Autumn in 1A

This week has been a week of pumpkin exploration in 1A. We began our day on Wednesday by answering the question, "If you won a pumpkin carving contest, what would your pumpkin look like?" While answering the question, the students were asked to describe the size of their pumpkin, the shapes that were cut into it and what the product looked like. Many of our friends wrote that their pumpkins had triangle shaped eyes, a star nose and a jagged toothy smile.

As a class, we took these ideas to carve a real pumpkin. In the topic that we are currently covering in our reading series, adjectives have been our focus. As we continued our exploration of grammar, the students were able to get their hands dirty by carving a pumpkin. We described our pumpkin as short and round. While we carved the pumpkin and removed the seeds, the students used their senses to describe what the inside of the pumpkin looked, felt and smelled like. They also had an opportunity to have a tasty treat of baked pumpkin seeds the next day.

Thursday, was Spookly Day. In the morning we read the book Spookly The Square Pumpkin. The students were asked to find all the adjectives in the story. They did a great job finding the adjectives that described all the different pumpkins in the book. After reading the story, they were asked to write a sequential paragraph telling us what happened in the book. They love Spookly the Square Pumpkin and were eager to complete the tasks assigned.

In 1A we look forward to using our senses and adjectives as we continue to experience more hands-on experiences this year in first grade!