If Ever a Wiz There Was...

Well, people? I'm back. I know you've been waiting on pins and needles to hear what's been going on in Ms. Ridings' class. (Yeah, right.) Here's what's been  going on: The Wizard of Oz!!!

Let me go ahead right now and confess my undying love for The Wizard of Oz. It's hands down my favorite movie of all time. I love it. I sing the songs. I know all the words. I have Pinterest boards devoted to it. Not even kidding.

Oh, and the kids I tutor after school two days a week? They're putting on a play. The Wizard of Oz. So, we've been practicing it ALOT.

I've been reading my kids the chapter book since about October. Yeah, that was a long time ago. But, give me a break. It's hard for me to find time to just read without an agenda in my day. But, the kids were ENTHRALLED with the book. They could not get enough. Personally, I think the book is a little weird. But, to each their own...

Since this week was the week before Spring Break, a few teachers on my team and I decided to go full-on Wizard of Oz. We purchased Abby Mullins' awesome unit on TPT and we also came up with some great activities on our own.

Monday, we read the picture book and watched the movie. The kids were so excited they could hardly even contain their little selves. It certainly didn't help that we gave them popcorn with "munchkin treats" in it. Oh, and we worked on our character booklets. I made them all a book with some blank pages where they could draw each of the six main characters and write what they are thinking in a speech bubble. Here's what those looked like:

The front cover

We had lots of good invented spelling of "courage" this week! Ha!

Tuesday, we did some of the math activities from Abby's unit. They loved graphing their favorite characters and doing some of the math journal prompts. We also did a Venn diagram to compare/contrast Glenda the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch.

Wednesday, things got pretty exciting! In writing, we did the ruby slipper activity from Abby's unit. They turned out soooo cute! We even added some doilies to Dorothy's socks.

Pretty adorable, huh?

Also on Wednesday, we worked on a class mural. I had pre-made a yellow brick road on a big piece of butcher paper and labeled it with the places Dorothy went throughout the book/movie. The kids were so curious about it all week. They kept asking when we were going to work on it.

I basically just split them up into teams of three or four and gave them all a location. I had typed out some ideas of things they could make and encouraged them to brainstorm with their teams. I set out about a bazillion pieces of scrapbook paper and just let them go to town. Ya'll? I am shocked at what they came up with and what a great job they did! They were so into it and so creative! I must admit I helped them outline the Emerald City and the Witch's Castle... but, they did EVERYTHING else!

Here it is!!!

Close up of Kansas and Munchkinland

I typed out quotes from the movie and we added them to our mural, too.

The Cornfield, Forest and Field of Poppies

The Emerald City and the Witch's Castle

As we went through and retold the story using the mural, I had some of the kids write each part of Dorothy's journey on index cards and we glued those on, too.

The winged monkeys are my favorite, ha!

Dorothy, Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. And, Toto too.

I really never predicted that this would be such a great activity. I'd say it's maybe my favorite thing we've done this year.

As luck would have it, Mrs. Carroll over at The First Grade Parade posted this right in the middle of the week! So, we took full advantage and my kids got a great opportunity to use the mural to retell the story.

Poo. I just realized that the other pics of these that I took had some last names on them... so, I'm not going to post them on here. But, you can go get this awesome freebie at The First Grade Parade.

Thursday, I let the kids create their favorite character. All I did was cut out the circles for the faces so that the kids wouldn't make them too small. That's all I did. And, let me tell you. It was painful. I kept debating about whether I should cut out witch's hats and magic wands and Dorothy's hair, etc. But, I just decided no. It's okay if their artwork doesn't look perfect. They're kids. I just dumped out the scrapbook paper and let them go to town. I did give them some pics of the characters from the internet as a refernce point. But, I let them work in their teams and make them all on their own. I had to take a few deep breaths when all the Dorothy's came out looking like pigs. But, I'm so happy I let it go and just let them have fun. And, I think they turned out adorable.

Glenda and Wicked Witch

(You can click on the pictures to make them bigger if you want to read their writing.)

Tinman, Dorothy and the Lion

These friends right here were having a race to see who could write the most. Normally, I would stress quality over quantity. But, the day before Spring Break? Race on, friends!

That Dorothy looks totally like a pig, right?

I hung them out on the wall... along with our mural. And, they're going to stay there for a while because they make me happy.

We will FOR SURE be doing The Wizard of Oz every year from now on. My kids had so much fun... and, I may have had even more fun than them!

Now, I'm off to get my Spring Break started! Hopefully, I'll be able to blog some this week. Although, not about school. I'm not even thinking about school after I push the "publish" button to this post.

 

Up, Up and Away and Leprechauns at Play

Well, it was a busy week in first grade. We had lots of stuff to cover. Plus, I had my final unannounced observation for the year (soooo glad that's over with!) and was sick. So, I haven't had much time for blogging. But, I wanted to share a few of the fun things we did this week.

Every spring, we do a mini-unit on kites and balloons. We usually compare/contrast them and then the kids write about how they are alike and different. Last year, we pretty much scrapped the whole comparison thing and just wrote adjectives on kites because we ran out of time. But, this year, we decided to bring back the kites and balloons. Since one of our standards is writing opinion pieces, this proved to be a great topic to debate :)

We started off making an anchor chart about both kites and balloons.

After we wrote the information about kites, the kids went back to their seats and filled out a Circle Map about kites. I know this isn't exactly how Circle Maps are supposed to be used... but, I had the kids write things they liked about kites inside the circle and things they didn't like about kites outside the circle. This was a great way to seperate their thinking.

We did the same thing on the back of the same sheet with balloons.

Then, I had the kids decide whether they would rather have a kite or balloon. Then, I broke them up into the kite group and the balloon group and had them discuss why they would rather have a kite or balloon. I was shocked at how serious they were and how passionate they were about their choices. I thought I was going to have to break up a few debaters! HA.

Next, they used our flow maps to write a paragraph to share their opinions. I told them they had to state their opinion in the opening sentence, provide three reasons in the middle and ask a question as the closing sentence. Here are some of their flow maps...

They turned their flow maps into paragraphs and then I just stapeled them to scrapbook paper. We added some little kites and balloons, too.

On a random but somewhat related note, I totally forgot to show you the little project we made for Read Me Week. These hung at the front of the school in the lobby during the week of Dr. Suess' birthday. When I got them back, I taped them to my door for an extra little burst of color :)

I folded his face down so you can't see it. The balloons say "The more you read, the more places you'll go!" And, I took pictures of the kids holding a sign saying where reading takes them.

Friday, we had a visit in our room from a little friend.

He made a huge mess!

(And, for real, my leprechaun made this mess... not me. I told him he could mess it up, but not "really" mess it up. I can't handle the mess, ha.)

When my kids came back from PE and saw this message on the board and the big mess:

They. Went. Ballistic.

I've never seen them get so worked up. They were searching for clues and they just had so much fun. Then, our mischievous leprechaun popped into the room. And, if they weren't nuts before, they certainly were now!!!

Special thanks to Mr. Hedgepath, our Title 1 coordinator, who dressed up like a leprechaun for us two years in a row! I'd say the accent was even better this year. And, as a side note, I'm getting dang good at making homemade leprechaun beards, just sayin.

After he left and we were all threatened to calm ourselves down we made some cute little leprechauns and wrote about our experience.

Well, that's all I have to share tonight.

Thanks for reading!

Learn Me Good (x2)

Have I mentioned that I got a Kindle Fire for Christmas? Well, I did. And I've been reading a bunch of books since then. Especially a lot of teaching books.  

I came across a book a few weeks a go that I had never heard of. (And, I apologize if I am waaay behind the times and this book has been read by every teacher under the sun. It's entirely possible.) It had amazing reviews, was supposedly very funny and only cost $2.99 on my Kindle. 

It's called Learn Me Good by John Pearson.

And it? Is the funniest book. Like, hysterically funny. If you are a teacher and you enjoy hilarous kid stories, this is THE BOOK for you! I promise!!!!

The book is about a young guy who leaves his job as an engineer and gets a job as a third grade teacher in Texas. And, the whole thing is written in an email format as he is writing emails to his friend back at his old job. He shares all the pains and joys of a first year of teaching, sure. But, his sarcastic writing style is just so enjoyable.

I was really torn because I wanted to keep reading, but I didn't want it to end.

Luckily... he's written a sequel.

Yippee! And, it too, is only $2.99.

Oh, and I just discovered he has a blog, too! It's like a new chapter every day!

His blog is here. Go check it out.

I don't recommend books on here often (or, ever.) But, I would want somebody to tell me if I was missing out on an awesome, inspiring and hilarious book about teaching.

So, consider yourself told.