Mrs. Russo's Grade One Class

13 March 2013

Let's Make Rabbits

After reading Leo Lionni's book, Let's Make Rabbits we decided to make our very own rabbits. The story begins with a pencil and a pair of scissors discussing what they're going to do with their day. Upon deciding to make rabbits, the pencil quickly draws a rabbit and the scissors cuts one out of paper. The two rabbits are immediately best of friends. They quickly become hungry and are in search of food. Luckily the pencil and scissors are still there to make them carrots!

Using cardboard templates, the kids traced the bunny body parts onto patterned scrapbook paper. Then, they cut out the shapes and assembled their rabbits. They made paper carrots so their rabbits wouldn't go hungry. Happy Easter!

1 March 2013

Mice by Lois Ehlert

This week we read Mice, another beautifully illustrated book by Lois Ehlert. The children are starting to recognize her signature collage style from all of the read alouds we've enjoyed. We recreated the red cardinals in her book, Snowballs, in the fall. Mice is a simple story that asks the reader, "Do you think mice are nice?" I asked the class that very question and we graphed our answers on the board. Most students do not think mice are nice! We read the story and marvelled at the clever ways Ehlert incorporates real objects in her work. The kids were excited to see real crackers and ziplock baggies on her photographed pages. After seeing what mischief the mice were up to, the class recreated scenes from the book.

Everyone started with the same supplies. First they chose a body colour from pre-cut rhombus shaped papers in red and brown. We looked at a wooden rhombus from our tub of pattern blocks and discussed the 'diamond' shape. They cut their rhombus' in half to make two triangles for the body and head. Then, they those chose different coloured paper to cut out ears, eyes, teeth and tail. We used twine to replicate the arms and legs. The exciting bit was deciding what object to add to their page. They chose between a cupcake liner, a ziplock snack baggie with cheerios, a variety of crackers, and a paper ruler. I think these mice are nice, do you?

28 February 2013

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!