Our First Grade Pow Wow!

We are winding down our Native American Unit.  We have spent 2 1/2 weeks on learning about different nations.

These are some of my favorite books to read to the students:

We first learn about pictographs and the students practice using various pictograph signs to communicate on paper with each other.  They then use these pictographs throughout the next two weeks on their other crafts they create.  

We learned about the Native Americans who lived in the southwest.  We talk about the Navajos and we create wall hangings and clay pottery.  I send home a recipe with the students so that I am not having to make 18 batches of clay. :)  The recipe is as follows:

The pottery air drys.  Such an easy clay to make and use.

We study about the Native Americans that followed the Buffalo.   The students learn about the Sioux and  design and decorate tipis and we create a village on our back table ... the students LOVE this.

We make totem poles and canoes when we study the Tlingit of the northwest.  

(Yes, the totem poles and the tipis are in the same village - but hey - we only have so much room to work with here! lol)

Tomorrow we will be making our headbands, vests, and necklaces in preparation of our pow wow on Wednesday afternoon.  Here are some pictures from last year.  We have five games set up and the students rotate through them.  One is a stick game.   They toss painted sticks.  It's similar to a dice game.  You get points depending on what sides of the sticks land facing up.  Another game has them put sticks on the backs of their hands and they have to toss them and catch them.  There is an arrow toss.  We use wooden skewers and toss them into a circle on the floor.  It's similar to a marble game where you get to keep any arrows your arrow lands on.  We also play a rock passing game where one rock has a red painted dot on it and one in plain.  You sit in a circle and pass to your right and the person on your left has to guess which rock you passed.  The last game involves  the students  tossing rocks (bean bags) into various sized hoops on the floor.

The students will  be writing about if they were a Native American.  This allows them to share what nation they would be from and why.  I will add the writing projects at the end of the week.

They get so excited about this unit and in turn it gets them excited about sharing what they have learned in their writing.  It has been a very fun 2 1/2 weeks!

Wishbone Wishes!

I found this cute poem from Jack Prelutsky and I retyped it so that I can hang it in the hall.  It goes perfectly with a writing page I created, What's Your Thanksgiving Wish?, that is in my Turkey Time packet on TpT.  I'm excited... I think this is going to be a super fun activity to do with my first graders!

Let's Talk Turkey!

We have been gobbling it up in Mrs. Gentile's class these past couple of weeks!  I thought I would share some fun things we do with turkeys.  Some of the ideas can be found on Carolyn's Classroom on TpT.  

Some of the books we have read:

Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving is one of my favorites!  You can add a little discussion about art history by pointing our the similarities of the books illustrations to Van Gogh's Starry Night.

We made some adorable turkeys to hang:

I made this turkey craft years ago for my husband's fourth grade class but as you can see - first graders love making it too.  It has colored tissue paper in the openings of the wings.

We shared where we would hide if we were a turkey and wrote our idea onto a feather.  We then added it to a large turkey in the hall.

We counted by tens in Saxon math and made a "counting turkey feathers by tens" book.

 We also practiced counting by 5's!

In our Journeys reading program, we are learning about antonyms and synonyms.  We practiced by hiding the turkeys behind the correct haystack.

We will be practicing our adjectives and odd and even numbers next week:

The students also shared what they were planning to do for the Thanksgiving holidays.  They made a flap book:

Most of these ideas can be found in my Turkey Time packet.

My next post will be about all our fun Native American activities we have been doing in the afternoons.  We have been studying about different nations and have made wall hangings, pictographs, totem poles.... we will be making salt clay pottery and having Native American games to end our unit.  These are some of the wall hangings the students made.  We talk about the Navajo Nation and I even work in a lesson about symmetry! 

I hope you are having a fun November in your class!

Thanksgiving Story Bracelet

This is going to be a quick post!  Just wanted to share the Thanksgiving story bracelet I make with my students each year.  They love it and it helps them understand the Thanksgiving story.  I took the poem and made it into a little book that they can take home and read as they show their bracelets and tell the story.  The directions are in the packet - it's really quite easy and it's a FREE download.  :)
Follow the TpT link to my store and get it.

I'm working on a fun Thanksgiving packet and should have it up by Monday!

Have fun!