My Little Pumpkins

Can you believe that October is almost over? We have had our hands deep into the meat of the curriculum this past week (quite literally I must say). Pumpkins are such an interesting fruit. That is already the first interesting fact, they are a fruit! Wouldn't you assume they would be a vegetable?Secondly, the inside flesh of the pumpkin is known as the meat (confusing). Here is a photo of our class pumpkin. Can you guess how many seeds were inside? Stay tuned to the end of this blog posting to find out.



Thursday was 'Pumpkin Day' in room 109. The atmosphere was full of anticipation and excitement.
When the children arrived, each table was set up for a different pumpkin station. I just loved watching their eyes light up when they saw all of the pumpkins in the room. I have provided a few photos of each station for you to see.

Station #1

 

 

Did you already know that pumpkins float? Isn't it amazing that something so heavy would float? Let me tell you, the children were totally amazed.

Station #2  

  Station #3  

 

Here is an interesting fact that I just learned about pumpkins. Did you know that the lines on a pumpkin tell you how long it has been on the vine? The more lines, the longer it has been growing. As well, each line lets you know that a string of seeds is connected on the inside (interesting eh? I know, I'm still excited about this little gem of information).

  Station #4  

  Station #5  

 

The children loved comparing the weight of their pumpkin to themselves. They even managed to get myself and Mrs.Highland (our lovely EA) on the scale. One little boy ran up to me and was in complete shock that Mrs.Highland weighed 10,000 pounds (Wow, we need a new scale).

 

Station #6

 

 

This station was definitely the highlight of our day! Thanks to the wonderful help of Mrs.Granados, the children pulled up their sleeves and got to work counting. Each child had a turn scooping out the pulp and placing the seeds in groups of ten. We then created a large poster to show our groupings of seeds. The children sure had great adjectives to describe the outside and inside of our pumpkin. The class made predictions about how many seeds they thought were inside. Some of our guesses were astounding (10, 30, to 100,000). I'm still going to keep you guessing until the end of this post; however, I will let you know that the above predictions were sadly incorrect. We decided to call our pumpkin 'Jack' - go figure ha ha.

Our week was filled with pumpkin addition. We are currently working on adding numbers to 10; however, we will be adding numbers up to 20 this coming week. Here are a few pictures of us adding with double dice. The children were given a die that had another tiny die inside it. They were told to roll the die and add the two numbers together. They continued by finding a pumpkin on their sheet with the answer and coloured it in.

 

 

Another addition lesson we worked on was called 'Eye can make 10'. The children rolled a die and placed that number of eyeballs onto their ten frame (pumpkin ice cube tray). They absolutely LOVED this lesson!! It was fun just watching them make their numbers and record their answers.

 

 

 

'Eye' can't believe how quickly my little pumpkins are catching on to new concepts. 'Eye' am amazed at their learning! ha ha 'Eye' can just keep going! but 'eye' won't ha ha.

One more math lesson I want to share was using candy corn to compose and decompose numbers into ones and tens. They used candy corn to create specific numbers on a ten frame. Our class is full of smarties I tell you! We are enjoying every minute of our learning and growing together.
 

 

Thank you once again for all of the on-going support at home. Working together as a team is so essential to the growth of our little pumpkins!

Now I know you can't wait to find out the number of seeds in our class pumpkin. Well, the time has arrived! Here are a few hints:
 

The number is greater than 300, but less than 500.

 

Hmm....

 

O.K. here is another hint

 

The number is between 400 and 500.

 

Do you have it yet?

 

Hmm...

 

Still thinking?

 

Another hint you may ask?

 

The number is 4 hundred eighty __________? (fill in the blank)

 

Ha ha

 

O.K I'll make it easy 486!!

 

Wow!! Did you guess that? If you did then you are brilliant!! Alright, you are all brilliant!!! That is a lot of seeds in one pumpkin. Yes, we did count them all!!! We are very good counters in room 109.

 

Important Info.

• Please return your child's permission form for our trip to the farm ASAP. We are going to have an exciting time!!
• Please make sure your child has an extra set of clothes at school (pants, socks, underwear, etc.)
• In order to send home our weekly poems, it is important that our poetry duotangs are returned every Monday
• Continue to have your child practise their sight word rings. It is important that they read all of the words, even the words they know. Please send them back to school when you feel that they are confident with their words. I will have them read their list and then add a new level onto their ring.
• Please make sure the only books you record on your child's home reading sheet are the books being sent home from school. Do not write down any additional books you may be reading with your child (even though I fully encourage further reading!!!).



How do you fix a broken Jack-O-Lantern?

With a pumpkin patch!!
 

What did the Jack-O-Lantern say to the pumpkin?

 

Cut it out!

Short but Sweet

Here are a few quick photos of our learning last week. Patterns were everywhere! We created yummy pattern necklaces (notice the little one eating his patterns ha ha). The children loved this hands-on experience, as you can see : )

We also worked on making Fall pattern chains with 20 links. The children were excited to hang their decorations at home.

We also continued to focus our attention on nonfiction writing. We studied those little critters that hang upside down and use echolocation as a way to catch their prey. If you guessed "bats" you are correct. We learned many interesting facts and the children were enthralled with these little guys. More photos to come in the next posting.
This week, we are focusing on composing and decomposing numbers. Pumpkins will be our overall theme for the week.

What is a pumpkin's favourite sport?

Squash!

 

What did the pumpkin pie say after a big meal?

That was filling!

Spinning Webs of Knowledge

Do you ever have moments in your life where you stop and stand in wonder at the beautiful world surrounding you? The colours of Fall are evident all over and that cozy feeling which comes along with the colder weather is here. I have to say that Fall is my favourite season! I love wearing sweaters, listening to the crunching leaves, looking at all the beautiful colours, and taking trips to apple orchards and pumpkin farms. Oh, I can't leave out the yummy food that seems to go along with this time of year.
In the last post, I said that I was going to share some photos of a few apple activities that we were in the middle of finishing. The first lesson was based on the Dr.Seuss story "10 Apples Up On Top". The children were told to print the numbers 1 to 10 on apple pictures. Then they had to place their apples in order and colour the apples in a pattern.

 

In another lesson, the children learned the parts of an apple and were asked to create their own apples from construction paper. After they completed their apple creations, they added labels to the different parts (i.e., stem). Isn't it sweet how they all turned out so very different?

 

 

Following our week of studying apples, we became caught up in spider webs. We began by looking at the differences and similarities between fiction and nonfiction books, using spiders as our topic.

 

The children were placed in groups where they looked at fiction and nonfiction books about spiders. They put down all of their information in words and pictures on paper provided for each group.

 

 

As a large group, we recorded all of the facts we already knew about spiders onto a chart.

 

 

The children were then asked to select 3 - 6 of their favourite facts. They wrote these facts onto their own spider recording sheet and then illustrated each fact. The next step was to take each fact and write a complete sentence. The class enjoyed every minute learning about these hairy creatures. Did you know that spiders are not insects? They are part of the arachnid family because they have 8 legs and insects have 6 (interesting hmm..). Our final writing piece will be shown next week; however, I have a few pictures of our nonfiction writing journey to share.

 

 

Thank you to Reagan Tunstall for providing such an exciting writing activity. The children were thoroughly engaged through the whole writing process.

We have been continuing to focus on nouns and adjectives for the past few weeks. We recently added verbs to our body of knowledge. As a class, we created a chart using spiders as our noun. We came up with many adjectives to describe our hairy friends and then verbs to explain their actions.

After creating this chart, the children selected 3 adjectives and 3 verbs to create a poem based on spiders (noun). The children used their hands to create their creepy spiders. I will take a close-up photo to share next week.

By the end of the week, the children were overflowing with knowledge about spiders. They watched short video clips on spiders, they created poetry and nonfiction pieces of writing about spiders, and for the big finale, they made chocolate and pretzel spider webs. The class LOVED creating their webs of delight!!

We had a wonderful experience learning about spiders in our nonfiction unit. Next week we look at bats and their use of echolocation (very interesting), focusing on the 5 senses.

Here are our turkey cards that focused on colour patterns and writing about what they were thankful for. I sure have a thoughtful class this year!!

Enjoy your long weekend with family and friends! Gobble, Gobble

 

 

What key won't open any door?

A tur-key!!

 

What is the most musical part of the turkey?

The drumstick!!

Apples, Apples, Apples

What an exciting week we have had! We were completely immersed in apples and learned so much on our week long journey. One of the lessons we enjoyed was taste testing the different varieties of apples. Did you know that there were hundreds of different kinds of apples? It amazes me that a little seed can grow into such a yummy and healthy fruit that we can eat. We decided to break down our testing to 5 different apples (McIntosh, Royal Gala, Red Delicious, Apple Crisp, and Granny Smith). The children worked together to come up with a list of adjectives to describe each apple. We then voted on our favourite apple (much to my dismay, Apple Crisp did not win the vote). Red Delicious came out on top with 6 votes!! I love how one child described Red Delicious as tasting like cherries (very cute!).

We continued by discussing the life cycle of an apple and watching a short video on how apples grow in an orchard. I didn't realize what a long and hard process it is for apple farmers to keep and grow a healthy crop of apples (spraying for bugs, pruning winter and spring, cutting grass, turning the apples so they get an even amount of sunlight, putting up wire around the base of the trees to keep animals away, and the list goes on). Thank you to all those apple farmers for all of your hard work in producing yummy fruit for us to eat!!

 

The children continued learning about the life cycle of an apple by placing pictures in order. They cut and pasted photos of each stage in the growth of an apple and then matched words with the photos. They all did a wonderful job!

 

One of our favourite lessons that we did was a procedural writing about creating applesauce. We began by listing the ingredients for creating applesauce (water, sugar, apples, cinnamon). Then we walked through the steps in order. It was with great excitement that my mom helped us out. When the children first arrived, they began asking her how old she was. I overheard numbers flying all over, such as 80, 70, and an astounding 100!! I always smile when I introduce my mom every year to my class. They are always shocked that she would want to come and help in the class. This week, one little boy was surprised to know that I had my own house. He thought I lived in the school and that was my home. No boys and girls, I do have my own house ha ha. Teachers do not eat and sleep at school  ha ha (even though sometimes it seems that I live and breathe teaching). Anyways, back to making applesauce.

Each child was called over one at a time to peel an apple and add it to our crockpot. The smell was so lovely and we couldn't wait to try some of our hard work.

 

 

The smell was so yummy, our tummies were rumbly.

 

The final taste outcome was a mixed reaction. Some children loved the applesauce, while others were not quite sure if they liked it or not. There were also a few that didn't have the heart to tell me that they definitely were not feeling their newest creation. Overall, it was a lot of fun and a great experience for the children to walk through the process, step by step.

 

 

Our week was full of so many hands-on experiences; however, by far I think the most exciting was our learning stations. We had 5 different tables set up, each with its own activity.

 

Station #1 Measuring the height of red, green, and yellow apples

 

The children used unifix cubes to measure how tall each apple was. They compared the apples and then added all of the heights together.

Station #2 Will red, green, and yellow apples sink or float in water?

 

Each child began by making a prediction as to whether each apple would sink or float. Most of the class thought the apples would sink (you would think they would sink because of their weight); however, they were shocked to see that every apple floated easily. Their faces were priceless and I can't wait to see what happens when we try out this experiment with pumpkins.

Station #3 How much do red, green, and yellow apples weigh?

 

This station involved the children in seeing how many rubber counters it would take to make a scale even. Again it was surprising to the children how most apples are different in weight, as well as in height and colour.

Station #4 Art Station

 

 

The art station was where the children had the opportunity to colour the different seasons of an apple tree. They then painted apples and apple blossoms on the spring and fall trees.

 

Station #5 Apple Writing

 

 

At this station, the children were asked to write about something they learned during the week about apples. Many wrote about making apple juice (a big hit), and learning the different parts of an apple.

Our apple stations were very exciting and kept the children motivated and interested. Many activities were taken from Kristen Smith's apple lessons (thanks for sharing wonderful resources!).

 

A few other highlights from the lessons we did during the week are as follows:

 

• creating wonderful patterns with different types of manipulatives

 

• increasing our reading stamina and introducing "Read to Someone"

• reading the story "10 apples up on top" by Dr.Seuss and creating our own number lines (photos to come next week)

• creating our own apples from construction paper (labelled parts and all; photos to come)

Character Awards for September: Teamwork

 

Our whole class worked very hard this month and displayed teamwork!! Congratulations to Salahudean and Kaitlyn for receiving this month's award!! We are all proud of you!!

 

 
 

 

Character focus for October: Kindness

 

We had such a great week, I can't wait until tomorrow!! Spiders are spinning their webs in room 109 and waiting for our children to arrive. Have a "spiderific" Sunday!

 

What do you call 100 spiders on a tire?

A spinning wheel!

 

Adjectives, Apples, Art, Oh My!

Surprise! I thought I needed to share a middle-of-the-week post with you. Have I already told you how much I LOVE first grade!! I actually get very excited coming to work and spending my day with 5, 6, and 7 year olds. I just absolutely, positively, love my job!!
Monday and Tuesday have been some of the busiest days we have had in room 109. Apples are everywhere! They are in the books that we read, the food that we eat (thank you parents for adding such yummy treats in lunch bags this week: added bonus is the reinforcement of concepts), the math lessons, the writing lessons, and apples have even found their way into our art. I'm telling you, I'm going to be dreaming about balancing apples on my head tonight.
I have many exciting moments to share with you, that's why I thought I would break up the week and add an extra posting. To begin our apple week we talked about describing words (adjectives).We talked about how an apple is a noun and adjectives are used to describe nouns. We then came up with many terrific words to describe an apple and continued to add more to our chart throughout the day.

As the day progressed, I read the children a story called "The Apple Orchard Riddle." This story provided rich detail about the process involved in making apple cider at an orchard. Before the story came to the climax, I stopped and asked the children if they had any answer to the riddle. Let's see if you can figure it out.

 

What is a little red house, with no windows and no doors, but has a star inside?

 

Hmm....

 

Are you thinking?

 

Hmm....

 

Want a hint?

 

What are we studying this week?

 

If you guessed an apple, you are correct!!

 

Sorry, no prize, however, how about a tasty apple?

 

Anyways, the children guessed the right answer (brilliant, I tell you) and then I proceeded to show them the inside of an apple. I explained that only adults should do this (very important rule) and that the apple should be cut across the middle portion. When I held up the apple to show the class, there were gasps and astonished faces galore. I had to chuckle to myself because I have never had such a reaction from a class before. Clapping and cheering was heard down the halls of Bellwood at that moment in time I'm sure. The star inside the apple was truly at the "core" of our learning today!

 

 

To fully have the children connect with our story, who doesn't enjoy making prints? With the wonderful help of a parent assistant (ahem...not mentioning any names...Mrs.Granados), she delightfully pulled each child aside and had them make an apple print.

 

Testing the apple print to make sure the star is visible.

 

A very excited Mrs.Granados!! Don't you love when things work out? Do you notice that lovely smile, children? That's from eating all of those crunchy, sweet, healthy apples (had to get the adjectives in there). Yummy!!

 

 

After our apple prints we delved into the world of patterning. We discussed colour patterns and number patterns. The children created "people patterns", by using themselves as the pattern objects (boy, girl, boy, girl or boy, boy, girl, girl). After we charted our ideas, the children were asked to create their own apple patterns. It was wonderful to see such great colour patterns (AB, ABBA, ABC, AABB).

 

 



 

Tuesday was our next "HUGE" apple day! We made predictions of how we thought apple juice was made, then we guessed how many apples we would need to make enough juice for everyone in our class. The answers varied from 2, 40, to an astounding 100!! Wow!! We will continue working on our estimation ha ha.
We began by talking about the juicing machine and explaining how it worked. The children were fascinated and couldn't wait to get started. We discussed the ingredients and steps in making apple juice.

Everyone huddled around our table as I began to turn on the machine.

You're excited as well, aren't you?

Then I proceeded to take off the "squishing lid" (no idea what this part is called).

Then I placed 3 pieces of apple into the machine. Well, no sooner had I done so when all three pieces shot back out the top towards the ceiling.

Are you in shock like I was? ha ha

The children couldn't believe it and then I explained that this event was not the normal operation of this machine. I failed to remember that I needed to turn off the machine before adding my apples so that the juicer would not push them out by the power of the choppers below.

Well, my memory of how to use this machine quickly returned and we continued on in a calm and peaceful manner.

The children took turns pressing the apples into the juicer and the crowd was again astonished. I mean, who wouldn't be, at this amazing device. We talked about the different varieties of apples that were added to our juice and how apples could taste sweet or sour. When the taste testing time finally arrived we had a unanimous thumbs up. My class seems to enjoy everything we taste this year.

I loved the many comments that seemed to arise from the crowd.
 

"This makes my heart so happy, Mrs.Langeveldt"

"I'm so proud of you teacher"
 

"This is better than the stuff my mom gets at the grocery store" (sorry to all the mommies out there - trust me, I don't juice my own apples at home either)
 

"Can I have more?"

 

 

It took 19 apples to make juice for our whole class!

 

By the end of the day, we all had apple brains, but loved every minute. Tomorrow we will continue learning about trees through the seasons, patterning, apple taste testing (different varieties), printing, and writing. Keep watching for an update of our learning in room 109.

 

An apple a day is a great way to start the day!!

 

What kind of apple isn't an apple?

A pineapple!

 

What did the apple skin say to the apple?

I've got you covered!

 

Keep smiling!!