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! 

During the year, I host an after school club. It is one of my favorite things that I do with my students. During this club we focus on one country each month. Last month, it was England. This month it is France.

This month we've been doing the same activities as last year. I've also added some new activities and twists on past ones.

I don't have any tissue paper readily available this year so we made these flags.

Next, I wanted to do something for the students to remember the lavender fields. So we made these cute lavender flowers.

We also went on a scavenger hunt around the school for Eiffel Towers, learned many different French words, and made our own nutella & banana crepes! 

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

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

Glue onto your maze!

Last week, my 1st graders made these Spooky Halloween Mazes as a connection to the book The Roll-Away Pumpkin. 

Here's how to make one of your own:

It's the Roll Away Pumpkin! 

How is it already October?? Now that the school year has gotten into the swing of things, time seems to just fly by.

One of my favorite things in the world is handwritten letters. I love the personal touch they add. From the time they took to write the letter, to getting to see their handwriting, to the stationary, the sweet words in the letter - there is so much I love about them! This year, I decided to write letters to each family in my class. I've always thought about doing this. It seems like our conferences, which are in October, don't happen until the school year has been going for a while and I really wanted a way to let the parents know how things are going before then. 

I wasn't sure if all the effort would be that worth it in the end. For me, it was nice to reflect on each child. For the parents, they LOVED this! I got so many nice notes from the parents about how much the letters meant to them. I will definitely be doing this every year from now on! 

My absolute favorite thing from last week was our problem based learning activity that occurred in my classroom.

First thing Monday morning, one of my first graders walked in the door and said to me "I have an idea." She then shared with me how she wanted to collect stuffed animals so give to kids in Houston and the Texas coast who lost theirs due to flooding from Hurricane Harvey.  #bless

I was so on-board with making this 6 year old's sweet idea come to fruition. After she shared her idea with the class & told them what had happened in those areas last weekend, all of the students wanted to do something - even expanding her original idea to include food, clothes, & other necessities! 

I was truly amazed by what I was seeing naturally unfold before my eyes. As I stood there I watched twenty 6 year olds hear about a problem, talk with each other about how they can help, come up with quick questions they had for me, and then jump to the next step of what to do to help. During the whole project I was simply the scriber for the class. 

Here is how the project unfolded:

A student shared her idea & what had happened in parts of Texas and other students said they wanted to help too.


The students commented that they didn't know anyone specifically in Houston.


I shared with them that there are some organizations like the Red Cross, Salvation Army, etc. that help raise money & donations for people in need.  As a class we researched the different sites to see what kind of items they accepted. 

We talked about needs vs wants. Which is why certain organizations ask for certain types of items.


The class wrote an e-mail asking for permission to do this type of project.


Behind the scenes: I found out some logistical things to make this happen. There was already a project that had been started by our PTA to collect the necessities for Hurricane Harvey flood victims for the week so I asked if we could partner with them. Then I kept calling groups to see who could benefit from stuffed animals since it was a unique item that most organizations don't accept. 


Side note: One of my family friends was helping me in calling organizations. When she called the Red Cross & told them about the project my students had come up the Red Cross volunteer said she was so sorry she couldn't take the items but wanted to help the students so she proceeded to pray on the phone that the idea the sweet students had would come to fruition to help comfort those children in need. So incredibly kind.


They got a letter back (I cannot tell you how exciting this was for them!)
To partner with our PTA, the students spoke on the morning announcements telling the campus about the collection each morning this week.


Some more behind the scenes happenings: I found out the stuffed animals had to be new. I didn't want to burden parents with having to go do "another errand" or feeling like they had to do something at all. So I wrote an e-mail to the parents telling them about this project & how it came to be. The responses I received were amazing! The parents loved this and really wanted to help make it happen. So I told them that if they wanted their child to participate, we could all do a trip to the local toy store and purchase some stuffed animals. They were so generous & all wanted to participate. 


While the students were purchasing their stuffed animals, they had to decide if they wanted to buy several smaller ones to help comfort more kids or one bigger one, they learned about "change" and why they get money back after making a purchase, they commented about how "warm & fuzzy" they felt after buying the animal & putting it in a bag for animals to give to children. As a class, they collected FIFTY animals give help comfort other children! 


While my end goal was for the children to take a trip to a shelter to  help pass out the stuffed animals, I learned that the shelters prefer to not have a ton of random people showing up with stuff and that it is actually more helpful to give items to a specific organization to sort everything & deliver. I'm so thankful that Austin Disaster Relief was able to take the stuffed animals and pass them out to children at the shelters to comfort them.  

It was such an amazing project and I cannot get over how impressed I am with this class! What sweet first graders to come up with these ideas totally on their own, think of what needs to happen for their idea to occur, and then work to make it happen! 

With this group of first graders as our future, I know we are in good hands!