Friday, February 3, 2012

100s Day, Skittles, and Silly Monsters, Oh My!

This week FLEW by and yet was such a fun one too! Tuesday, my team decided to take a personal day and stay at school to plan. It was so productive and yet still a nice *break*. We were able to plan through February in each subject, such a good feeling! Thursday was groundhogs day AND 100s days, my oh my! My kids really enjoyed their 100th Day Stations (1o stations with 10 activities in each station). For example, station 1 was "10 thumbprints", station 2 was "Solve these 10 equations" and so on... They were completely engaged for 1 hour, wow! This even/odd coloring sheet and 100s Day certificate was laying on their desk as they walked in:


Streamers!







Here are pics of the kids working on their 100th day stations:







In math this week we've been learning about graphing so I decided to do a graphing lesson I picked up from the Primary Perspective (thank you!) I started off by reading "More M&Ms Math". In the book it talks about graphing/sorting M&Ms by their color. My class had to use skittles instead due to a students's food allergy, but I think it went super well! Here they are sorting & graphing their skittles by color...








Once they finished filling out the corresponding worksheet, I let everyone taste 1 skittle of each color to help determine which color was their favorite. We then made this pie graph based on their favorite color candy skittle. Yum!

(sorry the pic is a little blurry)






And how can I forgot the adorable lesson our counselor did in my classroom this moring about "Manners". She read a story about a monster coming to school and breaking all the rules. Finally, when the teacher's had enough, she decides to send him home. The monster bursts into tears because he didn't know the 'rules' in the first place. The kids decide to give the monster another chance and teach him the rules.

My students then drew a picture of the monster following a rule and then wrote a sentence explaining their picture. I had some *pretty* creative monster drawings lemme just tell ya! haha! Take a look:




Here's my favorite "monster" picture and sentence:
Have a happy weekend!

Friday, January 13, 2012

Mystery Box, MLK, & Math!

Hey friends, it has been WAY to long since posting about my sweet kiddos this year! Lemme just say that this week has quite possibly been the L-O-N-G-E-S-T week of my life! I don't know what it was, but I thought Tuesday was a Thursday and I woke up Thursday morning thinking it was Saturday. What. A. Sad. Feeling.

On a brighter note, my firsties did some really fun things today which was just what they needed to finish the week off right! We started the day with a little Mystery Box. I mean, who doesn't love a little mystery box?!?! (and it fit perfectly in with our 'making inferences' unit!) Here are my kids getting ready for the big mystery!





Any guesses?!? IT'S A MICROPHONE! Wonder why? It was my way of introducing the important speaker: Martin Luther King, JR. I then read "Martin's Big Words" and the kids made the CUTEST handprint wreath (I'll show pictures on Tuesday!) They completed the MLK Weekly Reader with a partner and watched a GREAT MLK video from Discovery Streaming!


After lunch I COULD NOT find my math activities for today and began to freak out...then I remembered that I am teacher. I am flexible. I quickly made these cards that had questions like "My number is more than 58 and less than 80" and placed them all around the room. I partnered kids up and had them rotate to each station. Of course, I made sure they showed their work and gave me the right answer. The atmosphere in the room was great with lots of discussion about...numbers! Love it!



Anyway, that's all I got for today and SO happy for my 3 day weekend. *Sigh*

Monday, January 9, 2012

Versatile Blogger Award



"The Rules"

1) Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to their blog.
I just wanted to give a HUGE thank you to Annie over at Awesome in 1st Grade for awarding me this Versatile Blogger Award! Thank you! She has a great blog with LOTS of awesome freebies!

2)Tell 7 things about yourself:

-I've been teaching 1st grade for 4 years and LOVE it

-My principal and I share the same anniversary

-I'm a wife of 4 years and 'mom' to our chocolate lab Abby of 2 years

-I'm currently listening to the new Florence & the Machines CD (thanks to Sophie!)

-I'm currently reading the 2nd Hunger Games book "Catching Fire" along with the book "One Thousand Gifts"

-I graduated from ACU (go Wildcats!) and loved it. Seriously couldn't have been a better college for me!
-I was the Pledge Mom for my sorority (and I'm sure this is no surprise at all for those of you who know me well!)

3) Pass this on to newly discovered blogs and let them know they received the award!

Check out these new blogs and be sure to follow them!