Astronauts and Animals

  People, there are like 10 days of school left! Can you believe it? I can't.

In some ways, I feel like this year has flown by. But, when I look at my kiddos, I feel like I've been their teacher since the beginning of time... do you know what I mean? I'm sure gonna' miss them, I know that.

We've done two activities the last few weeks that I wanted to share.

We spent a whole week on outer space. The kids loved it! They were so interested in astronauts and the planets. We did a bunch of fun activities... but, I've been l-a-z-y about taking pictures lately. One thing we did do, though, was write about a trip to outer space. The kids used their writing flow maps to write paragraphs. Then, they made paper plate astronauts that I found on Pinterest.

 I kind of love them.

Here are some close-ups of their writing...

This next thing came from Pinterest, too. It's basically a way to start a new unit. I saw this way back in November and I tried it out with the third and fourth graders I tutor after school. They LOVED it and it was great way to start our unit on the arctic.

I've been dying to try it with my littles and this week seemed like just as good as any. And, since the news came in that I'm moving to third, I thought I better get my shot! But, honestly, I can't wait to do this with the third graders next year. My kids did a great job, but I think it's probably geared more for the upper grades.

Anyways...

I got five books from the library about animals and five big pieces of butcher paper. I put each book on a piece of paper and spread them throughout the room. I gave every kid a marker. I played some fun music and they basically walked around to each poster and wrote something they knew or a question about each animal. They all wamted to chat at first but then they got really into it!

This was suuuuch a fun way to build schema!

This is pretty much what they looked like when we were done.

After about 10-15 minutes, I had them stop at the poster they were at. Then, I had them open the books and read them as a team. I tried to choose easy books for them to read... but, some were a little long. They loved looking at the pictures, though, and all the teams had good enough readers that it all worked out fine. I told them they could add some interesting facts to their charts from the book.

To wrap up, I gave them all a circle map to complete about their animal. I didn't get any pictures of completed maps... but here are a few mid-way through.

Did my kiddos learn any ground-breaking information? No way.

Would I test them over something like this that they basically did themselves? Of course not.

But, I feel like this was a great way to introduce a new topic! I'm totally going to be doing this activity again and again. The kids were engaged, working together and they were searching all throughout those books to find new information! Imagine doing this before a unit on space or dinosaurs to build schema. I can't think of a better way to get the kids excited! To whoever came up with this, I salute you. Slow clap.

Finley at 2 Weeks

  I got some updated pictures of little Finley today and I thought I would share. She's starting to look  a little more like a puppy! Her hair is longer and she's starting to open her eyes.

Here is the video they sent me last week... just to compare.

I mean, really? Is she not the sweetest thing you've ever seen?

5 more weeks, Finley girl! And, then, you're all mine :)

A Big Change

Well, I got some big news yesterday.

 My principal is moving me to third grade next year. And, believe it or not, I think I am really excited!

 I've been a little bit burnt out this year and I think it's just been because I've been doing the same thing for the last five years. I love first grade.... a lot. But, I need a change. I started tutoring third and fourth graders this year and I discovered that I really like older kids a lot. Plus, they're not even that old :) 

 I want my teaching spark back. I want to be excited about teaching again. So, I told my principal that I was ready for a change and that I trusted him. I was pretty sure he would move me... but, third was a little bit of a shock. Really, though, I'm excited. I'm  scared because it's a big change and first grade is all I've known. But, being outside of my comfort zone will be so good for me. And it will make me a better teacher to have that experience.

  Anyway, just wanted to jump on here and share what was going on. I'm headed to my grandmother's for a family weekend and it couldn't come at a better time. I need a break from school and all the third grade thoughts swirling around in my head.

Meet Finley!

 

Here's my new puppy, Finley!

She's a white maltipoo and is 3 or 4 days old.

I really like that this breeder emails pictures and a video every week. That way, I'll get to see her transfer from her current rat-like state to a sweet little furball of fun.

I can't wait to get my hands on her!

Texas Forever

  I have a new obsession.

And, if you know me in real life, you know what I'm talking about. I've pretty much been talking about it non-stop to anybody who will listen.

What is it?

I started watching it on Netflix a week or two ago... and, I'm already halfway through Season 3. I can't stop. It's the best tv show I've ever seen. And, I've seen a LOT of tv shows :)

There are two main reasons why I can't turn it off:

Reason #1



Tim Riggins: the quiet, brooding bad boy who is always in trouble but you just want to give him a hug because he has no family and nobody to teach him right and wrong and plus look at his eyes!!!

and

Reason #2

Matt Saracen: the poor kid whose dad is in Iraq and who lives with his grandma who has dementia and he has to take care of her and work and play quarterback and he never complains and plus look at his eyes!!!!

I'm not too proud to tell you that these two guys are both adorable, sweet and completely tragic... which is a winning combo.

I'm just kicking myself that it took me this long to discover this show! How did I not know? Why did nobody tell me about it?

I've now gotten my friend Brittney hooked and my brother (although, he likes it for slighlty different reasons than I do probably... ha).

So, if I don't blog for a while... it's because I'm in Dillon, Texas.

(Oh, and guess what! My puppy is born and three days old. I'm waiting for a picture and I will post it as soon as I get it. I'm sooo excited!)

A Bug's Life

As I mentioned in my last post, this week in first grade was all about bugs. Which was actually appropriate because everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, bugged me this week. 

Does anybody else feel like the kids can sniff summer coming? I haven't mentioned to my kids that we only have 24 days left of school, but somehow... they know it's the end of the year. And, they're taking full advantage of my exhaustion. But, luckily, I adore them. So I can deal for 24 more days.... I think. They were actually really good today! So, maybe all my yelling  pleading has paid off?

Anyways... bugs.

I showed these in my last post, but we started the week off with an insect anchor chart.

We also talked about the butterfly life cycle.

(And, let me just go ahead and stop right here to make a disclaimer. You aren't going to see anything super creative or exciting in the remainder of this post. I had big intentions to do the butterfly life cycle with pasta this year. But, ya'll? I've done it literally every year since I started teaching and I just couldn't bring myself to do it again. How's that for a bad attitude? My kids didn't miss it, though. I'm 100% confident that putting some pasta on a paper plate wouldn't have helped them understand the cycle any better than just drawing it. And, I'm out of wall space anyway.)

So, yeah. We just drew the butterfly life cycle. They'll probably revoke my teaching blog privileges.

Then, I gave them a piece of paper and told them they needed to write about the butterfly life cycle. I pretty much always have them do some pre-writing when we write. I can count the number of times I've handed them a piece of paper and just let them write all on their own on one hand. But, sometimes, I think it's really good for them. I want to see what they can do on their own. I want to see if they can apply all the things we've worked on. And, honestly, I just wanted to see if they had retained the information and I wasn't too worried about the writing. So, here is some of their 100% independent writing...

Ahem. So, we've been working on topic sentences. I always tell them that the topic sentence should introduce what the paragraph is about. But, we usually come up with one together. I think the topic sentence above is HILARIOUS! Blunt, yes? Literal, yes? But, ya'll? He introduced the topic. What more can I ask, ya know?

Pretty exciting stuff, huh?

 I know you're sitting at the edge of your seat right now.

The second half of the week, we worked on insect research projects. One of our CC standards is to work on shared research projects. And, although it was great for the kids, I think it was even better for me. You see, I'm what you could call a control freak. But, I've been trying REALLY hard to just relax. The kids need opportunities to create things and work things out themselves. Who cares if the final product is cute, right? It's all about what they learn...

So, I just gave my kids a piece of computer paper and a book about an insect. And, I helped them divide the paper into 4 equal parts and we talked about the 4 things they had to figure out about their insect: where it lives, what it eats, what it looks like and a unique fact. They were in groups of 3 or 4.

They did such a good job of finding the information from their non-fiction books!

The next day, I gave each team a huge piece of white paper and these are the projects they created:

Dragonfly

Praying Mantis

Hopefully, you have x-ray vision. Otherwise, you won't be able to read that. And, this was AFTER their control freak teacher made them re-write it because it was too small. (I said I was trying... I never said I was perfect.)

Grasshopper

Bee

Mosquito

We had a tiring great week learning about insects.

Well, friends... that's all I've got. I'm off to enjoy the rest of my super-exciting Friday night. Which has so far consisted of blogging, listening to my brother's game on the internet and watching episodes of Parenthood on iTunes. Don't be jealous.

"I'll Never Let Go..."

 

This post is going to be all kinds of random. Hope that's okay with you. That's just generally what my life has been like lately... nothing is organized. But, whatever.

-I'm sure you're aware that Titanic 3D is now in theaters. It's the original Titanic movie (with Kate and Leo) with 3D. My friend Kristin and I went to see it together this weekend. Because, we? Yeah, we're big dorks. But, honestly, we've had a BLAST making fun of that movie all week with some of the girls at work. This picture perfectly sums up my RAGE with the movie:

She's all la-di-da laying on a HUGE plank of wood and her supposed love interest is FREEZING TO DEATH in the water. Scoot over, Selfish!

And, the whole movie, Jack is all "Never give up! I'm a fighter! We'll make it!" He tried ONE TIME to get on the wood and it flipped a little and he just gave up!!! I mean, it takes me about 5 tries just to get on one of these at the pool:



Jack's a quitter. There, I said it.

And, don't even get me started on all that "I'll never let go..." stuff. It kind of looses its effect when she pries his hands off the wood and pushes him into the water! Uhhhh.

ANYWAYS...

I said all that to say, we've had a lot of fun making fun of this movie. Kristin found a book about the Titanic in her classroom today. And, let's just say, we had a good time with it....

I'm kind of tempted to read the book to my littles. Will it terrify them?

-One of my cute little dudes was sick last week. And, I tried to call his parents but never got ahold of them. So, I did what any teacher who had a vomitting child ( and no school nurse) would do... I sent him to the bean bags to sleep. Then, I covered him with a blanket because he was cold. Oh, and I took pictures of his cuteness.

Poor little guy. He slept a LONG time.

-We did some activities last week with plants. We honestly didn't do too much because I was out half the week for the LBL trip. But, when I got back we planted some sunflower seeds and we talked a lot about the parts of a plant. I gave my kids some funky scrapbook paper and let them make plants to label. Then, they wrote about the parts of a plant and the jobs they have. They turned out really cute! Unfortunately, my classroom is FRESH OUT of hanging spaces. So, I had to get a little creative.

So, yeah. Our back counter is getting pretty junky. But, I can't help it. I love all their cute work and I love to display it!

Oh, and I found those cute pennants at Target during spring break. They were just hanging out in the party section... for like $4! I cannot even express to you how much I love them.

-This week, it's all about the BUGS! We started with an insect tree map.

Then, we segued into the butterfly life cycle. My kiddos were all about it! We made a chart to help us understand it.

I had my kids find a partner and then they worked together to make their own butterfly life cycle charts on computer paper.

Kiddos hard at work.

-My kids and Kristin's sang the entire chorus to Party Rock Anthem complete with mosh pit dance moves and background music on the playground today. And it was the funniest/cutest thing I've ever seen.

Between that and the Titanic shenanigans, we had a lot of laughs today.

As always, thanks for stopping by!