“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”

That quote is from Albert Camus! (He was a French Nobel Prize winning author, journalist, and philosopher.

I absolutely LOVE fall!  It truly is like the quote where every leaf is a flower!  The fall colors are absolutely beautiful!  We've been having some fall fun in my classroom!

First of all, I want to post something that I mentioned in a previous post but never posted the picture:

 

Back at the beginning of September, I mentioned Have You Filled a Bucket Today .  This was the art project that went along with it.  The hand prints on the bucket are black and white.  Mine is the black one on the bottom.  Then the student's paint their hand white and put it on top of the black once it has dried.  The idea came from here.

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Each week, the first graders practice a different chunk.  A few weeks ago we did the -ap chunk.  During that week we read Caps For Sale, one of my FAVORITE books.  Well, the students got to make their OWN monkey with a cap!  Check it out!

 

It's not shown in the picture but on an orange sentence strip I wrote, "You monkeys you, you give me back my caps!!!!" The kiddos LOVED this projet!!! :-)  (I love the glasses on the one in the top row and all the rainbow colored hats!!!)

Of course I had to make a tree - although I didn't put the monkeys in the tree.  The kids and I made what has become an annual fall tree!

Let's break this down piece by piece!

The kids traced and cut their own hands!

The trunk I made myself.  After the leaves were up, the students made the squirrels during art center!  I can't find the pictures I took of them making the squirrels but it was so adorable!

The red squirrel eyes crack me up every time!!!

The final piece to our fall motif was making leaf pile kids!  I found the idea for the leaf pile kids here!

I love how this student made his hair just like his own!!!!!

Here is my teacher sample that I made along with the kiddos!

And finally on display....

For this project, we watched 3 short Autumn / Fall clips on Discovery Education.  Then we brainstormed facts about Fall and wrote them down.  The students produced their writing from the list.  After the writing, they finally put their leaf pile person together!!! :-)

This was a fun project - and a LONG project! :-)  But the kids loved it so it was worth it!!!

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Every Wednesday during our center rotations, one of the centers the students go to is puzzle center.  I truly believe the puzzles help their hand-eye coordination and the way they look at things.  This past Wednesday, I gave them a puzzle they had never seen before and they LOVED it.  They worked so hard together to complete it.  Here are a few pics!

The second I took the puzzle out of the drawer, the entire class shouted, "THE AVENGERS!!!!!!!!!!!!"  I think they were just a little bit excited!!!

Earlier this week we also did a Columbus activity but I don't have those pictures yet so I'll post about that next time! :-)

Thanks for reading!  Please make sure to follow my blog and share with your friends! :0)

Enjoy the rest of this "Second Spring!"

Stacey

 

Some musings from this week

Happy Saturday everyone!

I don't have pictures from this week (YET) but I wanted to share some JOYS from the week!

1.  Reading testing started on Tuesday.  I finished Wednesday afternoon!

2.  Reading group rotations started Thursday. The kids adjusted really quickly!

3.  I read "The Day the Monster Came to School."  As I was reading it, I acted it out. Yes, this involved me climbing on chairs, dropping supplies on the floor, screaming, etc...  The kids CRACKED up!

4.  I brought my teammate's class down after lunch as she was just getting back from running an errand.  I decided to read an Elephant & Piggie book to them. Between my voices and the story, the kids were cracking up at every page!  Their laughs make me smile and laugh!

5.  My students love the Whole Brain Teaching rules.  Once a day we stand up and recite them.  They LOVE doing it!  We do 4/5 rules but we also added one.  Here we go:
                           
         Rule #1:  Follow directions quickly!
         Rule #2:  Raise your hand for permission to speak.
         Rule #3:  Make smart choices!
         Rule #4:  Be a bucket filler!
         Rule #5:  Keep your dear teacher happy!

6.  My kids loved Have You Filled a Bucket Today.  We did an art project with it. (Pictures coming soon!)

That's all for now!  What were your joys of the week?

Stacey 

September / October Posts

Since I'm just starting my blog, I wanted to play catch up and post some pictures from earlier in the school year!

One of the things I decided to do was read Have You Filled a Bucket Today?.  It really hit home with the students! (Still today, they will say things like "Thanks for filling my bucket!" or "You are a bucket dipper!)  I followed up by reading some of the other books by the same author.  I also read Each Kindness.  It is an AMAZING book.  Check it out here on Amazon!  

http://www.amazon.com/Each-Kindness-Addams-Award-Awards/dp/0399246525/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1385838713&sr=1-1&keywords=each+kindness 

 Anyway, as a follow up, we created our own buckets.  (I saw this on the Jammin' in the Jungle News blog)  This was the result of our project: 

The kids had a great time making these!

We also made fall kindness trees! On *most* of the leaves, are ways to be kind to others!

To add to our fall setting / theme, we made scarecrows!  I got this idea from The Kindergarten Smorgasboard (He is soooooo awesome!)

Unfortunately, this is all I took pictures of the first 2 months of school. My next post will be all about November (and by golly it was a busy month!!!)

:-)
Stacey