Happy Valentine's Day!

       Valentine's Day is here and I have to say that it has gotten squished between all of the crazy things that we teach about/celebrate in February, such as Groundhog's Day, 100th day, our Frog and Toad Unit in Scott Foresman, and this year we are currently doing a Fairy Tale unit to go along with our Field trip to the children's theatre.
Ahhh!  So, Valentine's Day has been down sized tremendously this year! I did, however, want to share a few things that we have been doing in our classroom. 

First and foremost, I had to borrow this activity from The Inspired Apple.  When I saw this, I knew I would have just as much fun as my kiddos and that their parents would love getting these on Valentine's Day! 
Click HERE to go to The Inspired Apple's blog and find out all about this fun little activity!

 I know there are all kinds of cute bags and boxes out there for collecting Valentine's Day cards.  I wanted to share something that I started doing in my student teaching 8 years ago and that I am still using now.  We make mail trucks and the students decorate them with hearts.  These turn out really cute, but the trick is to have the students glue the sides together and then go around and staple the sides as well.  This helps keep the items from breaking the trucks. 



The students wrote on hearts about what it means to be a good friend!

  Happy Valentine's Day!  Have fun with your kiddos!
Michelle

Christmas Read Aloud Linky Party

     So...I know I just blogged about a Thanksgiving Read Aloud Linky Party, but The Third Grade Bookworm is having a Christmas Read Aloud Linky Party.  It is hard to believe that we are inching our way closer to the holiday season.  This is just another reminder that the year is flying by!
     Anyway, so I decided to link up with this blog.  I have too many books to really choose my absolute favorite, but I tried to choose one that would be appealing to most elementary grades, not just my little ones.  One of my favorite holiday books is Merry Christmas Amelia Bedilia by Peggy Perrish.  I love any Amelia Bedelia books!  I love her stories because of the idioms that the author uses.  Many of my average and advanced first graders are able to understand the idioms and decipher what they really mean! 
     Last year my advanced readers read one of the Amelia Bedelia books and then went on a scavenger hunt around the building. Certain teachers gave them idioms.  Then the students had to return to the room and decipher what they really mean.  They had a blast!

I hope your kiddos have fun listening or reading Amelia Bedelia!

Favorite Thanksgiving Book Linky Party

     Teaching Blog Addict is having a favorite Thanksgiving book linky party!  I love books and have a lot of favorites for every part of the year, however, these two are my favorite Thanksgiving books.  If you haven't read these books, you need to!
     The Perfect Thanksgiving by Eileen Spinelli reminds the students of the true meaning of Thanksgiving.  In this story, Abigail Archer's family is "practically perfect in every way".  The narrator's household is a little more hectic, especially on Thanksgiving Day.  In the end the narrator realizes that they are both perfect families because they love each other.  I know all of the turkey activities are fun, as my second book is a silly turkey book, but I think it is important that the students learn to appreciate the things in life that we take for granted, like our families and those that care about us.

     A Plump and Perky Turkey by Teresa Bateman, is a story of the town of Squawk Valley.  They were having trouble finding a turkey to eat for Thanksgiving dinner.  They decided they would trick the wild turkeys by asking for turkeys to act as models for an art show.  Pete the Perky Turkey ends up tricking the people, getting his payment, and heading to the beach!  It is a lighthearted story of a clever turkey!  

    
If you want to share your favorite Thanksgiving books, stop over at the Teaching Blog Addict and  link up!

Giveaway

     One of my favorite blogs, Life in First Grade is having a Giveaway since she has reached over 1,000 followers!  She is giving away Thanksgiving Math and Literacy Centers, Christmas Nonsense Word practice, and Christmas Fry Phrases. 
      I purchased the Halloween nonsense word cards and the kids loved them! I am looking foward to the Christmas edition and the Christmas Fry Phrases!
     Get over to her blog today! Her giveaway ends tomorrow night!  Make sure to follow her blog and her TPT store!

I know Halloween is over, but if you missed her sharing of the witch patterns, I encourage you to take a look, while looking at her blog.  We downloaded the witch pattern and used it with the song Witches' Brew!  My kids absolutely LOVED decking out their super cute witches! Thanks to Leslie Ann's Pattern. She also shares wonderful Reading Street ideas, if you haven't been there, head over there today!

Lapbooks

      So I was reading a post by Tamela from This and That blog, that she posted on the blog Crazy for First Grade.  I was excited to see that other people are doing lapbooks!  Lapbooks are a great way for young children to begin organizing their information about a certain topic.
     A few years ago a teacher on our grade level introduced us to lapbooks and since then, we have done lapbooks for Johnny Appleseed, Scarecrows, Thanksgiving, Voting, Frog and Toad, Solids and liquids, and plants!
     The kids really like doing these lapbooks!  I do not always use my original materials, however, I have taken materials that I already had and pieced them together into the lapbooks.  The two completely original lapbooks that I have done are for voting and solids and liquids.

Here are a few pictures of some recent lapbooks.
Thanksgiving/ Long Ago and Today:

 The front cover of the Thanksgiving Lapbook.  The turkey is glued on the left side only so that it actually looks like the turkey is holding the booklet!  These always turn out really cute! 

The students draw a picture of what they would like like if they were pilgrims and tell what they  would wear and the type of activities they would do.

 The corn is an example.  The students actually make two small corn cobs on which they have to create a pattern with fall colors.  The picture of the right is on the back cover of the lapbook.  The students piece together a puzzle (girl/boy) and glue it on the back of their lapbook.  It is amazing how many children struggle with this activity.  I am guessing that puzzles are not the most popular activities for kids at home now that we have so many electronic games!  This is unfortunate because it really helps with spacial reasoning.

    On the inside flap, the students match pictures of different items from long ago and today.

Here are a few pictures from our Scarecrow Lapbook we just finished this week!

Happy Lapbooking!!

To Go the Pumpkin Patch or Not?

                                              Fall Field Trip to Riverbend Farm
      For a long time, our first grade fall field trip has been to the pumpkin patch.  This year we really debated if it was time for a change.  We have so many students who go to the very same farm with their own families, that we weren't sure it was worth having the students go there this year. 
      Once we were at the farm today, the answer was clear and it was worth going!  The kids were amazed at the variety of animals and they LOVED getting their very own pumpkin. They said that it was the best field trip of their lives!!  (Not that they have had a lot of years to compare it to!)  I have a ton of pictures of the kids, but since I can't post those, here are the teachers having a little fun of our own!

The Kiddos looked MUCH cuter behind these!  You couldn't see their bodies!  I guess we were a little too grown up, but that's ok.  We had fun!  I am on the left and my assistant, Barb is on the right!
We learned the Pumpkin Farm can be fun no matter how old we are or how many times we have been there!

Spiders!

Like a lot of schools we are not supposed to do too many activities that are directly related to Halloween.  So, we do a lot of things with pumpkins, bats, and spiders.  I have not been blogging much since school started.  I have been so busy and stressed with more and more paperwork this year!  I thought I would at least share some pictures of our spider fun!  The students read and write the poem onto the writing paper.  Then they assemble their spiders!  Also, I put a picture of our pumpkin chart and my wreath on my classroom door.  I made it after seeing one just like it on Pinterest!