I Spy first graders

As promised, here is what the first graders and I were up to on Tuesday.

Yes, that's right! Awkward squatting around I Spy books. To culminate our explorations in finding and naming objects and colors both inside and outside the classroom, I brought four of my favorite books to class. The class split into four teams, one for each I Spy book. Then they had to open the book to the designated page and find all 10 things that I had scouted beforehand. 

They had a lot of fun

Until they'd been looking for "The letter Q" for 15 minutes

The Rules:

They had to find one object before they could move on to the next.

Every team member had to raise their hand when they found their target and wait for me to check it.

The first team to find all ten things was the winner. 

It was their own rule that none of their fingers could leave
the found object until I gave the OK

But really, everyone wins with I Spy, including me whose lesson planning consisted of researching and recording 40 I Spy specimens. Naturally I had to check all the pages of one book before I settled on a suitable picture for the lesson. The students learn some vocabulary words, but I Spy is great for students who aren't always the ones with their hands raised and the answers on their tongues. Some of the quiet ones found the most for their teams. And, of course, some simply liked the pictures and the fact that I had my camera with me...

Tomorrow we will be doing a fun activity continuing our current research in patterns. This will be another activity that gets students out of their seats, but (hopefully) will keep them under control and concentrated. That behavior wouldn’t necessarily be following a pattern, but I’m still hopeful.