But I digress...on to the latest of our first grade adventures!
If 1st graders ruled the world: Martin Luther King Day
This may be my new favorite topic to teach in social studies. I don't know what it was about talking about MLK or hearing my kiddos talk about what they knew about him and his contributions, but it was fun, enlightening, and uplifting. When I asked my class what they knew about Martin Luther King, Jr., what his contributions were, and why he is important, these were some of the responses I got:
- "He said it was okay to be different."
- "He dreamed of great things."
- "Martin Luther King wished that we could all drink out of the same water fountain."
- "He would have loved our class...we're all different!"
- "He made this announcement once about things, that things should be change to be more fair. There were signs that said things for different places, and you had to follow the signs depending on what you looked like, which was bad. So when he grew up he said that he had a dream, and in his dream, we all get to be friends. All we had to do was mix 'n fix!* Mix the people together and it just fixes stuff!"
So precious. So innocent. Forget the age restrictions--I vote a 1st grader for our next president :)
*In reading groups, as part of our word study, we "mix 'n fix" words with magnet letters. The kiddos spell a word that they are given, and when a teacher sees that it's spelled right, they get to "mix" the letters (scramble them) and then "fix" them (put them back in order). I love that this student used word study terms to describe MLK's contributions!
...more MLK
We did an "I have a dream..." activity where the students made dream clouds for us to hang in our classroom. (I will admit that I found this on one of my Pinterest/blog searches, but cannot remember where, or I would give that teacher the credit they deserve!) Here's what we did:
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| I cut out cloud shapes from post office boxes...priority boxes are free, and I find many uses for them--or parts of them!--to be used in my classroom. Because they are cardboard, the kiddos can trace them easily. Then, each student thought of a dream they had. On one side they wrote "I have a dream," and on the reverse, they wrote what it was... |
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| "I have a dream that we will treat people with respect" |
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| "I have a dream that we will help your family" |
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| "I have a dream that we will be honest" |
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| "I have a dream that we will learn at school" |
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| This isn't the best shot of the finished products, but all the clouds are hanging in the back of the room above my desk. With all those positive thoughts above my head, I feel like I've got the best seat in the classroom :) |
Along with our clouds, we made mini-books about Martin Luther King's life. The kiddos were shocked to learn that he was married (to Coretta Scott King), that he had four children, and that he won the Nobel Peace Prize. Their discovery that MLK was a real person was almost as good as their reaction to finding out that teachers don't live at school!
(Side-note: when talking to a parent today, the parent mentioned how excited her daughter had been to come home and tell her all about Martin Luther King, Jr. She told her mother, "did you know that he had a wife?!? Yes, he was married! It was to a woman named Cotton and they had four kids!" I'm sure Coretta Scott King would be flattered!)
Synonyms
I was giving a reading assessment this morning and and the passage that my student was reading was about animals that are racing. At the end of the assessment, one of the prompts that I was to ask this child was to show them the word "fast" in the text and ask if they could think of a word that meant the same thing as fast. This student looked and me and said, "yes, Ms. W, I can think of a word that means the same thing...let's see...lickedy-split!"
All I could do was smile to myself because this is the term that I use when the class is moving slowly and we need to speed things up--the typical scene in Room 106 is that I clap my hands together and say something like, "boys and girls, we've got to get to P.E.! We need to clean up all of our math tools and get our classroom in order...lickedy-split!" And then the class turns into vacuum cleaners and BAM! the room is clean. It's crazy (and flattering) to me that these kiddos are like sponges to everything that is said and done around them :)
Baha Men
Last week, I was asking one of my students about some of his spelling words for the week, and as we were reviewing them, I pointed to various words and asked him to use them in sentences. I got to the word "who" and asked him if he could figure out how to make a sentence with the word and he looked at me, thought for a second and said, "who...who let the...who let the dogs...out?" I lost it, y'all. I got lost in my own little fit of giggles for about three seconds before I realized that the reason I was laughing--the song "Who Let the Dogs Out" by the Baha Men--was written seven years before my kiddos were born. Yes, y'all, the hit that we all know and love (and can sing all of the words to) came out in 1998...
Just those couple of updates for tonight--many more pictures, books, and lesson updates from the past month to come soon! Hope that you are able to enjoy the things that my kiddos say and do as much as I adore it :)
I can't believe Hump Day of the week has already passed--Happy Thursday tomorrow!
Love from Room 106,
Allie
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