First Grade has gone Batty!

We have been doing a short unit on bats and the kids love it. Here are some of the awesome activities I found  on some of the blogs. The kids got a kick out of cutting out 600 mosquitoes to show how many a bat can eat in an hour. I think that was their favoite thing to do. If you haven't read the book Stellaluna you definitely have to. It's so cute. Well, tomorrow is our school walkathon and it's been raining all day today. Keep your fingers crossed that it stops for the walk tomorrow.  Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by.

The Leaves are Falling!

I found this cute handprint tree on Pinterest and just had to do it. First they made their handprints. When it was dry they went back and used their finger tips dipped in paint for the leaves. They didn't turn out too bad for first grade. Well, it sure doesn't feel like fall around here. It's about 80 degrees here. I guess that's good for the football games. We have a great weekend planned. It's family weekend at my daughter's university so we're heading out east. We'll go to the football game and then the best part, a concert by the band Chicago. An oldie but goodie. We're looking forward to it but not my 16 year old son. I wonder why!! Anyway, have a great weekend.

Happy Fall, Yall!

We've been busy making our fall pumpkins and trees. I just love how these pumpkins turned out. I have been teaching 11 years at my school and I have many kids from the same families. Therefore, I am trying to do different projects with them so they don't go home with the same old projects. Thanks to Pinterest and all these wonderful blogs, I have found a ton of awesome things to do with my firsties. Sometimes I think these blogs are so much  better than any inservice. So, I want to give a huge shout out to all the wonderful teachers out there in blog land who share. Muchas Gracias!!  As soon as I have our trees mounted and hung up I will post a pic. I found this awesome idea on Pinterest. It was soooo easy to do. Enjoy!!

Red Eyed Tree Frogs

These are the cutest little red eyed tree frogs. We have been doing a small unit on the rainforest because our reading unit is on animal habitats. I came across this awesome project on Pinterest and couldn't resist it. Anyway, was there something in the air today and lately? My class has been sooo talkative it's hard to deal with. I even made the Nois-o-Meter and Brownie Points. They don't seem too interested in the brownie points, which I was suprised. You see, for my behavior management system I have a Happy Gram Chart. Each child has a clip on it. When they misbehave I tell them to move their clip to the not so happy face and then if it continues they move it to the sad face. Every day I give them a Happy, Not so happy or a Sad gram at the end of the day to take home for their parents to see. I really don't like to have to move clips and I feel I have a ton of patients. But these days I'm losing it. That's when the Brownie Points came into the room. However, since they really aren't phased by that I guess I will have to start moving more clips down and that means no recess. I'm really hoping just a day or two of sitting in will nip it in the bud. Keep your fingers crossed. Any other suggestions are always welcomed. Thanks for stopping by!

Another Reason Why I Love Teaching First Grade

Wait till you hear this one. Two little girls in second grade came over to my room after recess to tell me that a
boy in my room told them to shut up several times at lunch time. I then went on to ask the little lovely what happened at lunch and he went on to tell me that they were telling him that he had "big hairy eyeballs".  Since he did't like that he told them to shut up (I don't blame him, but wouldn't say that). When the girls were questioned about telling him he had "big hairy eyeballs, they admitted it. OMG! By this time  the other teacher and I couldn't stop laughing.  I'm so glad this is the extent of the problems I deal with in first grade. I'm still laughing when I think about it. Have a great week.

Last of the Apples

 So, here is the last of our apple projects. The kids did a great job on these. Sorry about the poor quality of the stained glass apples, they look much better in person. We will still do something for Johnny Appleseed day on Friday ( I know that's not his official day) and then I think I'll move on to spiders. I've seen a ton of awesome spider ideas. Our school is giving the AIMS Web test in the next few days. We've never done this test before. Anyone have any suggestions for me? I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks for stopping by.

More Apples, Yummy!

The kids always love when we do graphs. They especially loved this apple one because they could actually put their own apples on it. After we finished that one we colored a paper apples and placed them on the second graph. We went on to describe our apples using the 5 senses and their answers were a riot. Now on to the seasons of the apple tree, some fun apple art projects (which if found on blogs) and Johnny Appleseed day. Thanks for stopping by. I'll try to post some of their projects this week.  Have a great week!

Apples, Apples, Apples!

It's that time of the year. Apple season (one of my favorites). We started our unit and  so far so good. Yesterday we made this anchor chart together as they made their own and today we made apple KWL's.
Tomorrow we are going to graph our favorite's and then we'll do an activity using our five senses as well as eating our apples. Next week we will celebrate Johnny Appleseed. It's just a short unit to get the year started with.
Well, open house went great. I have another great bunch of kids as well as parents, this year. Since I teach at a catholic school we get a ton of support from the parents. I so appreciate that. One great idea many of our teachers do on this night is, we put up a "giving tree" on our boards, lockers, whereever there is room. We put leaves on it with items we go out all year and purchase ourselves. The parents are more than willing to take a leaf or two and send in those items. It's really a huge help, I'm sure you all know. Another theme was the helping hands. I've been doing this for 11 years now and have always had generous parents. Anyway, have a great rest of the week.

Open House Tonight

Yes, I know it's late but our principal decided to change the usual date. So, my day was.... first grade all day, grad school from 4:30 to 6 and open house from 6:30 to 9. I'm already tired just thinking about this day. I have five minutes to breath right now and what am I doing? Blogging, of course. I want to thank all the wonderful teachers out there who share their creations. I have used a ton of them and will post pictures in the next few days. Because I am taking classes myself I don't seem to have any time to create projects. I wish I had something to offer. Anyway, as I said already, thanks for sharing. Now off to school.

Back in the Swing of Things

Wow, 2 weeks are almost over and I think I'll come back! We beat the heat (again) last week. I'm really praying the 90's don't return for a looooonng time. Here are two project we completed and they are already hung up. I can't remember which blogs I found them on, so after this I'll search and come back here to give these wonderful teachers credit where credit is due. So, I've seen so much on all the blogs about the Daily 5 and now I want to implement it in my classroom. I'm working on getting it all put together and then we'll get started. For now, open house is next week and I'm back to grad school, myself. Needless to say, things are a little busy around here. I'll be back soon. Thanks for stopping by.