Valentine's Day

Good things come in 3's right? Nothing like a full moon, Valentine's Day, and a Friday all in the same day! Then, to make it even more enjoyable....a cold front comes through and rain. What a day!

Valentine's Day in my classroom was a huge success and my kids were awesome.

Here are some things that worked great to keep in mind for next year.

• Valentine bag contest---Decorate plain white paper bags (the ones that are $10 for 20 at Michael's) using Valentine cut outs via the dye cuts in the copy room, stickers, markers, crayons, stamps, etc. We decorated these as a center the Friday before our party. Perfect center activity, AND they were perfect to hold our Valentine's that we passed out. I meant to do a best bag contest.....but of course we ran out of time. 

• Valentine's Day party from 2-3. This allows a chance to eat a teacher provided snack, pass out Valentines, and read some of the Valentines to make sure that everyone received the correct ones. Note to self: make sure that the kids are aware to read their Valentines before passing them out to make sure that they get to the correct destination.

• Valentine's Day Craft---Do not wait until Valentine's Day to do this!!!! Do throughout the week so that when Valentine's Day goes crazy and you run out of time you're not rushing. 

Also, do not plan on doing any kind of testing or anything important on this day. Attempt to put it all off until the next week (President's Day week). 

President's Day Activities

There are always pros and cons that come with a short week of school. However, when you have a short week plus a day that you are away for a field trip it makes for an extra extra short week. 

This short week allowed us to spend time studying the ever popular well-known Presidents in the young primary grades, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Note for next year, when discussing the Presidents, do the was/accomplished/liked together in whole group and then let the kids fill it in on their own after discussing in whole group. My kids really struggled with how to do this on their own the first go-around. The second day worked out much better after a little we do, you do lesson on Abe Lincoln.

Here are some journal entries that turned out well. The students' morning work assignment was to write a journal entry about what it would be like to be the President. Perhaps this can be done better next year after studying about the President and what he (hopefully one day she) does. This would give them a good reason to justify why they would or would not want to be President and what they would do if they were President.

Clearly some of my kids had no desire to President....and that is perfectly fine! They loved getting to share what they would do if they were President with the rest of the class. We also got to take turns "glowing and growing" where the students pointed out things that they liked and some things that they need to work on. It's great to have peers helping you get better with your writing!

I need to find a way to add in American Symbols next year. Too much testing for interventions got in the way....go figure....

Pictures of Past Projects

Here are the pictures that were promised of some of the fun activities I have done this year with my kids. Of course all of the activities come with pros and cons.

I Need My Monster....

This was an illustration and narrative writing that we did back in October around Halloween. It is paired with the book I Need My Monster by Amanda Noll. It is a fabulous book that really gets the children excited about the season. I bought a book from the book fair that is titled The Monster That Lost His Mean. I can't wait to read it next year. 

The water color for this project really turned out great. 

The first thing they did was they had to play Roll A Monster. They rolled dice to see what kind of face, body, etc. their monster would have. Once their monster was drawn on their paper, they painted him or her with their watercolor paints and then traced over it with a Sharpie to make it pop. Some turned out better than others......

Last year we added googly eyes for their eyes....I might have to reconsider that next year.

A Year With My Snowman

This activity is paired with the book Snowmen All Year by Caralyn Buehner.

There are many ways to do this activity with the kids. I figured out this year that it is easiest to span this project into a week long event. Take each day to introduce a new season and brainstorm things that you might do in that season, what the weather is like, etc. Then, the students get to pick at least 2 things that they would want to do with their snowman in that season. Next year I am going to have them pick a place that they would take their snowman in that season and what they would do with him or her there.

For example: In the summer I would take my snowman to the beach. We would spend all day making sandcastles in the hot sand. After that we would catch some waves in the cool ocean on our boogie boards.

Eh....I know that it is a work in progress. The more years I teach the better I will get (I hope). This is a great activity to practice using nouns, proper nouns, verbs, and adjectives. 

After completing their final copy, the kids got to pick their favorite seasons they spent with their snowman and they drew themselves along with their snowman doing one of the activities in that season.

My Favorite Breakfast Food....

Our new reading series that we adopted this year is nothing short of fabulous, in my opinion. Of course some weeks are better than others, but there are so many wonderful things that the writers have included for the kids to do. Very unique stories and activities that is actually very easy for the kids to understand.

This week we studied all about food. The writing activity that we focused on was our first opinion writing, and the kids had to write an opinion about their favorite breakfast food. We had a 2 hour delay day or a snow day this week so the project was kind of rushed, but it went fabulous!

Next year I plan on brainstorming favorite breakfast foods, coming up with 4 reasons why it is our favorite food, and then modeling how to turn those reasons into opinions for our opinion writing. We missed the middle step due to lack of time. They still turned out fabulous!

Can you tell what their favorite foods were? I loved the idea of my last minute decision to create their breakfast illustration on round "plates". Of course some really took the idea and ran with it, and some did the minimum. These were some of my best.

More great things of what is to come from the room of D-18 later!

Winter Favorite Activities

This is my first attempt at blogging. The purpose of this would be to document all of the cool things that I do with my kiddos throughout the year. This way I can recap and see what worked and what didn't work. What I liked and what I didn't like, and most importantly to be able to look at examples!

A recap of some of my favorite things (what I can remember) that we have done so far this school year......
I will be sure to do these again next year. 
Pictures to come later so that I can look back and remember.

• Valentine's Day Bags--- Center work the Friday before Valentine's day. Turned it into a contest to see who would have the best decorated bag. We will vote on Valentine's Day.

• My Favorite Breakfast Food opinion writing--- Absolutely loved this! Next year I will have my students label what it is on their plates. However, it is fun to try and guess what food is in the picture before reading to figure out what they have created. This was a fun introduction to opinion writing.

• Christmas Gifts--- A holiday book from scholastic, a can of play-doh, and a cool holiday themed pencil. The kids loved them! What a great gift that isn't full of sweets :)

• Coloring Book Exchange--- Genius! Students send in a coloring book and a new pack of 24 count Crayola crayons (already wrapped). We play a couple of rounds of Christmas J-I-N-G-O. When you get J-I-N-G-O you get to go pick a gift and open it. Then, you get to spend the rest of the time coloring until everyone has a book :) My kiddos especially loved this one. Sometimes first graders just need an opportunity to color.

I think that this is all my mind can recap for now. I will be sure to do a better job with this next year. It would be a whole lot easier if blogger wasn't blocked on our server! However, I will attempt to remember to take more pictures and try to blog AT LEAST (crossing my fingers) once a week.