The Primary Years: autumn

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!

First Grade Thanksgiving Traditions

November 15, 2017

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

After talking about their traditions, we compare and contrast our traditions.

We don't do a class feast because our school cafeteria does a feast, which also raises a lot of money for the cafeteria program because almost every child participates, so instead we learn how to an apple crisp to celebrate Thanksgiving in the classroom.

Also, lemon juice on the apples helps them from browning.

Before the first graders tasted their yummy treat, each child shared one thing that they were thankful for and why.

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!

Pumpkin Palooza!

October 31, 2017

It's a Pumpkin Party!

Today was filled with so much pumpkin fun!

We started out by reading all about pumpkins!

Then we spent time measuring how tall our pumpkin was, finding out it if would float or sink, measuring how wide it was, how many seeds were in it, and more! Unfortunately, we were so busy I forgot to take pictures!

After reading, we talked about the pumpkin life cycle and created our own mini pumpkin life cycle booklet.

We learned sequencing terms and did this pumpkin craftivitiy.

Finally, we planted a pumpkin and are going to spend the next few weeks observing the life cycle of a pumpkin! We planted some seeds into a pumpkin and others into cups for each of the children. The pictures I took didn't turn out. I hope our pumpkins turn out as well as the one in the picture above!

We also made a pumpkin volcano which the students thought was so fun to watch!

Even Gleeven and Odd Blodd

October 02, 2016

It's October Y'all! Is it just me or does this little ghosty crack you up? I adore him!

Last week in math we began learning about Even and Odd numbers. It was a very busy week though so we did not quite get to everything and will be finishing up this week - which is perfect because it is October and I love making our "Even Gleevens and Odd Blodds!"

In prepping for the rest of our Even & Odd unit, I thought I would share what we did last year since we are doing some of those activities again.

Back when we first learned about digits, we did learn about which were even and odd. First I had my first graders find a partner and then I told them I had different food items. If the items were even and they could share them fairly then they could eat them. This brought a great concrete idea to the concept of even & odd.

Now onto learning about how to know if a number more than 10 is even or odd.

First we played a game called prove it. The students created a game board and then passed their board to a partner and had to prove whether the numbers on the board were even or odd.

Then I let the cats out of the bag, gave each student a cat, and we sorted them between even and odd.

Once everyone finished, we all came to the carpet to look at the patterns we saw in the sorts. We made the conclusion that you have to look at the ones place to tell if a number is even or odd.

I save this next activity for October because I love the craftivity that goes with it!

After reading the story, we made an "Even Gleeven and Odd Blodd." Monsters that either like everything about and around them to be even or odd.

Another activity was this this quick sunflower cut & sort activity. Then I had students play an even & odd game.

Our check point for this week was this quick little sheet of paper.

Applicious Place Value

September 23, 2016

Whew, what a busy week! I cannot believe that we have already been in school for about 4 weeks - the school year has just been flying by.

This week we began learning all about place value. We talked about the different ways to make the same number - expanded notation, base 10 blocks, writing the number, tally marks, tens and ones, etc. To end the week, my first graders did this fun apple based activity - no matter what way you cut it, it is still an apple and no matter what way you write a certain number, it is still the same amount!

My first graders really enjoyed this activity, it allowed for differentiation because the students were able to pick their own number, and they enjoyed the challenge of putting the apple back together after they cut it into 5 pieces.

First Grade Science Interactive Notebooks

September 22, 2016

This year I have started implementing science interactive notebooks in my classroom. Let me tell you it is LOVEEEEE!!

During the first week of school, we did a science journal entry about what science is.

Last week, we learned all about our senses. We did two journal pages. One about what the senses are and another day we did one with a popcorn science experiment. We used our senses to describe popcorn.