Summer Reading

I know it has been a long time since I blogged.  Please excuse my absence, my life has been a bit crazy.

It all started back on April 22 when my little grand baby was born.  She is so adorable I can not help but spend as much of my free time with her.

Then in May my second son got married.   It was a beautiful wedding.

I completed a 25 mile ride for the arts.

I finished off the school year and packed up the classroom.

Today I sanded the lockers.

I'll show you some photos tomorrow.

Enough excuses......Here is the book I am reading this summer.

I am giving myself a schedule so that you can hold be accountable for reading the book.

If you would like to join me that would be great.  After each chapter I am going to write about one idea or thought that I could use in my classroom.  

June 16th  Chapters 1 & 2

June 23 Chapters 3 & 4

June 30 Chapters 5 & 6

July 7 Chapters 7 & 8

July 14 Chapters 9 and Final Thoughts

Monkey Business

This week in first grade we are going to have a little monkey business going on during our reading time.  We are reinforcing our reading skills using the book, Caps for Sale.

As we were making text to text connections, my first graders came up with a list of other monkey books that they have read or would recommend to their friends:

Curious George

Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

Five Little Monkeys Sitting in the Tree

Five Little Monkeys Reading A Book

Five Little Monkeys Baking A Birthday Cake

Five Little Monkeys Wash the Car

Monkey Monkey's Trick

Good Night Gorilla

More Spaghetti, I Say

I found a wonderful poem about a monkey in the book Pick A Poem.

  ( My favorite poetry book this year.) 

 The title of the poem is, Monkey's Meal. 

 I typed up the poem for the children's poetry notebook and made a follow up worksheet. 

Click Here if you would like a copy. 

The Best Teacher Appreciation Card

I think this is just about the best card I have every received.  A little girl in my  first grade class gave it to me today.  I loved that she tried to use adjectives from last week’s lesson in the card to describe what she loved about me.  We did the same thing with our friend clouds, also she gave me a dozen chocolate chip cookies.  Yummy!  

Happy Teacher Day to You!

A New Family Member

I am sorry I have not blogged much.  I have been so distracted with wedding and baby showers lately.   However the craziness is all worth it, because this week our newest family member arrived.

Little Haddie

I think she is the most beautiful baby around.  However, I am a bit biased being the proud grandma.  

I put together these candy bars for my first graders.  I colored in the word she in pink and tied pink bows on them.  

The boys in my classroom room where a bit disappointed they wanted boy candy bars.  It took a bit to explained that they were getting the candy because my family welcomed a new baby girl.  

It still did not matter several boys were upset at the end of the day that they had to have girl candy.  

Hopefully after my second son's wedding in a couple weeks everything will settle down.  

This Week in First Grade April 21

In first grade this week we will begin our new science unit about weather.  There are several lessons in the book that I will be doing however in addition to the text book I found a wonderful unit by Kristen Smith.  There are some amazing ideas in the unit that I can not wait to share with my class.

source

I found a poem about a rainbow this week.

I have a homework page for the poem as well.    If you would like a copy of the poem and homework page Click Here.

The week before vacation, we made Adjective Rainbows.  It was an idea I saw on Pinterest.  It went perfect with our Religion lesson on The Golden Rule.  How should we treat others.......the same way we want others to treat us.  We brainstormed a list of positive adjectives....

Then the children thought of kind adjectives to describe their friends.   We picked names out of a basket to fill out the strips.  The group of children met together and discussed what were the best adjectives to put on the rainbow and surprise the special person on the cloud.   It was such a treat to find out what kind things the other children thought about each student.  It was the highlight of the day.  The first graders loved this activity.  This is something I will do again next year.

I found three great books to read about clouds to the students as well.

 

I am looking forward to a fun week back with my students.
Sue

Flat Stanley

This week my class is reading Flat Stanley.  Flat Stanley is a tradition in first grade at the school that I teach at.  So I am making an effort to make this work with my first graders as well.    I found this poem about children around the world and I thought it would be perfect for this week.

I know Flat Stanley travels to California but this poem is so cute.  Here is a lucky bonus for me as well,  we are learning about recycling in science.  

Click Here for a Free Copy

What a great way to tie everything all together.  

Lenten Cross

It's hard to see in this photo but these are the Lenten promises my students made this year.  I gave each student a popsicle stick and they wrote down what they promised to do to show their love to Jesus.  Some students added flowers and hearts.    Then I hot glued all the sticks together to make a cross.  

The cross was not very sturdy so I taped all the the sticks together as well.

Now this beautiful cross hangs in our classroom and reminds us daily of our promises to Jesus.