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?

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. :)

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. :)