St. Patrick's Day Book Reports and Spring Read-In!

St. Patrick's Day is quite possibly my favorite holiday to celebrate with the students!! The magic and trickery of the leprechaun, the history of Ireland, and all of the GREEEN! In the past I've made a special green pancake breakfast for my kids, given kids black plastic pots filled with Lucky Charms (from the leprechaun, of course!), and given gold foil chocolate coins. We are no longer allowed to have food in classrooms so I've gotten more creative....

Each year I now stamp green footprints on each student's desk with a baby foot stamper and green, washable ink. I sprinkle mini rainbow, gold coin, and leprechaun hat erasers around their desks with gold glitter as well. They love it!

During the month of March, each of my firsties complete one book report each week working toward a goal of 4 reports. At the end of the month, we have a special "First Grade Read In" to celebrate their hard work! Students wear jammies, slippers, and robes to school. They bring blankets and stuffed animals. We spend the entire morning reading all of our favorite books. Our principal comes to each classroom to read a story as well! I took this idea from Pinterest and re-imagined it for my own classroom:

In order to track their book report progress, each student has a black pot with a handprint rainbow. For each book report they return, they receive a "gold coin" for their pot. (Really it's just a yellow garage sale dot, but holy moly do they love it!) We hang the handprint pots in the hallway to brighten up the space and remind ourselves that despite this horrific winter, SPRING IS ON THE WAY!

This year, my teaching partner Amy and I both have student teachers. So, as the fabulous student teachers were teaching in the morning, Amy and I were able to paint the hands of all 180-some first graders for this project. (Yes, there are 7 first grade classrooms in my school!) Amy is a genius, so we started by pouring paint into ketchup bottles for easy storage and transportation of the paint. Check out the photos below for what we did!   

{HINT}: if you're going to do this, start with the yellow painted finger first to avoid color mixing!

Voila! A new tradition is born! Now, what will we do next year without student teachers?!? Eek!

Talk soon,

Read Across America Week & Dr. Seuss Themed Centers

This week was the famous "Read Across America Week" to celebrate the 110th birthday of the late, GREAT Dr. Seuss!! This fun week is one of my favorites at school, as it brings out the silliness in everyone! I'm very fortunate to work in a district with teachers who work with our FABULOUS librarian to plan Dr. Seuss themed activities for each day of the week. Here's how it went!

Monday: "Fox In Socks Day" - Wear silly socks to school. (I saw some great monkey socks, and some funny Christmas and Halloween socks as well!)

Tuesday: "One Fish, Two Fish Day" - Hop over the fish taped to the floor all over the school. (It's  hard to tell from this photo but they were everywhere! What a great "brain break" for students to get out energy while making their way through the halls.)

Wednesday: "Wacky Wednesday" - dress wacky. (My favorite outfit included taped up "nerd" glasses and a backwards hockey jersey...can you guess which movie??)

Thursday: "The Lorax Day" - wear green and "speak for the trees!" We watched the Lorax cartoon and talked about conservation. (It's amazing how much children connect with the environment and the ideas they have to protect it!)

Friday: "Cat in the Hat Day" - wear a silly hat to school. (There were viking horns, light up cowboy hats, feathers, and hats with tubes! Who knew there were so many goofy hats out there?!)

My little firsties had a ball this week dressing silly and participating in all of the activities. To make the week even more fun, my classroom did Dr. Seuss centers each morning. Here's what we did:

Theme Center: Create your own "Cat in the Hat" hat. Use a sentence strip to easily attach it and size it to their heads!

Spelling Center: Write each of your spelling words 3 times on the cat's hat.

Word Wall Center: "Green Eggs and Ham" memory match game. Next year I'll buy some spatulas for them to flip the eggs with. They LOVED the green eggs!

Writing Center: "The Cat in the Hat" write around the room. Find words around the room that match each letter in the title!

Each classroom made a Dr. Seuss book poster for the main hallway as well. At the end of the week, a team of judges voted on the best 3 posters and a wonderful teacher dressed up as the Cat in the Hat to deliver the prizes. My class did "Horton Hears a Who". Here are a few of my favorite posters:

(This was the first place winner!)

That's all for now! See you next week for my blog post on St. Patrick's Day activities! :) 

Happy weekend!

I'm baaaack...and January "Currently"!

Well, bloggers, it's been quite a few weeks! Do you even remember me??? I used to be pretty consistent with this blogging thing.....BUT.... I promised myself that during Winter Break this year I would relax on all things teaching...no grading, no planning, no blogging, etc. I needed (and deserved) a break! I did pretty good on most things (apart from planning ahead in math...) Alas, now that I've taken time to refresh and relax, it's time to get started fresh in a brand new year! Happy 2014!

I thought I would share what I think is my *most GENIUS* idea ever! This holiday season I made an Amazon wishlist with my school email address. I loaded it up with all of the great mentor texts and books that I've been wanting since last summer! Guess what? I got a TON of them as gifts for Christmas! WOO HOO! I love generous parents! Here's a peek at a few that I received!! I'm super giddy at all of these wonderful hardcovers!! 

Moving on! 

I am currently trying to stay warm on what my district is calling a "snow day". However, the snow stopped two days ago! Here's what I looked like shoveling the other day.....

I live near Chicago, which recently has become known as the arctic tundra Chiberia (see the hashtag on your preferred social media source for some GREAT photos of what we're dealing with!) Here's a photo of the peephole in my front door. This is the view from *inside* my house....yes, that's frost! IT IS FROZEN INSIDE OF MY HOUSE. Brrr!! We haven't had school because of these extreme temps.

Today I was chatting with my friend The Short and Sassy Teacher, and we both made snow ice cream. No joke, it's ice cream made out of snow. { Here's } the recipe! It was okay, not great. Maybe I did it wrong or something. I fancy myself to be somewhat of an ice cream snob, but my cat seemed to enjoy it!

We are experiencing -35 to -45 degree wind chill temps with the actual temperature at -6 for the high. The same goes for tomorrow so I'll be sleeping in again! NO SCHOOL FOR ME! :)

I must admit that I'm ready to get back to a routine. I have a student teacher starting and I'm looking forward to sharing my classroom with her! 

With that said here's my January currently with Oh Boy, 4th Grade!

Listening: I watch Frasier every single night before going to bed. I think Kelsey Grammar's voice soothes me into sweet dream land...

Loving: Having 2 extra days off from reality! Woo!

Thinking: I spent 2 weeks chilling out....now back to the craziness and stress! Eek!

Wanting: I hope my student teacher is as amazing as I think she'll be!!

Needing: With all my new hardcovers (that I will reserve from my little firsties' grubby fingers), I need an effective way to organize and store them. Anyone have any tips for me?

Memory/Tradition: Every year I watch Rock Star with Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston. I don't know how this started but I seriously love this movie. It's a great way to ring in the new year, especially because I'm not a big fan of New Year's Eve.

Talk soon,

Conferences and December Currently! Ho, ho, ho!

Last week was a much needed break from my firsties. I feel more exhausted this year than in previous years. Last Monday and Tuesday brought parent-teacher conferences, which is always a lot of prep work and non-stop talking for 2 days straight! Eek! This year I created a new conference form to help guide my conferences and you can pick it up for free { here } in my TpT store!

As for the rest of my week - I am very proud of myself! I did NOT ONE school thing over my 5-day weekend!!! YAY FOR ME! I slept, enjoyed family, and spent time putting up holiday decorations. I'm already all caught up in lesson planning for the rest of 2013, so now I can focus on making things special for this season for my firsties (and myself!) 

I have been wrestling with the idea of having my Elf on the Shelf back in my classroom this year. I had him last year and it brought a lot of joy, but was also a lot of work. Plus this year I have more students that don't celebrate Christmas. We are teaching about a lot of holidays (Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Diwali, Las Posadas, Yalda, etc.), so I was feeling a little "off" about my elf. Alas, after much though and blog-searching for how to incorporate the Elf into other holiday celebrations, he will be making his annual appearance back at school tomorrow!

And now for my currently link up with Oh' Boy, 4th Grade!

Listening: I'm not proud of this one.....but it's my Sunday night guilty pleasure. I like trash t.v. that requires no thinking or analyzing on my part. I'm a Bravoholic and I can't help it. It's how I de-stress and relax before my upcoming week. So there! :-P

Loving: The Yankee Candle tart burner was my best purchase ever! I'm smelling an aromatherapy scent right now, but for the holiday season I bought Autumn Leaves, Cinnamon Stick, Cozy Sweater, and Balsam & Fir. 

Thinking: I wasn't in the holiday spirit until this very weekend. I wasn't even really looking forward to Thanksgiving this year, but now it's hit me and I'm baaaack!!! 

Wanting: I seriously need a floor length, double layer, down coat for the frigid Chicago winters. We go out for recess unless it is 15 degrees or below. However, I don't have $600 to spend, so I'm looking for sales, coupons, etc. I might have to wait for an after-Christmas sale.....hit me up if you know of anything reasonably priced right now!

Needing: More holiday cheer would be nice. It's been a tough year so we need a little Christmas! I'm looking forward to watching my favorite holiday movies this month. Especially The Bells of St. Mary's, It Happened on 5th Avenue, & Holiday Inn!

Favorite Tradition: Since my first Christmas, I have received 1-3 glass ornaments from my family each year. They are dated and beautiful. I also have some 1930s and 1940s ornaments that belonged to my great-grandmother. When I have children of my own, I will continue this tradition as I am filled with great holiday memories as I unwrap each delicate ornament each Christmas season.

Talk soon,

 

{ Five for Friday }: Thanksgiving and Holiday Mail for Heroes!

I'm finally back for another "Five for Friday" linky with Doodle Bugs Teaching!!

We've been super duper busy this week learning addition and subtraction strategies, crafting for Thanksgiving, and getting ready for conferences (okay, just me on that last one!).

1

Doubles Addition: I taught them the "Doubles Rap" and we made double scoop ice cream cones. They came up with some creative ideas for decorating their cones as well!

2

Two of my firsties showed up dressed like turtles this week. Love it! They didn't make these cool clothes when I was little!!!

3

My parents wedding song is "Colour My World" by Chicago. When my student showed up in this adorable tee I just had to snap a pic and send it along to my mom! 

4

Learning about the Wampanoag tribe and the first thanksgiving was a treat this week. We read Turkey Trouble and disguised our own turkeys in a class book. We also did a very complicated (but well worth the effort) and informational project related to the Wampanoags. I learned a lot about this interesting, peaceful group of people this week! It's always fun to have that teachable moment when I say to my class, "hmm...I didn't know that! I just got smarter!" so they see that we are all life-long learners.

I love Scholastic News!!!!

Our own version of Turkey Trouble that I will put outside of my classroom during conferences next week!

Disguise: A Rock Star

Reward: Popcorn

Disguise: A Unicorn
Reward: Stickers and a prize

5

Holiday Mail for Heroes: We designed holiday pictures to send to our wonderful servicemen and servicewomen overseas! This is sponsored by the Red Cross. If you want your class to participate, 

{ here } is the link! (The letters are due to the P.O. box no later than December 6th.)

Talk soon,

Verbs: Anchor Chart Thursday!!!

I almost didn't make it! However, I'm back for another edition of "Anchor Chart Thursday" with The Creative Apple!

The inspiration for this one didn't come from a pin, but rather my own noggin'!! I will be teaching about verbs next week and all I could think of was action, action, ACTION! That made me think of the movies and voila (!) an idea is born. 

This is hot off the presses and I can still smell the Sharpie and lamination film in my nose. I hope it inspires you to create something meaningful for your class....

I also hope my firsties like it!

Talk soon,

My 6 Day Color Coded Schedule!

Today I'm linking up with Thank God It's First Grade for her "What's Your Schedule" Linky Party!

I stumbled upon this really cool linky party through Erin over at The Short and Sassy Teacher! I've been looking through the schedules of people who linked up, and I realized that my school is *WAAAAYYY* different when it comes to scheduling! Instead of the traditional 5 day schedule, we have a 6 day color coded rotating schedule. It sounds complicated, but once you get the hang of it, it's easy! 

We begin at 8:35 a.m. and end at 3:05 p.m. Each day of the week corresponds to a color on the rainbow. So, for example, red day is always PE day, purple day is always art day. Some weeks we will have PE 3 times, some weeks only 2 times. This coming week starts on an orange day so we will have orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple days. Next week will start back at red so we will have red, orange, yellow, green, and blue days.

This schedule is unique and special because no one *ever* misses a special time due to assemblies, half days, etc. Half days are always "no color" days and assemblies are scheduled into the teaching blocks, usually during our "WIN" (What I Need AKA, RTI block). So here's what my firsties are accustomed to!

Enjoy your Sunday!!

Talk soon,