The Primary Years: seasonal

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.

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!

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!

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!

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.

Wrapping It All Up

December 17, 2016

Some fun Winter themed activities that we've been doing...

After learning all about snowflakes in science, we made these snowflakes that the students could hang at their home - on their tree, wall decor, whatever works for them!

In math, we learned about how wrapping paper is made up of patterns. We then made wrapping paper that they could take home to wrap their gifts in.

Before Winter Break, I give the students these gifts of crayons and an activity book filled with things that can help keep them busy over the break (and to help prevent any Winter slide).

"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!!

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.