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First Grade:
Day 2

Morning Meeting

SEL & Community Building
9:00-9:15

are differences make us special!

Social Emotional Learning (SEL), Community Building, and Literacy
9:15-10:15

snack & recess

Gross Motor Practice
10:15-10:45

Calendar

Math
10:45-11:00

words are powerful

Literacy, SEL, & Community Building
11:00-11:20

Phonics Journal Set Up

Literacy
11:20-11:25

alphabetical order

Literacy & Math
11:25-12:00

lunch & lunch recess

12:00-1:00

What's A Scientist?

1:00-1:45

Spelling Assessment

Literacy
1:45-2:00

Special Areas: P.E.

2:00-3:00

Flexible Time

3:00-4:00

more large group related activities

flexible early finisher activity options

enrichment activities

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we are all different!
Our differences make us special!

a social emotional learning, literacy, fine motor, and community building activity

9:15-10:15

step 1

 

After reading the story “Just Like Me” have a discussion about what they learned from the book and the game yesterday where they would say something true about themselves and then others would agree or not. 

This leads to a direct teach about how no two people are alike. Some may seem VERY similar but not even a set of identical twins are exactly alike. I use the set of twins in the book. Every single person in the world is different and those differences make each of us special. <- This is a BIG guiding topic for our year and should be repeated frequently. 

step 2

written instructions:

After this discussion, I tell the students that as we have seen through our “Just Like Me” activity, there are things that make us similar & different. These differences make us each special. To remind us of this, we will make mini versions of ourselves.  

After decorating a “Mini Me” the students complete the 1 word/phrase writing response and glue it on the back. Keep these hanging somewhere special so they are always reminded. 

recess

a gross motor activity

Recess – OUTSIDE free play. Visit a park, play in backyard, etc. This can be hard if your student is an individual child. Ask him/her if they want to play with you, jump on a trampoline, kick a soccer ball around, sidewalk chalk, etc.  

Bad weather? Then have inside recess – free choice play with toys, do an active youtube video like this GummyBear Dance.

Setting Up Calendar Time

a math activity

10:45-11:00

A physical calendar is great because it allows students to manipulate the pieces and bring a more concrete understanding to how the calendar works. Start this time with unwrapping the calendar, finding a place for it to be, setting it up until it says today’s date. 

You can make your own calendar backdrop using a piece of poster board. At the start of each month, have the student decorate a title of the calendar “August, September, etc.” I have created calendar pieces to keep the calendar looking fresh.  

first:

To start our calendar time, we begin by learning Dr. Jean’s Days Of The Week Song (to the tune of The Adam’s Family).  While I included the video below, I don’t show the video below I just sing the verse one time with my class. I do have them count the days of the week as they sing the song by holding up one additional finger at a time to count the days while they say each day of the week. We just sing the portion of the song that is shown below.

 Note: If your child says “I did this last year” – GOOD! That will bring comfort and help set the stage for school time! 

After introducing the song the first time & having the students sing along as they count the months on their fingers, I have them sing it again but this time they STOP singing after saying the current month (ex: August). We look at our fingers to see how many months we have listed (8) and that’s how we get the month number. 

next:

After singing our song, I call on students to answer the following questions:

What is today’s day of the week? *If they answer incorrectly, then before I ask for another classmate, I remind them to think of the song…& quietly start singing the song.

If today is Wednesday, what was yesterday? What will tomorrow be?

What is the day of the month? *After they answer, I place the number on the calendar. 

How can I write today’s date? *Then I write it on the whiteboard next to our calendar. 

What’s another way?

Another?

I look for the following type of answers: August 15, 2018; Aug. 15, 2018; 8/15/2018

Since this is the first calendar, I also talk with the students about how to know the number date by introducing Dr. Jean’s Months of the Year Song and having the students count the months as they sing. Note: I change “then you turn around” to: “Then it starts again”

words are powerful

a literacy and social emotional learning activity

11:00-11:20

This lesson starts with me complimenting the students on their Mini Me art from earlier & asking them to remind me what they remind us of when we look at them…{That we are all different & our differences make us special}

That’s right! It’s important to remember that we are special. One thing we all have in common is we have brains that help us think & be smart and hearts that make us feel things like sad or mad or happy or excited.

Our hearts are very special. We only get one. When someone hurts your feeling…what do you think happens to your feelings, your heart? It hurts.

Exactly! Today we are going to find out what happens when your heart hurts. 

Note: You will want to do this activity with your student. If you just have 1 student, cut out your own heart & participate. If you have a learning pod, no worries. Either way during this story whenever you hear something that would heart the heart, pause the story and say “Oh, I see ___ crumpling up his/her heart. That wasn’t a very nice thing that happened in the story, huh?” This is because some students will get so into the story they will forget to crumple. This can also be said while good things in the story happen that would uncrumple the heart.   

After reading, ask “What does this show us about words?” 

Student will hopefully respond: You have to be careful, words can hurt,etc. 

Talk about importance of pausing & thinking BEFORE speaking. 

interactive phonics journal set up

a literacy activity

11:20-11:25

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After having students glue on the covers for their Phonics Journals, we complete this phonics activity in our journals as a whole group.

Note: This lesson is very basic and should be easy for your students. The focus is setting up the journal covers, expectations for whole group time when writing in our phonics journals and for students to know phonics = letters/writing. If you don’t want to print off the chrysanthemum letter activity, you can just have students write “My name is ________. It has ___ letters in it.”  

Sorting & Organizing with abc order

a literacy & Math activity

30 minutes

Note while watching: the first 2 minutes are only voice, no picture change. Have students close their eyes for that time and listen to the words being said. This helps them practice visualization. 

Learning Pod option: Before the students leave for the day, I tell them that there will be another paper similar to this one at their tables tomorrow morning when they walk in. Their job when they come in is to get their chair covers out of their cubby, sit at their table, & get started on their ABC order practice.  

don't want to use the video? Here's Written instructions

I direct teach the students how to put words in alphabetical order. One thing that intrigues them is that I share with them that they don’t even need to know how to read the word but they can still do this activity with any word in the world! It’s something that adults do and is a useful skill to know. 

First, we put a set of words in ABC order as a whole group via the whiteboard. We talk about how you look ONLY at the first letter of the word. We sing the ABC song as we look at the list. AAAAA (point to all words on list to see if any As. If there are, we move that word to another area and put it at the top of the list), BBBBB (point to all words on list to see if any B’s, again move to below the word that started with A. If no words that start with B’s then scoop hand back up to top of list and do next letter), CCCCCCCCC, etc.

We talk about how if 2 words start with the same letter, then look at the 2nd letter to determine which word goes first in the order. EX: Fad vs Fed. A comes before E so FAD goes before FED. 

Next, I give the students a chance to do it independently. Of course, I do walk assisting students as needed. Remind students about the alphabet they made yesterday and how that can help them as they can refer to this alphabet. Once they complete the work, they raise their hand so I can check it. As they wait, they can color the picture on the paper. Once it is checked & corrected, if needed, the students put their paper in their cubby to take home & show their parents. 

To grade an activity, I circle incorrect answers and give the students chances to revise. Once they correct it, I put a check mark on the corner of the circle and then a smiley face at the top of their paper.  

Before the students leave for the day, I tell them that there will be another paper similar to this one at their tables tomorrow morning when they walk in. Their job when they come in is to get their chair covers out of their cubby, sit at their table, & get started on their ABC order practice. 

lunch & lunch recess

12:00-1:00

What a great time to try out a cooking lesson! 

What is a scientist?

science activity

1:00-1:45

Before reading, I have the students share if they know what a scientist IS. Then I share that we will be reading a story to learn what a scientist DOES. 

While reading I guiding questions like “The title says Ada is a scientist. What is she doing that makes her a scientist?”

After reading we review that a scientist is someone who explores, asks questions, invents, tries new things, keeps trying and doesn’t give up, sorts objects carefully, draws what they see. Scientists read, talk, observe, experiment.  

2 activity options

I Am A Scientist!
Paper Activity

I am a scientist!
Lab coat activity

Screen Shot 2018-10-14 at 5.41.51 PM
I'm a scientist

After asking a few students to share a time when they were a scientist, I model for the students how to make themselves as scientists. After modeling this, the students take it to their seats & do it independently. Inside the lab coat, they write a question/wonder they have. 

lab coat2
lab coat 4
lab coat 3

This combines yesterday’s lesson activity & today’s, makes it “real to life,” and is super fun for the first graders! 

Talk about what scientists often wear – lab coats. Give each student a lab coat to wear whenever he/she does science lessons this year. On the back have them write “Scientists Ask Questions!” in big letters. It can be as simple as a large white Hanes shirt cut down the middle or an actual kids coat found on amazon. After decorating it, put it in a place that will be easy to spy. Whenever the student does a science lesson, have them get on their lab coat! 

WTW Spelling assessment

a literacy activity

1:45-2:00

First Graders arrive with a wide range of knowledge. So, I also use the Words Their Way spelling inventory to assess which phonetic skills each students has already mastered. The MONSTER assessment from yesterday shows their stage of spelling. This shows specifically which skills to phonetic sounds they still need to work on. 

 This allows me to differentiate and individualize the phonics lessons for each student. 

flexible time

3:15-4:00

The time allotted to the activities planned for today are the average time it takes a student. In the classroom, students might be really engaged in the activity and so the class will spend more time on it. Throughout the day, students are pulled for speech therapy small group classes, 45 minute reading intervention small groups, math intervention small groups, and more. Also, we have transition times where the whole class has a bathroom break after recess. I did not include those times in this schedule above. Instead, I clumped all those transition times and small group intervention pull out times together and created this flexible time. 

Activities that are great to do during this time: any intervention support and reteach practice they need, complete assignments they haven’t completed yet, upload work samples to child’s classroom teacher, ZOOM meetings, student works on IPAD apps, enrichment activities, reteach lesson that student struggled with, etc. 

More Options For Day 2

All About Me Bags

A Social Studies, community building, & SEL Activity

We do All About Me Presentations during the year and this allows the students to really learn a lot about one another & become closer as a community. I also do All About Me bags as kind of a “show & tell” time. This helps them get to know their classmates and works on their presentation skills. I pass out a bag with the instructions on it and then the students bring it back the next day with their item. Then the students spend time throughout the day standing up in front of their classmates and sharing the items in their bags. 


Click the picture of the bag for a printable version! Cut out the instructions and glue/tape onto a bag for the students to fill up!

birthday chart

a math & community building activity

Birthday celebrations are a great way to make everyone feel loved, cared for, and celebrated. Creating a birthday chart with everyone’s birthday on it is a great way to practice the math skills of graphing while building community. 

Just click the cupcake on the left to download birthday chart instructions. 

Beginning of the year
flexible early finisher activities

anything & everything journal

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In this journal students can independently do anything & everything they want – draw, write a story, solve math problems, etc once they finish their work. I do tell them that it has to be school appropriate. They only get one journal for the entire year so they need to fill out every page of the journal so there is no white spaces left. 

Note: while this activity is available all year, it really does dwindle in use during the year once I introduce other fast finisher activities that focus on extension.

printable math games

Just click on one of the puzzle

challenges and print!

Math APPs/online games

Read

Grab your favorite book and read! 

Bonus: try out a new reading place 

 like resting with your back up 

 against a tree!

work on writing

Write a story, a letter to a grandparent, OR click the pencil above to check out some different Work On Writing activities! Suggestion: set up a folder to collect these stories. 

Passion Project

What is something you’d like  to learn more about? This is a time where you will research it so that you can learn more about it. Then, use what you’ve learned and create something that shares that information with others!

 

Suggestion: As you learn about it, write 1 fact on a flash card. Read and learn, watch a show about it, or observe it in real life to learn about it. Once you have 10 flashcards, create a project that showcases what you’ve learned!

 

Project ideas: Want to learn about an animal? After learning about it, create a model of it living in it’s habitat OR create a game that people can play! For example if you learned about dinosaurs, create a game where someone enters the time of dinosaurs and goes through the game board. While they are going through the game they have to watch out for things that happened during the time of the dinosaurs like acid rain. 

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