Yesterday our class performed our first Readers' Theatre of the year with "Cinderella Bigfoot". Despite the fact that a tree fell across our "stage" and we had limited room to perform, the kiddos had a good time practicing reading with fluency, expression, and oh.my.word...character. Does this class ever have CHARACTER!

For Readers Theatre, we typically read a book on Mondays, find the script free from readinglady.com , read through the scripts on Tuesdays, assign parts and practice repeated readings on Wednesdays and Thursdays, then bring props and costumes to act out our plays on Fridays in our outdoor classroom. The kids absolutely LOVE going to the woods. It is like our own little Terabithia. (Or at least it was, until tornadoes dropped trees on it.)


Meet the cast:

Cinderella Bigfoot and Prince Smeldred

The Stepsisters, Wheny, Whiny, and Moe

The Stepdog, The Stepcat, and The Stepladder:)

Elsie, The Dairy Godmother

The Queen and King

The Narrators

Artistic Director

Next week, we will do a science experiment script entitled "The Bouncing Egg." You won't want to miss photos from that one! To go along with comprehension and retell, I found an activity on First Grade Parade called The Yellow Brick Road that looks really engaging. Students recall setting and characters, plot and events by traveling on the brick road as they retell the story. There are free printables to download here:

Yellow Brick Road Retell

I know what you're thinking....it is so not Valentine's Day anymore, so why is that template still there?  Well...I am thinking the SAME THING!  Aaagh. I found the cutest spring templates and Blogger is just not cooperating.  I have worked for two solid hours editing HTML codes, got all the way to the previews on two different designs, and am then unable to save them. I will. keep. working.
     So what, you might ask, has my class been working on lately? Well, with my assistant out for six weeks or more, it has not been easy finding time to blog about such cool happenings as I had hoped.  We have been busy assessing, always, we do the regular routine kind of stuff with county adopted programs, but honestly, this is the time of year when I get bored out of my mind and need to change things up a bit.  Again, I have to thank all the Pinterest posters out there for the fun ideas.  Since February, we did contraction surgery, we burst contraction balloons, hopped on pop for Seuss Day, shrunk hats for leprechauns, proved that opposites attract (first graders did some electroplating!), and did a few things, well...for fun. (That is allowed in school, right?)  Here are a few pictures from the last month in review:

We began learning contractions by surgically altering words and putting them back together with a bandaid for an apostrophe.  The students completely loved this activity.  They completed a hospital report following the activity with their names as "Dr. ___" listing all the words that had undergone surgery.
     The next day, we popped balloons that had the contraction written on the outside, but contained the two separate words inside.  The students had to decide which two words made up the contraction before popping it back apart by sitting on the balloon.  I'm not sure it was really worth blowing up all those balloons, but it was fun while it lasted!
     I should entitle this blog "blog possessed", because not only will my layout not save, but now my pictures will not rotate.  I can only assume it is Blogger's problem.  Surely it isn't me?  Is it? I planned to keep this blog real, and here is my evidence!  My sideways photos are staying in!!

On Valentine's Day, we graphed conversation hearts, learned all about St. Valentine, and the class made some REALLY cute Valentine boxes.  I was completely impressed!

On the 100th Day, the firsties drew portraits of what they would look like when they are 100 years old....

And on St. Patrick's Day, the pesky little leprechauns trashed our classroom.  They did shrink the hats, but they escaped the traps and left a few gold treasures behind....

Enough said.....

The hats turned out adorable!  I'll definitely repeat this activity next year.  The class was super excited, and their smiles were so worth the trouble for a little glitter mess:)