Up, Up and Away

I decided to go with Up as the theme of my door decoration this year. I projected the Up house onto a piece of paper and traced it. Then I used marker to color it in. I purchased the balloons  and borders at my teacher helper store. Each child's name was placed on a balloon. Everytime I open my door, it makes me so happy and excited to start my day. 

The Best Nest

Every year, I am blessed to have Living Classroom lessons put on by wonderful science docents. The lessons focus on plants and animals and do a great job with enhancing our science curriculum. In the Best Nest lesson, students learn about birds and the nest they make. The docent brings in real birds nest from a handful of birds, and the students build their very own nest out of material that they find around the school. This years docent was spectacular. He is a bird watcher, so he was very knowledgable about the local birds and bird habitats. He brought in some of his bird calls and puppets. These really helped the students get excited about the lesson. Then, the students were asked to go exploring outside for materials that would make a great birds nest. The students collected their materials in small, green strawberry baskets. When they were done, they received a plate with mud on it. The mud is made special for this particular lesson. It is like clay, but has more water. It dries around the items so that the nest stays intact. There have been students who placed their nest outside in their backyard, and lo and behold a bird moved in! How exciting would that be!

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!