Wrapping Up Thanksgiving

I hope you had a good Thanksgiving! It has been nice to relax. I read a whole book so far this break, and I haven't read for fun since probably September. So that makes me happy!

I never go out for Black Friday, but I went today to the teacher store because they had a 35% off sale!!! I didn't buy a ton of things, but this is what I picked up:

I bought the place value pocket chart because I don't have one and I've been thumb-tacking Ziploc bags to my bulletin board........ I think this might be a little classier. I bought the rest of my calendar days which I LOVE! I am obsessed with these Poppin' Patterns days. Then I got 12 Smencils to give my students as part of their Christmas presents. Those Smencils really jacked up the total price. They'd better love them!!

And here are a few other things we did for Thanksgiving this week. We were in school on Monday, Tuesday, and half of Wednesday so I tried to sneak in lots of academic Thanksgiving activities to keep their brains in the room!!

We made the Thanksgiving retelling bracelets, which I found at First Grade a la Carte! They loved these things, even the boys! I had a ton of these beads at my house, so I was able to make little baggies for each kid, but I didn't have brown. I went to like 5 stores, no brown beads!!! So I explained the sad situation to the kids and told them to pretend there was one there. One intuitive kid made her own brown bead out of construction paper, haha!!!!! Here is hers.

And here is everybody's!

We also dot-painted, which was inspired by this pin...

[source]

Ours didn't turn out quiiiiite as perfectly as hers did. Now that I translate her blog from Italian into English, it looks like she drew a circle for their dots to stay inside. Ours were more creative-looking, and they liked doing it!

At the last minute on Monday night, I saw Mrs. Sauod's post about Thanksgiving activities connected to books. I immediately replaced whatever else I was going to do with her cute suitcase idea! I read a Thanksgiving book, and then had them close their eyes and imagine that they are going on the Mayflower. Since there were so many people, they could only take 4 things. What would they take??

I thought I'd get some crazy answers, but they mostly said things like their bed, their blanket, their dog, their families, and so on. About half of them said pop. Can't survive 66 days at sea without pop, I guess!! They loved the little suitcases. They wanted to carry them all over the room, which was pretty cute. I think I'll use these again when I do Mrs. Bainbridge's Christmas Around the World unit!

In second grade, we wrote acrostic poems about what we were thankful for. They had to be creative and use adjectives for some of the letters.

 [I like this one because she wrote iPads and iPhone 4 for her two I words! That cracked me up. Also she is thankful for being a kid, aw.]

 [We're reading Nate the Great in second grade, so I guess she really is liking it! Also for her last G, she wrote "second grade." Aw again!!]

 [And this girl was a little reliant on adjectives... nice people... kind people... very nice friends... good friends... ay caramba.]

And the last thing we did before we ran home at 12:30 on Wednesday was our award ceremony! I got these super cute thankful certificates from Erica Bohrer. I read everyone's aloud and we all clapped and were excited for each other! They loooooooved the ceremony and they were so happy with what I wrote to them. I wrote to one girl that I was thankful for her because she always made me laugh, and her face looked like I gave her a million dollars. It made me happy. :) We don't have a color printer at school so I just printed it on colorful paper. Also I am annoyed that this dumb picture is coming out sideways!!!

So now that Thanksgiving is over, I guess it's time to start Christmas...? How soon are you starting with your class?

I'm Thankful

Thanks to the sweet teachers at What the Teacher Wants and Oh Boy'4th Grade, I'm sharing today what I'm thankful for!!

What are you thankful for in your classroom?

As much as my students tire me out and sometimes frustrate me, I am very thankful for my twelve little friends. Being a first year teacher is difficult, but they make my job enjoyable (note: I did not say easy.....). They have great senses of humor, a TON of energy, and they generally embrace anything I bring in for them to do. Other than my students, I am thankful for having a lot of freedoms as far as what I teach. Although we have basals, my principal is extremely flexible in letting us use our discretion about what topics we want to cover over the course of the year and for how long. This can be really overwhelming, since I want to teach about every topic and every cultural holiday, but I know that many teachers do not have these opportunities, so I try to take advantage of them!!!

What person are you most thankful for?

I am thankful for so many people! My parents and siblings, my best cousin friends, my non-cousin friends, my next-door neighbor teacher... but today I will be most thankful for my lovely boyfriend. Over the weekend, we went on a museum extravaganza in Chicago! We went to the Shedd Aquarium (where he works), the Field Museum, and the Adler Planetarium. It was a GREAT day and I learned so much! Back to the topic though ... Matt is incredibly supportive of me as a teacher. He is always texting me ideas that he has for my class, and he helps me by drawing things for the kids (like the Kaboom sticks for my new Kaboom math station - more on that tomorrow maybe). If I have a great day, he is always excited to hear about it, and if I have a rough day, he is always there to reassure me that everything will be fine. I feel so lucky!

What three blogs are you most thankful for?

Oh man. I love so many! I want to list a million, but I will cut it down to three!

First, Kristin at The Teeny Tiny Teacher. Whenever I see my Google Reader with a new post from Kristin, I am soooo super excited. She is hilarious and I don't even care what she writes about. It always makes my day better!! I'm sad that I did not follow her earlier!!

Next, I will say Jodi at Fun in First. I think I have pinned more stuff from her blog than anyone else's. She has the cutest ideas and they are legit.

And last, I am going to cheat and say Teacher Tipster!! I watch his videos obsessively and I make my boyfriend watch them too (I think he is okay with it...?). I am asking for his musical morning routine video for Christmas and I really want to start doing it! My calendar routine is incredibly boring even though I try to speed through it. I am not a singer in the classroom but I am going to try to get over it, since the kids are tiny and think I am amazing at everything. Haha!! Here is one of my personal favorite videos that makes me cry laughing every time. Enjoy!!!!

What guilty pleasure are you most thankful for?


Hmmm.... this is difficult. I think I will go with Teavana tea since it is crazy expensive and I feel guilty spending my tiny paycheck on it..... oh wells! I drink the Youthberry/Wild Orange Blossom combination which is truly wonderful. It just warms up my soul, I feel. I don't follow their crazy directions on how to make it (I let it steep for way longer) and I add tons of sugar and it is great!! I recommend trying it out if you haven't!! I always drink many samples when I am at the mall. :)

What are you most thankful for?


So many things! I am so very thankful that I have a teaching job in this economy. I feel very lucky to have found a place where I am comfortable and where I teach next door to one of my friends. We have each other's back! I am thankful that I have a warm home and a loving family. I am thankful that I have Matt who makes me happy every day. I am thankful that my cousin Kelley is doing her observation hours in my classroom because it helps a TON having her there and I love my cousin. :) I just love the world!

What are you thankful for? Link up with the awesome parties going on!

What We've Been Up To

I wanted to share today some fun things we have been doing in our classroom! It has been a rough week (I seriously need a classroom management coach...... it is ridiculous), but I have labored on!

I mentioned yesterday that we did the reading response for the Ugly Pumpkin. I remembered to take pictures today! Here were some of the highlights. It was so hard not to die laughing at their writings.... I knew they were sad events but they wrote them in such a funny way!

We also made the math turkeys that I saw on Fun in First. I let the kids pick their own numbers - first graders picked 2-10 and second graders picked 10-20. Each feather was a different representation of their number. We did... word form, expanded form, tallies, a picture, an addition sentence, and a subtraction sentence. They seemed to like this! However, if I were to do it again, I would tell them that they couldn't pick the same number that I picked... I had a ton of first graders pick 8 like I did, and they just copied off of my sample. Not the intention of this activity... oh well. You live you learn, I guess!

In first grade, we've been learning /sh/, /ch/, /th/, and /wh/. We just did /wh/ today, actually. Yesterday, I reintroduced these digraphs as Letter Teams, and we talked about how they have to be together to make the sound. Then I made an impromptu chart paper poster and told the kids that when they saw a word with any of our letter teams in them, like when they were reading, they could go over and add it to the chart. I didn't think this would be quite as exciting as it was, but OMG, they lost it every time they found one of the letter teams. I don't think the chart lasted longer than an hour before it was packed with words. Also it got a little packed with decorations. I guess we need to talk about that!

And let me leave you with a little funny. So every Friday we go to Mass, and a student from each classroom is responsible for coming up with a petition, or something to pray for, and going up in front of church and saying it into the microphone. Up until this point, I've only had second graders do it, since I know they can read (since I write down what they want to pray for so they don't forget when they go up there). But today I asked one of my higher first graders if she wanted to do the petition, and she said sure. So usually I write the kid's name on the board so that on Friday morning I don't forget to remind the kid that it's their day. She did me a favor and wrote her own name on the board along with her invented spelling of "petition."

I love first graders.

What I'm Loving Wednesday

Happy Wednesday! It has come fast for me this week because I was out on Monday. Let me start by saying that I'm not loving that I left my camera at school! :(

I'm loving CVS Minute Clinic and my prescription! I've been sort of sick for at least three or four weeks now, and let me tell you.... it feels SO GOOD to breathe!!!! I think my jello and popsicles helped too. :)

I'm loving the Data and Graphing unit that we just started in second grade. It's so interactive and engaging for the kids and hopefully it's a little more exciting, as our first few units were all review. Today they got to write their own surveys and try them out on the class. They LOVED this. I think I'll finally get around to making a survey math station. The first graders are all asking when they get to start Data and Graphing! Luckily, it's the next chapter in their books, too. :)

I'm loving The Ugly Pumpkin and Abby's great Oh So Thankful unit!

This book is super cute, and my kids love any books that rhyme, so that helps. They felt so sad for the Ugly Pumpkin, and today we did the I Felt Squashed When... response activity. It was great because all of my kids had something to share, even my student who always copies off of my example or whoever is sitting next to him. This made me happy happy. :)

I'm loving another Thanksgiving book, Gracias the Thanksgiving Turkey.

This is a really sweet book about a Puerto Rican family in New York City (I think?). The dad in the family is a truck driver, and he sends a turkey home to be fattened for Thanksgiving. As you can see on the cover, he becomes a part of the family and the son refuses to eat his little buddy! I can't wait to read this tomorrow or Friday to the kids. There are a ton of Spanish words interspersed, and I think my two Spanish speakers will get really excited about them.

I'm loving that my kids had a great day on Monday with the sub! When I got to school, I had a nice note from her saying she had a great day. And all of the kids stayed at or above Ready to Learn on the clip shart! One even got to Super Student. Yay kids!!

What are you loving this Wednesday?