I Always Feel Like, Somebody's Watching Me

Do you ever feel like somebody is watching you?  Well when you go out in the night "someanimal" is definitely watching you! We are going to be taking a field trip to the zoo at the end of the month, and we have been busy, busy learning about animals in our classrooms.  One week we focused especially on nocturnal animals. Since we are doing this unit in the month of October, I added some spooky pizzazz to a craft. First we wrote about all things nocturnal on this writing paper.

Then we made our somewhat spooky little craft. Who doesn't love a lift the tab book?  This was perfect for my firsties.  They loved lifting the flap to see which noturnal animal was watching them.  

 

 You can pick up this Nocturnal Animal freebie on my tpt store. My store name is Adriana Berry.

 

I also want to send a shout out to all of my firsties and their parents!! They had an assignment to make a diorama and complete minimal research on the animal they completed their diorama.  Can you believe it's a first grade standard to do research?  I mean for real?!  They got their feet wet last month researching and publishing information about monarch butterflies.  They did a fabulous job then too! I believe students can do anything if they are taught with a slow release of independence. There are high expectations, and they are definitely setting the bar high.  They will be pros by the end of the year.  Here are a few of the dioramas.  I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as we did.

Squirrel

Raccoon, I love the trash can!  Isn't that the truth though?

Black Panther

Cattle, those are real pictures of this little guy's cattle.

Starfish, the two star fish are the actual size of a large and small starfish.

Clam, complete with sun and ocean animals.

Pygmy Marmoset, we learned that these tiny guys can jump as high as 16 feet.  CRAZY!

To top off all of our animal learning, someone brought in piglets to our classroom. Gotta love the benefits of going to a rural school. huh?  Talk about hands on learning!  Look at all of those sweet faces! That piggy was so stinking adorable!  I have never heard a pig squeal like this little fella.

Speaking of sweet faces.  Look at this little guy. Melt.my.heart! His shirt says it all.

Speaking of living in a rural area.  Here is another benefit.  This is my little guy.  He is running for student council.  So the task of the weekend was to make posters.  We thought of this little slogan, held a chicken, snapped a picture, typed, and printed a few copies, and boom.  It's all done!  Way easier than making posters for hours.  Not to mention it's super original.  Look at that face!  HA. Makes me die laughing! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he wins.  But if he doesn't it's ok.  There will be many lessons to be learned from forming his first campaign. 
 

On the home front we have been busy.  But a good kind of busy.  First of all I have been watching my handsome son playing tennis.  Let me tell you, he does not inherit his athletic jeans from me.  This kid is so talented.  As I look at this picture, I begin to wonder.  When did he grow up?  I think it really hit me when I helped him brush his hair, and I wasn't leaning over to brush his hair.  It sounds so silly.  But for so many years, I bent down and brushed his hair.  Somewhere in between that and him learning how to do his own hair, he grew up.  And then it just hit me.  Like.a.ton.of.bricks. 

Another of our fall past times is going to watch my daughter cheer.  She is growing up into a beautiful young lady.  I love to see her smile!

 


In between the good busy days with the older two, I have these two crazy guys.  And let me tell you, they are something else.  They are so funny.  They got out a blanket, a board game, took it outside, and just played forever.  It's such a blessing to have four of my own children to go home to to love on after a day of school.  I'm beyond blessed. 

 

So . . . What's Up?

Well, hello there! I wonder if anyone else is feeling like my little guy was, when it was time to go back to school.  Maybe you didn't want to face the music?  Or maybe you just wanted to hide in the lockers??

I was able to get him out of the locker and reassure him that when he gets to middle school he won't get pushed into a locker.  (fingers crossed)  And we even got a few smiles on the first day of school.  We bought a new house this summer.  We always took pictures in front of the fireplace in my other house.  And boy do I miss it!  This fireplace is just, eh.

Not only did we buy a new house this summer, we also got a few new animals.  First, but not least is our new dog named Spot.  We got him from the shelter, and he is just a perfect dog! He was all potty trained.  Which was perfect since we have brand new carpet in our new home.  I absolutely love this picture!  Everyone is so stinking happy! 

 

My favorite pets are our chickens!  There is no funnier sight than seeing my kids chasing the chickens in the yard trying to get them in their coop.  And everyday is Easter around this place!  The kids love going to the coop to get the eggs.

The first day in class finally arrived.  Our first day of school this year was on August 11th.  Can you believe that?  We start super early.  This year I made my first grade back to school chalkboard sign.  I'm pretty proud of myself, if I do say so.  Each student took a picture with the sign.  Then we used a little math about themselves paper and a little pencil craft.  And viola, back to school bulletin was complete.  I'll save the pictures and print them for the students memory book to take home on the last day of school.  I'm always so amazed by how much my firsties grow during the school year. 




I was so happy to have a student visitor from my classroom last year.  This sweet little student gave me a rocking chair for my classroom.  I painted it Makinac blue, my favorite color.  It reminds me of my favorite family vacation, Makinac Island. It makes a perfect chair for the helper of the day to sit on when we do class work on the carpet. 

After our first fifteen or so days of school we had the daily five mastered! We were able to begin reading groups, and things are going very smoothly.  One of my favorite apps to use during guided reading is educreations.  It's an interactive whiteboard.  So instead of dragging out the good ole' dry erase boards, markers, and erasers, we go onto the ipads and click on the educreations app. And boom.  That's it.  I love it. Not to mention my students love to use technology during guided reading. 

And speaking of reading groups, we read a book about technology.  It's in the above picture. After we read the book, I put a little bit of a critical thinking, comprehension twist to the book.  Each student drew a model of something that could be used in the future.  Then I sent home modeling clay, and they made their drawing into a model.  Boy was I blown away by their creativity! This little guy drew a futuristic model car.

This is his drawing and model.  He did an amazing job, and even told me about the type of fuel that it would use to make it go faster. 



Then we had this model.  It is a machine that will compact trash so that it will take up less space in the landfill.  I think we will definitely be using this in the future.

And this little guy is cool.  It's the whole drone concept, but on steroids.  This machine will deliver all mail and packages to everyone's home.  Except it will fly.  How neat.  Right?

The last model was an amphibious invention.  It will be able to go through land, water, and air.  It will be able to fly into a volcano and do research in there.  How cool??

After a couple of weeks with successful daily five sessions, we began our math daily five.  The concept is so similar to daily five, that it enables the kids to do an amazing job, and learn how to do everything so quickly.  The picture below is one of the math journals.  My students use math journal for the "Write About Math" portion of the math daily five. Most of my journal entries come from Reagan Tunstall.



Another piece of the math daily five is "Work With Someone."  Here is a simple little activity students can do together.  I did a lesson with the magnetic ten frames and modeled how to use them.  Then I put it into one of the math tubs, and it becomes something students know how to use to get some continued review of ten frames. 


 

Here is another activity we used for "Math With Someone." It's a game from Cara Carroll's tpt store.

These are the posters that I made to use in my classroom for math daily five.  They are available on tpt, with different options for the backgrounds. 

 

Click here to preview the Math Daily Five posters on tpt. 

Students also dove into their science journals.  During our apple unit, I introduce qualities of scientists.  I teach them about using their five senses.  We use apples to make this a tangible lesson that they won't forget!

Of course when you do an apple unit you gotta add a little bit of excitement!  We had a little bit of fun mixing baking soda and vinegar. Then we added a little red food coloring for an added effect. My students went crazy over it.  And I'm talking about a good kinda crazy.  They absolutely loved it!

I incorporated our apple unit into our math block.  During math daily five students worked with a partner to add with gummy worms.  Adding with gummy worms is a great form for firsties to use something concrete they can learn to add.  It's amazing how much it helps kinesthetic learners.  They even got to eat their candy at the end of the lesson.  This apple freebie is from Jess Ross on tpt.

Last, but not least is a food lesson.  We made cute Johnny Appleseed hats, and students ate all kinds of apple food. YUMMY! I got the idea from First Grader at Last.

 
 It doesn't get any cuter than this! I absolutely love my classroom!

I got my craft on and made a cute Fall chalkboard sign to decorate the entrance of my classroom.  It sure is a beauty!
 

Well I hope you have had an amazing back to school this year.  As for me . . . I'm off to enjoy my favorite season. Fall! 

February's Pinterest Linky

Happy February!  The best month in winter!  It brings us the renewed hope of love, and the reminder to demonstrate our love to our loved ones.  Every year I love to give my children Valentine goodies.  They are all getting older, but it's something that they look forward to. I love that my husband buys my teen daughter flowers.  It's a reminder to her that she is special, beautiful, and loved.


So enough of my home family.  Time to talk about my family at school.  The children in my classroom.  I wish I could spoil them on Valentine's Day too! I'm linking up with Lisa from Pawsitively Teaching and Marssa from The Inspired Owl to share three pins that could be used in your classroom during the month of February.  So here we go . . .

 A super cute and easy Valentine heart bouquet for mom and dad.
 How stinking cute and easy!

  

                                              Click on the image to view the original Pinterest link. 



Valentine's Day Color paint samples

Ok, so here is my idea on how I would use this.  I would punch the hearts.  Then I would write the letters to their sight words on each heart.  Then we could practice spelling them during our guided reading lesson.  How fun would that be?  I might even write numbers on each heart and, have students make addition and subtraction sentences or number patterns.

                                             Click on the image to view original Pinterest link.

 And my favorite pin.



Valentine's Day Bunting
I love to find pins and morph them into a use for my classroom.  For this pin I would use the same book background.  Next, I would print light pink colored hearts.  Then students would write on each heart about a Valentine book.  They could use three hearts and write the beginning, middle, and end. They could also use one heart and write a summary. Or use more hearts and write about characters, setting, plot, etc.  The possibilities are endless! Last, I would place a light colored pink heart on the book page back ground. These buntings could be hung around the classroom and strung together. How cute, bright, cheerful, and educational!

 Click on the image to view the original Pinterest Link.

If you decide to try any of these pins let me know!  Or share some of your pins and link up with Pawsitively Teaching. and The Inspired Owl.

Gingerbread House Fun

I hope everyone is having a fabulous start to December.  I'm not sure what it is, but it seems like there is magic in the air during the Christmas season.  Everyone is so cheerful and full of the Christmas spirit.  I have been blessed with my students this year because they are not portraying the "hyped up" Christmas spirit that is sometimes displayed by students during the month of December.  They have such a great attitude and disposition.  They work hard and I try my best to make sure we have fun while we are learning. Last week we did my "How to Build a Gingerbread House" unit.
 

We began the week by making making a real gingerbread house.

I must have forgotten to take a picture of the finished product.  Every student got an opportunity to decorate it.  I called a few students over while the rest of the class worked on different centers. This made it very manageable for everyone to add their own touch to our little gingerbread house.

Then we wrote about the process together on chart paper.

  Then I released students to their seats, and they wrote their rough draft.

After they finished their writing we had a conference about their writing.  Then they finished their final draft and completed their craft.

 Have a happy writing, crafting, gingerbread makin' kinda week!