A Little Bit of Sunshine for the Teachers

I'm not sure every school has a Sunshine Club but I think they should.  One of our kindergarten teachers a few years back in hopes of reminding us to have fun teaching and build camaraderie.  At our school we collect "dues" at the beginning of the year and then use the money to purchase gifts for our awesome support staff and principal but also do bring cheer during in each month.  I have been the Sunshine person since last year and I can I tell you it is a lot of fun trying to find ways to make the other teachers smile.  Of course Pinterest has helped A LOT!  I ended last year by giving each teacher a Chocolate Chip Stuffed Oreo Cookie, they were a hit.  This year in September we had bagels at the end of the first full week of school.  During October I had the teachers boo-ing each other.  "Boo-ing" was SO fun.  First I went to the grocery store and bought a whole bunch of treats and goodies along with some Halloween goodie bags.  I then premade some bags and had children deliver them to a few teachers.  Each bag had a clue attached to it that once solved would tell the teacher who they had to Boo.  Those teachers then had to come to my room and put together a bag for person and come up with a new clue.  It was fun to read all the clues they came up with.  The funniest thing was having the kids ask when they were going to get "Boo-ed" and getting so excited to deliver treat bags.  Now that November is pretty much half way over I am trying to figure out what to do next.  My brain is trying to find a way to "RACK" our faculty and get them "RACKing" in December (if you don't know about RACKing check out Cara's post on how her family is doing it) and I guess that has taken over and is not letting me think of what to do for November.  If anyone reads this blog and has suggestions please let me know!

October Round Up

1B did a lot in October that I wasn't able to blog about.  I figured I would just post some pictures and ideas that were my fave this month.  Onto the October highlights...

 We learned about Columbus and had a Columbus Day treat, inspired by Pinterest of course.  For Columbus day I had my students design Coat of Arms for their families.  Through Babble.com I learned that Columbus had a book of demands, eh request.  A coat of arms was one of them.

 My sweet AJ being silly while eating one of Columbus's ships...

 The kids learned how to make lists and used them in our Coat of Arms project.

 The whole 1st grade LOVED Abby's Candy Corn Bandit Unit and had a blast looking for the caper.  They are still talking about who it is and swear it is one of our sweet school secretaries.

 They firsties were SO excited to find the clues and figure out who it was they didn't even care that they didn't get to enjoy the candy corns till our Cars 2 Movie Party a couple days later!

We also had our Publishing Party after completing Lucy Calkins Unit 1.  I am going to do a separate post about that though.  It was really a great event!

1B Hearts Mo Willems

This summer my little AJ became obsessed with Mo Willems and all his books.  So of course as the mommy teacher I am, I went to the library and got any book I could find by Mo Willems.  This is how my love affair with Mr. Willems began.  We followed him on Twitter and learned how he was both an author and illustrator.  I found that AJ was able to read most of the Elephant and Piggie books herself and this was boosting her confidence as a reader.  She also started trying to draw the characters.  We became frequent vistors of MoWillems.com and Pigeon Presents.  Needless to say her obession became mine. 

     When planning for this school year I decided Mo (I can call him that now since I follow him on Twitter and all) would be our September author.  To introduce my kids to Mo I started with this simple craft. 

              

(picture to be added later, it's on my home computer)

We painted paper plates gray, added googlie eyes, and big ears to make our own Geralds.  All month we read his books and used them to identify characters, settting and other reading skills from Treasures.  We also learned to draw The Pigeon and other characters.  Well, can I just tell you that now 1B LOVES Mo, too!  I get families of drawn pigeons almost daily.  Once we finished a "Mo book" I put it in a bin for "book shopping" before Daily 5 Read to Self and they are fought over by my firsties.  To drill home character, setting and sequence we made a story elements display for our hallway.  I put the kids in groups according to their favorite story and assigned one person to be in charge of each element.  I think they came out AWESOME!  You can see some of our Gerald plates along the right side. 

Lastly we made class books based on the titles we read in class.  Here are some of what my kiddos came up with.  I used this lesson to assess how they were doing with writing sentences and what we need to review.  I contemplated having the kids edit these, but decided since this our first "book" I would leave them just like so.  I have photocopied them though and plan to have the photocopies edited as morning work.  If you would like to use these printables please feel free.  Class Book Pages  On their own they are nothing special but once the kids put their spin on them I think they turn out great. 



I love how Gerald is doing a flip!

  

How fun would it be to play tag with Pigeon! 



Can you tell we just talked about labeling?  I think discussing in Writer's Workshop and Treasures helped drill it in!



This little guy underlined banana because he remembered just keep writing not focus on spelling.  Love it!

 

Gerald's eyebrows crack me up!  He really looks mad!

I believe these characters have actually become part of our class! 



I wonder how many Knuffle Bunnies will be on Christmas lists



 

    

I, of course had to join in the fun and made my own page.  :)

I am desperately trying to get HR's first grade classes tickets to see Knuffle Bunny at the Kennedy Center.  Sadly, all they have available at the moment is 19 seats... so I put us on the waiting list for 50 :/, say a prayer for us.  I am sure seeing Knuffle Bunny the Musical would be an awesome surprise! 







It's a Buddy Thing

At HR each class has a buddy class from a different grade.  Our buddies are in 4th grade and we try to meet with them on full day Fridays.  We go to mass with them about twice a month and try to fit in "Read to Someone" once a month as well.  This week our 4th grade buddies helped us make some really cute owls to hang in our room.  Some 4th grade buddies even leave bucket notes for their buddy!  This seems to make the little guys SO happy!


Some Firsties are lucky enough to have two buddies! 



My guys filled their brownie pan last week and asked to please have their first brownie party with their budies.  So today 4th Grade joined us for brownies.  I thought it was so sweet that my class wanted to share with their buddies and even understood that they earn the most points at mass so really they couldn't have done it without their buddies. 

It's the Doubles

We're learning the double addition facts in math right now.  Saxon has a really cute "Doubles Rap"  that is used to teach kids the problems and answers.  Below is a video of 1B rapping...

It's the doubles, baby!

Let's go! Let's go!

It's the doubles, baby,

And it starts with ZERO!

0+0=0 Oh!

1+1=2 Ooooooh!

2+2=4 More!

3+3=6 Kicks!

4+4=8 That's great!

5+5=10 Again!

6+6=12 That’s Swell! 

7+7=14 Let's lean!

8+8=16 Really Keen!

9+9=18 Jelly Bean!

10+10=20 That's plenty!



Writer's Workshop

We started Lucy Calkin's Primary Units of Writing last week and it is going pretty well.  I have set up my classes "Writing Kits" like this...

They all have a folder which is labeled Drafts and To Publish. 

We made "Writing Groups" which are different colors.  I put each groups materials in an old Saxon Math box. 

On the front I have the group members numbers.  We have writing captians which are in charge of getting their groups materials each week.  I pretty much just go down the numbers. 

Inside each box is each child's writing folder, blue and black markers and new paper. 

It has been really fun to see the kids apply the skills they learn during mini lessons to all their writing.  I have seen Bucket Notes with words underlined because they aren't sure of the spelling but just wanted to get their thought down on the note.  I plan to have moms from my class come in for publishing and editing at the beginning of November.  I am still looking for a good set up to house all the materials we use during writing workshop.  I have begged my husband to make a 2x3 large cube system for me but he insists I just buy one at Target.  I don't think it will fit the space I have so I am still looking. 

 The kids love the mini lessons and helping me come up with what I should write.

They also enjoy the after workshop share! 

How 1st Grade Does "Words with Friends"

  

Yesterday I introduced the Work on Words component of the Daily 5 to my class.  While blogstalking this weekend I came across this fabulous worksheet by Michelle Oaks.  While doing my grocery shopping this weekend I picked up some boxes of Scrabble Cheez Its to share with my firsties.  "Munch a Word" along with "Stamp Your Spelling Words" was perfect way to get my kids excited about Work On Words.  I challenged them to come up with 5 words in each column.  I will definitely have to have a follow up mini lesson for each activity but it definitely got them hyped about practicing their spelling and sight words. 

This week I also plan on introducing Spelling Tiles, Sight Word Games and Word Sorts.  We will practice them as a class for about two weeks and then I hope to put on a few at a time for those children who pick Work on Words for one of their D5 rounds.  I downloaded Erica Bohrer's Read the Room worksheet on TPT and hope to use that as well but I am not sure if it is intended or classifies as word work.  I am guessing it will in 1B :)