Giving Thanks

November 17, 2017

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!


I made a template that they could follow and an example but honestly, I forgot to make copies of all the templates. Well, that was the best thing ever because it forced me to allow the students to make it however they wanted! Which was a WAY better idea that them all making the exact same thing.

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!
Andrea Sign

Turkey Tuesday!

November 14, 2017
One of my favorite things is all of the turkey fun that happens during the days before 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! 

Andrea Sign

Happy Halloween!

October 31, 2017
  
Happy Halloween! 
How adorable is this sign that one of my homeroom parents made me a few years ago?! I absolutely LOVE putting it out each year!

  
Today was Crazy Hat Day at our school. I thought it would be so fun to make our own hats for the day! I googled "newspaper hats" on youtube & found so many great tutorials. My students were so creative! I loved all the hats that they made & how they showed their individual style as they created them. The parents seemed super happy too. Many said they were glad they didn't have to have finding a crazy hat on their plate with all of the other Halloween stuff going on.

This morning we had a class halloween breakfast. My homeroom parent came with so many great activities for the students to do! They are probably pinterest finds. 
  




 Monster Pencil Toppers
        
 
Roll A Monster 

These adorable Jack-O-Lantern decorations!


These ghost lanterns were so fun! The kids had such great ideas of what to do with them - some said they were going to put them in their jack-o-lanterns, some said they were going to use them as night lights in their room!

They also made a super cute spider & a web but I forgot to take a photo of it. :/
The rest of the day was filled with pumpkin fun! 

         

At the end of the day, it was time for me to take down my October classroom decor. I am "batty" for Octobers decor! 

Here's to a great Halloween!
Andrea Sign

How To Make Maze Bumper

October 30, 2017

1) Get a piece of card stock, folded it in 1/2 hotdog style. Cut on the folded line (so how they have 2 pieces). 


2) Take 1 of the pieces of paper. Folded it in half.  

3) Take the bottom (the side that wasn't on the folded edge) and folded the bottoms back about half way. (See picture above)

Repeat so it looks like this. 

4) Open the folds. There will be 3 folded lines. In between the 2 middle rectangles, put glue.  

5) Then fold the glued pieces together so they stick. Then the students unfolded the bottoms a little so that it was in a T shape. The kids all thought this was similar to making a plane. 

6) Cut the T flaps in half so that the T wasn't too wide.

Glue onto your maze!
Andrea Sign

Making Reading Come Alive!

October 29, 2017
It's the Roll Away Pumpkin! 

After reading this book, I told the students that I noticed a pumpkin note sitting on my desk and I was thinking that maybe the Roll-Away pumpkin was rolling through our school! They were so excited to go hunt for the pumpkin! 





The hunt led us back to our classroom where I we found some fun science experiment materials!  

The students were so excited and loved using these materials to make a volcanic pumpkin! 

The next day, we re-read the story. I reminded the students about how great it is to re-read stories because each time we read it, we notice new things. This time, the students noticed that this story is similar to the gingerbread man story. 

After reading, we incorporated brought the story to life by using STEAM and creating pumpkin mazes.  

They had so much fun creating these mazes and were so proud with how they turned out! I could barely get them to stop playing the mazes as they walked out of school that day - they were obsessed!
Andrea Sign

Calendars

December 21, 2016
Every year we make calendars to help bring in the New Year.  Depending on the year and things going on, I sometimes have my students make these calendars the week before Winter Break, sometimes the week after we've come back.

As a class, we fill out the dates and holidays for each month.  We do 2-3 months each day.  After we fill out each month, the students spend about 5-10 minutes getting started illustrating something that happens during that month. 


Then at the end of the week, I give the students some time to add details and complete the illustrations for each month. 

The students LOVE these and always talk about them hanging up in their homes.

If you want a copy, feel free to get it here.
Andrea Sign

"Snow" better gift!

December 17, 2016
This year we made snowman magnets as gifts from the students to their parents for the holidays.  This activity only took about 10-15 minutes and they all ended up super cute!! The students all decorated them their own way and then put a picture of themselves where the purple frame is on my example.

I've been searching for the best Holiday gift and I think this is one that I will repeat for ages!! 


Andrea Sign

C'est la vie!

November 03, 2016
Each month, I host an after school club.  This club meets once a week for about 30 minutes and we spend time learning all about cultures.  Last month, October, we learned all about the French culture!

We started by learning all about French landscape - how it is known for the beautiful flowers and gardens.  We learned that a lot of people like to chat, picnic, read, relax, and even paint in the gardens.  We learned about once famous painter in particular: Claude Monet, who painted one particular place in France over 200 times!
Add some finger painting, remove the tape, and Voila! 

The next week we learned about the Love Lock Bridge.  We then went on a scavenger hunt around our school for love locks.  We ended up finding some french chocolate at the end of our hunt!

The 3rd week we learned that each country has their own flag.  We then created the French flag.  This year we put our flags on popsicle sticks and folded them on the lines so they looked like they were waving. 

Here are pictures of the ones we made last year (I apologize it is upside down...the flag's colors are blue, white, then red).  

Last year, we did not do the scavenger hunt.  Instead, we talked about the shape of each country and made our own shape of France & got to decorate it however we liked - some kids drew flowers, some drew the French flag [correctly ;)], etc! 


We then ended our learning adventure by making French nutella & banana crepes.  We learned what a crepe is, the different types there are, how they are made, and how to fold a crepe. 

Throughout the month we also learned these French words!
  • Bonjour - Hello
  • Je m'appelle - My name is
  • J'adore - I love 
  • Je voudrais - I would like
  • Au revoir - Good bye
  • Merci - Thank you
  • L'eau - water 


Andrea Sign