Coffee and the Newspaper

This week was a busy week and I survived it!  Who else thinks Halloween should be on a Saturday?  We don't celebrate Halloween at our school.  So, I typically do a fun project that takes a longer amount of time on that day!  This year I did my Coffee and the Newspaper activity.  I start out by asking my first graders how long they have been reading.  I then tell them that reading is a skill that they will be using for the rest of their life.  I ask them when they see their parents reading.  They give me all the times they see them reading.  We then focus on reading the newspaper.  I tell them words that they are learning now can be found in the newspaper.  I ask them how many people see their parents drinking coffee.  Many of them raise their hands.  I then tell them that they will be pretending they are adults and they will be reading the paper.  I also tell them that we will be reading the newspaper and drinking coffee.  Many of them say they don't like coffee but I tell them that they will like "my" coffee.  I put a pot on to brew so that it smells good and they can see it. 

 

We then get our newpapers out and I tell them that they need to look for words that they know.  They can only cut out words that they know and glue them to their piece of paper.

 



As they are working, I take the pot of coffee to my desk and secretively pour chocolate milk into coffeee cups (that I purchased from Target).  The last glass I pour is real coffee so they can see me pouring it.  I then pass out the "coffee" to the kids.  They think they are drinking real coffee and get excited with how good it tastes.  I also pass out donuts.

At the end, we share the words that we found!  I have so many kids that say this is their best day ever!