Sunday, March 22, 2015

Happy Birthday to me :) Dec-Feb

Today is my Birthday and I'm feeling so proud of all the cool activities that I have done this year with my class. There are so many I haven't had time to post about due to my busy schedule but, here goes...

December 

Christmas around the world (social studies unit). My students created their own suitcase and we traveled daily via the internet and various presentations to these countries.  They were so excited soak in all the information about all the cultures.










FaceTime with Santa- Since I happen to know Santa :) me and my coworker were able to chat with him via FaceTime after we sent our letters to him. All the students were so excited to see him and it was a great way to end the writing unit on friendly letters.





January- February 

We got sponsored again on Donors Choose for some great additions to our classroom library. We can't thank our donors enough! 




100 days of school celebration! The students were given a 100 days of school folder with activities and each student created a poster of 100 items to bring and share. We did a rotation of some awesome activities. The students took their photos in a photo booth, the counted 100 snack items, created 100 fruit loops necklace, wrote about what their life will be like at 106 or 107, the also read 100 days of cool and looked for patterns on my giant 100's chart by hoping with their shoes off. We as teachers also wore the t-shirts I created that say "My students are 100 days SMARTER!" They had a blast! 













We prepped all month for our schools family Reading Night and it was a total success. I was a member of the Reading Night committee and I helped create the flyer, banner, student passports, the brochure and the signs. 














 My grade levels activity was fishing and hunting for high frequency words. I'm putting together a Family Reading Night Packet and it will soon be available for purchase in my teachers pay teachers store as well as our reading night booklet.




















The last Friday of the month of February we celebrated Dr. Seuss's Birthday by integrating him into all our lessons. During breakfast we listened and watched the YouTube for  "Green Eggs and Ham" in Spanish. During writing we wrote about our favorite story. During our reading block we were able to have a parent volunteer come and read "The Cat in the Hat" in Spanish. In social studies we read Dr. Seuss's biography and many students were surprised to read that he never had any children of his own. In math we created Suessville. We had been studying 3D figures and the students were given a 3D net that they decorated and created their own version of what Dr. Seuss's city would look like. In addition, we as teachers dressed as The Cat in the Hat and our students were our Thing 1 and Thing 2's. At the end of the day we passed out green eggs and ham and Cat and The Hat snacks. 
















Monday, March 9, 2015

Flashback: of Clay Animation Videos

Hello All! I am on spring break and remembering when I taught 4th grade for 3 years. In those 3 years we created some cute student stock motion or clay animation videos over some science concepts. I started by providing a group of students with a basic science concept as "The life cycle of a butterfly" or "Mixtures and Solutions and the students had to write a story behind it. The story had to have a beginning, middle and end that had some sort of a problem and solution. Then the students were required to create a story board or pictures of the scenes that they would build. This took some planning but the results were very rewarding. See below what a few of my groups created. 

My next thought is how can I adapt this to fit my new class of 1st graders who are ready to create a similar project as well... Now there is some food for thought! 


Mixtures and Solutions 




Food Webs 



Food webs in Spanish 

Measuring Length Poster

I created this poster to help students differentiate the difference between standard and non-standard measurement of length. It was based on one I found on Pintrest but I have added some other items that we use in my district to teach non-standard measurement. I hope that you will find it helpful to use with your students. Click on the link above to download this freebie. 

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Extra Yard Teacher Summit 2015


 Today me and my mom attended the Extra Yard Teacher Summit 2015. It was so very awesome! So many teachers and former students of wonderful teachers spoke and reignited my joy for teaching. They also so eloquently reminded me that we are there for the students. Which I am very aware of but in these days of mountains of paperwork, data analysis, HIGH stakes testing and limited budgets many times its easy to loose sight of that. So I'm thankful for these teachers and their words. Teachers don't loose your JOY and don't forget the reason you wake up every day, those sweet babies looking at you for guidance and support.

 Video of the Extra Yard Teacher Summit 2015 

 


 One of the key note speakers was Condoleezza Rice and and a volunteer was a designer that helps designs classes for teachers on eudtopia