When I first discovered blogs I found them so interesting. At the time, they seemed more personal than a magazine. To me, the format of blogs allows for a more personable and more frequent connection. 

Then, when I started teaching and I discovered teaching blogs, they brought me so much joy.  Teaching blogs felt like being a fly on the wall in a teacher's lounge listening to all the teacher's share something creative and wonderful from their day. It seemed to me to be a place where teachers who still had a passion for teaching would gather. 

A lot has changed in the world of an educator since earlier in the 2000's when teaching blogs first started and from when I first started teaching. If you're anything like me, as the demands teachers face increase and society changes, it can be challenging to always find your heart to be filled with the same passion it once had. Although, perhaps that is only natural. 

Recently, I tried to search for blogs that reminded me of those posts I would turn to back around 2013. Blogs filled with with authentic, scrapbook, journal like posts. Perhaps I didn't type in the correct keywords or stumble across the correct page, but I struggled to find any that brought me back to that time. 

That is why I decided to start my own blog. In hopes that by returning to the basics in terms of recreating the type of place I had once turned to for inspiration, for energy to refill my cup after a long day, it will inspire me and anyone else who reads this as we work with young children. 

This week, we wrapped up our study on letter writing. Personally, this is one of my favorite post-Halloween activities because it is so chill yet so fun for the kids. 

One thing that's special about this *almost* post-covid year is that the enthusiasm the kids have for almost every assignment is 10X more than any other year. I did notice that they benefited from walking through doing this activity as a whole group each day rather than doing it fully independently. This helped reinforce the idea of each "part" going on a new line & helped reinforce the different parts of letter writing. 

We started by reading the sweetest story, The Jolly Postman. Then, we explored how to write a letter by looking closely at patterns we noticed in the letters that were in the story. They all had a date, greeting, message, closing, & signature. We wrote a letter to him and turned our letter into an anchor chart to refer to throughout our unit of study.  

Each day during the week, we sharpened our letter writing skills by writing letters to different people. First, everyone picked a classmate's name out of a cup & wrote a letter to that classmate. The second day, after delivering each letter to each classmate, we read the letters and then responded. After delivering this response letter, we add "letter writing" to our fast finisher activity chart so they know they can keep writing back and forth to their friends any time after they finish their work. Then, we wrote a letter to give to someone at home. That night, students were asked to pick someone who they'd like to mail a letter to and write down the address of that person to bring to school the next day. 

Once those addresses arrived, we wrote a letter to someone and mailed it. 

Finally, we paired up with a pen pal from a 5th grade class and wrote a letter to them. They were MOST excited about the idea of connecting with one of the older kids each month and then getting to meet then at the end of the year. It's definitely a favorite monthly activity we do during the school year! 

 

Handwritten letters are one of my favorite things in the entire world. So, teaching my students to write letters is such fun - plus, it's a quick little unit so it's perfect to do right before Thanksgiving Break.

This year, I have a precious little boy in my class who often says things that just make my day! He is so sweet, earnest, adorable, and just plain funny! Before I get to the part of the story with him in it - I want to remember the "lightbulb moment" I had and some background that led up to this epiphany. 

Now, in the past at the end of this unit I've always asked the first graders who they want to mail a letter to. At first, I would just tell them to bring a stamped & addressed letter to school later that week so we could finish our project. Of course, I noticed a lot of the letters were written by parents and such. Which is totally fine! But I wanted the students to do it and I figured if I wanted them to learn it a certain way, I should be the one to teach them. Plus, it wouldn't always come back quickly because not every has stamps or envelope anymore, yada yada. 

So then, I started e-mailing their parents for the address (since it's typically a relative or friend). Then, I print each one out for them. Of course I had to take some time for this because I had to separate the return address from the mailing address and next thing you know, prepping this activity would take me 2 hours...and that's a problem...

So as they returned these papers and the first graders finished the letters they had been writing in class, I started to pull the students in small groups to address their envelopes. 

Okay - so finally it's one of my sweet first graders turns. He's sitting down, addressing his envelope. After about each line in the envelope he proceeds to put his pencil down and shake his hand out - because "oh man, it's just such hard work." Then, he finished addressing the envelope and I tell him "Good job! Now flip the envelope over, put your letter in it, lick the envelope & you're finished!" He just looks right at me and says "Oh, I've heard about this part." Of course I'm dying laughing in my head...you've heard about this? Like what, all the kids are meeting together to talk about it at recess? So I say "You've heard about this?" and he goes "yes, it's gross." So I respond "it's not that bad, just stuff it, lick it & you're good to go." He proceeds to stuff the envelope and then he puts it face down on the table (so the licking side is facing him) and fear factor style - puts his hands on each side of the envelope on the table and gives a big sigh. I say "It's okay, lick it." And he does. Then, I say "Well, how was it?!" He sweetly and very sarcastically responds: "MMMM, delicious." 

With all the new technology and advancements, there are so many things kids don't know about anymore or get to experience - like knowing what a VCR is (literally, one of my strongest readers paused for about 5 minutes when she came to this word because she had no clue what it was, let alone said), having chalkboards in schools, licking a stamp, etc. It's so fun to be able to provide them with a little bit of "old-school" experiences. 

Aw, yeah!! It's finally THANKSGIVING BREAK! I always feel a little guilty saying this. I truly LOVE teaching and seeing my students every day! They make me laugh & just make my day.  This year has been incredibly busy as I am working on getting my National Board certification as well as holding many leadership roles at my campus & of course have a life out side of work...so I am really excited to have the TIME to get check off many things that are on my to-do list so I can remain present with my students when I get back!

When things get crazy and our emotions get the best of us it's then that we must remember what we are truly thankful for.  There are so many things to be thankful for!

Originally, I wanted to make wreaths with my students and so I made the example above and everything; but then decided that since the first graders had already done the Thankful place mats, that it was too much of the same thing.

THEN I decided that I wanted my students to think a little deeper about what they were thankful for. So, instead of making the wreaths this year (although I plan to make them next year instead of the place mats), the students made turkey bags!

Then, the students wrote about what they were thankful for and why.  They then put the thankful notes in their bags. They also had to fill out a thankful pilgrim hat for each of their table mates (they wrote their name on the backs of those hats so the recipient child would know who it was from). But instead of putting those hats in their bag, they put them in the bag of the child they wrote about!

My dream would be that the students all open the bag with their families sometime during Thanksgiving dinner and read to their families what they wrote down that they were thankful for. I just think that would be such a wonderful experience for everyone involved!

We focus a lot the last few days before the break on the different traditions that the students have when celebrating Thanksgiving.

They remind me of the turkeys that are around in the Texas Hill Country during Thanksgiving, where I often celebrated Thanksgiving growing up. 

Above is a #throwback turkey activity that I put on my classroom door my first year that I taught. The students thought about something they were thankful for and wrote it on a feather. 



My 2nd or 3rd year teaching, a sweet student of mine introduced me to Albuquerque Turkey (the book). Everyone in the classroom fell in love with the song and we've been singing it in room 111 all turkey season long! 


We also had some fun hearing and sharing our own Turkey themed jokes throughout the day. 

Here are some fun Turkey projects we did this year...

These thankful turkeys were a great google search and are super cute. 


We read some wonderful turkey themed books! 

After reading some of our favorite books, we decided to disguise the turkeys so they wouldn't be eaten! Note to self: since I can never remember where I get the templates...This year I got the template here. Last year I got the template here.


This one is one of my favorite kid writing pieces from the year! It has made me laugh all day!  

The first graders made text-to-text connections.

We did these ADORABLE turkey directed drawings! 
Side notes: I was super bummed when something fell on the artwork right in the middle of the turkey body :/

Finally, one of my favorite activities that my first graders make are these turkey place mats. They turn out so great each year. In the past, I've always used painted handprints but think these are super cute & less messy too! 

We had a couple of random times today for some short Thanksgiving themed activities.

The first graders practiced their fine motor skills by cutting out these words & gluing them in a ABC order. Then they drew illustrations that matched the words.

Then, I needed some math/Thanksgiving activities and these ones I found were perfectly thematic, quick, & super easy to prep!! 

I didn't have the students roll the dice though or use the bingo dots. They just came up with an addition fact that equals 10 & then colored in one of the numbers in the 10 frame & used the cut outs for the other number.