First Graders Rock!!!

Sorry it's been awhile since posting!  Recently, our school family suffered a lost when our beloved IDA passed away after battling colon cancer.  She was a remarkable lady whom we will love and remember forever! <3 <3 <3

Every other Monday, we have a staff meeting after school.  This past Monday was a staff meeting day.  Upon walking in the room, we saw that all of the chairs were in different areas of the room.  We were not to move the chairs at all from their spots.

Once the meeting started, one of the 3rd grade teachers led the meeting.  This teacher is AWESOME.  She inspires me everyday!  Each year, her class creates an original opera.  They work on it all year and in May, the students perform it for the school, their parents, and community members.

Mary Ruth, the teacher, said there was one empty chair in the room.  Our job was to make sure she didn't sit in the empty chair.  We basically had to move 1 chair at a time.  So if I got up to go to the empty chair, someone would then have to take my seat, and someone would have to take the seat of whoever took my seat, etc...We had to make sure we were safe when moving.  We had to make sure that once we committed to moving, that we moved.

Watching us adults do it was amusing.  She asked us for our reflections throughout.  I told her that one of the reasons I moved almost every time was because she had given me a task, and I didn't want to fail at it.

Mary Ruth says she does this activity with her 3rd graders and it's amazing to watch them do it.  I loved it so much, that I asked her to do it with my firsties!!  She accepted!

She asked that I push the desks against the wall and spread out the chairs.  She said I could sit in one chair but that I shouldn't move.  She wanted me to sit back and observe.  

Let me tell you, my kids were EXCITED about this game!  They were also AMAZING at it!  They picked up faster than us adults did!

It was interesting to see who moved a lot and who didn't move.  One of the girls who moved a lot, her personality is such that she wants to make people happy.  I see her a lot like me where she didn't want to fail.  By the end, everyone had moved at least once, if not more than that!  They lasted about 40 seconds!  It was awesome!!!

I gave them a collaboration grade AND an analysis grade for this.  I was AMAZED!

I just wanted to share these 2 pictures.  The first one is how the chairs were set up.  The second is the kids in the seat talking with Mary Ruth.

After the exercise, they drew and wrote about what happened.  I'll have to post those next time.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love my job!  I love my students! I love teaching! :-)

Enjoy your weekend!

Pirate Day!!!!!!!!!!!!! RRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr......

Oh my goodness!! For a few years now I've wanted to do something for International Talk Like a Pirate Day.  Every year, I've forgotten about it!

This year, I ALMOST forgot.....except that a post I saw on Pinterest at 5PM on Thursday reminded me about it....

This crazy teacher here, went to Party City at 8PM on Thursday night and bought some Pirate accessories...

This crazy teacher here, woke up 30 minutes earlier than she usually does to dress up in her Pirate outfit, went to Krispy Kreme, and got my free dozen doughnuts!

With less than 15 hours notice, put together the most amazing day ever - all pirate themed!!!!

During our morning rotation 3 pirate activities happened.

1.  When meeting with me, we ate our ***FREE*** Krispy Kreme doughnuts and used our 5 senses to describe the doughnuts!  (For those of you who don't know, when you go to Krispy Kreme on Talk Like a Pirate Day, and you're dressed up, you get 1 dozen free doughnuts!)

2.  When meeting with my co-teacher, they play a game about words that start with the letter R!

3.  During art center, they made a paper plate pirate!

Our staff development teacher let me borrow her treasure chest with fake coins in it. The kids saw it in the morning.

We put our pirate plates around it to protect it during lunch. 

While they were gone, the treasure "Disappeared!"

A note was left with very specific directions on how to find the treasure!  (Ok so what I did was typed up directions using a special font, printed it out, painted it using watered down brown paint, let it dry, and stapled it together.)  The directions used a lot of turn left and turn right (something I've been focusing on with my first graders!)

The directions took us all over the school!  Finally, they found the treasure in the office!  The office staff said they couldn't hand over the treasure until my students recited their class rules.  (Which they did!)

Once the treasure was safely back in our room, we used it for a math lesson!  We did a lot of comparing groups of coins using greater than, less than, and equal too.  One of my groups made groups of 10 and we used those groups of ten to figure out how many coins were in the chest!

I put their pirate projects on display in the hall!

As my kiddos were talking at the end of the day, I heard, "Pirate Day was the BEST DAY EVER!!!"

I love teaching!!

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 

Welcome to a new school year!

Wow!
I hope you all enjoyed your summer! I don't know about you but summer seemed to FLY by!!!!!  I went into work a week or so before I had to.  I wanted to work in my room! :-)

I have some pics and a video tour of my room.

Ready??? Set!  GO!!!!!!

Stacey's Classroom Tour 2014

*Warning - there is NO audio!*  I also apologize because I was turning way too quickly!  Hope you don't get dizzy!!!!

My Bulletin Board (Inspired by 2 pins that I found on Pinterest of course!)

View from my front door 1

View from my front door 2

View from my front door 3

Right when you walk in my front door is my book corner.  I think it's my favorite part of my room!

Carpet from www.dormco.com  Big pillows from Big Lots

The heart light is from Target

Next up is my desk (which is now messy!)

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Tree and Truffula Tree!

I have books hidden back there

Although there is a box there now, this bookshelf will house items I use during small groups

My reading table

1-120 board made from a shower curtain, duct tape, and sharpie pen.

Sink area

Lunch menu - yes, I'm aware of the fact that my utensils are not in the right spot.  :-)

Computer Center

Whiteboard / bulletin board

Whiteboard on the other side of my bulletin board

Another table that is used for small group instruction

One more pic - view of the room from my closet!

I should point out, I've definitely changed my seating arrangements since this pic was taken!!!

Thanks for touring my room!  Hope you enjoyed it!

Here is to a FANTASTIC school year!!!!!

Stacey

RAINFOREST!!!!

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
I let way too much time pass in between posts!  I will make more of an effort to post more frequently!

The past 3 years I have done a rainforest activity with my students.  Every year it has become bigger and better.  This year's goals were 1) to give my students more of a voice and choice (project based learning style,) and 2) give tours to our parents and other classes.

Well, we certainly achieved our goals!!!

Let me backtrack here.

I started off by introducing both a coral reef and a rainforest to my students.  We looked at pictures and watched a Magic School Bus video on both.  (I picked both of those places because I love them.  They are such colorful, vibrant places, and my kids really like things like that.

I then told my students to think really hard about which of those places they would like to do a project on.   My students voted with a secret ballot and the rainforest won!

I put together a flipchart with pictures of enough rainforest animals for each student to choose 2.  I had name sticks so each time I called on a student they picked an animal.  (I picked names twice and at random.)


Once the students had their animals, it was time to get stared.  Even though each student had 2 animals, each reading group was able to learn about their group mate's animals.  I had printed information on their animals.  We read through it together and the students told me the important information we should highlight.

**Side note:  My co-teacher was working with my students on foods from the rainforest, plants, and trees.  They were learning a LOT about the rainforest.**

Once we got through the research, the students got to make their animals.  The students also made trees, flowers, and plants.

The students chose where to place them.  Then they took leaves and wrote rainforest facts, plant, facts, tree facts, and animals facts on the leaves and placed them around the rainforest.

Our rainforest looked like this:

Hallway: quetzal, toucan, parrot, gecko, iguana, tarantula, cassowary, and leaf cutter ants.

Hallway: parrot, orangutan, vampire bat, macaws, komodo dragon, caecilian, poison dart frogs, geckos, and the beginning of an anaconda.

Hallway: more of the anaconda, lemur, gorilla, queen alexandra birdwing butterfly, iguana, chameleon, and some frogs.

Hallway: The end of the anaconda, quetzal, toucan, vampire bat, lar gibbon, sloth, iguana, capybaras, caecilian, blue morpho butterfly, tarantula, gold frog, (and maybe some poison dart frogs)

Hallway: toucans, tapir blue morpho butterfly, lar gibbon, harpy eagle, beginning of a python, vampire bat, tapir, tarantula, poison dart frogs, red eyed tree frogs, leaf cutter ants, caecilian, and katydids.

Hallway: Caiman crocodile, hoatzin, jaguar, caecilian, blue morpho butterfly, great hornbill, parrot, baboon, more of the python, and more teeny, tiny frogs!

This photo is in my classroom. It includes a parrot, a baby sloth, queen alexandra birdwing butterfly, vampire bat, caecilian, tarantula, quetzal, iguana, gecko, macaw, and a few random, tiny frogs!

Also in my classroom: Capybaras, gorilla, chameleon, iguana, gecko, caecilian, red eyed tree frogs, and poison dart frogs, (the frogs are sooooo tiny!!!),

Classroom: lemur, macaw, parrot, vampire bat, gold frog, caecilian, chameleon, tarantula, poison dart frog, red eyed tree frog, and leaf cutter ants,

classroom: chimpanzee, tarantula, gold frog, caecilian, vampire bat, hoatzin, and gecko,

This photo is in my classroom. It includes a yellow boa, a macaw, and a caecilian.

So what did we do once everything was put up?  I took these pictures and their notes that they had.  I put together a packet with the pictures and their notes. We practiced this packet everyday in reading group and I even had it as a listening center. Students had this to help them when giving tours.  They gave their parents a tour.  The parents LOVED it.  I heard from many parents that they have been hearing rainforest facts for weeks!  One parent even told me that her child wanted to buy her a macaw for Mother's Day!  Cracked me up!

My students also gave a tour to 17 other classes in my school.  Needless to say, they were TOURED OUT by the time they finished.

When we finally took down our rainforest, it was VERY emotional.  Many of us were trying not to cry.

Due to testing and snow days, we didn't get as much done as I wanted to.  Other things I wanted to do:  Have the kids make binoculars for the tourists, create a brochure for the tourists to take with them, and a few other things that I'm drawing a blank on right now!

Hope you enjoyed my post!
Stacey