Lovin' Our Moms!

Super excited for Mother's Day.  Reason #1...I have the most awesome mom in the world!!  She's the best!  Reason #2...I'm a mommy that will be celebrating her FIRST Mother's Day!  Woohooooo!  Being a mommy is the 100%, hands-down, absolutely the best thing in the world!  Reason #3...First graders LOVE their mommas and we have so much fun working on cards, crafts, and fun stuff for them!  I've been loving all the mother's day ideas you've all been posting.  I think I might attempt the Mother's Day plates with the kiddos next week that I saw on Teacher Bits and Bobs blog.  Awesome!  As I've been trying to figure out just what to do, I came up with this little project to work on in writing.  We're going to be using "The Important Book" to use as a model for stories about our moms.  We'll brainstorm important things about our moms and adjectives to describe our mommas.  We'll wrap up our stories by publishing them in this little book to give to our moms.  I'll be sure to post pics of the finished products and the art projects we create next week.  Click on the book cover to see a copy of the book.  

What other fun things do you have planned for Mother's Day in your class?

I found cute little wooden flowers (like 10 to a pack) from Dollar Tree.  We'll be painting/glittering them up, adding a small picture of each kid to be in the center of the flower, and adding a magnet to the back for our moms to put on their fridges! 

 Click here for the additional brainstorm/adjectives pages.  Enjoy!

Newspaper Hats

Okay....I LOVE teaching and being creative and when spring rolls around, my firsties and I get to work on my favorite project...our annual spring hat parade & performance.  Today was our last day before Spring Break (woooooohoooooo) and all the first graders at our school came decked out in their 'Sunday Best' and we paraded and performed wearing our gorgeous spring hats.  I got the idea several years ago from a coworker during my first year of teaching.  Each year since the whole process evolves and grows.  We start with newspaper, turn them into hats, and then decorate them.  I like to say they look like an Easter basket on your head!  We learned spring songs and poems and performed for our families and the rest of the school.  Directions for how to make the hats can be found at http://www.kinderteacher.com/SpringHats.htm.  Here are a few pics of our fun day!  

 

My fabulous mom came to help out!  It is quite a large undertaking to make hats, paint them, put Easter grass on them and decorate.  Takes a lot of helpers! 

SIght Word Fun Giveaway

Over at Made for 1st Grade, Kelly & Diane have come up with a great sight word packet that they have posted at their TPT store. The Sight Word Fun Pack is loaded with games and activities to teach/reinforce those oh so important sight words.  Check it out!
Happy Monday!

A Few of My Favorite (Non-Teacher Related) Things

Linking up with Katie from Persnickety Pickles for a few of my favorite things (NON-Teacher Related)....Here we go....
1. My hubby, BJ, and 9 month old son, Carter.  My two absolute favorite men eva!!  Watching them play every evening and hearing laughs and giggles makes my day complete.  I love being a mommy and wife!

2. Sleeping In ~ ahhhhhhhh, my bed & me snuggled up on a Saturday morning **sigh** doesn't happen too often with a 9 month old, so the mornings BJ takes Carter & I sleep in are lovely :-)
3.  Target - I'm there at least twice a week, maybe more, just don't tell my hubby :-)

4.  Blankets ~ I seriously have no less than 2 blankets per room in my house.  That's what happens when your hubby likes sub-Arctic temperatures.  A fuzzy, warm blanket + me = happiness!

5.  Strawberries - So dang excited that it is almost strawberry season here in NC! Can't wait to take Carter to pick his first strawberries.  Dip them in chocolate, sugar, whipped cream, no matter...I love me some strawberries!

6.  My mom - Seriously, I wouldn't survive without her.  I love talking to her DAILY (usually more than once) and spending time with her shopping, playing with mr. carter, or being crafty!  She is the best

7.  My Rainbow flip-flops.  I live in them.  I wear them summer, fall, winter, spring, no matter.  Just wish I could wear them to school (I keep an extra pair *hidden* in my room to wear when the 'cute' shoes start to hurt).

Going Bananas for Dollar Deals

Check out my latest little find from the Target dollar section...

 

I've been working on center activities for after Spring Break.  (No Spring Break for me until next week...sooooo ready) I've come up with a literacy center for the monkey container.  We will be working with the /oo/ sounds after break, so we'll be 'Goin' Bananas' to practice.  Students will sort the bananas by the oo sound like in soon and the oo sound like in book.  They will feed the monkey only the /oo/ words (like in 'book').  The bananas that make the /oo/ sound, like in soon, will be 'rotten' and the monkey can't eat them!  Then students will record words on the tree map to show how they sorted the bananas.  I use a Sound Muncher in my room weekly and these little guys will be used in the same way ~ to sort words for word study.  Click on the picture to download the bananas and tree map.

p.s.~ elephant and peanut activity for math coming soon!

Monday....Here We Go!

Lindsey at The Teacher Wife is hosting a 'Market Yourself Monday' for teachers to share their blogs.  Check it out!  She has an awesome blog with fantastic ideas!

Hope everyone has a great week!  Still new to the blogging thing, but loving all the ideas everyone shares! 

Similes...We've Been As Busy As Bees!!

My firsties and I have been talking a lot about writing stories that are very descriptive so that the reader has a good mental image of their story.  This week, we worked with similes.  We read the book, "Quiet as a Cricket" and learned how to write our own similes.  I tell them I do not want 'baby-kindergarten' sentences, I want first grade sentences packed with details.  And viola...they certainly don't want to be compared to kinders, so they rise to the challenge of making their writing more descriptive.  We made these cute little simile books to help us remember what similes are.  I gave them the words at the top of each page, like hot and fluffy and they had to come up with a simile comparing two things.  They worked very hard and turned out great!  I love it when they are excited to share their work with me and beg to take it home that day to show their mommas!!  Here are a couple and I especially oh so l-o-v-e the volcano erupting one! 

 Okay, here goes...first try at sharing something from Google Docs...let's see how it goes!  Click here if you would like a copy of the simile booklet!  Enjoy!
 

If you have any great ideas for teaching similes, please share!  

Next weeks writing focus...onomatopoeia!  Buzz! Zap! Ka-Boom! We'll be reading tons of Froggy Books...they're loaded with great onomatopoeia words.  Click here to download an onomatopoeia book similar to the simile book.

And for a bit of randomness to wrap things up, I have been dying to do Babbling Abby's (from The Inspired Apple) Color Word Adjective Lesson with my nice, new big box of 96 Crayola's!  So I sat on the couch Thursday evening and tortured my hubby by making him guess the colors as I picked the ones I wanted to use on Friday.  (He puts up with so much!!  I love him!!)  My favorites by far were razzmatazz and jazzberry jam...so fun to say!  Friday to wrap up our writing, we did this fun little activity.  We read the book, "The Crayon Box That Talked" first and had a little talk about the theme of the book.  

Then on to the crayons!  It tied in perfectly with our similes.  We talked about how being more descriptive with our colors allows the reader to have a more clear mental image.  A fun way to end the week.  

 Reason 1,452 I love Dollar Tree...the lovely green crayon piggy bank I stuck on the wall to display with their sentences.