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

The Importance Of Design Thinking

November 05, 2017
Ever since I started teaching, I have wanted to add some type of “Maker Space” into my classroom. This year, I finally figured out a way to make it happen! I thought it would be helpful to share what I have learned from incorporating this type of area into my classroom and lessons.
1. Organization and easy access are key. First, I put my "Maker Space" in a cabinet. It was too hard for my students to get to the materials and for me to keep up organizing them, etc. Having "user friendly" organization also allows your students to take ownership of the entire space. 





2. There are certain simple skills that are helpful to teach to young students (in addition to the exploration time that they have with the materials). 

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 3. Design thinking lessons are vital to adding purpose to lessons that incorporate a "Maker Space."
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4. These types of designing lessons can be incorporated with any subject area!

 Below are some examples of lessons my students have done.

  • Reading: My students read "The Most Magnificent Thing" and then had to come up with a problem in their life to solve, just like the main character did. Then they designed something to solve the problem.
  • Math: When learning about Even & Odd, my students designed and create their own "Even Monster" and "Odd Monster" using items and technology available to them. 
  • Science & Social Studies: When learning about Properties of Solids & Fire Safety, my students thought about the properties of different solids and used those properties to make the tallest ladder they could. 

You can also find some other makerspace activities we love to do here.

Hopefully this helps you in your journey to incorporate new and exciting ways to add purpose to what your students are learning! 

Oh, and if you try out a new makerspace activity in your classroom, I recommend taking this course so that you can earn Professional Development credit for trying out the lesson!

Happy Teaching!

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

Two for Tuesday

August 28, 2017
Favorite From Today #1
So last night, I had a spur of the moment "IDEA." My beginning of year lessons are so much "read book then do craft." I love this because the books all emphasize some type of life skill (persevering, working as a team) as so the students really get the foundation for starting the year but I just wanted something a little more exciting for our 2nd day. 


So, right after recess we headed to our campus IDEA lab (aka Makerspace lab)! Now, I typically do these types of lessons in my classroom but this space offers students the opportunity to use a green scree, drimel saw, 3-D printer, & more. So it is definitely a place we visit several times during the year and it's important they are introduced to the place. 



We began our lesson by reading this adorable book! It is absolutely PERFECT for these types of lessons! It talks about the entire process of creating a physical version of what you can imagine. After we came up with agreements about how people should behave in the idea lab, the students began to use materials such as paper towel rolls, tape, cups, pom-poms, etc. to make "The Most Magnificent Thing" they could think of!

I was SO IMPRESSED with their creativity & problem solving skills!! They made pom-pom bracelets, purses, baskets, pencil holders, binoculars, ships, and more! Just by trial and error, students learned that putting glue on one side of tape does not make tape stick to stuff but that rolling the tape allows both sides to be sticky! It was such a special day & definitely one of my favorites! Made me excited to go to teach that day! The students LOVED this too - the next day they all said "do we get to go back there today?!"

Favorite From Today #2

We also started our phonics unit by refreshing our knowledge of the alphabet. The students created this classroom alphabet - one of my favorite things to have up in my classroom! 



Andrea Sign

A Classroom In The Making

August 16, 2017
It's that time of year again!! Back to School! 

I've been up at school for about 2 weeks now. It's so nice to actually get in the classroom before our work week actually starts so that I can spend that time re-moving into my classroom & organizing it/focus on the aesthetics. 

I like to spend a week to set up my classroom & work on a new project. It's too much to do everything all at once & I like to spend each year adding something new to my classroom. 

Honestly, the first 3 years, I didn't have too much energy to devote to the creative side of how my classroom should look. I was just focused on the logistical aspect and making sure I had amazing lessons/activities to do with my students...because after all, it is about what they are doing all day, not how pretty/cute their classroom actually looks.

My first 2 years, I changed the layout of my classroom a TON. It got to the point where a student finally asked "why do you keep moving things around?" Making sure that the space was used in the most purposeful way was {and still is} so important to me! 

The main decorative things that have remained basically same since are...

This sign on my classroom door! I made it my 1st year & absolutely LOVE it!! First, I put each students name on each crayon. Now I think it's way cuter {& easier to maintain ;)} to simply have blank crayons.

This back carpet area. 


My small group area and my teacher materials.

My calendar. 
I used to use the calendar pieces that came with the calendar set I bought. I wanted to make my calendar time more purposeful though so I made my own calendar pieces. 



Last year, my project was painting the walls blue - which I am obsessed with. 

I went to Michaels and picked out different scrapbook paper & made a template to create the pennant. I hot glued the pieces to the curling ribbon. I absolutely love it!! 

I also made the headings for each of my subject areas. Under these headings, I put anchor charts. 

AND 
adding a cute nook for students to work at. 

AND

redo-ing my classroom library...which is still a work in progress... I'm working on getting all the correctly colored bins and making sure everything is labeled.

THIS year, I updated my hallway bulletin board...and I am OBSESSED!  
I just LOVE it!

A big thank you to The Happy Teacher's Palette & Jennifer at The Craft Patch for the tutorials & templates for these flowers!! They are absolutely perfect!! And I am so appreciative to one of my co-workers for the grass idea, I think it just really tops it off!

Here's to a great year!! 
Andrea Sign

Creative Choice

May 01, 2017
  Wow - long time no write, huh?

 Where has all the time gone?? As I put up our balloons for our ABC Countdown last week it didn't really even feel like the "end" yet. But either way, it is here.

 I wanted to quickly highlight one of my favorite routines/activities I have set up in my classroom. Usually, I set this up around October but this year it took me a little longer. Once I finally got to doing it my thought was "Why did I put this off?? Now everything is easier, better for the students - it's just the best!!" 

Here's to hoping I remember how wonderful this set up is at the beginning of next year!! ;)

Having plenty of purposeful activities for the students to do is so important in the classroom - they learn, they stay engaged, it's just great! Here is what I have set up for my students who finish their work quickly. 

Each of the sticks (in the blue cup) have a student's name written on them (I took this before school started so I hadn't written names yet).  When a students finishes his/her work, they can be creative and choose an activity to do: their anything & everything journal, a math tub activity, computer work, a word work activity, ipad work, or work on writing.

When they pick an activity, they can put their name stick in the pocket that corresponds with the activity. There is one rule though: there can only be 4 people at a choice.

The activities on this board are ones that are differentiated & that the students also do during other times of the day.  For example: work on writing also happens during literacy stations. This is great because the students can work at their own level & they don't need any instruction because they already know about them.

Typically, I wait until the 4th week or so of school to introduce Creative Choice. Before then, I have the fast finishers work in their anything & everything journals - they can do anything (school appropriate) in these journals: write a story or poem, practice their handwriting, create math problems & solve them. 


Andrea Sign