St. Patrick's Week! Plus a Freebie!

I just finished up creating a game and a writing activity for my firsties tomorrow.  St. Patrick's Day is such a fun day and because it falls on Saturday this year, we'll just have to celebrate a wee bit 'o the green each day this week.  I'm not Irish, but Irish I was.  Plus, I used to babysit for people who were Irish, so that makes me honorary Irish, right?  I have been trying to come up with an exciting way to get my students excited about persuasive writing.  I think I've come up with something that is sure to be a hit!  Seamus the Leprechaun has written each student a letter about needing to get rid of some gold.  I'm sure that more than one of my firsties will want to get in on some gold.  They'll hang there letters and rainbows up in hopes that Seamus will be persuaded to leave them gold.  You must be excited to see what my students will come up with.  Be sure to check back later this week to see what they say and to see who gets the gold!  Check out Seamus Patrick McCune's letter at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Luck-of-the-Leprechaun. (It's freeeee!) Be on the look out for green owls and please let me know if you see one!

We are going to make the crayons tomorrow, too!

My first Teachers Pay Teachers purchase!  KB Konnected, thanks for the cute graphics!!

A Blessing and a Truffala Tree

This was probably one of the longest weeks I've had in a long time.  I would like nothing better than to teach first grade all day.  It is my first love!  I am fortunate to have three part time teaching jobs.  If someone had told me in college that I would one day teach music and computer I probably would have dropped out or at least not gone into teaching.  Teaching middle schoolers anything was about as pleasant sounding to me as having wisdom teeth removed.  I  have high admiration for people who love to spend whole days with that age group!  I have grown to enjoy 7th and 8th grade quirkiness.  Having a 7th grader myself has given me a new perspective on this unusual group of people!

Thursday night was the final performance of our schools spring musical.  I directed it with the help of the wonderful teachers I work with.  K-8 puts on a show every two years.  This was my third musical.  It went very well.  I had planned an escape route in the event of a flop, but was instead happy and proud to receive flowers and cheers.  Any way...

Friday I walked into my classroom which should have been empty.  There, sitting in the room was a single student lost in a book.  It brought me to tears.  This is not a child who would normally be reading.  He had fallen in love with reading because of Dr. Seuss.  I was so moved that I had to attempt to capture the moment.  Taking a picture wouldn't have done it.  I've attempted to write a poem and thought not only of this child, but other children I have had the joy and privilege of working with over the years.  I hope that you enjoy my attempt at poetry!

Blessing

I got a special gift today it was not in a box,

It involved a special child and a book called Fox in Sox.

At the end of a long day, I walked through my classroom door,

And I must admit quite sheepishly I almost hit the floor.

His head was bent over a book; his eyes were on the page,

It may have been an easy one for a child of his age.

Some had given up on him, thrown their hands up in despair,

I think to do that to a child just really isn’t fair.

There’ve been days he’s been disruptive, and some when he’s been mad,

I try to meet his needs like no other teacher had.

He looks up from his book, and says that he is done,

He finally thinks that reading can be a lot of fun.

He’s carried many burdens, not had an easy life,

I pray that God has somehow helped me ease his strife.

I’ll always count him a blessing, when I think about this year,

I know that when he leaves my room, for him I’ll shed a tear.

 If you have made it through this far, thank you!  Now I have to show you my Truffala Trees!  We read the Lorax on Friday and made trees.  We started with a pastel M&M and then WOW a Truffala Tree just sprouted!  Well, the kids figured out pretty quick that it was really cookies and sherbet!  After their AWESOME performance at the school musical they deserved a treat!  I got the idea from snacksandstories.blogspot.com via my favorite search engine...Pintrest!!

The rainbow sherbet even smelled like a Truffala Tree!

The Brown Bar-ba-loots even showed up!

We made sure that the Oncler was no where around!

One student wanted to save the plate!  It does look pretty awesome!

A Friend Loves at all Times!

This week I am memorizing Proverbs 17:17..."A friend loves at all times and a brother is born for a time of adversity."  This verse from the Bible got me thinking about my friend, Jean.  She is a fellow teacher and good friend.  She has given me so much encouragement over the years as well as inspiration.  I was lucky enough to spend a year as her aid and took away a treasure trove of ideas and motivation.  Not only do we share a love for children we share a love for quilts!  She makes them and I admire them.  I have tried my hand at quilting and enjoy it very much.  Some day I hope to do more, but for now, I'll enjoy the beauty of Jean's!

Notice the details such as rick-rack and beads!

They signed their name by their masterpiece.

This will be sold at our spring auction.  I would love to be the top bidder!

This octopus is my favorite!

Jean is behind the quilt!  She doesn't know I'm writing about her!!

Jean has very high expectations for her kindergartners.  Not only are the kindergartners blessed by these expectations, but so am I when they walk into my room on the first day of first grade.  Having spent a year in her room I know what to expect and I too am able to expect a great deal from them when they become mine.  Here is a sample of some the writing I spied in the hall today.  I'm blogging this for her, because she's too busy quilting.

I love Aberham licon even when he got shoot.

My dog makes barf all over the house.

I like my ballet class because it has jumping.  We wear tu-tus too!

     I have had a productive week, too.  We've had so much fun reading Dr. Seuss books. We hated being dragged away from our books to go to musical practice every day this week.  We'll all breathe a sigh of relief after our performance on Thursday night.  Friday will be A Great Day For Up...I mean a  great day for a celebration of our Seussiness and the completion of the musical.  

First graders wrote about what they would do if Thing One or Two came to their house.  Things 1 and 2, stay away from the house where someone would hit you with a light saber and make you leave!  One of my students would like to have fun while mother is out and make cupcakes!

"I am playing with Thing One and Thing Two.  We are going to play with Barbies and have tea.  It is fun to play with them.  I like them."

Jean, if you  ever to find my
blog, thank you for all you do!
Thanks for listening to me in times of adversity as well as times of great rejoicing!  I am blessed to know you and have the opportunity to have you to share fun times with.  I'm glad you'll always have one more year left!!  If you find this..Wow!  You are getting better all the time with technology!

Oh Seuss, We are not Through With You!

Books to read and things to do,
Oh Seuss we are not through with you.
Notes to write, messages to send,
To fishes, Sneetches and Horton our friend.


Character studies on Cat in the Hat,
We are all excited about that.
Things One and Two, will you come to our house?
We can eat green eggs and ham  with a mouse.


Oh Lorax we won't forget about you.
We'll make your Truffala Trees taste yummy, too!
Our feet will be happy when we make a book
About what we stand on, come take a look!
by me!

  We served the kids green eggs and ham for breakfast.  The paint and tape were used later!

I thought February was packed full of fun for firsties, but March looks just as promising.  I'm so glad Ted was born on the 2nd so we could kick March off on an author study about the good doctor.  His characters are so rich and his life lessons are so easy for all to understand.  This will be a long weekend because I'm so excited to jump into Seuss next week.  

Do you know which book this pair is reading?  I'm not sure go ask your pop!

The first graders loved having their hands painted so they could make Thing 1 or  Thing 2.

We'll start the week off by finishing our study on the Cat.  We just completely ran out of time to do everything I had planned during our birthday celebration.  The students young and old loved playing Tic-Tac-Seuss with each other.  I was so careful with matching children with partners and it paid off.  My first graders were all quite happy with their older partners for the morning. I was a little worried that they would tire and not be able to get through three books together.  They almost all did! most were able to make their favorite Thing as well as complete a fun math worksheet I got from Kathy at First Grade a la Carte.  Sadly, our time together got cut short by our slave-driving music teacher who thought it was necessary to practice our spring musical on Dr. Seuss birthday of all days!

They are prepped, primed and ready to perform!  She isn't that bad!

I'm so thankful for the mom that helped all morning.  She helped each child crack an egg and made the eggs.  She cleaned everything up and helped monitor activities.  Her two year old son was happy to sit and paint with colored paper and water for a long time.
Cat in the Hat and me Venn Diagram

Cat in the Hat Feebie!

Happy birthday, Dr. Seuss!  You can feel the excitement in the air.  After our Leap Day fun, my firsties are expecting quite a special day tomorrow.  They voted to make Thing One and Thing Two like the our childcare program did. A character study on the Cat in the Hat will follow along with green eggs and ham for snack time, of course! I've invited my neighbors, the seventh and eighth graders, to play Tic Tac Seuss with us.  I've got each assigned to a partner. It just so happens they have the same number of students as I do.  Not only that, my daughter is in the seventh grade and the 7th and 8th grade teacher's daughter is one of my students.  The afternoon will include a trip to a great grandfather's maple syrup operation.  I'll be quite ready for the weekend after another exciting day in first grade.  Pictures to follow tomorrow...If I can stay awake that long!
  Tic Tac Seuss

Label the Cat  - I have lines on my computer pointing to the various parts to label ...I'm not sure why it didn't upload that way!  If you know...Please leave me a comment!

Giving up Snow Days for Lent!

One big day down and one more to go this week.  Leap Day was a huge success and as you know I was really tempted to pray for a Snow Day...Shame on me!  I laid awake last night in bed listening to the wind blowing, thunder booming and rain pouring.  I kept waiting for the sound of ice pelting against the windows, but it was not to be.  Really I'm fine with it.  I can handle a winter with no snow days every twenty years or so.  If it means going to school and hearing, "This is the best day ever!" or, "Your the best teacher in the whole world!" I can live with it! If you were born today, you won't have a birthday for four years; I can live with no Snow Days...There I think I've convinced myself.

I'm giving up Snow Days for Lent.

I'm showing off some pictures of what made our day a very hoppy one.  I think everyone of my firsties fell asleep as soon as their head hit the pillow! They were leaping all over the place.

My students enjoyed reading this mini-book I made for them.  I put it on Teachers Pay Teachers and had over 750 people download it.  It was my first experience using that service...I was amazed at how many people looked at and used my little book!

Leaping into first grade!

These girls are collecting data about their frogs.  I caught a boy  trading his pink frogs for blue ones!  He would have had a pretty boring pie graph if he'd have gotten away with it!  Now his sister can thank me for the pink frogs I said he could give to her.

Translation:  Green has the same amount as pink.  Blue has the same amount as purple.  I have the least of blue and purple.  

They did such a great job analyzing the data!  You can get this  on one of my earlier  on my blog post titled "President's Day and Getting Ready to Leap"  

Frog Races!  We predicted how long it would take to go from one leap line to the next!  The record you ask...4 was the least and 17 was the greatest!

Happy Leap Day everyone, and may they all be "hoppy"

Up next:  A Suessical birthday bash!  It looks like the preschoolers at my school are getting ready to party on Friday!

We have an awesome early childhood program.  They do so many great things with the kids.

Leaping into Leap Day!

Our latest students are frogs.  Can you find all three?  Now you see them...

I feel so torn right now.  I would love to have a Snow Day and the chances of having one are quickly coming to an end for this school year.  I would love to go to school tomorrow.  My students are so excited for our Leap Day celebration.  I am pretty excited for the day, too!  Our frogs are ready to be named.  Ten random colored frogs are hidden in bags ready to be graphed.  Measuring tape is ready to measure the length of said frogs leaps.  I'm just not sure how I should pray...

And now you don't!

Oh no!  Frogs are escaping!  Snow Day or not we WILL celebrate Leap Day!
We'll use the lily pads to play Musical Leap...It's very similar to Musical Chairs, but safer.

I just can't help wanting to sit in my living room, sipping an extra cup of coffee while working one more Sudoku!  I live in Michigan and we have had a Snow Day every year since I started teaching here twenty-two years ago.  My children haven't had a chance to go skiing, skating or sledding.  Don't you think every first grader who lives in Michigan should experience a Snow Day?
My son introduced me to the Snow Day Calculator.  He has pretty much lost faith in it, but I secretly think he checks it nightly.  This winter it has given us false hope twice.  It claimed we had a 99% chance of a day off, but the 1% chance of school was what we got.  Two hours ago it gave us a 67% chance for tomorrow, but now we're down to a 55% chance.
Snow Day Calculator

I would love to know if you have a Snow Day and what you do with it. IF I have one I'll probably end up preparing for Dr. Seuss day on Friday and thinking about all my favorite firsties!

My students will be greeted by this message and have to leap into the  classroom on February 29th!