A Wee Bit of St. Paddy's Fun!

Can it be true?  Am I finally blogging twice within a week?  Hold the applause.  I'm applauding myself enough as it is!  Hopefully it will become an oddity when I don't blog soon enough but, until then, I'll continue to celebrate my efforts of blogging more often!

Today we had a BLAST celebrating St. Paddy's day in first grade!  This was by far the most fun St. Paddy's I've had in my four years teaching and by far the most successful day yet!  It's always a good day when you get several, "You're the best teacher ever" comments, am I right?!

This morning, we went to our reading room and when we got back, we read a St. Patrick's Day story.  And then....at the end of the story...DUN DUN DUN....a mysterious piece of paper dropped out!  BUT HOW COULD THAT BE POSSIBLE?! We just had this book on display and kids had just read it only twenty minutes prior.  I mean, if we're considering all plausible options, the only one that makes any sense at all is that a leprechaun came and put it there while we were gone!

.........duh.

 

We discovered that there were shamrock clues to a super top secret code underneath some of our chairs!  Amidst the leisurely stroll MAD DASH back to our seats to try and find the clues, I had only one kiddo crying in fear of the leprechaun so....that was pretty traumatic.  Luckily, we were able to build that bridge and get over it relatively quickly...:)

We used the mystery code sheet from Mrs. Miner's Monkey Business' Lucky Leprechaun pack, but I substituted my own shamrock clues.  We searched and searched and walked around the room, tirelessly filling out our secret codes and solving the puzzle

 

The finished puzzle read, "The ingredients needed for Lucky Leprechaun juice are hiding under Miss D'Andrea's desk!"  Hilariously, most of the kids didn't fill in the word "desk" until the very end and were under the impression that all of the ingredients were.......under me.  After spinning around more than one time and removing my cardigan, we were able to comprehend that the ingredients were not, in fact, under me.  But then we filled in the missing word.

Cue the screams.  

Luckily I was able to herd the crowd down to the carpet so that I wouldn't get trampled en route to my desk.  Low and behold, the ingredients were there!  Of course, I was shocked (!), surprised (!), and a little scared (!) that a leprechaun had somehow gotten under my desk!  How could it be?

We found a whole batch of ingredients hidden under there!

 But what were they?  Were they dangerous?  Was the leprechaun trying to trick us all into becoming leprechauns too?  Ahh, the many questions involved in an innocent little combination of ingredients covered conveniently with construction paper you can find in my cabinets...

So, we mixed them up.  We "oooooed" and "ahhhhed".  We asked if Miss D'Andrea could have the first sip so that we could all see if she turned into a leprechaun before we drank it.  How sweet.

Rest assured, I didn't turn into a leprechaun.  Although, as one of my little girls so nicely pointed out my, "eyes were starting to have green underneath them."  Nope, nope, that's just my eyeliner running.  LET ME LIVE MY LIFE!  And despite the occasional fear, we were all able to take at least a sip of the lucky juice (after all, we didn't want to be the one who made the magic go away!)

I put together this little poem to practice one of our CCSS focus skills: "I can identify words in a text that describe feelings and senses."  We didn't have time to get to it, so I plan on using it for a mini-lesson this week when we reflect back on our St. Paddy's Day!  I figured I'd attached it here just in case anyone still wants to use some leprechaun-themed activities throughout the week!  Click HERE to get the freebie!

 

After drinking our lucky juice, we wrapped up our non-standard units of measurement unit by using centimeter cubes to measure St. Patrick's Day pictures I snagged from Rowdy in Room 300

Much to my surprise, during indoor recess, my kiddos created quite the leprechaun trap using some of our extra lucky juice and straws.  Of course, it was complete with pseudo-gold and rainbows!  Unfortunately, I didn't know about the trap the leprechaun didn't visit during lunchtime, so the trap remained until it was time for art.

After lunch, when the kids saw that the leprechaun didn't come back, we had some doubters!  But, ALAS, the MAGIC SHRINKING LEPRECHAUN HAT will prove any doubters wrong!  Just tell the kids a story your mom supposedly told you a long time ago about how leprechauns can shrink styrofoam cups into leprechaun hats.  Then, decorate a styrofoam cup....

Leave the room for art, come back and.....

SURPRISE!  THE LEPRECHAUN DOES EXIST!! He shrank all of our cups into hats while we were at art!  (Note: putting styrofoam cups in the oven at 250 degrees for 3 minutes does wonders :))  He even drank all of the juice from our trap and left gold (Rolos because gold coins were no where to be found in Ireland, obviously)!  That sneaky little guy!  

What a nice and friendly leprechaun and what an AWESOME day in first grade!  Here's hoping the craziness goes down by Wednesday.  And here's to being incredibly thankful that tomorrow happens to be a staff in-service day that won't be bombarded by never-ending leprechaun hunts...

If you've gotten this far in my post, I commend you! I hope you sleepy as soundly tonight as I'm sure I will!  

Right On Time for President's Day!.........Right?

Greetings, Strangers!

I admit, my promises of blogging more often have proven to be false.  I want to blog, I really do!  I just find myself getting all caught up in school, grad school, friends, family, and miscellaneous other things and blogging keeps getting pushed to the side!  Just last week I had a grad school project due, parent teacher conferences, and a formal observation, phew!  I really wish I was one of those miracle people who could get it all done and have extra time at the end of their day to, oh I don't know, paint their nails and work out but hey, I'm just not!

And because it happened so recently (cough, sarcasm, cough), I thought I'd dedicate this post to....President's Day!  I have had a schedule of things and topics to blog about and this post, I figured, could still be used next year or for any government units you have coming up!

I am always so surprised and amused by how excited and interested my kids are in real people in history.  Seriously, they are always SO intrigued and begging to learn more!  Every year!  I love it!  This year was no different...the presidents were, once again, the most interesting thing EVER!  

We started by reading some non-fiction books about our very own 16th president, Abraham Lincoln.  Do any of you have the Scholastic Easy Reader Biographies (purple book)?  I tell you...these are the BEST biographies for primary kids.  They are super easy to follow, include simple non-fiction text features, and really interest the kids. 

After we did several read alouds, we used all of our new knowledge to write about good ol' Honest Abe and add our writing to our projects out of Amy Lemons' President's Day Freebie Pack!  I had my kiddos write a topic sentence and then use sentence stems that I provided for them to complete their writing.  They could use the following sentence starters:

Abraham Lincoln was _____________________.

Abraham Lincoln wanted ___________________.

Abraham Lincoln lived _____________________.

They did an awesome job with their writing!  Unfortunately, however, I didn't take any pictures of the individual Abe projects.  Later on in this post you will be able to see pictures of them hanging with our George Washington projects.

Which brings me to our next president that we studied...Mr. George Washington himself!  We started out by reading the Easy Reader Biography below.  Then, we watched (and re-watched by request) the George Washington brainpopjr video.

We used sticky notes to write down facts and questions we had.  We have been working on types of sentences, so I thought this was a perfect opportunity to have kids write a telling sentence or an asking sentence about George Washington to add to our chart!  They always love using stickies, so this was just mind-blowingly fun!

We finished up our Washington learning by recording our learning and making this George craft inspired by The First Grade Parade.  I did the whole paint thing last year and just didn't have time this year to wait for paint to dry.  We had to wham-bam our Washington craft out in a very small amount of time, so the paint just didn't fly this year!  Either way, I think they turned out super cute and the kids sure loved making them!

And here's our presidential crafts and writing hanging up in the hallway above our cubbies!

Welp, until next time...I PROMISE it will be soon!!

Brr....A Peek Into the Arctic!

Here I am!  Freezing to death.  But still, here I am!

We had yet another school cancellation day today due to severe cold weather (I'm talking -40 degree cold weather) and are cancelled again tomorrow!!  The good news?  I'm getting a little extra R&R in these two days.  The bad news?  We have tacked an extra 4 days onto the end of the year.  Oh well, it is what it is I suppose.  That's Chicago weather for ya!

The fun (did I say fun?) part about it being so unbelievably cold is that it aligns perfectly with our polar unit!  Okay, maybe "fun" is the wrong word to use but it has been hilarious to talk about how freezing cold it is in the Arctic and then relate it back to....where we live.  

Anyways, we haven't dived too deep into our polar unit yet but I did want to share a few quick pictures I snagged this past week from the beginning of our penguin learning!

First, we made these penguin hats made with sentence strips and simple shapes of construction paper.  The kids were so excited to wear them during all of our penguin learning!

 

After we made our cutie little hats, we were ready to start our penguin-y learning!  We started by creating "All About Penguin" books by doing a "Do-It-Now" penguin drawing (otherwise known as guided drawing) for the cover.

 

 

Our books are filled with penguin diagrams, experiments, and graphic organizers to record our learning. I will definitely post back with pictures of the inside of our books because we are LOVING learning all about penguins!

Well, I'm off to enjoy the brisk sub-zero temperatures!  Have a great week!

Asking Sentences and Question Marks!

Happy Hump Day, Everyone!!

As of about 30 minutes ago I have officially completed all of my coursework for my ESL endorsement and couldn't be more relieved!  Woohoo!  Now what will I do with all of my spare Wednesday nights instead of sit in a windowless sub-zero temperature room? Nashville and Top Chef come to mind...

Moving on, I'm trying my hardest to be consistent with my blogging so I thought I'd update today with a fun little activity I whipped up this week!  In first grade we are working on our "I Can" statements which currently include producing asking sentences and using appropriate punctuation.  I was trying to think of a fun and interactive (yet structured) activity that would help my kids grasp this concept and I think I found a lesson keeper!  

I started by introducing our BIG question mark.  We talked about what a question mark does and words that the question mark likes to use to ask all of the things he wonders about.  

Then, I put an interesting picture up on the board.  We practiced using our question words to produce asking sentences about the picture.  It was a bit of a struggle at first, so we made sure to emphasize that questions are things we WONDER.  Sure, I still got a few "I wonder I think that's cool" but hey, you can't win every time!  

Then, I put SUPER cool pictures at each table and gave each kiddo a recording sheet complete with an "asking word" word bank.  The kids spent time at each table looking closely at the pictures and recording one "asking sentence" that they had about each picture using the words in the word bank and, of course, a question mark!   It was a SMASHING success...the kids loved it!  What a fun way to get the kids really thinking and talking to one another about the pictures!

Click the picture below to download this fun activity for free!  

Deck the Halls with a Jammin' Linky Party Playlist!

Good Morning!

Before I start my blog post today, I'd love to get your input on a couple things that I am teaching post-break!  Do you ever have those days when, despite all the cute ideas on Pinterest, your creative juices just aren't flowing?  I'm trying to think of a really great ways to teach my firsties about verb tenses AND character traits.  I haven't introduced these skills yet and I anticipate them being really tricky.  Do any of you fabulous bloggers have some brilliant ideas that have worked for you in the past?  Buehller?  Buehller?

Anyways, on to the rest of my blog post...during class meetings in my classroom, we share a "thumbs up" or a "thumbs down" (things that went great/we really enjoyed that day or things that made us feel sad/could need a little work that day).  Why not start with a "thumbs up/thumbs down" in today's blog post?

Here we go...

THUMBS DOWN to my long, blissful, sleeping-in filled Thanksgiving Break coming to an end after today.  I'm excited to see all my kiddos but not quite as excited for my alarm to go off at 5:30!

THUMBS UP to Cyber Monday/Tuesday sale at TpT !  Everything in my store will be 20% off PLUS you can get another 10% off from TpT!  This means that everything will be up to 28% off...can't wait!  Though I did cheat a little and buy some full-priced items over break (because, let's get real, it was absolutely necessary in that moment), I'm excited to make some great purchases in these upcoming days!  Love it!

I am taking part in this fun linky party hosted by Bunting, Books, and Bainbridge to share my holiday TpT "playlist" with you all!  First, you start with the playlist...

Then, you select the songs you'd like to share!  I chose to share 3 smashing hits...

First up, "Oh Management, Oh Management":

I picked my daily schedule cards for this one because they are one of my top-sellers!  Also because they are a lifesaver in my class!  "When's recess?" "Look at the schedule."  "Are we doing writing today?"  "I'm not sure...look at the schedule."  Oh, and my personal favorite, "Miss D'Andrea, how come you ALWAYS forget to put the schedule up?"  (Touching my heart for dramatic effect) "Oh my goodness, Miss D'Andrea just has SO many jobs so that we have lots of awesome learning to do at school.  Sometimes she forgets one small job like putting up the schedule.  Let me do that RIGHT now so that our day doesn't fall apart...!" Haha!

My second hot track on my playlist is "I Saw Mommy With a Science and Social Studies Resource":

First and foremost, how awesome is the title of that song?  Hilarious.  I decided to choose my newly updated "Camouflage Hunt Fun!" product for this one.  This is one of my favorite activities during my polar/arctic animals unit.  The kids love learning about camouflage!  

Lastly, the playlist ends with the ever-popular "Walking in a Math Wonderland"...

For this one, I chose my Double Digit Addition and Subtraction QR Code products!  One of them includes regrouping and the other one is without!  Fun, fun!

That's all for today, folks!  I hope you all enjoy your last day before it's back to the grind tomorrow!  

Thanksgiving Time!

Yay!!  Happy Thanksgiving break!  Well...err...to some of you at least!  Happy ALMOST break to the rest of you that work this week!   My school has the whole week off after a week of parent-teacher conferences, but if you're one of the schools that works these first couple of days, it's almost over!  Woohoo! 

Ya know that feeling when your last conference ends?  I literally closed my classroom door and celebrated...by myself...hands in the air and all.  I even played "Celebrate" over the speakers in my classroom.  Okay, I'm kidding........am I?  It is such a long and exhausting week to teach all day and then immediately have conferences until late evening.  PHEW!  This break is MUCH needed!

Parent-teacher conferences were a success this year with only a couple no-shows.  I am so fortunate to have a group of parents that care deeply about their child's education and were open and accepting to all of my thoughts, observations, praises, and suggestions for growth.  As I'm sure many of you are aware, having parents on your side as a teacher is one of the most crucial elements to student success so I am so happy to have a majority of my parents on board!  

I have been TOTALLY awful at taking pictures of all the fun Thanksgiving/Pilgrim learning we have been doing these last couple of weeks, but I will surely share what I did managed to snap photos of.  My kids were OBSESSED with learning about pilgrims.  Something about learning what life was like long ago is so interesting to them.  

The most interesting part about our pilgrim learning was about life on the Mayflower.  The kiddos were so intrigued by life on the Mayflower.  They had to eat the same things everyday, wear the same clothes, sleep on the cold, hard floor,  they didn't have toys and (*gasp*) had to go to the bathroom in a bucket!  OH THE DRAMA!   While reading books about the Mayflower, we even laid on the floor of our classroom to act like we were sleeping on the Mayflower which, incase your wondering, was only the COOLEST THING EVER!  It's the simple things in life....

After we learned all about the Mayflower, I put together this sort for a quick activity and check-in to see which of my students were recalling all our learning!  I have uploaded it as a freebie in my TpT store so feel free to grab it if you are still in school and needing a quick activity before break!  

We also talked about what we would bring with us if we were traveling on the Mayflower and made cute Mayflower suitcases to take with us!

This suitcase is my personal favorite.  What would he bring on the Mayflower?  Oh, just the essentials.  His 3DS, pool pants (?), underwears, a bath tub, and a night light!  ADORABLE!

We also made cute fact family turkeys complete with number bond bodies (idea courtesy of my coworker) to add above our lockers for our Thanksgiving display!  

That's all I have to share for now but I will be back later this week with some more updates!  Enjoy your break, everyone, and have a happy holiday!