Spring Break and what better way to celebrate than with a green taste testing party.
Our SAC Committee sent 1 teacher per grade level to #MiamiDevice and it was so worth it! Read about our trip here We made a presentation to SAC with the help of some friends. I am pretty sure they were impressed. The Thank you sign above was signed by each student in the class of the teachers that attended #MiamiDevice I don't know about you WOW that is a massive list of kids!
Collin is sharing his President's Day project. Wait did you see his project?
Mrs. Lenois is one of the SAC chair and what a job that is! Thanks for leading our staff, school, and parents with the decisions that influence our daily schedules.
Emma is sharing her SeeSaw feed. Check out here 100 year old ChatterKid project.
Joshua is sharing his SeeSaw Journal as teachers and parents get to view his projects.
Ms. Clutter is sharing her take aways from MiamiDevice. She loves the relationships she made and even presented with another teacher during a recent Early Release Day an app she learned with kid samples!
Thank you Mrs. Potter and Mrs. Lenois for taking on all the responsibilities of running CCE SAC. Thank you for a place to seek funds to enhance our professional development so we can share and collaborate for our students and school.
Our Queen the super Fabulous Mrs. Stevenson is Cypress Creek Elementary's Teacher of the Year. Our entire school celebrated with our Queen of Ceremonies while she dressed as the Man in the Yellow Hat with Curious George. Each year our school takes part in the annual Character Parade. Each year we also celebrate our school Teacher of the Year with their very own special theme filled day. Just so happens we celebrated Mrs. Stevenson with the Character Parade a little earlier than usual. Everyone dressed as storybook characters and carried books. Really doesn't that just make you smile-everyone celebrating books!
Our 1st grade LOVES, LOVES, LOVES Junie B. so we each took a different Junie B. to be and aren't we the cutest bunch you ever did see!
Our basket was movie theme and we hope you enjoy your treats and movie gift card. Each first grader signed the back of the extra large movie ticket. Fun times!
Our administrators really outdid themselves with a Chick-fil-A and fruit after school party to send Mrs. Stevenson home on to enjoy her day.
Nine years ago I sat on the cadre to open Cypress Creek Elementary to the world. She constantly amazes me with her talents to see every child int he school, make reading fun, and incorporate the standards K-5. Our Media Center is a place filled with laughter and talk of the late and greatest books to read or websites to check out. Reading Counts is buzzing because of her school-wide incentives. Mrs. Stevenson is a team player and continues to learn from others, share, and collaborate with teaches to better their craft. She is a motivator and inspires me personally to be a better school-wide teacher. Thank you Mitzi and congratulations on your achievement. You deserve it and so much more. I am in awe of you and try to let you know just how much I appreciate you!
Every year we count the days in school and keep track. I will have to admit this year I was not the best at making sure those dots filled the ten frames. We count them to practice using a ten frame and looking at different combinations within numbers. We celebrate the 50th day as a first benchmark and then the 100th day is the BIG day. We dress as if we are 100 years old which fits in with our social studies learning about then and now.
Each one of us in 1st grade has a center idea using 100 and it is always a highlight for each 1st grader to rotate into each classroom. Fun times. The best is the aging booth app on the iPhone where you can age them 100 years. Make sure to check out the video because it is always a highlight and a good laugh to see all the fun.
I hope it is a memorable day for the kids because by the end of the day I am pretty sure I really feel like a 100 year old.
*UPDATE: We sent home some sentence starters for the firsties to finish and I wanted to share a few of my favorites. Nicholas "My mom tells me 100 times to be best friends with my brother. Ariyah dad tells her 100 times that he loves her and she tells him 100 times she wants him to stay at home. Logan W.'s dad tells him 100 times to behave. Logan S. says his teacher tells him 100 times Good Job! (guess he hears that a lot from me). Ellia tells her dad 100 times she wants a new dog and her teacher tells her 100 times to not shout out loud. Lauren wrote her teacher tells her 100 times to write her name. Sydney tells her teacher 100 times she wants to read and her teacher tells her 100 times to learn. Emma wrote her teacher tells her 100 times to Chicka Chicka and she tells her teacher 100 times to Boom Boom. Collin tells his mom 100 times that he wants a snack-growing boy. :) Kaleb's mom tells him 100 times to get dressed. And the all time fav-Keylee tells her teacher 100 times she wants to do a Go Noodle! You have got to love kids and the things they say are just the best. I love teaching these firsties!
We worked with the ar pattern and of course I dressed as a pirate and got some funny looks from the firsties. Surprisingly enough they came up with quite a few ar words. Then I thought let's get the iPads out and I could lead a directed drawing using the Draw and Tell app. Ok these are the cutest pirates you ever did see and then we app smashed with ChatterKid to use our best pirate voices while reading sentences we created.
Ms. Clutter and I are using SeeSaw app to collect work from the firsties to share. They can share with one another so we had to teach how to comment. Once we were pretty good we shared with our parents so they could see the amazing work we are creating on the iPad. Our next steps are to blog through SeeSaw and share with other 1st grade classes. So exciting to connect with others around the world and share our learning.
AFT's Thinking Math Common Core K-2 course changed my teaching and still impacts me today. I have seen first graders explain their math thinking and convince me of a more efficient way to see simple math and they can still make me say WOW~I have been teaching for 23 years. Each day we work through 5 mental math problems. We look for patterns, connect to previous learning, and pose alternate strategies to showcase there is more than one way to solve math problems. It truly is a highlight of my day. When I first heard about Periscope I thought that is how I can showcase my class and impact learning for teachers and students across the globe. So I took the plunge and here is our 1st Periscope.
I love these mathematicians! They are using known facts, related facts, compensation, doubles, counting on, and making ten to name a few. You don't get to see and hear all that in a worksheet! If you are into Periscope make sure to follow @teachjwright @wrightsrippers @malloryclutter or #numbertalks I plan on more Periscopes and set up https://katch.me/teachjwright today so you can watch them outside the 24 hour time. I hope you can use them to watch for strategies. Maybe watch as I record their thinking or practice your own recording skills. Maybe use with your team to set a goal to try out #numbertalks. Maybe show your class so they can hear how they can too talk through their thinking. We are all in this together and I am so thankful for Amy Spies, Becky Pittard, Heather Williams, Diane LeJeune, Stephanie Hajdin, Cassy Jurgensen, Liz Lily, Christina Rajcoor, Mallory Clutter, Karen Lassiter, Kym Whitehurst, and the math mom for us all, Alice Gill for helping me realize my potential in sharing math. Thank you to AFT-Alice Gill, VTO-Andrew Spar & Primrose Cameron Hall, and the Teaching Channel for helping me to really learn math and sharing it with the world. More to come so watch for us...
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