The Very Hungry Caterpillar

On the first day of spring we had a cake to say goodbye to a student going all the way to Tennessee, and then we made Very Hungry Caterpillars.
He’s an excellent artist and it was SAD but we tried to be positive.

And safe journey…..

All the kids made terrific covers for our books. We are making [...]

Flutterby’s

Our class really enjoyed several types of butterfly art making.
We’ve been waiting the annual order of butterfly caterpillars that we order so that we can grow our butterflies.

Isn’t this beautiful? I wish I could share why this one is especially touching.

Last year it was a success, so we’ll see this year. Our theme in Avenues [...]

Hats For Sale

One of the things the 1st graders in room 5 at Hathaway in Oxnard have been doing is reading, writing and drawing hats.

Inspired by Caps for Sale

and the Cat In The Hat ,

as well as using a fantastic Reading Rainbow that introduces a shop called “Hats To Where” then watching LeVar put [...]

Local Treasure

In our area, about 15 miles from my school is a museum, a research center called the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology.It houses a major collection of a collector that donated it to them.
Yesterday I got to visit. One day  I hope to take my class or a group from my school. This week the [...]

Catching Up (EST)

It’s been a long while since I posted.
My bad.
Let’s try to catch up………..with a post or four about the things we have been doing in 1st grade.
How about our Shadows and project on following the movement of our EARTH!
That’s pretty cool stuff.
We are in a project carried over from last year called Exploring Space and [...]

Hearts From Home, 100 days of school

Is it really time for Valentines and the 100th Day of School?
Both, as always.

For the troops we all made Love Bugs and sent these Valentines to them via the Hearts From Home project. Ms. Wolfson and my class often team up so we teamed to construct something for those we hope are kept safe as [...]

Obama Portraits

We made some nice portraits watching the Presidential Inauguration. Our school made it really great by being sure all the TV’s were hooked up.
Just a fantastic way to learn history.
Also a great way to get inspired to draw.

From My Son…at four…we learn what a child sees

“Martin Luther King, Junior” by my son at 4, in Answer to “What Can Kids Understand”
When my son was very young he fell in love with watching two videos, The Snowman and Our Friend Martin. Both were daily repertoire pieces for him. I thought the Martin Luther King Jr. video was wayyyyyy over his head.
Luca, [...]

Thoughts on Dr. King from children’s lips to your ears

My class made a second movie set to music we listened to working…then they wrote.Recall they are in 1st grade, and Sheltered Immersion in a CA school trying to figure out why they get Monday home. ( I fixed some small things)
Here is what we have so far… Some 1st grade thoughts….
“Dr. King was important [...]

Happy Birthday Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Today we tried to make portraits of Dr. King and to put his pictures to a clip from Dr. King’s famous I Have A Dream Speech.
It was fun working for 35 minutes to draw a very important leader.
Tomorrow each child will write a sentence or two about this American leader.
We are preparing for our day [...]