TpT Sale Thursday and Friday

I'm joining in and celebrating with everyone else on TpT this Thursday and Friday.  EVERYTHING in my store is on sale for 20% off and with the code TPT3, you can get up to 28% off.

HAPPY shopping!!

A Winter Storm Watch and Recap of Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!!  Today we celebrated just in case we have a snow day tomorrow.  Everyone else seems excited and ready to start vacation but I'd rather be at school.  It began snowing right after lunch recess.

A coworker sent me this today and told me I'd be the bottom pic tomorrow morning.  My reply to her was, "I hope you're not behind me on the interstate because that snow will come a flying off!"

I didn't capture many pics today because I was joining in on the celebration.  This is one of my FAVORITE holidays!!  Students LOVE giving cards and are so kind each other. 

We also completed some candy heart graphing.

Students had to write two sentences about the data they collected. The response above made me chuckle!!  

ShhHhh, I'm letting you in a little secret too.  Be sure to check the mail this week.  I'm hoping all of you receive some LOVE in the mail!!

I'll probably be the only one crossing my fingers tonight, hoping we'll have school tomorrow.  

Valentine's Day on Thursday?

Dear Parents,

Will we REALLY have another snow day?  I HOPE not!!  I'm one of those teachers who'd rather be in school so I won't be doing the snow dance.

It looks like another BIG storm is on its way for Thursday night so I'm hoping all cards/treats can be sent in on Thursday.

We plan on opening cards on Thursday just in case there is a snow day on Friday.

HAPPY 100th Day of School

So I used Oldster this morning to show the kids just what it could do. YIKES, I should've rethought that.

I think this app has changed A LOT in a year...either that or I'm not aging as well as I did last year when using this.

First attempt.

Now, could it REALLY make me look bad again?  Guess we know the answer.

Pics of the students to come soon.  Just wanted to give everyone a good laugh.  Guess I'll be looking for wrinkle creams tonight!!

Here are some pics of the kiddos.

Today students had to decide what they would do if they had $100.  I also found this great site that lets you add faces to money.  The link is here... Festisite Money. 

This saves me SO much time. I used to go to the Dollar Store and buy the play money.  I'd cut out the pictures, glue them on, and laminate.

I told the kids that I was going to make ALL of their dreams come true today and they'd each get a $100!  When I handed these out they weren't sure what to make of them at first because they did look real. Then one by one they began to realize their pictures were on the money.

During their lunch time I hid 100 Smarties around the room.  Before we began math I had them go on a hunt looking for pairs of Smarties. I had papers on the floor counting by tens.  They found almost all of them.  Two are hiding some where in the room still!!

I hope they ALL had a great day today!

99th Day of School...Almost the 100th

So even though it's only the 99th day of school today we had our celebration, or should we say pre celebration!

Today would've been our 100th day if we hadn't had a snow day and since the first grade team had already planned our day we continued on with our schedule.

The kids rotated to each classroom to complete activities.  Ms. Fogarty had the students exercising, Miss O had 100 piece puzzles, Mrs. Anderson had stamping activities, Mrs. Berube had the kids string Fruit Loops, and I had students create portraits of what they'd look like at 100.

Of course I ALWAYS forget how much this activity entails.  With only 30 minutes, it's just NEVER enough time.  We worked right up until the last minute and their portraits were adorable.

Here are some of my students.  They don't look so bad for being 100!!

Before and After...

I do have a few small activities for students to complete tomorrow.  If you haven't tried the Oldster app you need to.

Here's my pic from last year.

I can't wait to see how nicely I've aged this year!  The kids always find these pictures to be a riot.

Keep Flapping Flappy Bird

So are you into Flappy Bird?  I found this app a week ago and it was the FIRST game I put on my iPhone.  Let's just say at random moments I find myself flapping like Flappy hoping to beat my last score.  My high score tonight was 50!!

Is it an addiction when you hear yourself saying, "Just one more time and I'm done!"  Nah, I'm not there yet but I am finding that I've wasted time I'll never get back on a little bird trying to weave through green tubes.

Now, our class iPads are for educational purposes but I did put this on the for the kiddos to try at the end of the day.

Here's a FUNNY reenactment pic I captured today of what this game does to my class!  It has been quite funny watching their faces as they play.

Click to enlarge.

I'm sure this game will be deleted from my phone and the kids will grow tired of it soon but until then...keep flapping!

More on Narrative Writing and an Observation

This year I've worked hard on focusing my mini-lessons on my students' needs.  Instead of having set lessons, they change according to the needs of my classroom, small group, and individual needs.

After scoring their last assessments, I found that all students needed extra support in using capitalization correctly.

Our mini-lessons for the last two weeks have catered to this.  I've introduced where capitalization is used, they've listened to read alouds, added a class poster, and students are now using an edit checklist that focuses on this skill.  I love that they look to this poster during writing time.

This week they helped edit MY writing.  This was also the week that I had an observation and my principal joined in on my writing lesson. Of course I had my fingers crossed with everything going well and not letting my nerves get the best of me.

A conference Monday which mean't a sub in my room (you know what that means),  trying to get the class back to routine Tuesday, SNOW DAY Wednesday, and my observation Thursday.  YIKES!!

All I can say is she was impressed with how they managed the workshop model and everyone knew what they needed to be doing. My room was busily working and YES some kids did get off task. There was even a squabble over coloring and if it was scribbling or not.

That's first grade.  In my head I kept telling myself (instead of saying out loud in my teacher voice, "Get back to work now.") they're ONLY first graders and I'm quite AMAZED with what these little kiddos can do.

This is the lesson I completed.  We reviewed creating a story planner and adding labels.  Then I grabbed an edit checklist and we reviewed what needed capitalization.  I also introduced the editing mark this week.  I read my story and told them I needed help.

Teacher helpers came up to edit my work.

This lesson only lasted 10 minutes and they were off to write.

Here are the sheets I use during writing time if you'd like them for FREE!!

Narrative Writing

Tower Building

This week we finished up with Solids.

Our last experiment was building a tower.  The catch...no tape or glue could be used.  OH MY!!

Here are the materials they had:

Straw
Piece of Cardboard
Elastic
Cup
Popsicle Stick
Tin Foil

They worked with a partner and planned how they'd build their tower. I gave NO hints or answers and told them there wasn't a correct answer.  The only rule was their tower had to be free standing.

Here they are working.

After the towers were built, we measured to see which tower was the tallest.  They also drew a digram and labeled it.