Long E, Measurement, and More!

Hello all!

I hope everyone is getting excited for their spring breaks! Mine is a whopping Friday-Monday, but it is time off none the less :)

Last week, we had a good/bad week. Academically, we had an awesome week! They are really absorbing the information quickly and are still able to explain and apply it. So exciting! But on the bad side, my kiddos have been really struggling with bullying lately. I've had the"If you don't do _____, you can't be my friend," "I don't like you anymore," and just the general bossing other kids around. It's breaking my heart because its making some of my kiddos so sad! I had a big talk with them and we are doing a lot of anti-bullying activities this week, but I don't know what more I can do. Does anyone else have this problem? I can't believe first graders are acting like this! Any advice?

We have been learning about long vowel sounds! We have already gone over all of the bossy e patterns (a_e, i_e, 0_e, and u_e). If you need any fun games to review these spelling patterns, check out my Long Vowel Read the Roomy Fluency passages. My kids loved them! Instead of just searching for the word, the students have to read the sentence, and find  the word within it.

Another resource I have found super helpful, is the BBC Long Vowel Sound website. I have used/plan to use all of the poems in the poem pack! They are so interactive and great for my students that have trouble regonizing our word patterns right away.

This week, I started introducing measurement. We have been DYING to use our rulers, so I decided I wouldn't torture them any longer! I created a rocket measuring activity that is FREE for you to use! The best way I could think of to introduce this was to model measurement, work in pairs, and then complete an independent activity. First, I introdued the ruler and the terms "ruler" and "inch." We talked about how we use the ruler to measure length, width and height.

I modeled how to measure the first rocket and had each child show me where I would place the ruler to measure it. (All the measurements are from the tip of the rocket to the bottom of the fire.)

After we discussed this for a little bit, we played "Around the World." The rest of the rockets were placed on their desks and they rotated around with their answer sheet and measured each one. This made it SUPER easy to see who got it and who didn't.

By the time they finished the activity and stared the indepedent worksheet portion, they were pros!

We used the measurement activities from Crazy for First Grade and they are awesome! We used the Measure It activity twice, with nonstandard measurement and with the ruler. It was really cute for the kids to see the difference! And they LOVED the Measure A Friend activity. How could they not like using their friends to learn math?

On Friday, since we alwals have Fun Fridays, we did this cute FREE gummy worm activity I found on TPT. We practiced measuring in both inches and centimeters, so this was a great way to end the week!

I really want to do a class play this year that stems from a read-aloud. I have 15 students and I want them all to be involved somehow. Does anyone hav any plans? I thought of maybe doing The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka, but I can't decide. Ideas or suggestions would be great!

Have a great week! It's a four day week for me!
Sarah