Grinch Day and and Elf?

We were Grinchy learners today!  To set the day off to a good start we all wore green.  Of course, we read How The Grinch Stole Christmas, and after that, we brainstormed adjectives that described Mr. Grinch on a web. (I'd include the web if I knew how to upload a Word Doc.)  We watched the cartoon version of The Grinch (not the scary Jim Carey version) and we compared it to the book. We decided we like the cartoon because the Grinch was so cool looking and we could hear the singing Who's.
We went on to write about what we would do to make the Grinch grin.  More good ideas from blogland.

For math we worked on word problems all about the Grinch.  We had to divide!  Wow!

Fun day!

Oh and one more thing.......this elf appeared out of nowhere....hmmmmm.  Will he be here tomorrow? Why is he here?

Even 'he' knows the real meaning of Christmas!

Holiday Happenings

Thanks to my new bloggy friends I have some new (new for us) projects to share that we have done.  The first photo is our version of Mrs. Carroll's  idea over at The First Grade Parade.  After reading the book Santa's Stuck, we thought about how we would help Santa if he was stuck in our chimney.  Next year I'll cut the legs a bit shorter, but other than that I love them!

Our next hallway masterpiece came from an idea I grabbed from the same teacher.  With the help of Mrs. Bellettini and some tweaking of the original, I made some patterns and ran to the rizzo machine.  All the parts were  in order ready to go.  One step at a time we made our elves.  Great for building the skill of following directions! Then for writing we filled out the Elf Application.  On the second page (which you can't see in the photo) each firstie had to write a good reason Santa should choose them over all the rest of the elves to get the job.   I was proud of the great ideas they came up with.

So darn cute!!!!!!!!

Where Oh Where Has My Teacher Gone?

Did you ever have a conflict where you were honored to be asked to do something, but at the same time be upset about the very same thing.  Here's what I 'm talking about.

 I am part of a consortium that is adopting the core curriculum standards and writing them to fit the needs of our district's LA program, basically.  At least once a month I need to attend an all day meeting out of my district to work on this task.  This is exciting to me for many reasons.  I love teaching LA and getting to know the standards inside and out will help me teach more effectively.  But on the other hand these meetings take me away from my firsties and teaching.  I have been diligent in getting substitutes that I know and trust to do a great job.  I get very possessive of my firsties and am quite a control freak when it comes to what and how they are being taught. 

That's not the end.  I am also being trained in Ortan Gillingham, which is a program that uses multisensory approaches to teach reading to young children.  I am real excited about that too, but again time away from my firsties.  At least this training is in district and I can stop in a few times to check on everyone during the day.  These two events happened to take me away 4 times in December from my class.  DECEMBER  people....I'm busy in December!  We are reading so many gingerbread man/boy versions, and making so many projects, and writing up a storm.  I am about ready to pull some hair out.  Not to mention writing sub plans is no picnic!

So if you're asking...where oh where has my teacher gone?  That's where. 
Hmmmmf!

November News

Take a look at the fun we had in November.  It's a short but very busy month for us.  We got so much accomplished and had fun doing it.

After learning about life in 1620 we compared Pilgrim children to ourselves. 

I've always made the paper plate Pilgrims, but I saw the writing idea on a blog (can't remember which one, sorry) so I added that in this year.

Here is a photo of our Plymouth Colony mural.  This is such a fun activity.  This year we did it on the day parents visited for American Education week so they got to help.  The second photo is after we added the facts to the mural.

Finally a just for fun activity that I founf on Pinterest.com.  turkey headbands.  I should have taken a close-up shot of at least one because they turned out so darn cute!

Silly time!

I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving.  I am thankful for each and every family. You all are so supportive and kind.  Thank you for coming in for the conferences.  Keep up the good work, your children are a pleasure to teach each day!

Thankful For Our Third Grade Reading Buddies

Today we were invited to a Thanksgiving play performed by our reading buddies in Mrs. Horton's class.  The Cialini's were a great audience.  Some of us made comments about hearing facts they had included on their Plymouth mural (to be posted soon).  The Horton's had yummy snacks for us to share including homemade pumpkin bread, popcorn, cheese, fruit and brownies.  Everyone enjoyed themselves.  I was so proud of the third graders' manners when they escorted the firsties to the food table and offered them plates and napkins.  It's so nice to see the sense of leadership and kindness in children this age.  Check out the photos of the performers and the "feast".

We are very thankful for our reading buddies and Mrs. Horton's hospitality!

Halloween Fun!

Take a look at our fun parade and party!  Thanks to our wonderful room moms for a great party.

Spider races.

Bookmarks

Storytime

Eyeball on a spoon races

test post

color sight word sheet

So this is my first attempt at posting an activity I made.  I think I could have left it as a Word document instead of changing to a PDF.  I see the margins got messed up.  I'll work on it because I want to share fun stuff with you bloggers who share with me!  I'll try again tomorrow.

And the Red Ribbon Winner Is....

The winner for our Red Ribbon Week idea is..........

The art work was done by children representing each first grade classroom. Way to go kiddos!

Yes, I steal!

I am totally stealing this site/idea from Mrs. Stanton in third grade.  Click the link below to play on a great math practice site.  You can make an avitar and sign in with your first name and last initial.  Get your parents to help you the first time and write down your user name and password.

http://www.carrotsticks.com/marsh

Have fun.  Maybe I'll compete with you.  My avitar's name is Mrs. C.

Red Ribbon Week

So next week is Red Ribbon week  (say no to drugs).  It's an important topic that just is not well suited for my little firsties, in my opinion.  So as our wonderful guidance counselor approached me to get the first grade on board with an idea I pretended was enthusiastic of course.  Mrs. Bellettini and I jumped right on to the blogs for an idea or two.  We came up with these ideas:

THIS IS YOU ON DRUGS....SCARY ISN'T IT?  

That will be the title and the kids will make lots of monsters to go under it...you know it is Halloween time and all!

-OR-

DRUGS WILL HAUNT YOU FOR LIFE....STAY AWAY!

This will go with a big haunted house and the kids can make different Halloween characters to go around the house.


I'll post pictures next week of the final choice....stay tuned!!!!

October Updates

I really have to get a bit more crafty with my titles for my posts.......BORING!  Oh well, since I have been slacking with my posts this really is an October update.  We have been finishing up our animal studies and looking forward to going to the Philadelphia Zoo. Last week's date got rained out , but this Thursday  we'll be wishing the kids would stop singing so loud  enjoying ourselves on the bus ride to Philly.  I am personally looking forward to seeing the primates.  I love the primates!  What are you looking forward to? 

In other news, we have finished our hallway display of the Seasons of the apple Tree.  Check it out below.  Cooperative learning at its finest.  I was very impressed with how nicely the kiddos worked in little groups to get the trees done. 

We have been working on describing words in Writer's Workshop.  Today we read The Witch's Hand by Peter Utton which is full of great adjectives.  Then we brianstormed "Halloweeny" (my word) words and wrote them on a big black cauldron.  These will come in handy as a "Halloweeny" word wall for the next two weeks. 

Check out our Monster writing below.

Animal Flip Books

Next week is our zoo trip to the Philadelphia Zoo.  We have been making our flip books about classifying animals.  After watching a clip from Discovery Education, we draw and label an animal from the animal family we learned about.  It's always cool to see how much information the firsties can share about animals. Both girls and boys are fascinated by the subject.  This is one of those lessons I've done for soooo many years and it never gets old because their art work and input is new each year.

We made these by folding 3 pieces of legal paper. 

First Day of Centers=Success!

Today we did our first round of centers and we were amazing.  First of all the kids could not wait to get in to centers.  They have been asking for days.  So when they heard we were starting today all eyes were on me!  Yeah, I love that!  After a long session of directions (which they sat through attentively) off they went to work independently.  I visited each one to be sure the directions were being followed.  I hardly had anyone with questions. A-MA-ZING! Here are the centers your kiddos were learning in today.

Spelling Center-

playing "teacher/ student" One person (teacher)reads the word and the other (student) writes it on the Magna Doodle thingy. Then they switch roles.

Poetry Center-

reading, sequencing and making connections to put in their poetry folders

Working With Words-

beginning sound match up

Math Center-

 counting sets higher than 10

Listening-

Listen to stories on tape and respond by writing and illustrating the part they liked best.

ART-

 Watercolor painting, then writing a sentence to tell about the picture.

Word Wall-

 Play "Roll a Word" or write and stamp the words from the word wall.

Buddy Reading-

Read an on level book to self and then read it to their buddy, followed by a response in the reading journal..."This book was about..." We are working on retelling skills here.