DECEMBER!

It is December and this girl has made it (almost) half way through her first year of teaching! Oh my! I am getting into the Christmas spirit and have many festive projects up my sleeve. 

Last week my kiddos began applying to become elves! Once again this form was a freebie and I can't remember where it came from, but it is awesome!! I had the kids fill out the page (not pictured) that had questions about whether they liked Christmas music, had played with toys, and so on. It was so cute!! There was a section for fingerprints too!! This was my sample elf and letter. Persuasive writing at its best! I think the kids laughed for literally 5 minutes when I showed my elf to them! Ha ha! I can't wait to get the whole group of elves together! 

Here are my kiddos journaling about our travels around the world for Christmas. You can see their "suitcases" pictured. 

.A sweet moment I was able to capture to remind us that we are all in this together. Like we say every morning, "We promise to help each other learn."

November no more!

Wow! Where did November go??? Here are a few projects that I missed posting from the turkey month! 

We practiced visualizing stories in our brains with the story, A Turkey for Thanksgiving, by Eve Bunting.  This is a freebie on TPT...I can't remember who from. If it is yours, thanks so much! :)

This is an awesome packet with Thanksgiving passages from Stephanie Stewart! We talked about the long voyage the pilgrims went on and students needed to decide if they would like to stay or go on the Mayflower! It was a great thinking activity. 

Another Stephanie Stewart original! This was a persuasive writing activity where students chose a different  menu item to eat this year to save the turkeys! I have a sample paper below. 

I am so thankful for my wonderful students! I feel so blessed! 

Community Culmination Project: Creating Our Own Communities!

We have been working on the three different types of community (urban, suburban, and rural) and also been focusing on map skills. Today our kiddos get to unveil their own communities created on giant bulletin board paper! They included a compass, key/legend, a type of community, title, and detailed pictures! We are so excited!!

Bossy R

I love using this awesome idea packet from Laura Davis at tattlingtotheteacher@blogspot.com. We read a poem, did a write around the room with bossy r words and then I gave each child a word that they got to use to create a picture of its meaning! I have some amazing artists in my room! See pictures below: 

FRANKENFUN!!!

This week we have had some Frankenstein fun! I used a packet created by Cara Carroll at http://thefirstgradeparade.blogspot.com. We focused on the parts of a story and structure including beginning, middle, and end for the story, Click, Clack, Boo by Dorren Cronin and Betsy Lewin. Then today we talked about using temporal words in our writing like first, next, then, last while we made Frankenpudding! The kids loved it! Pictures below!

Fall Party!

We had a wonderful time at our fall party last week! I am so thankful for all the snacks and games provided by wonderful parents. This kids had a blast! (Toilet paper mummies pictured above!)

Butterfly Hatching and Release

The kids were so excited to come in one day to find our cocoon had hatched and a beautiful butterfly had appearing in its place! We let him go at recess! :)