Valentine How Tos and Measurement Printables

I love February... but it is SO busy!!! Groundhog's Day, 100th Day, Valentine's Day, President's Day, Dental Health... and it's been busy for me outside of the classroom too. I feel like I don't have enough time to do everything I want to do! Story. Of. My. Life. Whew. Here's a peek at what we did to celebrate Valentine's Day yesterday - it wasn't much because we also had a field trip to our district's environmental center. I rolled a fun craft into a science and writing activity - the kids had fun, they learned new things, and had a little souvenir in the form of a heart shaped crayon to show for it.

First, I told them we would be making our own crayons. One of my sweeties already knew how it worked because I had her brother last year and those kiddos made "Lone Star Crayons". But the rest of them thought this was a crazy idea - what magic could I possibly possess to make this happen! In first grade, our science standards doesn't specifically include solids and liquids, but they do include changes caused by heating and cooling. We had a discussion about what our crayons looked like to start with and how we could possibly change their shape and then turn them back into a solid again. I think they really did think I have some magic up my sleeve. Or a silicone heart pan and a toaster oven. Once we'd completed our magic and our crayons were in the oven, we gathered on the floor and did a shared writing of a how to. The kids went through each step in great detail while I scribed our intstructions. Finally, while the crayons cooled off, they went back to their desks and re-created the how to, using illustrations. They turned out SO adorable. It was such a fun activity and I love it when I trick them into loving something that sounds boring (like writing a how to)! That was the only Valentine activity we had time for but it's definitely a keeper!

And I had to share these adorable Valentines that I made for my class... thank you Pinterest and Etsy!

Wait! One more thing! I almost forgot to include my measurement stations! As with all of my math stations, there are two versions of each so I can better meet my students' needs. Click here to download "How long is it?" and here to downloand "Yarn Length Hunting".

And now off to eat the remains of those swedish fish and read... Did I tell y'all that I got a Kindle Fire for Chirstmas? I'm in love. I don't have many spare minutes but seriously, when I'm not sleeping, eating, planning or teaching... I'm kindle-ing. Love, love, love.

**P.S. I apologize, once again, for the absolutely terrible quality of my pictures. My iPhone is all I have and those pictures do not transfer well to blogland!

**P.P.S I created a new pinterest account, just for school-related things. I was getting overwhelmed by the amount of things I was pinning for personal and professional use! also I wanted to explore the idea of using it as a teaching tool - pinning sites for students, parents, etc. Do you use have a teacher pinterest? How do you use it professionally?





100th Day Plans

Hi blog friends! Just stopping by tonight to share my 100th day activities. Our 100th day of school won't be until next Thursday, February 2nd. Yep, that's also Groundhog Day, so it looks like it will be a very busy Thursday! My teammate had the idea to do Groundhog Day activities the day before when they make their predictions about the groundhog seeing his shadow and I think that is a FABULOUS idea, so I think room B107 will be observing it a day early as well.

This year I will be doing many of the same activities that I did last year, and you can find those here. In addition, we'll be making 100th day trail mix, working on a special 100th day themed homework menu and making words with the letters in "one hundred". Click on the pictures below to download two freebies!

I'm SO looking forward to getting another wear out of my homemade t-shirt from last year. When I taught 2nd grade, we used to dress up as 100 year olds and it was so. much. fun. The kids were the cutest (smallest) elderlies you'd ever seen! Since I've moved down to 1st, we haven't done that and I was hoping we could do that this year... unfortunately I'm teaching a staff development after school that day and I don't think my 100 year old costume (and baby powdered hair) will be the most professional attire. The t-shirt will be much easier to change out of and into something else. Oh well, maybe next year! How will you be celebrating? 

Winter and Holiday Activity Recap

I have been officially on winter break since last Friday at 3:30 and I am LOVING it! My two favorite things to do when I'm out of school are sleep in (and not have to wake up to an alarm) and read FOR FUN! I have been doing plenty of both things. I've also picked up a cold and cough, but I'm not feeling too bad and even that can't spoil my mood! I'm finally getting around to turning on my laptop to share some of my winter activities that we worked during our literacy block last week... ok, I may have started the Thursday before. There's just so much I wanted to do! We had a penguin/winter/snow themed day, Christmas themed day, Hanukkah day, Kwanzaa day, Polar Express day and a Las Posadas day. My classroom is very diverse and I wanted my holiday plans to reflect that.

One of my favorite Christmas/Winter books is My Penguin Osbert by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel. It's a cute story and who doesn't love penguins?! I like to start off my holiday unit with this book because it gets us thinking about winter and the season. While the story is about a boy who gets a penguin for Christmas, it's really not a story about Christmas. I like to use this story with a graphic organizer because I think it lends itself really easily to a discussion about plot. After reading the story we filled out a snowman graphic organizer together and went through the character, setting, problem, and solution. The students then filled out the remaining two parts on their own since those were more personal opinion responses. I haven't included it because I have to tell you, it's nothing fancy! I drew it myself oh... 7 years ago and I am still using it! We also did a snow globe art activity which you can find here from What the Teacher Wants. They turned out so cute! Although as you'll see from my picture we didn't quite get to the part where you write yet. We'll do that when we come back.

Click on the cover to head over to Amazon and check out this cute book!

Snow Globe Example

For our Christmas themed day, I read Corduroy's Christmas Surprise  by Don Freeman and did a sweet reader's response activity which you can find here from The First Grade Parade. I used that activity last year as well and it was one of my favorites. In her post, Cara references a book that I wasn't able to find so I used the Corduroy book and thought it worked really well since in the end, Corduroy realizes that the best Christmas gift of all was the company and happiness of his friends. Just for fun, I also read Snowmen at Christmas by Caralyn Buehner. 

Click on the covers below to visit Amazon!

For Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Las Posadas I did activities that I've been using for years. Some I've gotten from other teachers, some from books and some I kind of made up. I don't have any pictures because I still don't have a camera so I only get pictures if I remember to get out my iPhone and take them while we're working. Some examples of activities I used this year or in past years are making dreidels, eating latkes, making candles or a menorah, making a mkeka (a Kwanzaa mat), making luminarias, making a poinsettia, etc. These are some of my favorite books for these holidays:

Next up was our Polar Express Day. I've been doing this with my team(s) for about 5 years now and it has to be one of my students' favorite days. I love that sweet story. We start off by sending a letter home the week before letting parents know that their child can wear pajamas and bring a favorite mug to school on that day. You could also ask for donations of hot chocolate, but I didn't because I usually find it at Target for about $1.00/box of 10. On the big day, we read the story, watch the movie while drinking hot chocolate and I pass out bells on red ribbon. We also talk about things that were different in the movie and why. It gets the students thinking about the extra details that were part of the movie, but not part of the book, and how they didn't change the meaning of the story, but made it longer and more interesting as a movie. I get goosebumps every time I read the last page of that book and this year was no different!

And finally... GINGERBREAD DAY! I saved this day for Thursday because that happened to be our staff dress up day as well. We were supposed to dress up as our favorite holiday character.

This is me last year with one of the Kindergarten teachers. We were Dancer and Dasher.

And here we are THIS year! Gingerbread girls! Yes, we made our costumes.



There are SO many adorable versions of the classic gingerbread tale... gingerbread cowboy, gingerbread girl, gingerboy pirates, etc. Since most of the kids already know the basic story (and mine had heard it in the library that week), I like to read Gingerbread Baby  and Gingerbread Friends both by Jan Brett. Side note: I love Jan Brett and she has so many great winter books! I love the twist on the gingerbread tale in Gingerbread Baby and then I like to talk about what a sequel is and brainstorm examples before we read Gingerbread Friends. Last year I drew two giant gingerbread houses and we created anchor charts about the texts together. This year we had library and an assembly though so we didn't quite have time for all of that. We did however have time for a fun little craft extension and made our own "gingerbread friends". As I do this, I make sure to bring in how I'm using math and science because I think it's super important for my kiddos to see on a daily basis all the ways people use math and science in the real world. (And I teach at a math and science magnet!) The recipe for gingerbread friends is simple: mix equal parts applesause and cinnamon. That's it. After the dough is mixed (if it's too wet, you can add cinnamon, if it's too dry, add applesauce), I roll it out on wax paper and have the students use gingerbread man cookie cutters to cut out shapes. We then use a straw to make a hole for a ribbon once it's dry. Depending on how thick your cut outs are, you may need a couple of days to dry them. I've also heard that you can also throw them in the oven on a low temp and bake on each side to finish drying. When we make our gingerbread men, I start with 3 cups of each (applesauce and cinnamon) because I like to have PLENTY. I have 21 kids and not only did we make enough for each kiddo to have a gingerbread friend, but after school there was so much left that I cut out stars to attach to their end of the year gifts too. And I still had some dough left over. If you haven't made cinnamon ornaments before, you are missing out. The smell is AMAZING and lasts for a good long time. When your gingerbreads (or whatever shape you're using) are dry, run a ribbon through the hole you punched with a straw, and voila! Gingerbread friends!

Gingerbread books:

And the very last share I have before I wrap up this very detailed post: my gift for my students. Instead of buying them more pencils and erasers and dollar store toys that break immediately, I went for a tried and true crowd-pleaser: Playdoh! I bought a 24 pack of Playdoh for $15 at Target and put one in each treat sack with 3 soft peppermints, 3 Hershey's Kisses, and tied it with a ribbon (and in theory a cinnamon dough star but I ended up just passing those out).

I will leave a picture of one of my treat sacks and the adorable melting snowman cookies that my room mom made with my firsties during our class party:

I hope you all have a wonderful, restful and HAPPY holiday! See you in 2012!

Mother's Day Idea

My kids did a quick and easy Mother's Day project today that they really enjoyed and {I think} their mothers will love. The kids brainstormed words that describe their mothers and my heart melted at their sweet words - caring, loving, hardworking, beautiful... the adjectives just flowed! Each sweetie made a list and off we went to the computer lab. The kids went to http://www.wordle.net/ and made wordles for their mamas using all of their adjectives. They turned out precious and the kids all added what they call their moms to the word cloud. Tomorrow we're going to mount them on construction paper, et voila! I actually think I'm going to do the same thing for each one of my kiddos as the end of the year.
PS: Summer countdown = 19 days!

Things to file away for next President's Day

I think this post is a note to myself to help me remember what I want to do with my firsties next year. In my post last Sunday, I wrote about an idea Mrs. Claborn and I had and were excited to try out. I'm back today to let you all know how it worked out... it didn't. Since we'd been studying coins for a few weeks AND it was President's Day, our idea was to trstudent'sprofils profiles on a paper plate and have them create their own coins. It turns out I seriously underestimated the size of a first grader's head, and overestimated the size of a paper plate. So, as we teachers so often do, I had to scrap that plan and come up with a new one. I had already told my students that we were going to do it, and they were really excited. New plan: I traced their profiles on black construction paper and then gave them a full piece of white construction paper and had them create a dollar. They LOVED it and I got a kick out of the values they gave to their currencies - some of them had so many zeroes I honestly didn't know what the number was! They still really wanted to create their own coins though, so we did something a little different this week and had an art center. It was great seeing them creatively showing what they know about coins as they included all the important things we've learned about that are on pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. I definitely will do this activity again! I also wanted to share two links for virtual field trips related to President's Day. I already knew my class loved nonfiction, but I was still surprised to find out how engaged and enthralled they were as they learned about Presidents Obama, Washington and Lincoln last week. I will probably share these with my class some time next week (when I can manage to find an extra few minutes) and bookmark them to share with my class next year when we do our President's Day unit. Check them out!

A Tour of the Capitol:

http://kids.clerk.house.gov/grade-school/lesson.html?intID=33

A Tour of the Lives of Presidents Lincoln and Washington

http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/score_lessons/special_events/presidentsdaymuseum/index.html

Also, I'd like to thank Mrs. Thiessen at The First Grade Sweet Life for this post where she shared a mobile making idea. While I read biographies about Washington and Lincoln to the kiddos, they jotted down facts they found interesting on index cards. We then shared these facts, posted them in our Venn Diagram pocket chart, and chose four facts for each President, which were incorporated into their "show what you know" projects. The students chose between making a foldable or a mobile for each and being able to choose really made it an enjoyable and meaningful experience.

President's Day Part 2

Here is the word sort I was mentioning on Friday. It's somewhat presidentally themed, but I had some writer's block when brainstorming president-related words, and I wanted the kiddos to be able to read them independently and have enough understanding of the word to sort it. The result is a handful of themed words, some long vowel words, and some of our word wall words. My munchkins L-O-V-E sorting things, especially in the pocket charts so I know they will really enjoy this center. I also included a recording sheet that has a challenge for them to add their own words. Hopefully it's not too late for some of you to use this too!

My team mate Mrs. Claborn (check her out at A Burst of First) and I came up with an idea that we're going to try out in the morning and I'm SUPER excited to see how it goes. Our best ideas are when we're bouncing things around in our grade level meetings and this one was no exception. We're going to trace the profiles of the students onto paper plates, and then have the kids create their own coins! How fun does that sound? We've been studying coins and thought this would be a creative way to bring that in to our President's Day activities. Check back soon to see how they turned out! 

President's Day

This is the first year I'm going to do President's Day activities with my first graders and I'm VERY excited! In the past we've had staff development on President's Day, and we were scheduled to do that again, but after all of our snow and ice vacation days, the district changed it to an instructional day. I've made a couple of activities for my kiddos and can't wait to use some of the FANTASTIC ideas I've seen on other blogs. I'm not sure how I'm going to fit it all in! Here are two things we're going to be doing on Monday - a job application to be President and a making words activity with the letters in presidents. My students use letter tiles for making words, so it doesn't have letters to cut out, but you could always add that in. Since I use many of the ideas I find out there in blog world, I thought I'd put some of my own back out there - like blog karma :). I'm in the middle of making a noun, verb, adjective word sort so I will post that when it's finished. Have a great weekend blog friends!

100th Day Hooray!

Last week on Thursday, we FINALLY got to celebrate our 100th day! It was rescheduled twice due to snow days and I think it made our celebration even more exciting - anticipation! We had so much fun! I know my munchkins had a wonderful time because I even got a sweet, sweet card the next day from one of my boys. It said "Thank you for teaching me for 100 days!". That really warmed my heart! A few of us decided to make t-shirts in honor of our big celebration - we glued 100 stars, 100 rhinestones and 100 eyes to our shirts.

Here we are!



We started our day with a rotation through all of the first grade classrooms (there are 4 of us). The students wrote about what they would do with $100, made 100th day art with 100 fingerprints, estimated how many times they could do different activities in 100 seconds, and put Fruit Loops into 10 groups of 10 for a 100 Fruit Loop necklace. With my own class we also did a fabulous critical thinking activity that came from Read Write Think called 100th Day Bottles (click here for the lesson plan), and of course, made portraits of ourselves at 100. Those always turn out so cute! I love the ones with beards! Sadly lots of my kiddos have been sick so I'm missing a few portraits.

What a good looking bunch! (As you can see, I have a sports theme in my room. It was so hard to get that paper up there just right and those letters with the perfect spacing... so it stays up all the time.)