Ralph Tells a Story

I read this book to the class last week and they LOVED it.  They laughed and laughed and many of them identified with Ralph, the main character who for the life of him, could not come up with an idea for a story during writing time at school.  He tried everything and nothing worked, until one day when the teacher called him up to share his story with the class.  Ralph was terrified.  He told the class about an inchworm he had found.  His classmates hands shot up in the air, with question after question for Ralph.  He realized he did have a story after all.  From that day forward Ralph knew he was a writer.  One of our favourite parts was reading the titles of all the stories Ralph ended up writing.  We giggled and giggled.  The class said they wished they could read Ralph's other stories in real life.  What was it about the titles that made us want to read Ralph's stories?  We discussed the importance of adding titles to our own stories, as a reader and a writer.  I challenged them to add titles to to their stories that day and they didn't disappoint.   

 

Book titles, by Ralph

We worked on these two anchor charts before settling into writing time.  The class contributed their ideas to 'Staring with a Title' and I shared 'Writing Tips' with them.  In the back of Ralph Tells a Story, there is a list of writing tips from Ralph.  I added a few of my own tips before sending them off with a piece of chocolate (thanks Ralph) and their writing books!  Here are some of their story titles...click on them to make them bigger!

I went to Skool (I Went to School)

The New Toy 

Beskitball (Basketball)

When My Backpack Was Broken

I red chepr book (I Read Chapter Books)

at the feyold (At the Field)

I went to the Hosippel (I Went to the Hospital)

I hv 100 tos (I Have 100 Toys)

Whin my neigleis brg (When My Necklace Broke)

Alphabet Stuffys

Drawing

Playday

100 Year Old Self Portraits (100th Day of School)

In celebration of their 100th day in Grade 1, the kids made portraits of themselves at 100 years old.  They had a ton of fun adding wrinkles, white hair (cotton balls) and no hair, glasses and even beards.  The girls added fancy jewelry and the boys added buttons to their shirts.  Some of the kids were inspired by their own grandparents, although I'm pretty sure they're not 100 yet! Can you tell who is who?

Sorting and Estimating

We have been sorting everything from shapes, shirts, animals and names to underwear (Captain Underpants)!  Today the class sorted vintage buttons.  Using a sorting map, partners worked together to sort the buttons into four different groups.  They came up with some very creative groupings including buttons covered in fabric, buttons made of plastic, see through buttons, buttons with diamonds, sparkly buttons, buttons with holes, coloured buttons, big buttons, small buttons and buttons with designs.

I am sorting buttons!

                                                                           1.  All these are diamond buttons

                                                                           2.  All these are metal buttons      

                                                                           3.  All these are blue buttons        

                                                                           4.  All these are fabric buttons      

We also started an Estimating Chart this week.  A glass jar is filled with different objects each day and the children estimate how many objects are inside.  They record their estimates on the chart before being counted.  We practice skip counting by two as we make groups of ten. Yesterday we counted 28 wooden blocks in the jar.  Dhakin's estimate was the closest at 27 so we circled his estimate in red.  We counted 2 groups of ten and 8 ones.   Today the jar was filled with small plastic cubes.  The estimates ranged from 10 to 102.  We counted 95.  Vienna guessed 88, just seven less, and Van guessed 102, just seven more!  So, we circled both their names.  What will be in the jar tomorrow? 

Valentine's Day - Love, Splat

Rob Scotton has quickly become one of our favourite authors.  We think he's extra talented because he writes the stories AND does the illustrations.  We love both characters from his books, Russell the Sheep and Splat the Cat.  This week we read Love, Splat.  Splat has a special valentine for a certain cat in his class.  It's for Kitten, who Splat likes more than fish sticks and ice cream (that's A LOT for Splat).  Then there's Spike, Splat's rival who is also competing for Kitten's attention.  Does Splat's valentine find its way to Kitten's heart?

The kids painted Splat the Cat with black tempera paint and used a toothpick to create Splat's frizzy hair.   Then, with pink, white and black chalk pastels they blended colours to add all the details.  Didn't they turn out great?

This morning we transformed paper bags in to very pretty Valentine's Day mailboxes with hearts, hearts and more hearts.  Happy Valentine's Day everyone!