Show and Tell

It's time for another round of Show and Tell with my blogging buddies! Lots of fun spring time activities have been going down in our room, so it's time to share!

We hatched chicks in our classroom!  My kiddos were just entranced with our fluffy little ones...they couldn't get enough of them!  They learned so much in the 21 days it took for our eggs to hatch, and they are still talking about it.  Science for the win!

We were learning about land forms and bodies of water in Social Studies.  I have been participating in a little challenge that our Technology Instructional Specialists put together.  We are learning how to incorporate Google apps into our teaching, so I thought it would be neat for my kids to use Google Draw to create some of the land forms we learned about. The kiddos really enjoyed it, and it was a great way for us to learn something new together!

Last but not least, we put together something special for our moms just before Mother's Day.  First we did a little directed drawing and made portraits of our moms.

Then we filled in the blanks to tell all about our moms.  This is the story my little one write about me.  I'm going to overlook the 40 years old part because she thinks I only weigh 70 pounds and didn't write anything about me drinking wine.  I call it a win!

We also made these sweet little bags filled with breakfast goodies.  We put in a tea bag, a cute napkin, an orange, and a Nutri-grain bar.  My kiddos were so excited to treat mom to breakfast in bed!

That's all for this month, thanks for stopping by!  I can't wait to see what fabulous things everyone else is doing in their classrooms!

Shark Week!

Well, we are almost there....the end is near...and the natives are restless.  It is getting harder and harder to get and keep their attention, so I decided to pull out the big guns last week- SHARKS.  It is pretty universal, all first graders love sharks - I have no idea why.  We had our state testing last week for the bigger kids, so that means we were trapped in our rooms with no specials for three days of the week.  I knew I would need something BIG to keep us all from going completely crazy.

We began with a little research on Tuesday.  I used a nonfiction resource from A Year of Many Firsts for most of our research and it worked out perfectly.  We read the mini book about sharks the first day and made a giant web with everything we knew about sharks.  I put out my shark books on the browsing shelf for my kiddos to peruse through the week and they just ate them up!

The next day I let them break into teams.  They used reading passages (from the same resource) and books on pebblego.com to gather information about their chosen type of shark.  I had groups researching great white sharks, whale sharks, tiger sharks, and hammerhead sharks.  They were so engrossed in this that it took most of the morning, and I was happy to leave them to it!

On Thursday we began working on our posters.  They drew their sharks, filled in the background, and added facts they had learned about their shark.  I was pretty impressed with how detailed their drawings were!

I was trying to think of a good activity for Friday when I came across this little directed drawing activity on @adayinfirstgrade's Instragram account, and I knew it would be perfect!  Sure enough, my kids loved it, and they turned out to be adorable.  When they finished my kiddos spent some time reflecting on what they learned in their journals.

All in all, it was a great week, even with the testing and the end of year craziness. Just twelve more days to go!!

Big News!

Hello again!  Look, it's me!  I haven't fallen into a deep dark well, I've just been...well...it would appear that I am really terrible at keeping up with this whole blogging thing.  I swear, that's going to be a big goal for me next year.  I'm going to have to make a schedule or something, because GEEZ. #goodintentions

So I come to you with BIG NEWS.  Like, capital letter BIG.  Well, big for me anyway.  It's all official so I can finally announce that after 13 years (my entire career!) in first grade, I will be moving to second grade next year.  I am super excited and a wee bit nervous, but mostly excited.  I absolutely love my group of kiddos this year so I went to my principal just after spring break and asked if I could loop up with them.  This girl is ready for a change!

We had the "big end of the year info" faculty meeting today and we were given all of our end of the year check lists and what not.  That's always exciting, because now we can officially start counting down the days (19 and a half, in case you're curious.  You can bet your boots I counted.) until we can sleep past dark o'thirty in the morning.

When the maps with our new classroom assignments were passed around, I have to admit, I got a bit weepy.  I am soooooo far away from my teaching besties, and you know how that is.  One hall over can seem like an ocean between you.  After the meeting I went to get a peek at my new room, and y'all- there. are. ceiling. fans.  All the spirit fingers and praise hands!  ALL OF THEM!  It is ALWAYS hot and muggy in our building and I am a wee bit on the fluffy side, so fans make me a happy girl.

I'm super pumped to share my new journey with you- movin' on up!!