Mrs. Berry's Classroom: So . . . What's Up?

Well, hello there! I wonder if anyone else is feeling like my little guy was, when it was time to go back to school. Maybe you didn't want to face the music? Or maybe you just wanted to hide in the lockers??

I was able to get him out of the locker and reassure him that when he gets to middle school he won't get pushed into a locker. (fingers crossed) And we even got a few smiles on the first day of school. We bought a new house this summer. We always took pictures in front of the fireplace in my other house. And boy do I miss it! This fireplace is just, eh.

Not only did we buy a new house this summer, we also got a few new animals. First, but not least is our new dog named Spot. We got him from the shelter, and he is just a perfect dog! He was all potty trained. Which was perfect since we have brand new carpet in our new home. I absolutely love this picture! Everyone is so stinking happy!

My favorite pets are our chickens! There is no funnier sight than seeing my kids chasing the chickens in the yard trying to get them in their coop. And everyday is Easter around this place! The kids love going to the coop to get the eggs.

The first day in class finally arrived. Our first day of school this year was on August 11th. Can you believe that? We start super early. This year I made my first grade back to school chalkboard sign. I'm pretty proud of myself, if I do say so. Each student took a picture with the sign. Then we used a little math about themselves paper and a little pencil craft. And viola, back to school bulletin was complete. I'll save the pictures and print them for the students memory book to take home on the last day of school. I'm always so amazed by how much my firsties grow during the school year.

I was so happy to have a student visitor from my classroom last year. This sweet little student gave me a rocking chair for my classroom. I painted it Makinac blue, my favorite color. It reminds me of my favorite family vacation, Makinac Island. It makes a perfect chair for the helper of the day to sit on when we do class work on the carpet.

After our first fifteen or so days of school we had the daily five mastered! We were able to begin reading groups, and things are going very smoothly. One of my favorite apps to use during guided reading is educreations. It's an interactive whiteboard. So instead of dragging out the good ole' dry erase boards, markers, and erasers, we go onto the ipads and click on the educreations app. And boom. That's it. I love it. Not to mention my students love to use technology during guided reading.

And speaking of reading groups, we read a book about technology. It's in the above picture. After we read the book, I put a little bit of a critical thinking, comprehension twist to the book. Each student drew a model of something that could be used in the future. Then I sent home modeling clay, and they made their drawing into a model. Boy was I blown away by their creativity! This little guy drew a futuristic model car.

This is his drawing and model. He did an amazing job, and even told me about the type of fuel that it would use to make it go faster.

Then we had this model. It is a machine that will compact trash so that it will take up less space in the landfill. I think we will definitely be using this in the future.

And this little guy is cool. It's the whole drone concept, but on steroids. This machine will deliver all mail and packages to everyone's home. Except it will fly. How neat. Right?

The last model was an amphibious invention. It will be able to go through land, water, and air. It will be able to fly into a volcano and do research in there. How cool??

After a couple of weeks with successful daily five sessions, we began our math daily five. The concept is so similar to daily five, that it enables the kids to do an amazing job, and learn how to do everything so quickly. The picture below is one of the math journals. My students use math journal for the "Write About Math" portion of the math daily five. Most of my journal entries come from Reagan Tunstall.

Another piece of the math daily five is "Work With Someone." Here is a simple little activity students can do together. I did a lesson with the magnetic ten frames and modeled how to use them. Then I put it into one of the math tubs, and it becomes something students know how to use to get some continued review of ten frames.

Here is another activity we used for "Math With Someone." It's a game from Cara Carroll's tpt store.

These are the posters that I made to use in my classroom for math daily five. They are available on tpt, with different options for the backgrounds.

$Math Daily Five Posters$

Click here to preview the Math Daily Five posters on tpt.

Students also dove into their science journals. During our apple unit, I introduce qualities of scientists. I teach them about using their five senses. We use apples to make this a tangible lesson that they won't forget!

Of course when you do an apple unit you gotta add a little bit of excitement! We had a little bit of fun mixing baking soda and vinegar. Then we added a little red food coloring for an added effect. My students went crazy over it. And I'm talking about a good kinda crazy. They absolutely loved it!

I incorporated our apple unit into our math block. During math daily five students worked with a partner to add with gummy worms. Adding with gummy worms is a great form for firsties to use something concrete they can learn to add. It's amazing how much it helps kinesthetic learners. They even got to eat their candy at the end of the lesson. This apple freebie is from Jess Ross on tpt.

Last, but not least is a food lesson. We made cute Johnny Appleseed hats, and students ate all kinds of apple food. YUMMY! I got the idea from First Grader at Last.