Halloween Fun in First Grade!

 

We've been working on r-controlled vowels this week and I found this cute treasure hunt from Babblin' Abby. The kids love hunting for treasure (ar words) and wanted to do it again. After the treasure hunt we sorted more words out into "ar" categories. I really think they understood the "ar" sound.

Here a few more Halloween writing activities we completed this week. After completing an anchor chart on how to carve a pumpkin they wrote thier own directions for it and then went on to "carve" their own pumpkins. They are so much fun to look at and the kiddies loved doing it.

This is not such a great picture but it was hard to get a good pic with them haning in the sunny window. Anyway, they loved making these Franensteins from Amy Lemons. We just completed a unit on bats and finished with making our own bats and poems to go with them from Teri ove at A Cupcake for the Teacher.

On to the big day. That's me in the middle and our other first grade teacher in the ballerina outfit and our aide as the bumble bee. Usually we get together on our costumes but for some reason this year we just didn't. Oh well! We have had some pretty cold days in October and not much rain. BUT, leave for today to decide to be pouring, windy, cold, and just plain YUCKY!!. So we had to have our school parade in the gym and not around the block. On the other hand, the costumes were unbelievable. I don't know about you but I really think every year the costumes get more  clever than ever. They certainly aren't what we used to wear back in the day (Thank God!). The most popular costume I thought was the minions. We had a lot of groups of them, including my neice. What a great costume.

Here are the primary grade teachers at my school. I think this is the first year in all my years here (14) that we didn't get together on ideas. What were we thinking. We had a lot of fun though. No on to Thanksgiving and turkey day.

Pumpkins

 

We had a short week at school this week so I decided not to start a new reading story. Instead we several pumpkin books. We learned about the life cycle of pumpkins and wrote adjectives describing our pumpkins. Here is one of the pumpkin projects we did. I found this over at First Grade Blue Skies. You should check it out. This unit has a few cute activities to use with your pumpkin unit. More to come next week.

 

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We ended our Columbus Day unit with these ships that came from a unit from A Cupcake for the Teacher. The kiddies are always facinated with his boat and can't imagine traveling this way.

Our week ended with our schoolwide walkathon. It was super chilly but no rain. That's all that mattered. The kiddies had a great time walking  (or should I say running). After the walk was over the family school association (like a PTA) gave all the kiddies a hotdog lunch which we ate with our 8th grade buddies. We even had 12:00 dismissl. All in all it was a great day and week, but I'm glad it's over and on to the weekend. A drive through Lake Geneva to see all the colors of fall. Have a great weekend.

Busy Firsties

It seems so long since I posted. We have been so busy in first grade these days and I can just see how busy the upcoming weeks are going to be. We just finished all our reading assessments and now on to Halloween and our walk a thon. This is a short week with being off today and Friday is a half day.
Anyway, we have been working on our double facts and when I saw this cute project for the kiddies to write their facts on I just had to do it. They did a great job and really loved it. Thanks Amy Lemons for creating this awesome project.

 

I saw this cute little guy at Home Depot and I knew right away what I wanted to use him for. My kiddies had fun making these little crows and candy corns.

Who doesn't love a ghost. After reading several ghost themed books they got busy creating their own. I just love the legs on them and some of their faces were very creative. Thanks, Teri, over at Cupcake for the Teacher.

 

I'm sure you're wondering what this is all about. We started an after school program where teachers can do whatever kind of class they want with the kids. I'm doing an American Girl tea party. The kids sign up ahead of time if they want to join us. They are having a blast so far.

 

Finally, we just finished our rainforest and animal habitat unit and here are our red-eyed tree frogs. The kiddies colored in the dots this year. I usually allow them to use the bingo dabbers and they turn out so cute but I just couldn't find where I packed them away. I guess I am either going to buy more or keep hunting them down.

This week we are going to work on our bat and pumpkin units along with reviewing all the short vowels we have covered so far. Have a great week and thanks for stopping by.

Rounding out the Week!

We finished up our unit on apples and we are ready to move on to animal habitats. The kiddies loved painting the seasons of the apple tree and I think they turned out pretty good. It really helps when you go one step or one color at a time. After we did some apple investigating, (apples  taste, smell, sound, and look like with their real apples) and graphing they made the apple project below. Now I love to eat apples and have nothing against apples (that sounds funny) but I think next year we will pick a different unit. I've been doing apples units for many, many years and I'm burnt out with them. So if anyone has any suggestions of what I can replace this unit with I would love to hear it.

Now on to a long scrapbook weekend with my besties. We just love scrapping and any chance we get we're there. After last weekend and the burnt up car situation I think I need a weekend to not think about anything. So, have a great weekend everyone!!

 

Friday the 13th!

Until today I never really thought twice about Friday the 13th. I am not a supersticious person by any means. Anyway, this is my son's car up in flames. He decided to come home for the weekend from college. He picked up two other kids and headed home. The car (it was a red Taurus) died out once on the highway but started up right away. A few minutes later they notice smoke from the engine so they pulled over, got out to see what it was and it went up in flames. Unbelievable!! I am soooo thankful they all got out to see what the problem was and refuse to think what could have happened. I also hesitated to post this pic because it still makes me sick to think about it. No more beater cars for the college kids. Oh, I forgot to mention we just had work done on it this week. So now allstate has a huge investigation to take care of. Unbelievable!! ( I know I already said that but will probably be saying that for the next week or so). On the next Friday the 13th noone is getting in a car around here.

TGIF

 

 

 

Thank God for Fridays! It has been one of the longest short weeks ever. We had meet the teacher night last night so of course we were all on overload with getting the school and our rooms all gussied up. Here is one of my favorite projects we did (ignore the bins up top). We read several books about friendship and how to be a friend. Then we made these gumball machines and they put their friends names on the gumballs (they had to put all the kids names in our class and not to leave anyone out). AND the heat is back on. We had a few cool days and not the heat and humidity is back and next week is supposed to be reallllllly hot. I am sooooo ready for a school break, yep, already. Now on to popcorn festival in Indiana tomorrow. Have a great week!!

Back to School Bulletin Boards

Here are two of the projects we have done so far this school year. We are getting ready for meet the teacher night next week. The heat is still on and the humidity is aweful. Every morning I walk into something that has fallen off the walls due to the humidity. We are still praying for cooler weather.

 

 After talking and making an anchor chart of what a reader does, reads, and looks like my firsties drew pictures of themselves as readers. If you look closely they are hysterical.

 

We read the book What I Did on My Summer Vacation and my firsties drew their favorite things they did during the summer. I was really pleased how they did a great job considering it was the first day of school. I'm not sure about you but I thought the enonomy was still not so great. You wouldn't believe the amount of kids who went on some really big trips ( Disney World and cruises). I guess my four day trip to Vegas doesn't even compare.

 

By the way, I want to thank all the awesome teachers out their who posted about their clip chart behavior system. I have been doing it for the first time in my many (many) years of teaching and it works GREAT!!!  The kids LOVE it. They are all trying to get their clip on pink so they can bling out their clip. I even have noticed the students who move their clips below the green really do shape up afterwards and are thrilled when their clips get moved back up. Many of the firsties run out after school all excited to tell their parents what color they ended up on. Even many parents have commented on it. Whoever came up with this system is genius. THANKS again!!

Now back to the oven tomorrow and no school (already) on Friday. Have a great weekend!!

Bring on the HEAT!!!

There is nothing like trying to teach when your classroom is 98 degrees.  Yep!  The temps here in Chicago are just crazy hot. So far, the day isn't over yet, the temps reached 95 degrees with heat index of 103. I'm sure some of you awesome teachers in Texas and other normally hot climates don't bat an eye at these temperatures. However, here in Chitown this is very hot for us. Our summer heat is usually in the high 80's. It always seems when it's time to return to the classroom the temps rise and we all get hot and crabby. AND, yes, many schools do have air condition but not mine. It's an old catholic school with lots of windows, that's it. This afternoon I took my class into the cool church for and hour or so and we did our work there. It was a great way to get them to work quietly. Many of our posters have already fallen in the classroom. I guess I won't put them back up until the heat breaks. When I walked out of the room to go home at 3:00 my thermometer in my room read 98 degrees and probably up more since I left. Anyway, hopefully this won't last long and we can get back to some work.  So pray for some cooler air. 

Back to School Board and A Lonely Rose!

 

Here is another back to school board in our hallway at school. We have this huge board at the end of our hallway and it was my turn to put something up. I saw this puzzle idea and thought it was perfect. I made the pennants from my cricut machine. The puzzle pieces have the names of the students in

k-2. It really doesn't look like a lot of kids but we really do about 140 students in our k-2nd grade.

 

This is the one and only rose my rosebush produced all summer. I have no idea why it does this every summer. One rose and then it's done. Kind of like the saguaro cactus, one flower a year and that's it. At least the color is beautiful!!

 

It's been a great week. My firsties are soooo cute!  My favorite comment this week was... I asked one little boy if he got new glasses this year and he said, "No, these are my handsome glasses. When I spike my hair up I wear these glasses and I look handsome!" That just made my day. What a cutie!!

Besides having wonderful firsties this year, the heat has been on. Middle 90's and high humidity. Yuck!! And next week is supposed to be worse.  I sure wish I could buy my own air conditioner and install it but we've all been told no so that means more hot sticky school days ahead of us.

Enjoy your weekend!!

Ready or Not, Here They Come

Finally my classroom is done and ready for a new batch of firsties. Tomorrow our first graders and kindergartners can come to school just to drop off their supplies, find their desks, and look around. We started this three years ago and what a differnce it makes on the first day of school. The kids aren't all asking what to do with their supplies and they know exactly where to go in the morning. If your school doesn't do this I highly recommend it. Anyway here are a few pics of my room. You will probably recognize quite a few things from blogs and pinterest. Let me know what you think!

 

Here is the bulletin board right outside my room. This idea came from one of my favorite blogs, Kacey over at Doodle bug teaching.

Here is a view from my doorway. Over the summer a group of moms and dads came in and painted all our walls. The walls were all white and now we love them. Each floor was painted different colors.

 

There is my small group area in the background . The sun can be a little blinding in our room.

This is opposite the classroom doorway. I have one of the oldest desks in the building and after they painted there was quite a bit of paint on the desk. So, I decided to cover it up with contact paper. What a difference it made.

 

 My Star of the Week board. I love how it looks. It looks better in person because I have star garland all around it and it's hard to notice in this pic.

 

Here is my new behavior chart. I searched all summer for a new plan and this is what I saw on most of the teachers blogs. Since they all swear by it I am going to give it a try.

 

My class library and meeting area.

 

The bare walls will soon be covered with student projects.

 

 It's hard to see but there are computers there too (a little blinding again)

This is the board across the hallway from my class. I just think it's so cute I had to share with you. So thanks for stopping by and checking out my room. Let me know what you think and I'd love to check out your room. 

Happy 1st Day!!