Going Postal

My students are moderately excited about our postcard exchange that will be happening this month. I don't think they really understand how SUPER AWESOME this is going to be. I think (and hope) this changes when our postcards come rolling in!

I was able to get all of my postcards for half-price (thank you, Chamber of Commerce!), and one afternoon when we had a few extra minutes, the students stamped and address-labeled the postcards. So if you're in the exchange and notice that your stamp is upside down... I promise it wasn't me, haha!

To kick off our postcard exchange, our class took a field trip to the post office. Before we left, we read two books that helped us get in the spirit. We read I Miss You Every Day and Mailing May.

I Miss You Every Day, by Simms Taback, is a cute story about a little girl that misses someone, so she packages herself up and mails herself. It gives a brief overview of the process of mailing something - from dropped it off the post office to putting in the truck, and so on. The illustrations were very cute, and we loved how the girl cut out eye holes and foot holes for herself. It was fun to find her in all of the pictures!

Mailing May, by Michael O. Tunnell, wasn't as big of a hit, but it was still a good book! This was a (mostly) nonfiction story about a girl in 1914 who wants to visit her grandma, but her parents can't afford the train ticket. Due to recent postal law changes, her parents are able to put stamps on her coat and "mail" her to her grandma's house. The pictures were lovely, the kids thought it was an awesome story, but it was a bit on the wordy side, and they didn't understand some of the vocabulary. With a little help from me, it was all good.

Then, we made an I Wonder/I Learned chart. I wanted the students to go on the trip ready to ask good questions. They also completed their own Wonder/Learned chart. Our post office is about two blocks from school, so we walked there together. We brought our postcards so we could make sure they made it into the mail!

The wonderful man at the post office was very patient with the students and answered many questions that he probably thought were crazy, such as: can girls and boys both deliver mail? What do you do with mail that you can't deliver if the address is too far away? He took us on a tour of the back area, which I thought was really interesting! I forgot to take pictures until we got outside to the lifting device, which he let the kids ride on as he lifted them up and down.

Everyone also got to sit in the mail truck!

Lastly, we officially mailed off our postcards. We took turns dropped the postcards in the slot and watching them fall into the basket. You would've thought this was the most fun thing they had ever done. They probably could have sat there all day watching mail come in!

And the post office was also nice enough to give each student a coloring book about the states! The kids were just beside themselves with excitement.

Overall, it was a great day and an awesome field trip (not only because it was free)! I definitely recommend it if you're able to go to yours. The students learned a LOT and I think it really kicked off the exchange well. :)

Fun with Leaves!

This week, since Columbus Day is quickly approaching, it was only right that we learned about Columbus. However, I am very hesitant to do Columbus Day read-alouds, as I have a really hard time telling the first and second graders that Columbus was a cool guy and was bffs with the Native Americans.

Scholastic News came to the rescue with one of this month's issues for first grade!

If you have a subscription, you have access to their little preview videos, which are awesome. They're about 3 minutes long and are a great hook to start that week's issue. For some reason, my kids are obsessed with them and we usually watch each one at least 3 or 4 times. Anyway, the video for this issue focused on Columbus being an explorer, and it showed examples of other explorers - underwater explorers, cave explorers, and space explorers.

This issue was a reader's theater where I played Columbus and the students were the sailors. We learned that the sailors had to sleep on the deck while Columbus slept in a bed, that they had dirty water, that they were scared, and that their trip took 71 days, which is twice the amount of time we've been in school so far!! All good and factual information. Thanks Scholastic News!

The next day, I extended on the "explorers" theme and told the kids we were going to explore the neighborhood! We are lucky enough to back up to a nice quiet neighborhood, and I love to take walks, so this went well. I asked the kids to grab at least 3 different kinds of leaves for an activity later. They ended up each grabbing like 15, which was perfect. It was a BEAUTIFUL day in the Chicago suburbs, so it worked out perfectly!

After lunch, we did a variety of activities with our new gigantic leaf collections! We counted them and ordered the numbers. Then we sorted them by a variety of attributes that the students chose. I always hear about doing open sorts with students but I never have done it. It was awesome! Most of my students worked really, really well together without fighting (which is pretty rare in my class...). The attributes they chose were: color, size, number of points, pretty and unpretty (haha), and shape.

After everything was done, we debriefed about how we worked together. I told them how SUPER PROUD I was that I didn't see a lot of fighting or crying. We talked about what worked (people took turns, they listened to each other's ideas, no one said mean things) and things we needed to work on (some people were too bossy). I really haven't had them do a lot of group things like this so I was very happy to see that they really could work together.

I forgot to say that we also did leaf rubbings! They turned out nicely and I need to hang them up soon! They tell me I don't have enough Halloween decorations in my room................ so hard to please 6-year-olds.

The Birth of Math Stations

This summer, I read Math Work Stations and sort of followed along with the book study that was going on in teacher blogland.

The book was great, Debbie Diller had some sweet ideas, and I was pumped to get started. However, it didn't take long for me to figure out that stations were going to be hard to implement because of my two grade levels in one classroom. I only have 20 minutes per week with each grade level separately, so I don't really have a lot of time to teach my students the games or stations that I want to set out.

Complaints aside, I know I need to do these because I don't know another way to keep my first graders engaged in meaningful work while I'm teaching the second graders, and vice versa. So last week I bought containers from Dollar Tree to house some of my newly born stations.

Today I showed a few new stations to the second graders during my 20 minutes of just-second-grade-time! And I have them all thanks to amazing bloggers.

First, I showed them Spin and Graph, which I just won from Kelli at Castles and Crayons

In this station, the students spin a spinner 10 times and make a bar graph of the results. Then they answer a few questions about them. I found that using a paper clip as the spinner worked well for me instead of the arrow. I'll probably have to adjust this for the second graders but they loved it so far!

Then, we played Boo Bump, courtesy of Denise at Sunny Days in Second Grade!

They LOVED this, I can't even tell you how much. When it was time for the first graders to come back to our room, the second graders were not happy campers. My two girls who can't do P.E. right now (broken elbow and appendix surgery?) brought the whole tub to P.E. to keep themselves occupied. I have to give a shout out to Meredith for the heads-up about the Halloween erasers in the Target Dollar Spot! They complement Boo Bump perfectly because they're flat. The kids CAN NOT get enough of this game, which will hopefully be awesome for their math skills!

And I just threw it this now-favorite so we could all have something to do, Cupcake Facts, which I downloaded from Alisha at The Bubbly Blonde.

In this game, students match the addition problem on the cupcake top to the sum on the cupcake stump (yeah Seinfeld!). Since I don't have a color printer, I printed the super cute Halloween-themed cupcakes on colored cardstock. Unfortunately.... that makes the game a lot easier, since the pinks always get matched with the pinks. Note to self - print on the same color cardstock next time, haha!

And lastly, I just wanted to give a shout out (not that he needs one...) to the amazing Mo Willems because Happy Pig Day! was just released into bookstores today!

Can't wait to read it. :)

What I'm Loving ... Thursday?

I just realized it isn't Wednesday. I mean, I knew it all day, but the whole way home from school I was thinking about what to write for WILW this week. Apparently it's Thursday so today it is WILT!! Wilt!

I'm loving my class, again. They're a handful and we have a lot of emotions running through our 12 little bodies, but they are funny and I like being their teacher. Today, as I was setting my phone timer for an activity in Math, the first graders asked if I was calling my boyfriend. I said, "Why would I call him now? We are in the middle of math!" And one girl said, "You could call him and say, 'I'm teaching the kids! Don't talk to me!'" (said in a very angry voice). They make me laugh a lot.

I'm loving the baby steps I'm taking towards Math Work Stations! Finally! It only took 32 days of school!! I want to have my management board set up by Monday because I forgot to finish taking pictures of the kids. So far I have 3 stations set up, so over the weekend I should come up with 3 more so they can have a little variety in their lives. I will keep you all posted because today we (sort of) did them and it worked out really well! Except - I have an odd number of first graders and an odd number of second graders. Do you all make groups of 3? Because my groups of 2 worked together way better than my groups of 3, but I don't want to isolate anybody... hmm.

I'm loving that I learned how to use the little laminator at school today! Now I understand why everyone loves personal laminators. I think I should probably buy my own sleeves so that I don't get yelled at for depleting the resources.

I'm loving the post office down the street from my school! Our class is participating in the postcard exchange hosted by Primary Graffiti and The Techy Teacher, and today I called to see if my class could take a field trip there next week so we can be more invested in our postcard sending. They were cool with it and we're going in a week! There are definitely perks to teaching in a small town.

I'm loving Adventure to Fitness!!!!!!!! A lot!!!! Since I'm in a private school, I can't sign up because my school is not a choice. I've probably sent them 5 requests and they are just ignoring me. So, I asked my wonderful sister to sign up on my behalf and now my kids LOVE running with Mr. Marc! We've already had 3 days worth of indoor recess this week and this has saved me in a huge way.

I'm loving these super cute apples we made yesterday!

I got the idea from The First Grade Parade. It was really easy (I used contact paper) and the kids really liked it. Sadly we haven't had sun to shine through the tissue paper yet but they are so beautiful regardless. :)

I'm loving another thing about my students. They are really good at making up excuses for stuff in their own lives, so whenever something goes wrong in my room, they always come up with a reason for it. For example, we watched a little video about the planets today, and the audio kept skipping. It was super annoying. One of the kids was like, "It's fine, it's just because the planets are so far from the radio tower." I was like, "..... I'm sure that's it." They never get upset about anything! It is so funny.

Oh - I need a bit of advice. I have a student who literally will not do anything unless I stand there and tell him to. Like, he won't even write his name on his paper unless I prompt him. Today we did dictation, and at the end I collected their papers, and he literally wrote nothing. The whole time! My first graders are very dependent as a whole, but this is confusing to me. Any words of wisdom??

Fantastic Ocean Books!

If I could teach every concept, all day long, every day, with children's books, I would! For whatever reason, my students are always SUPER engaged in books, where, if I sat there and said the same things to them, they would lose it. So children's books play a huge part in my teaching. I love them and so do my kiddos!!

When I student taught, I had to plan a major unit, and between my cooperating teacher and myself, we decided to do an ocean unit and pull it all together by going to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago!

We studied a different underwater animal each day, and I remember two books specifically that I loved using!

First, we have Surprising Sharks by Nicola Davies.

My first graders LOVED THIS BOOK! There are no photographs of sharks, but the very detailed and cute illustrations serve as an appropriate substitute! Not only does this book include a ton of information on many different sharks, but it tries to combat the idea that we should be afraid of sharks by giving information about how many sharks are killed by humans every year. It's a super informative and fun book, and I think my library copy came with a CD?

And second, I liked A Safe Home for Manatees by Priscilla Belz Jenkins.

This book might be better suited for a habitats unit, as it describes how the habitat of the manatees in Florida has shrunken over the years. Again, it was very informative and child-appropriate. I like to read books about how people can really affect the world through situations like this. I want students to be concerned with things other than themselves... which can be tough sometimes. :)

Check out Teaching Blog Addict's Science Week linky party today to find more awesome science books!!

Versatiles and Versatile Bloggers!

I figured those two things go together, right?

First, over the summer I won a set of ten mini VersaTiles cases from ETA/Cuisenaire because I liked their facebook page. If you don't like them on facebook, you should go do it now! They have lots of giveaways and offer many free resources.

They asked the winners of the giveaway to post pictures of their students using the VersaTiles once school started. I just remembered the other day to take pictures, and I posted one today so I thought I'd share it with you too!

Luckily, one of the free VersaTiles pages on their website was for doubles, and that's what we worked on with second grade on Thursday. I think I'll have to make my own pages with their templates with all of my free time.........

Anyway, my second order of business here is the Versatile Blogger Award!!

I received this award from three lovely ladies!

Leslie from Jack of All Trades

Jennifer from Rowdy in First Grade

and........ Nicole from The Kinder Kid!

You should for sure check out their blogs! They're all from different grade levels but they all have awesome ideas and are all-around the bomb dot com. :)

Since I won the Versatile Blogger Award, I need to share 7 things about myself and spread the love to 15 people! Here are my 7 things........

1. In a week, I will start my second class of six to earn my ESL Endorsement! This class will be my methods and materials class, and I am SO EXCITED!!! Methods classes were always my absolute favorite in college. I'm really happy I decided to work towards my ESL endorsement because I am incredibly passionate about working with English Language Learners and ensuring that they get equal treatment in school and elsewhere. Equality and acceptance is super important to me.
2. At my school, teachers can eat hot lunch for free and we can have free milks too! Since my class gets a morning milk break, I typically drink two chocolate milk cartons a day!! If I'm having a rough day, that chocolate milk is always there for me. So delicious! When I am old, I will probably have the strongest bones ever.
3. I am not well-traveled. I have been to Florida for family vacations when I was little, and I've been to the San Diego area for family weddings in recent years, but there are many places that I want to go! Specifically, I want to go to San Francisco and Washington D.C. Also I am obsessed with southern California so I would like to go there again!!
4. Dead animals really creep me out. I know they can't come back to life and get me...... but I am still scared of that happening. If I am walking my dog and we see a dead squirrel, I run away.
5. I love my Snuggie! I joke a lot that I am going to bring my Snuggie to school with me when the weather gets colder, because the word on the street is that my room is the coldest in the building. I am probably the coldest person in the building on any given day, so this is not a good combination.
6. I have two cousins who I love like sisters! They are my BCFs (Best Cousin Friends). One of them is going to the University of Illinois right now to be a teacher! When she has a classroom and starts a blog, she will be popular fast because she is very creative and artistic!!
7. I love using exclamation points!! In college, I got points taken off on several projects because I overused exclamation points. I can't help it, I'm just excited a lot!

That was a really lame list but oh wells! I was going to to type out my list of Versatile Bloggers, but instead, I'd like to direct you to my sidebar where it says Bloggers Who Inspire Me!! These peeps are all amazing and share great ideas that help me be less boring in the classroom. Some of my new favorites are:

Mrs. Williamson has THE CUTEST IDEAS!! She makes me want to teach Kindergarten.

Mrs. King also has cute ideas, especially her new adaptation of The Techy Teacher's cloud viewer! And first grade is a challenge for me right now, so she is a good help!!

Hope is also amazing, and she teaches second grade, so that's the other half of my kids!!

Ms. Alley teaches in CPS - my dream! I love to see what she can do with the limits on her as a CPS teacher.

And it wouldn't be an award post without mentioning Meredith at Keen on Kindergarten!!!! I want to fly her to Illinois so that she can guide me in Math Work Stations. I think maybe I should stop saying that and just try them.....................

That's all!! Happy Sunday!!

Can You Say Peace?

I mentioned on Wednesday that we had celebrated International Peace Day by reading Can You Say Peace?

Yesterday, after five long days of practicing the play at least three times a day (if not more), we finally went to the other classrooms in the building to perform! I was so proud of my students. No one blanked and forgot all of their lines, generally they were not talking to each other while others were saying their parts, and they were very eager to help when people forgot a word here or there.

I printed out a flag of each student's country so that they could color it. Then we glued the flags to the jumbo popsicle sticks to make flags that they could hold! The countries and languages represented were: India, America, Japan, Australia (although I do not know what language this was!), Mexico, Iran, Russia, China, France, Ghana, and Bolivia. The kids LOVED coloring their flags and seeing in "real life" (on the internet) what the flags looked like. They thought it was amazing.

Just by coincidence, I read aloud a book to my students this week that talked about peace, too! When I'm at the library getting books for my content areas, I like to grab random books to read aloud. This time, I grabbed The Alphabet Tree by Leo Lionni, just because I like him as an author.

The book is about letters who live on leaves, and one day they get blown off the leaves by a wind and they're scared. A Word Bug comes along and tells them that they'll be strong if they come together to make words, and later a caterpillar says they should make sentences! An "important" sentence that they make is something like: Peace on earth, and goodwill towards all men. It tied in nicely to our week, and by accident!!

This post is linked to the Week in Review linky party hosted by Clutter-free Classroom!