Worms!

I seriously cannot believe that I only have 4 1/2 weeks until summer vacation starts! The last month of school I really like to plan themed weekly activities to keep the students motivate and interested.  Let's be honest, I need a bit of excitement to keep me going too.

Here's what I have on the schedule:

April 20 - Standardized Testing

April 27 - Worms

May 4 - Field Trip to the GA Aquarium; Ice Cream 

May 11 - Camping

May 18 - Watermelons, Field Day, Crowd Control on the last day

Each week I'll share what I'm doing so if you need ideas, you can grab them as well!  I'll share my science experiments in a few days once I have some pictures.  So for now I'll jump ahead to worms.

I like worms in my garden. But I don't like worms anywhere else.  These are the things I do for my students!

I always have a variety of fiction and non fiction books on worms displayed in my classroom.  Students are free to grab these books and look through them when they are done with their work.

We'll go over facts about earthworms and I'll let them play with a worm.

I always give students the option not to play with a worm.  Some students won't want too and I don't want to force them.  In making a worm habitat, I screamed every time I touched one (I told you they are not up my alley).  I don't want to show this side of me to the kids (and have them screaming and flinging worms).  We discuss how to handle living things.  I also make the students grab the worms out of the cup so I don't have to touch them.

After they have played with the worms, we build a worm habitat.

The leftover worms go into our school garden.

Once we've throughly washed our hands, students write the steps on how to build a worm habitat.

During the unit, I have the students eat a sour gummy worm and a regular gummy worm.  

They also complete a Venn Diagram comparing gummy worms and earthworms.

At the complete of the unit, students write a non-fiction piece about earthworms.

 You can pick up everything you see here (and more) in my All About Worms packet.

Ten Pin Linky: Writing

Is it just me or is writing one of the hardest things to teach?  There is so much that goes into it and the Common Core Standards really revamped writing.  Just Reed's Ten Pin Linky is perfect for finding some new to me ideas!

Source: What the Teacher Wants

If you haven't read The Squiggle yet, it's a must read for next year!  Students turn the squiggle into a picture and then write a story about it.  There are a lot of squiggle options to choose from.

How cute, right??  I've used this idea the past two years and my students absolutely love it.

Source: Life in First Grade

Need to make this ASAP!

Source: Mrs. Kelly's Klass

This is great for informational writing.  Most of my students are understood that they couldn't copy the exact words from a book, but this printable would really help drive that point home.

Source: For the Love of First Grade

This is the only cure for the dreaded "And Disease."  My kids thought this was hysterical.  I played it up whenever I met in individual conferences.  I would ask the student "Are you feeling okay?"  They would say they are fine and I would feel their forehead and say "Umm, I don't think so - you've got the And Disease!"  ;)

Source: A Day in First Grade

Love the Rocket books!

Source: The Daily Cupcake

I always have to review spaces at the beginning of the year!!  Drives me slightly bonkers!

Source: 3rd Grade's a Charm

I first saw the heart idea on The First Grade Parade, but I like how this is divided into categories with a color code.

Source: Sherry Clements' TPT Store (freebie)

Great intro to opinion writing!

Source: First Grade Fairytales

Another opinion writing option - perfect for spring time.  It goes with the book Duck or Rabbit?

Those are my favorite Pinterest writing ideas!  I'm always in search of more writing ideas, so I can't wait to look through everyone's post.

Before I go, I wanted to mention that Amanda and Stacia from Collaboration Cuties are celebrating reaching 1,000 followers!  Isn't that a big accomplishment??  Click on over to enter the giveaway!

Pin It to Win It: Word Wall

I'm spending the morning in the car shop.  :(  No fun and mucho $$ for sure.  But I'm trying to think that in one week I'll be on this.

Sailing to the Bahamas!

I. cannot. wait.


A few weeks ago I made a Polka Dot Word Wall, but I never posted about it!

I've been using a word wall I bought from School Box ages ago and really wanted to make something that went with my theme.

The alphabet headers are in pink and green.

The cards have in black and white polka dots.

The pack covers all of the Dolch words and I also included some of the words from the Fry list.  The Dolch and Fry list overlap a lot so if you use Fry words at your school odd are that most of the words are there.  I can also easily add any other words.  There is a blank pattern at the end of the packet if you just want to write them yourself.

Pin any of these pictures for a chance to win the pack!  I'll announce a winner on Saturday.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

You can find it HERE if you just can't wait.  ;)

Friday Flashback & a Freebie

Gosh, this week had been a rough one for me! I took off on Monday and ended up taking today off too. On Monday I got a text saying a student had those special little bugs.  Luckily it didn't spread! Then I had two students catch the stomach bug. And somehow, despite my Lysol attempts, I ended up with the stomach bug yesterday.

I do have a little hint about students getting sick in the class.  I have this little rule I tell them at the beginning of the year.  It applies to when I'm in reading groups and when I'm working with students.  The only way a student is allowed to interrupt me is if they are bleeding, have a broken bone or barfing.  (Sorry for that.) I call it the 3 B's.  It generally cracks them up, but they remember it.  I tell them that if they feel like they are going to do the 3rd B they just need to run for the bathroom. It works! Out of the six years I've been teaching it's never happened in my classroom!

Are you still with me? ;)

I searched my phone and I only had one good shot of something we did this week.

We kicked off our weather unit by learning about meteorologists and basic types of weather. In writing, we created this craft from Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten.

We brainstormed the different types of weather that it could be tomorrow - sunny, partly cloudy, windy, rainy, etc. Each student wrote their own prediction and drew a picture of of what they would look like if they were a meteorologist. Here's the writing template for you.

Click the picture to download.

Cranky Pants & a Freebie

When I woke up this morning, I accidentally put these pants on.

Source

All the way to school I prayed that I would not be cranky at school. I was consciously trying to turn my day around, especially since nothing bad happened to me.  

Luckily it worked!  I even overheard one of my firsties reading the directions of an assignment to herself.  That is BIG in first grade, people! I was so dramatically excited (I may have fallen on the floor) and gave her a Star Dollar (part of my reward system) for being such a smartie.

We are in the process of making our Valentine's gift for our parents. I intended to take a picture of the final product, but I had to run out of school in the middle of my after school art class due to a migraine. Those migraines are serious business! I crashed for about 2 hours and am feeling much better.

We are studying the 5 senses in Health and I figured it would be amazing to see what my firsties thought of love.

It's a freebie at my TPT store, so if you need a last minute Valentine idea go and grab it! (I am still trying to figure out how to insert Google Docs into a blog post so it's easier to grab freebies.) Let's just say some of my first graders think love feels like skin.  Ooh-la-la. You better pray for me to make it through Valentine's Day on Thursday.  They are in L-O-V-E.

Snow Globes & Hot Chocolate

Happy weekend!  I felt that Monday through Wednesday flew by, but Thursday and Friday just dragged on for me!

On Monday I stayed late to hang up pictures of our melting snowmen. I guess I was in a rush and ended up stapling my finger instead of the paper!!  Ouch!  The staple went all the way into my finger!! I ran into another teacher's room (ironically her last name is Staples) and she helped me get it out. I was scared to use the stapler for half of Tuesday, but eventually I got over it! I'm extremely careful now! Please tell me I'm not the only one who has stapled her finger!

This week my class really focused on descriptive writing.  We wrote about what it would be like to live in a snow globe. I think one of my favorites was when one student described how he would bust of the snow globe! Another student wrote from the perspective of his mom. His mom saw him trapped in the snow globe and gave it a little shake to make all of the glitter fall all over him.

After the students finished writing, they had to create a picture of what they were doing in the snow globe.  Then they added snowflakes with some with paint and q-tips.  Here are a few of the finished products!

Check out Amanda's snow globes at Teaching Maddness.  I love the way she had her students make their snow globes.  Why do you always find the cutest ideas after you've just done something similar??

We also wrote how to make hot chocolate using A Cupcake for the Teacher's unit. We made hot chocolate in class to help the students figure out the directions. We also graphed what our favorite topping were for hot chocolate.

I'm linking up with Teaching Maddness: Flashback Friday. Check out what everyone else did this week too!

Snowing Rainbows

We've been making snowmen left and right since school started back up last Thursday! I mentioned my room was bare, but it's quickly becoming more colorful.

Today we visualized what it would be like if it snowed in colors instead of just white and created colorful snowmen.

Love the sticks for hair!

Another student added a bow.  

We also read Snowmen at Night and created a tear art picture.

I had the students write what they would do if they were a snowman at night. I read over their writing as I was hanging the pictures in the hall.

Ha! It's hard to read, but it says "If I was a snowman at night, I would go to Ms. Deal's backyard and have a party.

Another student said she would come party on my street.  So glad they love me (and want to wake me up in the middle of the night!)

Are you doing any snowmen activities in your class?