An Egg is Quiet...

I'm having a wonderful time with Pi Bo Id Mo! Each day I write a new idea I have for a picture book. I wish that I could illustrate, but I have first graders who can! I have always loved writing stories for my students and committing to writing each day this month has been a lot of fun! Of course, this is only day three!

To help with inspiration, I'm reading tons of picture books. Studying the way illustrators and authors work together to make the text come alive for young readers (or old readers!) is fascinating to me. Today I'm sharing a non-fiction text with you. It is such a beautiful book and one I treasure dearly. It does have birds in it, so how could I not love it!


An Egg is Quiet by Dianna Aston and illustrated by Sylvia Long is a celebration of the beauty of eggs. It includes more than 60 different types of eggs. There is so much variation among eggs. Each egg has its own beauty, shape, and color! The book not only covers bird eggs, but includes fish, turtle and insect eggs, too. If you hatched out of an egg what would your shell look like? Mine would be green with brown squiggles all over it! I'll have my students write about eggs this week and find out what their shell would look like! Click the picture if you'd like a copy to use!

Scrabbled Eggs

Please someone tell me that there was a mistake on the calendar and we have one more week of spring break...Please!  I've had such a delightful week with my own children. New spring migrants are arriving daily in my yard...Someone needs to be here to greet them, give them water and encourage them to stay and nest right here.  

Dr. Mr. Hermit Thrush, Thanks for arriving during my spring
break.  I'll try to get home early from school each day to check
your water and food situation.
Love, A friend!

I had planned on going into my classroom each day to work on different projects.  I made it twice!  I did bring stuff home to do, but it's still in my bag.  My son was moaning about all the things he wanted to do over spring break, but didn't.  I told him I felt the same way.  He replied, "Ya, but you love going to school."  He wins...again. I do love going to play work each day.  I don't know why I try to argue with a seventeen year old!

How many words can you make?
How many points can you score?

I did come up with a new "game" for my firsties to "play" tomorrow.  Scrabbled Eggs is a making words activity that can be used as a word work station.  My own children played it and gave it their seal of approval. I used an old Scrabble game that I found at a yard sale for the pieces. The directions for making and playing should be found by following the link below the pictures. 

Scrabbled Eggs

I'm excited to see my students tomorrow.  Our room will be filled with stories, sweet hugs, laughter and learning. We are all excited to  find out who Mrs. Piggle Wiggle is helping next.   Yes!  I do love school!

Sixteen Hours!

This chick is really excited about Spring Break!
I love KPM Doodles!

Sixteen. More. Hours!  I think I can...I think I can...I think I can!  Sixteen more hours until Spring Break.  I could use a break.  I was feeling a little grouchy today and apologized to one of my students about being not so cheerful.  He said he hadn't noticed; bless his heart!  I was trying to cover my lack of patience, and it must have worked.  Writing their own Psalms, three children included me as something they praised God for.  When I explained to the class that I was looking forward to having a bit of a vacation. One little girl looked shocked and said, "But Mrs. Reck won't you miss us?"  I assured her I would, but that I was looking forward to sleeping in, staying up late playing board games with my children and reading 11/22/63 by Stephen King,  not to mention all the birding and shopping I'll be able to squeeze in.  Yes!  I am looking forward to Spring Break.  I admit I'll miss my Firsties and probably spend more than a few hours blog hopping and checking on Pintrest for new and exciting ways to catch their attention and make learning fun over the break!

Eggs loaded and ready to be hidden!

Family, do you remember how much I loved hunting for Easter Eggs?  I still do!!

A up and coming young reader!

Today we did have fun.  I got this great idea from  First Upon a Time.  Before class I made tiny sentence strips.  Each strip had two sentences on it.  One of the sentences stated something they had and the next asked who had something else. ( "I have tent.  Who has went?")  The sentences were placed inside plastic eggs so that the sentence showed.  Inside the egg I had also placed a foil wrapped chocolate egg.  I hid the eggs around the room, making sure that there was one egg for each student.  When they had found an egg, they waited on the Carpet Corner until  everyone was there.  I numbered only one strip with the number one so that we knew where to start.  It took a bit of practice, but when the class was able to read the entire group of sentences under one minute, we followed the directions of the last egg that read,  "I have an egg.  You have an egg.  Now open it and find the surprise."  They asked to do it again, so, after re-stuffing the egg with the candy and sentence strip, I hid them while they waited on the carpet with their eyes "closed"!  I noticed several closed eyes following me around the room!  It is a great game to build attention span, sight vocabulary and even fluency!  It could be played with numbers, too!  "I have 345.  Who has 278?"

I have Spring Break.  Who has already had their Spring Break?  (Sorry!)

Thanks for stopping by. Owl love reading your comments!