Favorite Pin Friday/Late Saturday Night

So, this is my first time joining a linky party, but what better party to join then one where you get to pick your five favorite pins from the week.  I linked up with The First Grade Parade and have five of my favorite pins from the week below.  See her link for info on joining in...

 

Favorite Teaching Pins:

 

I think this is a super cute gift to give kids at Meet the Teacher night and I'm hoping to make it for my kiddos this year.  This great idea comes from Gigglepotz.

 

 

 

My next favorite pin is a take-off of something I already used in my classroom this year. This past year, we used composition books as math notebooks where the kids could solve various math problems during whole group and small group instruction.  I've seen this before, but this pin is a great reminder (from Schroeder's Blog) that office stores will cut those composition books in half, which would be an even better size for math notebooks.

 

 

 

This is one of my next summer Pinterest projects - a sign for the classroom to tell others where we are at.  I couldn't get the Pinterest link to work, but it said it's from Miss Kindergarten.

 

 

 

Another summer project to get started on - a new way to organize stations. I've used pocket charts the last two years and also magnetic signs, but I like this idea of being able to move kids from station to station with clothespins.  I couldn't find the link but it apparently came from some RTI website.

 

 

 

The next items is for sale on TPT.  I love the whole bucket filling system and used it last year for the first time.  Ashley Reed's TPT Store has some great scenarios for kiddos to figure out what a bucket filler would do and what a bucket dipper would do. What a great way to review bucket filling while also giving real world examples. I plan on purchasing this for my class!





 

I appreciate Cara Carroll over at First Grade Parade for coming up with this great idea!  And, I hope that I completed the linky party successfully since this was my first time joining in.

 

Hope everyone has a great night!







 

New Brain Breaks

I love, love, love using brain breaks in the classroom.  Anytime you notice a lull or a lack of participation a quick brain break is a great way to get students engaged again.  Brain breaks can be a variety of things from singing a song, doing 20 jumping jacks, or doing a little dance. My student teacher and I found these great Disney Just Dance Videos on YouTube. They have ones for "Under the Sea," "Bare Necessities," "Be Our Guest," and more.  Now, as a teacher, using YouTube videos can be a concern because you never know what ad could pop up.  Our district found this great site, that you might already know about, but if you don't I had to share.  It's called SafeShare.Tv.  It is a way to show YouTube videos in the classroom in a safe way.  You put the web address into the SafeShare website and it provides you with a safe link to use in the classroom - ad free.  The website is www.safeshare.tv.  Wonderful website and wonderful way to show some fun dance brain breaks on the Smart Board!

Student Teacher - End of Year Gift

I was lucky enough to work with a fabulous teacher candidate (student teacher) from ASU for the whole school year! She was fantastic! She was one of those student teachers who you could just tell had that natural teacher gene from the get-go.  I would not have survived this year without her and I'm so excited because she already has a job for the next school year! 

Since she was so wonderful, I wanted to do something extra special as a going away gift.  I collected donations from the students and was able to get her a very generous gift card to Lakeshore Learning so she could start working on getting items for her own classroom.  I also got her the book "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus." It was a class favorite so I had all of the kids sign a copy that she could have for her own classroom.  We also made her a memory book that had advice for her in her own classroom and also reasons why she was a great teacher.  Then, I wanted to do something as a thank you because she was seriously so helpful in keeping my classroom running this year. I remember how that first week or two of school with New Teacher Orientation and the first week can be incredibly rough.  I remember how I was at school until 8 most nights and the last thing I wanted to do was cook something for dinner. So, I made her a little gift card booklet to help her get through that first week.  See pictures below...

Our memory book binder...

My gift for her....

Teacher Love Notes

Every year I receive tons of sweet pictures and notes from the kiddos and of course they all want me to hang each one of them up. Well I saw this idea on Pinterest and decided to make a Teacher's Love Notes binder.  Each time I got a sweet picture or note, it went into the binder.  Then, during independent reading time, kids were able to look through it and see all of their beautiful pieces of work.  The kiddos really enjoyed looking at it, it kept it organized so it wasn't all over the classroom, and it made them happy to know I had kept their work.  This is definitely an idea I will continue to use next year.

 I'm not sure where I got this cute cover, but I think I found it somewhere on Teacher's Pay Teachers. So, I apologize for not knowing who to give credit to, but thought this binder cover was super cute!

Some of the sweet notes for the binder...

 

 

I'm back!

Hi everyone!
As I mentioned in my last blog post, I have some big changes coming this summer.  I will be moving to Las Vegas and will also be moving grade levels.  After teaching first grade for five years, next year I'll be moving on up to second grade (and will need to rename my blog).  I'm finally out of my classroom and cleaning that out was quite a project.  I'm not sure how I collected that many things, but boy do I have a lot of school stuff.  And now that I'm avoiding packing up my apartment, I've decided to do a few blog updates.  Blog updating is way more fun than cleaning and packing more.  Anyways, I'm hoping to update a few times this summer and hoping to also have some great second grade ideas to be sharing next year. Thank you for your patience with me! I'm excited for this next step in the journey and excited for the busy, crazy summer I have ahead of me!  Hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far!

Sorry for the major delay in posts...

Hi everyone!

Sorry for the major delay and slow down in posting.  Within the last month or two, I decided to move to Henderson, Nevada and have been super busy with applying and getting ready to move.  I'm so lucky that I have already been offered a job and will be teaching 2nd grade in a Las Vegas area school.  Now, things are crazy with trying to finish up the school year, close out my current classroom, get ready for summer school, get ready to move, etc. I promise I'll get back to blogging in June when things slow down for a bit.

Hope everyone enjoys the end of the school year!

Compare and Contrast - Part 2

After spending time comparing and contrasting objects, we moved on to comparing people.  To introduce comparing and contrasting people, my student teacher and I decided to have the kids compare us.  So we gave them some time to come up with similarities and differences and then had them share out.  They know us pretty well and some of their responses were pretty funny. For example, one of my kids said the student teacher wears make-up and I don't. Little do they know I do and it would be a scary sight if I didn't lol.  To chart our similarities and differences we used a double bubble - see below...

 

 

The next day we gave the kids a chance to complete a double bubble map with a friend. Since they saw the student teacher and I model the double bubble the day before, they were familiar with the activity.  They had a lot of fun seeing what was similiar and different about each other and did a great job working together and completing a double bubble map.  See examples below...

 

 

 

 



American Symbols Bulletin

My student teacher came up with a great idea to display some of the different activities we completed with each American Symbol.  Below you will see the circle map for each symbol and a few examples of the activities that went along with each symbol.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Compare and Contrast - Part 1

This week in first grade we started tackling the Common Core Reading Standard - 1.RL.9 - Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories.  To start teaching this standard, I decided to use real life objects to get the kids used to comparing and contrasting before we started using text for our comparisons.  On the first day, we talked about the definitions of compare and contrast and things you could compare and contrast - people, books, movies, characters, TV shows, food, etc.  Then, we looked at a SmartBoard file with a picture of two cats. The kids had to discuss things that were similar about the two cats and things that were different. To chart our results we used a double bubble map - see below...

SmartBoard File with Cat Pictures

 

Double Bubble Map for Comparing and Contrasting Cats

 

 

On the second day, we reviewed comparing and contrasting and reviewed the lesson from yesterday. Then, we showed the kids pictures of two dogs.  Again we discussed similarities and differences between the two dogs and reviewed how to set up a double bubble map. After review, the students took the activity a step further and created their own double bubble maps. See examples below...

 



 SmartBoard File with Dog Pictures

 

Student Examples:

 

 







White House - American Symbols Unit

So our first grade team took on a huge project and it went so well! American Symbols is one of our social studies standards and with the huge increase in informational text we decided to create a huge unit on it.  Each teacher took a symbol - White House, Statue of Liberty, Washington Monument, American Flag, and Bald Eagle. Then, we came up with a PowerPoint, books to use, stations etc.  My symbol was the White House - see my ideas below...

First, I started out by showing this fun video of a student interviewing President Obama. I started off by telling the kids that we had a mystery symbol today and they had to guess what it was.  They loved the suspense and love the video. The video was about 10 minutes long so I picked out the appropriate parts that I thought they would enjoy. 

Next, we watched a PowerPoint that I made on the White House. This PowerPoint focused on the main facts that I wanted my first graders to come away knowing.  After the PowerPoint, we started a whole group circle map putting up details from the PowerPoint.  Then, we read a nonfiction book about the White House and again added more facts. 

See our White House Class Circle Map....

After working our class circle map, the kids made their own that they added to throughout the day.  Then, it was time to move on to our White House Stations.

 

Station #1 - Informational Text

Students looked through a variety of White House books (different text levels) and added more facts to their circle maps. 

 

 

 

 

Station #2 - Writing Activity

Students write a story about what life would be like if they lived in the White House.

 

 

 

Station #3 - Word Search

Students highlight the presidential words.

 







Station #4 - World Book Kids Article
Students read a White House article printed from World Book Kids online and highlighted key facts.

 

 

Station #5 - White House Virtual Tour

The White House has a great website with a virtual tour of the White House. The kids can see a map of the White House and see pictures and information on the various rooms. This is a kid favorite station!

 

 

After completing their circle maps, on day #2, the kids wrote a report on the White House using their circle map information. 

 

 

Once we were all complete with our report on each symbol, students picked their favorite symbol to do a technology project on using the program "Frames." Our wonderful district Ed Tech is helping us out with this. 

 

So, overall, this symbols project incorporates - reading standards, writing standards, social studies standards, listening and speaking standards, and technology standards.  Love it!

 

 

Below are some student circle maps...