I Voted!

Today we voted for the President of the United States!

Each year, Scholastic hosts a Presidential election a month prior to Election Day. Students around the country, from Kindergarten through twelfth grades, can fill out a ballot. Teachers collect the ballots and submit them to Scholastic, where they count up the votes and declare a winner.

The interesting thing about the Scholastic election is that it has reflected the results of the actual election in every case except for two!

We briefly discussed voting today and then, one-by-one, we went out into the hall to cast our vote. Everyone took the vote VERY seriously and were excited to participate in the political process. After the vote, we all got “I Voted!” stickers, just like adults!

Did your class vote for the next President?

What's Your Address?

Hello!

I have been slacking big time on my blogaroo. :( Here are my excuses...

• Everything I'm doing is incredibly boring right now. My reading program is scripted (maybe I've mentioned that 93847239847 times) so everything is workbooks. I'm infusing a touch of Phonics Dance-y business so it's a little less lame. Still doesn't help a lot though. Side note - I am teaching sh/ch/tch right now in first grade. Anyone else?
• I started a classroom blog and the parents are loving it! It's a lot easier to post there because my families are happy with a picture and two sentences, haha.

Umm... that's pretty much it. Haha!

We did learn about addresses today!

I erased some of my kiddos' street names. :)

I like teaching things like this because my students are REALLY engaged since it is all about them, haha!

First we discussed what addresses are. Then I had them turn and talk to a partner about their own address. THEN, I turned the tables on them and said they could only raise their hand to share their PARTNER'S address. 

What a shocker! You mean I actually have to listen when my partner turns and talks to me?!

We had to redo our turn and talk, haha!

Speaking of turn and talks... I have a suuuuuuuuuuuuuper chatty class this year. I did last year too, but my class size went up exponentially so the chatting did as well. I'm on the hunt for strategies that will mesh well with my first and second graders' incessant need to talk allllll day long.

Turning and talking is going well. Anything else you'd care to share?

L'Shanah Tovah!

Today we learned about Rosh Hashanah in our classroom!

In Social Studies, we've been learning about families. One of our lessons was about holidays and how every family celebrates them - but that different families celebrate different ways or even different holidays all together! So the timing was perfect. :)

We started by reading a great book - Celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It's a National Geographic book, so it has beautiful pictures and the text was perfect for my class!

Afterwards, the kids colored a Rosh Hashanah picture while I sliced up some Gala apples and poured out a few dishes of honey. We dipped our apples in our honey and decided it was the best snack EVER! Tomorrow we'll graph whether we liked or didn't like apples and honey - we didn't get to it today. :)

I love celebrating multicultural holidays with my students!

Using Natural Resources {Freebie}

Today was a crazy day. I taught so many things and I have no idea how we fit it all in. Strange contractions... Mother's Day writing... natural resources... fractions... comparing numbers... insect body parts... and the life cycle of a butterfly! I guess if I listed out my day every day it would look like that... haha!

But I want to tell you now about our natural resources lesson! After we read the pages in our social studies book about natural resources, we filled out a little graphic organizer just to review what we learned.

Afterward, the students grabbed any picture book and looked for things in the pictures made from natural resources, specifically, trees, metal, and oil. They listed the things they found in a table.

And after THAT, we went to the computer lab and used the NCES Create a Graph site. We inputted our data into the website and it cranked out a little bar graph for us!

Do you teach about natural resources? Because I put all of this fun stuff into a little pack for ya! Click on the screenshot to download it from Google Docs. Let me know if you can use it!

{frames by The 3AM Teacher and fonts by Creating Keepsakes}

In the midst of our crazy day, it rained and rained, so we missed both recesses. By 1:15, we just couldn't take it anymore. So we went outside and played Red Light Green Light!

Good end to a good day. :)

Landform Map Project: Part II

Wow, I am exhausted from downloading all of those jackpot freebies... I just had to stop at like 50. I can't click anymore!!!!!! But I got some legit stuff!

Anyway...

Last week we started making our landform maps. As of my last post, we had planned out our maps. Click on the picture to learn about that part!

Next, we moved on to forming our countries with salt dough. My book told me to make the salt dough with 2 cups of flour, 2 cups of salt, and 2 cups of water. I stand before you today to say that if you follow that recipe, you will have a mess. I don't know what exactly my recipe was, but it was definitely heavy on the flour and light on the water. It was based on trial and error!

I went into school today to grab my Social Studies manual, and the countries are all dry and ready to be painted tomorrow! Some of the kids still probably weren't done, but I am so over making that dough! My arm was hurting trying to mix it all!!

I'm excited to show you how they turn out. I'm also really excited for my Social Studies lesson tomorrow! We're learning about natural resources and I have a fun little activity for us that I'll be happy to share tomorrow after school. :)

Landform Map Project: Day 1

Today we started on a geography project that the kids are SO EXCITED about!

We've been studying geography and landforms lately, so we'll be making our own landform maps. My book suggested that we make landform maps of our state... but how fun would that be? And really, how much would they get out of it? Instead, my students are designing their own island countries. They have to include at least 4 different landforms in their country that we learned about. Eventually, they'll have a raised-relief landform map of their imaginary country!

Here we are hard at work! No wandering aimlessly around the room... no harassing other people who are trying to work... no clips moved! Go kids!

Here are a few of our prototypes so far...

You can't really see... but they marked off where they wanted each kind of landform on their island. I am really excited for how these will turn out!

Our ABC Countdown continues to march on toward the end of the year. Today was J - Jump Rope Day! I probably won't do this again because half of my kids didn't know how to jump rope and I didn't block off enough time for lessons... so my fun jump rope ideas kind of fell to the wayside while we had jump roping lessons.

Oh wells! Maybe next year we'll jump rope more often so we'll be ready for this day. :)

It Never Rains in Florida!

Today we studied seasons and weather in Social Studies and made a foldable! I don't do a ton of foldables but my class really loves them. I think they're into the little flaps, haha.

They had to draw a picture of the season and then write a little something about the weather during that season.

Part of what we learned today was that different parts of the country have different weather at the same time. We talked about how people from Illinois go to Florida during the winter because it's warmer there than it is here, and then I learned from my class that it NEVER rains in Florida! Isn't that interesting?

In other news, our little zinnias are coming up beautifully!

And while I was by the window taking this picture, I noticed our sweet kite glyphs that are making our room so cute!

This glyph is from the Great Glyphs Around the Year e-book from Scholastic. 

I got it during one of the dollar specials and it is pretty sweet. I especially loved this particular glyph because there was no gluing involved! We have been totally out of glue since before Christmas... yikes.

And I leave you with this which made me die laughing today! I hope you're enjoying the last day of April, because starting tomorrow......

Table of Contents?? Gasp!

In Social Studies right now, our chapter is called ... Our Earth, I think. This chapter includes such things as:

• city/state/country/continent
• landforms
• seasons
• taking care of the Earth
• how we change the Earth (mining... using too many resources... that sort of thing)

It seems semi-disjointed and random but they are all pretty fun topics so I'm happy I picked this chapter to end the year with!

We already finished the city/state/country/continent portion, and I will have to put up pictures of that soon... but today we began the landforms portion!

I was planning on spending the weekend making a landforms freebie, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew I could just use what I already had to make the same thing I was planning on spending hours creating.

So... here it is!

This was my sample... none of my kiddos has handwriting that is this amazing. ;)

I just folded a piece of construction paper, folded up six pieces of regular notebook paper, and stapled it together. Actually I had two kids in for recess detention today, so we had a little assembly line going on.

Over the course of our mini-unit on landforms, we're going to learn about 8 different kinds of landforms. For each one we learn about, the students will write a sentence explaining the landform and draw a picture of it. Today we learned about islands and peninsulas. I didn't take any peninsula pictures, but here are some of the island examples.

I had them skip the first page of the book so we could make a table of contents when we're finished with the whole book, but I didn't tell them that part right away. When I told the class about skipping the first page, one girl said, "Hmm... I'm thinking on that first page we might want to write, 'A landform is.....' and fill in the blank." I said, "Well, I was thinking we could make a table of contents so you can refer to the right page when you want to teach other people about landforms."

"A table of contents?????????" she cried. "Wow!!!!!!!!!"

So I think that one was a winner. :)

They are PSYCHED, seriously, about filling up this landform book. I am psyched about seeing how much they are absorbing about landforms. So far they've learned that the S in "island" is silent, and if you pronounce the S, their teacher will get mad. And they know that Florida is a peninsula. Haha! But for reals, it's been a great way to liven up Social Studies!!

Using a Grid Map

Happy Monday! Today was definitely a Monday. Let's just leave it at that!

Wait, one tiny story - when my class came back from lunch recess, about half of them said they felt like they were going to throw up. This is common.... the claim, I mean. Not the actual throwing up. Mostly they just want to go to the bathroom and fool around. I see through their facade!!

During XtraMath time, one of my girls sighed and said she felt like her brain was going to throw up. That pretty much made my day, haha!

So for Social Studies (which I realize I talk about a lot...), we learned about grid maps today. When I asked when they'd used a map, all of them had pretty much only used maps on a GPS. That was sort of funny.

After we learned about grid maps, we made grid maps of our bedrooms! They wanted to make grid maps of our classroom, but we just made maps of our classroom using compass roses, and I wanted to switch it up a little.

They had to label the sides (letters and numbers) and then draw their room! No one had a problem drawing an aerial map! Go first and second graders!

On the back, they had to write out these three sentences and fill in the blanks with the coordinates. So mine would be... "My bed is in A1." It was a great assessment! Everyone passed with flying colors, although one girl wrote, "I keep my clothes in a laundry basket." Haha!

Unrelated to teaching, my brother found an idea online about making jello and using an orange as the cup! It worked out great! I think the intention is to use these to make jello shots but he just made regular jello. Here I am enjoying my little cup of jello!

Lastly, I'd like to give a shout-out to Kim at Finding JOY in 6th Grade for being my 250th follower!!! To Kim, and everyone else who is reading, I love you. :)

Flow Charts (Freebie!)

How was your long weekend? I had a four day weekend and it was lovely. I read a LOT, especially this wonderful book.

Any Tina Fey fans out there? I have just started getting into 30 Rock and I think she is HILARIOUS.

I totally forgot my camera at school because I was in a rush to leave since I had class tonight, but I can still share some things!

Today in Social Studies, we learned about flow charts. Our unit has been about government, and we used a flow chart last week to learn that when community members work together, they can make changes! Our book's example was that the bus stations in Harlem were taken down to make road repairs, but were never put back up. The kids were super, SUPER concerned about the poor people of Harlem being cold in the winter. Thankfully that problem was solved.

Today we reviewed flow charts and made our own. They had to come up with their own problems and potential solutions. So far, the best problem was, "There was one prince and two princesses."

This is big stuff, people.

Anyway, when I was looking for a flow chart online for them to fill out, I couldn't find anything that looked like what I needed, so I made my own. You can have it if you want! Just click on the picture. Let me know if you take it. :) 

And here are a few pictures for ya... sadly, from my phone.

Here's the pupster in his little seatbelt harness on our way to el banco yesterday. Unbeknownst to me... el banco was not open! Oh wells. We had a fun little ride. 

My first box of cookies came in!! I got 2 more after this. And it is only the beginning...

And another Hey Girl for your viewing pleasure. This one made me laugh so hard, especially because my boyfriend totally knows what TpT stands for!!

Making It Fair

Do you incorporate any skits or role-playing into your lessons?

I don't, typically, but today in Social Studies our lesson was about fairness. We talked about how to know whether or not something is fair. We decided, as a class, that if everyone is equal and doesn't get left out, then it's fair!

Then I made groups of 3 and they acted out a little skit of an unfair situation and how they could make it fair. 

The situations were mostly about having to share something... an orange, a book, a pizza, and a swing. Sharing is not one of our strong points, so I figured it would be worth a chance to talk about it again.

Later on, when 3 kids wanted to be on the computer during Math Stations, we figured out that it would be fair if each kid got to be on the computer for 5 minutes! Yay for Social Studies extending into our everyday classroom life. :)

I also wanted to share this cute display that the Preschool and Kindergarten classes collaborated on.

I overheard the teachers talking about it and I think that the preschool teacher bought a foam kit from Walmart to make the owl, and then she just traced the pieces and made a template out of them! If you're an owl lover, maybe look into that? It is really cute.

And I got an early Valentine's Day gift from one of my kiddos.

I'm not a cake lover so I passed this onto my BTF (best teaching friend). But how thoughtful!!

Guess what, people? It's my last set of questions!!! Thanks to Taylor at Baking... Crafting... & Teaching... Oh My! for tagging me. :)

1. What is your favorite thing about your job? I like spending my days with cute little kids. I'd much rather deal with their drama than the drama of adults!!! Also I just like teaching new things to people!
2. How long have you been teaching? Since August! I am a newbie. It is going to be so weird in the fall saying that I'm a second-year teacher!!!
3. What is your favorite grade to teach? I love my first and second grade friends. But I also really like third grade! I don't have a ton of experience over third grade... but as a rule I am pretty laid-back, so I think I would try out any grade!
4. What is your favorite children's book? I'm really getting into Splat the Cat books! So, so, so cute. I got Love, Splat and Splish, Splash, Splat from our book fair! Yay parents!!
5. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be? Well, one of my students is leaving tomorrow for Disney World. I wouldn't mind going there - no snow!
6. What is your favorite movie? Yay! I love watching the same movies over and over. I love Love Actually, Big Fish, My Cousin Vinny, and Wall E!
7. What is your favorite stress relieving activity? I don't really get stressed a lot... but I do like to knit. Mostly I love to read!!!! I love to fall into another world.
8. What are your school's colors? Navy blue and white. The kids have to wear red, white, or blue tops every day and navy or khaki pants! It is very boring on the eyes.
9. What college did you graduate from? I went to Northern Illinois University, NIU! I was on campus the day of the school shooting in 2008 on Valentine's Day, the 4 year anniversary is coming up soon. Very scary.
10. What is your favorite "quick night" dinner meal? Haha, I don't cook because I live with my parents. However... I love grilled cheese if I need something really quick! Or oatmeal is a favorite no matter what time of day. :)
11. What about teaching do you find the most stressful/difficult? I think it's just not having a lot of experience to always know how to handle any given situation. Like the other day, one of my students said that his dad told him if someone hits him, he should hit the person back. WHAT! No!!!!!!!! Please no. We have enough hitting and pinching and slapping going on in my class, please don't tell your kid to engage in combat in first grade!!
12. What is something you plan on doing this coming summer? I think I am signed up to take Reading in a New Language...... other than that, I'll be working at el banco and hopefully spending time at the beach on Lake Michigan by my boyfriend's apartment!!! Yeah!!! I love the beach and I love Chicago so much!!

And speaking of Chicago..... I am so going tomorrow!!!!! We are going to Chinatown so I can get in some clinical hours for my Cross-Culture class and so we can have some delicious food, and then we are going to the Museum of Science and Industry!!! I am so super excited, especially since I get to take the El!!!!!!!! My fave.

Leaders Foldable

So 100th Day sort of threw us off... and Chinese New Year... but we really are studying our government! Today we learned about our leaders. We talked about community leaders, state leaders, and country leaders.


They had no idea what a community leader was even called, so they didn't know their own mayor. Also they didn't know who our governor was! So we learned a lot. The funny thing was that, in our book, the governor example is Arnold Schwarzenegger and the president example is George Bush.


I asked if any of them recognized Arnold from anywhere and they just looked at me, puzzled. Five minutes later, one said, "Um, isn't that the guy from Kindergarten Cop?" Yes, my friend, yes it is.


Anyway!


We made a foldable type of thing to help us remember our leaders. I don't know if it really counts as a foldable per se since no folding actually occurred. Regardless, it was a type of graphic organizer and the kids loved it!

As you can probably see... we wrote the name of our community (which I have removed, just use your imagination) with the name of our mayor in the little circle, Illinois with the name of our governor in the middle circle, and United States with the name of our president in the outside circle! It also helped them understand that the president leads more people and has more power than the mayor and governor!


They took their bullseyes home today to teach their parents about our leaders! Although I found one on the floor after school..... boo.

Tomorrow we learn about elections! I'm excited to push a read-aloud into Social Studies - check back tomorrow! :)

Using a Compass Rose

In the communities unit of our Social Studies book, they wanted me to teach the kids how to use a compass rose. So we did just that!

After introducing the compass rose, pointing out the compass rose on every map in our room, and reading the pages in our book, we played a fun game that reinforced the cardinal directions!

One at a time, a kid would sit outside the room while we'd hide our traveling buddy, Tyrone, somewhere in the room.

Then we would bring the kid back inside and use our knowledge of the cardinal directions to help the kid find Tyrone!

They loved this game! We played it 12 times so that every kid had a chance to find Tyrone. They got CRAZY loud because they felt the need to scream out the directions to the kid trying to find Tyrone. The noise paid off, though, because today in one of our read-alouds, the author wrote about some town in the north, and I said, "So which way is north?" And everyone pointed north right away! Hooray!

Afterwards, the first and second graders drew maps of our classroom including a compass rose. This was a little tough for some of them because they had to draw the room from an angle that they don't usually see, but I was really impressed with their hard work and all the little details they included!

Now what I need are some clip-arty direction signs! My handwritten ones that I made during morning recess are not beautiful.

Done with Week 4!

Friday of this short week meant that I've made it through four weeks of teaching!! It's very exciting and exhausting, all at the same time. :)

Last week we talked about Labor Day so that they knew why we weren't in school on Monday. We made mobiles depicting different jobs and hung them in the room. I don't have pictures but they were nothing too too exciting - they just drew pictures and backed them on construction paper. Then I tied the pictures to hangers. I really should have taken a picture of how one student spelled Army....... he wrote "aknu." And this is a child coming out of the reading program where "100% of Kindergarteners can read by Christmas!!!!!" Anyway, that is a thought I should keep in my brain. :)

Moving on to better things, this week we discussed 9/11 and Grandparents' Day. I'm glad they coincided because it was going to be a tough week without Grandparents' Day. When I brought up 9/11, none of my students had ANY idea what I was talking about at all. So I showed them the 9/11 BrainPop video to give them an idea. Then we colored a sheet I got from First Grade is Fantabulous. The second day, I read 14 Cows for America.

I had to paraphrase many of the pages because the words were really over their heads. But I think they got the main idea. Then I made a little PowerPoint about the Maasai tribe and we watched a Youtube video of them singing and dancing. The kids really liked it a lot! A lot of them said it was their favorite part of the day. I also had a student tell the class that she is part Maasai and that she had been to the place where they keep the sacred cows. Needless to say.... she is 100% Caucasian American. Has anyone else encountered a student who makes up blatant stories? She does this a lot and never about actual important things - only things like this, or that she speaks a different language. Weird.

Anyway, for Grandparents' Day, I sent home a family tree and the families filled them out. Then, my favorite next-door neighbor teacher helped me make a big tree to display them on in the hallway!!

I also had the students bring in pictures of their grandparents to share. About half of the students brought in pictures. But it was awesome for the kids to hear each others' stories and practice asking questions.

Before we shared pictures, I read Who's Who in My Family?

This was a really cute age-appropriate book about family trees and families in general. It talked about the nuclear family as well as grandparents, great-grandparents, great-aunts and uncles, and blended families. It also discussed adoption, which only one of my students had ever heard of.

And last, but absolutely not least, my library finally ordered Pete the Cat for me!!!!!!

I am soooOOOooo excited to read this on Monday! I'm planning on using lots of ideas I've seen in blogs to accompany it. Yay!!!