Open House

I would have to say that this was the most successful Open House that I have had in my four years of teaching! I put so much time and effort into making my room beautiful!

 I was at school until 10:30 the night before Open House. I was the last car in the parking lot which always makes me nervous because the parking lot is visible from the street so anyone would know if there was only one person on campus. Also, there are no lights that reach down to my classroom, so when I enter and exit my room it is pitch black. Because of this, I like to keep myself distracted by watching movies. This time I rented I Am Number 4, Beastly, and Ever After a Cinderella Story. The funny part about this is that I got a call from my husband checking that I was the one renting videos on Amazon. He thought that his account was compromised. I assured him that it was in fact me. As you can tell from the movies that I rented, I love young adult books and love stories.

The night of Open House, I opened my doors with pride. All of my students and their parents showed up. I would like to take this time to thank all of my parents for their unwavering support of their children. It is so important to show that you care about your students education, and Open House is a time from students to show their work and take pride in their accomplishments.

I had so many conversations with parents, and I also really felt the love from them. I love to hear how much students loved their year in first grade. It validates the work I put into the school year. It really was an amazing night.

Trollies, Trains, and Automobiles

This year I tried to focus my class field trips on history because our history curriculum is quite boring. A fellow teacher suggested that I look into History Park. My grade level decided to book their Historical Transportation Experience. The students experiences transportation then and now. It was a wonderful experience and probably the best field trip that I have ever been on. The students were separated into two groups. This made the experience more intimate. Each group was able to ride on an authentic trolly car around the History Park grounds.

Next, the students enter into a real working rehabilitation workshop for old cars, trollies, and trains called the Trolley Barn. There was a large steam engine, a couple old Fords, and a trolly car. The barn actually houses the trolly that the students ride around when it is not out and about. The History Park finds and purchases these beautiful pieces and refurbishes them into working order

My favorite part of the entire field trip is when the students enter into an old Bank of Italy and sit down to watch a transportation film taken in 1905. The film was taken in San Francisco and shows people walking, horse drawn carriages, cars, trollies, and horse drawn trollies all moving down the street in chaos trying to avoid each other with no street signs or sidewalks. There is one point in the movie where two boys run behind a moving car and hop onto the back. Then there is a woman who crosses the street and hops onto the trolly. It was fascinating to watch the different types of transportation interact with each other before there were real traffic laws. At the end of the field trip, the entire class took a ride up Senter Road.

Earth Day

Earth Day started last week, in my classroom, with a series of activities to get my students thinking about what they could do to impact the Earth in a positive way. We started by reading our story of the week, which happen to be about Johnny Appleseed, a true conservationist who loved wildlife.  He planted apple trees for people moving west, creating a sustainable food source across the United States. Our story told of a normal man doing an extraordinary thing. He was a superhero to settlers. And it called students to think about what extraordinary thing they could do to help the Earth. My students came up with an amazing list of small but purposeful activities that they could realistically preform on a day to day basis. I took an idea from Cara over at The First Grade Parade and created this thought provoking poster with my students. It took a whole morning to get each green and blue hand print done. I had the students work on writing. At the moment, I am teaching how to do a research based All About book. The students are really into it, so it was easy to have them work on that while I called individual students. I then typed up all of the ideas that they came up with, and we placed them around the outside. Currently this poster is up in my classroom. I think that it is so beautiful that it might stay up until Open House.

Insect: Expert Group Activity

 I have had time to create another amazing expert group for the Spring on insects. I decided to expand it to six insects covering the Monarch Butterfly, bumble bee, dragonfly, ladybug, grasshopper, and Luna Moth. Each insect comes with a KWL chart, Can/Have/Are chart, non-fiction article, note taking worksheet, definition worksheet, and paragraph writing sheet.

Students should be placed into groups. Each group works on one insect. They start by completing the “K” part of the KWL, writing down everything that they already know about their insect. After this, students should start reading and taking notes on the insect they are assigned.

Then, they work on defining all bold terms. After they have completed reading and taking notes, have the students complete the can/have/are. They will take this with them as they move into new jigsaw groups with experts on different insects. Each member will share out their knowledge on their insect. Finally have each student write an essay or each group create a poster showing the knowledge they gained in their expert group. This is a great way to incorporate non-fiction CCS into spring. 

My Guilty Pleasure

This week I have been on spring break. I took this time to hang out with my son, catch up on “Reign” while drinking champagne and eating macaroons, and read as many young adult books as time allowed.  I was able to finish Red Queen and Rogue Wave the second book in the Deep Blue Saga, and I am working on Stolen, the second book in the Heart of Dread series. 

Photo courtesy of www.sweetyhigh.com

If you can not tell by the titles of the books I read, I have a lust for young adult books. I have tried hard to read interesting adult books and stop halfway through because there is not enough teen drama and endless love. I find it humorous that a married woman with a toddler loses herself in these alternative world trilogies. I remember reading The Happiness Project back when I needed to find some happiness of my own and particularly recall the chapter when she realized that she loved young adult books. Just like her, I felt ashamed of my desire for these types of books until I recognized the need to embrace it. Now, it is all the rage. The Divergent series, the Hunger Game series, the Maze Runner, and The Giver have all become movies within the last couple of years.  It is my dream come true, and my goal is to read as many as I can before the trend fades!

St. Patrick's Day

           I will start by saying that St. Patrick's Day is one of my most favorite holidays. When I was in college, I studied abroad in Paris and had a very close Irish friend who was studying at the University of Dublin. Our break at the American University of Paris fell over St. Patrick's Day, so a group of us went to Dublin and stayed with my friend. I fell in love with Ireland and it's people. They are wonderfully kind and really know how to celebrate! I went back to Ireland three times during my stay in Paris and traveled outside of Dublin to the countryside. I stayed with my friend and his family. It was a welcomed break from city life and the home cooked meals nourished my soul as well as my body. I plan on taking my son when he is old enough, and I would recommend traveling there if you have the means.

          First graders have amazing imaginations which is what I really love about teaching such young individuals. We start off the celebration early by talking about Leprechauns. I read many books about the tricky fairy folk. If you don't know anything about them, here are a few facts. They are fairy folk and are considered elves. They make all of the fairies shoes. They love the color green. They love gold and hide it at the end of rainbows. We had such a wonderful time reading and writing about Leprechauns. I even have two students writing an "All About" book on leprechauns this week.
         Next, we moved into the STEM lab to build a trap. Each student was able to set his or her trap out around the room to see if a leprechaun could be caught. They were very serious about finding the right place. Most chose by the door because logically speaking they were more likely to catch a leprechaun when he came through the door if their trap was close by. Very clever 1st graders!

We wrote two "How To" pieces, one on building a trap and another on catching a leprechaun. Both turned out very adorable. I really have master writers in class this year.
       On St. Patrick's Day, a leprechaun did visit the classroom organizing all of the green crayons, sorting the green dice and connecting cubes, turing over chairs, and leaving little green footprints everywhere.

            He even took all my dry erase boards and replaced them with all green ones. We later found out that the green markers he left me were very messy to get off the board and turned my whole hand green! No one caught him, but he lead us on a scavenger hunt around the school and left us cupcakes, apple juice, and Lucky Charms for our party! 

Of course the scavenger hunt written in poetry form lead us all around the school to all the important places. After walking all over the school, the treats ended up being right under our noses in the classroom.  What a tricky little elf!We used the Lucky Charms to create a graph of the different types of marshmallows. This is the perfect introduction to graphing in math. The students can line up the marshmallows in each box, which allows me to correct students that start from the top. Then they can either create a normal bar graph or a picture graph. Both types of graphs are apart of the 1st grade graphing standards. 

The day was a giant success with all the students believing in leprechauns!

Valentine's Day Themed Party

This year I was on the committee for the PTA Board Luncheon. We decided to have it on February 13th so that we could have a Valentine's Day theme for the party. I was so excited to send out the invitations and create all of the decorations. I truly love party planning and DIY decorations. I have had much success with Paperless Post for online invitations. They are just beautiful. You can select your invitation from a number of options. The one that I chose happened to be free, but they all are not. Once you have chosen an invitation, you can chose an envelope, liner, and stamp. You can track who has been sent an invitation, if they opened it or not, and who is coming to your party, on a very simple to use tracking page.

I really wanted the invitation to reflect the Valentine's Day theme, but be sophisticated enough for an adult luncheon. I think that it turned out very well, and I received many thank you response from the PTA board members.

As the board members opened the link to the card, they were taken to an image of the envelope with the heart stamp. Special stamps cost money, but they are worth the small price to start the invitation off right. The envelope then flips over and opens to reveal the heart liner. The liner and stamp are the only two real Valentine's Day themed items. I did chose the festive Carnaby in pink invitation to keep the theme going, but it did not scream Valentine's Day. If you are planning a party and want to be environmentally friendly without sacrificing style Paperless Post is the way to go. I hope you enjoy exploring Paperless Post! They also have a wonderful option for print invitations. I sent out an invitation for my son's Baptism. I wanted a copy of the invitation, so I just hit the "order this card design in paper" button, and one was sent to my house for his baby book. 

I also love making decorations. I discovered this love last year in September when I had to decorate for my son's birthday party with a $200 dollar budget. For this luncheon, I immediately went on Pinterest and started to pin fun ideas. My board is a small, but I still had fun pinning! If you would like to view it, I have set up a link here. I went with the hot air balloon theme.

I started by weaving the baskets. To do this, you need two different colors of brown paper. One of the papers, you will fold in half and cut slits about one inch apart by starting at the fold and cutting up. You then need to cut the other paper into one inch strips. Unfold the first paper and weave the strips in an under-over pattern until you have moved from one end to the other. Next, very carefully fold and cut a half-basket looking shape. When you unfold the basket will be symmetrical. Then, glue the edges down so that the basket does not unravel. For the hearts, a die cut machine is desirable, but not necessary. I did use a die cut, so my hearts are all symmetrical and equal. Once I had all of my pieces, I just started placing hearts to looks like a large balloon. I did two boards this way. Beautiful!

I forgot to take pictures of the room. I know many board member have shots, so I am going to try to chase them down. I hope that this inspires you to think creatively and have fun with any party that you might be throwing!