Peter Piper Picked A Peck of Bell Peppers?!!!! Whoo Hooo!

Look what our little garden produced!!!!  We are so proud!  We had to split this little pepper between our two classes so they could all have a taste!!!  The kiddos were so excited:)  There are also some tomotoes growing and I think I spotted a yellow bell pepper starting to grow as well!!! 



Synergize Day and Gardening

Today was wonderful! Me and a fellow 1st grade teacher, along with our classes, have started a garden at our school.  I am so excited!  Mainly because I know if I don't even do this at home, I can be sure that most of my kiddos have never had this opportunity either!  You should've seen them - so eager to learn and help out!  We started with a large group lesson - both classes, and each group of partners got to plant a vegetable or flower in a pot a few months ago, those seeds have grown into full grown plants, and today we transferred them to our little garden!!!!  We have a wonderful grandpa that helped us till the ground and brought in soil and some plant support stands.  He taught the kiddos about planting, watering, etc.  I wish my kiddos were as engaged in all our learning as they were today!  We are growing pumpkins, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, mint leaves, etc.  I can't wait to extend this learning for the rest of the year and on into the years to come!!!  I love me some outdoor classrooms:)!!!

Oh, you will see my class in all red, and my friend's class all with necklaces on!  Our school supports the 7 habits program, a character education program that is AWESOME!  We have a dress up day for each of the habits and today was "Synergize" day - we had to all work together and "synergize" to come up with an idea of what we could all wear to be dressed alike!  Our class voted on red shirts and blue jeans because we knew that was something we all would have and we wanted everyone to be able to participate!  So fun!  

Storybook Character Dress Up Day 2011

It was storybook character dress up day at school today!  This is me and another teacher on my team!  The kiddos LOVED it and were quite cute I must say!  I had a Stellaluna, a Junie B. Jones, a zebra, a pirate, a witch from The Wizard of Oz, Coraline, etc.  I am not sure if some of these are books but whatev - we had fun!!!!  One little girl said, "Hey, you are the one who messed up the whole house!!!"  Cracked me up!!!!

Wonderful Winter Stuff:)

Well, we are settling back in the groove and it feels good.  Report cards just went out, DRA testing is over for this 6 weeks, and TPRI testing is underway.  I am feeling a little blue lately with all the big holidays being over, but looking forward to the growth I'm already seeing in my sweet kiddos at this point!  

To brighten things up I have been researching a few winter activities and just wanted to share:

I think we are going to do most of these on Friday as a culmination to all we are learning about this week!

There's nothing like a little warm and toasty hot chocolate to get you in the winter spirit eh?  My principal made this delicious hot chocolate and brought it to school for all of us one day - it is sooooo good - I thought it'd be fun to share it with my students - the recipe is on pinterest, just search crockpot hot chocolate, or click on the link above the pic to take you there - YUM!  

http://pinterest.com/pin/79376012152172195

Also from pinterest, if you search the wonderful Heather Price, you will find this free snowy contractions activity with contraction puzzle pieces.  I introduced my kiddos to contractions this last week and they are rockin' it!!! Cara Carroll at www.thefirstgradeparade.blogspot.com also did a super cute activity with contractions - see her blog for details!

And finally, I've been searching for an activity to do with marshmallows!!!  This one is a super fun dice game where students roll the dice, add that number to 10, and use marshmallows as their markers!  Great for teaching addition by 10's!  You can find it here www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Toasty-Tens-Mini-Marshmallow-Math, under Easy Peasy Primary Resources - for FREE!!!

Hope these help you get through the winter blahs this next week!  Its always better when we make it fun, right?!

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

As part of our curriculum we have to discuss Martin Luther King Jr. and his contributions to our world.  I am so glad we had to discuss him and was thrilled to see my 1st graders actually "get it" when we discussed what his dream meant and what he wanted for his children, and for all of us.  We started out by reading this book:

A Picture Book of Martin Luther King Jr.

I think the kiddos really connected with this one because it talked about him when he was a kid and how he was treated by others, etc.  

Then we completed this mini unit by the gracious Erin Eberhart - thanks Erin!

Just go to www.teacherspayteachers.com and search Erin Eberhart to get your FREE Martin Luther King Jr. mini unit!  I know it may be too late for this year but you can file it away for next year!

Back in the Groove!

Oh man, it has been hard coming back from break, is anyone else feeling this way???  Anyone else needing to pump a little more caffeine into their veins like me???  Anyhoo, we jumped right back in with a little measuring activities brought to us by the well-known Investigations curriculum...here are some of my kiddos measuring fish:)  They actually thought this was kind of fun!

And thanks to Cara Carroll at The First Grade Parade and www.theteacherwife.blogspot.com, I conglomerated their two ideas to have my students create these Happy New Year faces - LOVE them.  They wrote their New Year resolutions inside and we discussed a lot about making/setting goals, etc.  

Gotta love this one - yes...I would take her home:)  And...I think she's getting pretty close, don't you?!!!

And how cute is this??  Should I tell his mommy???  I wonder if she's seen the evidence of this resolution???

We read this book before starting the New Year faces...its one of the ONLY books I (or one of my teammates rather) could find about New Years...anyone else out there have any good ones - I'd love more ideas, I searched and searched - this one is pretty cute!

And...since we were talking about all things "new", I threw this one in there and talked about how we all sometimes want to be someone new but that we are all perfect just the way we are...it was a great segway into Martin Luther King Jr. Day by the way:)!

SO...how's it going for you?  Are you off to a great start?  Feeling refreshed and re-energized?  Well, thank goodness for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday is all I have to say...best of luck to you in this new year!!!  I am praying for lots of energy and inspiration to be creative!!!  Hoping the same for you!

Amazing New Year and Valentine Free Stuff! WOWZA!

Two things to get you pumped up for the New Year and the next upcoming holiday...

Cara Carroll over at www.thefirstgradeparade.blogspot.com has an AMAZING freebie - 43 pages people of unbelievable New Year's activities to get you back in the groove!!!  Click on her picture to take you there:

Then...Lindsey over at www.theteacherwife.blogspot.com has the most adorable valentines for you, your kids, your classroom, etc.  I am totally doing this this year - Dollar Tree here I come!!!  Again, click on her picture below to head on over and get you some!  The first picture will take you to her blog, the second will take you directly to the printable I think!

I just want to say thank you SO MUCH to these two ladies for offering their talent to all of us like this - can I get an AMEN?!!!  You guys are INCREDIBLE!!!