One for the Language Learners

I had a moment of panic last night which has now become the motivation for this post.  You see, one of my students last year drew an amazing picture at the end of the year, full of detail and humour and I thought I had downloaded it and so I deleted it off my camera. But then I couldn't find it anywhere on my computer.  Thankfully, my external hard drive saved the day and I can share this gem with the world. 

My students were reflecting on how God had helped them in the past year and this is what this little guy had to say.

Note the towering stack of paper, the rubbish bin full of scrunched up attempts and the one about to hit the trash.  Clearly it was hard work learning to write in Korean! 

This little guy is Italian.  He came into my classroom with no English at all.  He had already begun to learn French so I could communicate with him through that.  I have to say I have never seen a student learn a language like this guy did. 

Just in Time for Valentine's Day

Have you been longing for love but just not finding it?  Have you had your eye on a special guy but he just doesn't seem to notice you?  Perhaps you've already hooked him but you just need some tips on how to make him feel loved.  Good news! Just in time for Valentine's Day, we've located an expert on love who will answer all your questions.  You might be wondering how we discovered this expertise in our midst.  Well, you see the First Grade is exploring "How To" Writing.  This, of course, began with a discussion about what it means to be an expert at something.

Following the discussion we each made a list of our areas of expertise.  And voila! Just like that, we have a love expert in our midst.

(In First Grade expertise in the field of love is directly proportionate to the number of hearts you can add to your picture so don't be afraid to overdo it! The more hearts the more qualified you are!)

A timely topic, indeed!  Don't worry.  If I gain any meaningful insights, I'll be sure to pass them along to the lovelorn among you with an extra large helping of hearts!

How to Make a New Friend

Tomorrow is the first day back to school for us here at Sahel Academy.  Back to school always means that there are many new friends to be made.  What better time to get some advice from a Second Grader about how to best go about making a new friend!  So with out further ado, I give you a short "How To" on making a new friend.

1.  First you say hi.  Then shake hands.
2.  I think you should play with your friend if you want to know him better.
3.  Then your friend will have to leave.  But don't be sad.  He or she will come back tomorrow!
4.  Then you can play with your friend after you to to sleep.

5.  Later at school in recess, I recommend you play soccer with him.
6.  You can teach your friend how to spell April, Saturday, January, May, backstroke.  (All words from the Second Grade Spelling book...too funny!)
7.  And that's how you make a new friend.  The end.

There you go, my friends, get out there and play some soccer and spell some words.  Today is a day for making new friends!  And by the way, if you happen to meet and make friends with Xopop be sure you tell him he's got quite the cool name!

Happy First Day of School!

How to Make Lemonade

It's been all about "How To" writing in Writer's Workshop for the last month or so.  One of our very first activities was to make lemonade together so that we could all experience a procedure together and then explain it for an audience.  That experience was the inspiration for this book, written by a second grader, who envisioned little men with miniature sized machines making lemonade for a regular sized guy.

How to Make Lemonade

First you wash your hands.

Next you cut the lemons.

Then you squeeze the lemon.

Fourth put the lemon juice in the pitcher.

Then fill a little pitcher with water all the way to the top.

After that get some ice.

Then put the ice in the pitcher.

Then get one cup of sugar and measure

Then put the sugar in the pitcher.

The last part of the work is to stir all of those things together.

Last, drink it and enjoy.

Wow!  Anyone else think I have a future author/illustrator on my hands?

Signs of Christmas

Here in Niger there aren't that many visible signs of Christmas...no snow, not many twinkling lights or Christmas trees in windows but one sign that Christmas is on its way is the Christmas program our elementary children usually put on.  This year it was called, "Signs of Christmas."

Under the direction of my friend Bev, they did a fantastic job! 

 

One moment that made me want to bust out laughing was when this cutie got up to say her line along with several others.  After she finished, she took the time to pose for some pictures and threw up the victory sign just for good measure right in the middle of the program.

 

 

The little girl holding the purple bundle in the middle was Mary and let me tell you, she took her job seriously.  There wasn't a chance that anything bad was going to happen to Baby Jesus!

 

After the program, one of my students took it upon himself to write down the words to one of the songs they sang.  Can you figure out which Christmas carol it was?

 

 

Pretty sure this was the first time I've ever been asked how to spell virgin by a First Grader and I have to say I love the fact that it says, "Sleep in Heavenly Pees."  Oh my!  I have no end of entertainment when reading First Grade Writing!

 

Sleep in Heavenly Peas, friends.

A Tailor Made Super Hero

Contractions have been cropping up all over the books my students have been reading.  Without a little direct instruction, First Graders have trouble reading contractions properly so I decided it was time for some lessons on the topic.  There are lots of great free resources out there for contractions but I have to say Captain Apostrophe caught my attention.  You can click on this link and be whisked away to another blog where you can find a great little story about how Captain Apostrophe has the power to join two words by swooping in, knocking out some letters and then flying high and hovering above the new word.  I wasn't in love with the look of Captain Apostrophe so I sought out another image. 

When I came across this one, I was pretty sure he would be a hit with all the boys but particularly Blue Man, my little friend who is desperately in love with the color blue.  So who should appear in Blue Man's writing several days later but....

Dun Dun Dudun....Captain Apostrophe!

 

Did I call that or what?

 

Now clearly, I have got some work to do on how you actually use apostrophes but hey, at least one person is enamored!  Speaking of work to do....

 



 

I should probably teach my writer's how to spell "write" so that we don't have to be "ritting stores" during "Whiters Workshop".  



You Had Me at Hello

Love is a many splendored and fast moving thing in the First Grade.  Someone has been exploring the depths...

 (Hearts & butterflies set the mood!)

 

Clearly "You had me at hello" wasn't just for Jerry McGuire's girlfriend.  It works on numbers and fish too.

No beating around the bush here!

 

So a few lessons to be gathered about love in the First Grade...

• Every love story begins with a "Hello".
• When it comes to love and declaring your feelings, just get straight to the point.

Variations on a Theme of Blue

This picture received high praise from me this week.  My teacher's assistant and I "ooohed and ahhhed"over it.  You might be wondering why.  The answer to that question would be because the student branched out from his normal color palette - BLUE.

Judging by the work in his writing folder, I think it's safe to say that blue is this kid's favorite color.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that in 12 years of teaching I've never had a kid so obsessed with one color.  I wonder if he's ever heard of the Blue Man Group?  It could be his dream job!

Thinking, Always Thinking

 

Children are thinking, always thinking.  It can be oh so entertaining to get a glimpse into what they are thinking.

 

This week during Writer's Workshop we've been reading some Mark Teague books and comparing the setting, characters, problem and solutions.  I began by reading the book Baby Tamer.  Amazon's summary says, "The noisy and clever Eggmont kids, otherwise known as a baby-sitter's worst nightmare, meet their match in Amanda Smeedy, baby tamer."  After reading, one little boy raised his hand and very seriously said, "I was baby tamed once." I just about cracked up!  I'm pretty sure he may now think that being "baby tamed" is the correct verb for being "baby sat." 

 

Sometimes it surprises me the connections that kids make.  I went into a few classrooms today to take some photos in an attempt to get a little bit of new content for our school website.  My camera was with me in the lunchroom and I was taking some pictures when a third grader asked me, "Are you leaving, Miss Botheras?"  I kind of laughed and said, "No, why would you think that?" To which he responded, "Well, you have your camera and you're taking lots of pictures.  People usually do that when they're leaving." And that, my friends, is a Third Culture Kid - never too young to be aware of the comings and goings in their life, they learn to recognize the signs early on.

 

Exclamation Mark

Never, ever, ever go into Barnes & Noble the day before packing your suitcases!  You are bound to come out with something to make them heavier...especially when you can't resist a good kid's book. 

I definitely couldn't resist Exclamation Mark by Amy Krouse Rosenthal & Tom Lichtenheld.  It is perfect for teaching beginning readers and writers about punctuation marks.  Though it features the exclamation mark as its main character, there's plenty of practice to be had with periods and question marks, too.  And all that practice comes packaged in a great story about embracing the things that make us unique.  Can't wait to put it to good use!  If you have a beginning reader or writer in your life make sure you check it out, too.

 

 

Still Making Me Laugh

As I was giving a presentation today this picture stood out to me.  It might have been because her current teacher shared a funny story about her and her class.  Imagining the scene made me chuckle and you know how I like to share the things that make me laugh! So in Miss M's words, here's what went down.

N was asking me about dinosaurs and when they were on the earth.  I told her that they were probably on the earth before the flood.  The whole class got very quiet and after a few seconds, Naeva asked, 'Which flood?'  I told them the flood in the time of Noah, recorded in the Bible.  She started laughing and told me that she thought I meant the flood at the beginning of the school year.  The whole class had a good laugh about dinosaurs being on the earth before the school flood!

Now all I need is a kid writer to write me a tall tale about how the Sahel Academy Flood wiped out the dinosaur population.  That would just be awesome!

Speaking of kid writing, guess what I got for my birthday?  Kid writing from one of my former students.  Is that not an awesome birthday present?

The cool thing is that it's a comic book.  I have been collecting books all year to explore this genre with my students next year so someone's birthday gift is going to get added to the mix of mentor texts.

Some New Children's Book Picks

There's something about being able to put a children's book in your hands, flip through it's pages enjoying the illustrations and discovering a great new story that's just flat out nice.   Around back to school time, I was sad when I didn't discover any great back to school books to take back to my classroom.  But I wasn't disappointed last week when I visited my local Barnes & Noble bookstore.  I found a whole lot of inspiration and made a very long wish list.  However, I restrained myself and only walked out with three new books and here they are.

The first is The Monster's Monster by Patrick McDonnell.  I found this one looking through all the Halloween books.  I'm not really big into Halloween so I like the fact that it isn't a scary book even though it's about monsters.  Basically there are three little creatures that are endlessly debating about which one of them is the scariest monster.  Finally, they put their heads together to create the scariest monster ever.  He comes out looking like Frankenstein but he happens to be a very grateful monster and that changes the atmosphere completely.  One of my favorite aspects of the book is that the change in atmosphere is reflected in the illustrations which go from being dark and gloomy in the beginning to sunny and bright at the end.  I think it would be a great book to use at the beginning of the year to talk about using good manners and being polite.  I also think that it has lots of potential for use in my Writer's Workshop.

The next book is called Mousetronaut and it is written by the astronaut Mark Kelly.  This is a partially true story about a mouse that embraces space and ends up saving the day in the space shuttle.  What I love about this book is that Mark got the idea for his story on one of his missions where there was one little mouse out of eighteen that didn't cling to the mesh during the mission but instead floated effortlessly around the cage.  This book would be great to use during a study of space.  But it would also be a great mentor text in Writer's Workshop when talking about where authors get their ideas from. 

 

The last book I purchased is It's All About ME-ow by Hudson Talbott.  This book is written from the perspective of an older and wiser cat giving advice to kittens and preparing them for a life of charming their humans.  It has a little bit of history, some great diagrams and advice and a whole lot of humour.  It would be a great mentor text for how to or process writing and for writing from a perspective other than your own.  If you wanted to encourage your writers to include things like diagrams and captions this would also be a great example after which they could model their writing.



These books make me anxious for a new little crop of writers!