Why does it seem that only our favorite students move during the school-year? I lost one of my favorites this last week and I was so sad to see him go. His family is moving to Texas and I have known since the beginning of the year but it is still sad because he was SO GOOD. 

When students move from our class mid-year we make a little "Goodbye Friend!" book to make sure we all say a heartfelt goodbye and let our friend know they will be missed. I hope that this eases the transition for the student because we try and be encouraging about their move and new school. 

Each students writes a letter and illustrates a picture. We bind all the pages together and it becomes a cute little book. 

While the rest of the class is busy writing our letters, I ask the student who is moving to color the cover of their book (I provide them with a black and white version of the above picture).  

Here is a few samples of our latest "Goodbye Friend" book:

I would love to choose three people to win this newly posted product. Simply comment below with your email address and you may win!I will choose three winners on December 7th OR you can grab this fun "Goobye Friend" pack in my store. 

From Seed to Pumpkin!

We have adopted Journeys Reading this year and part of Unit 2 is using the book From Seed to Pumpkin by Wendy Pfeffer. YAY, a "REAL" book! We were given a class set of the book so we will be taking a small break for our weekly reading stories to focus on this book. We have some fun activities planned and I am so excited to take a break from our normal reading routine. 

I have been working on creating this new little packet to help. Note: This is NOT a Journeys packet so if you don't have Journeys you will LOVE it! 

We are going to start with an Anticipation Guide. I love hooking the kids right away and getting a brief look into what they already know and what misconceptions we may need to address. My kids love Anticipation Guides because they compete for the best score! :) 

We are then going to work on this little Pumpkin Life Cycle Book. I included pages for seed, sprout, vine, flower, green pumpkin and orange pumpkin. 

I also have included several graphic organizers, writing templates, vocab activitiy, ABC Order, Pumpkin Parts, Sentence Shuffle and a fun Pumpkin Investigation activity.

I had to get his Giant Pumpkin Puzzle from Oriental Trading. It was cheap and will make a FUN October/November Bulletin Board. 

We are going to finish our Pumpkin Unit by making these cute little waterbottle pumpkins! 

My daughter and I made this little guy today, SO CUTE and so simple with very little materials needed. Here are the steps if you are interested in making this with you kiddos. 

 

After pumpkins we are on to OWLS! I ordered my Owl Pellets today! 

I LOVE FALL! 

Johnny Appleseed

One more week until FALL BREAK! We are entering our tenth week of school and I am totally exhausted and in desperate need of a break! First quarter is so hard, I can't wait for time to relax and regroup. I just wanted to stop by real quick to share a couple picture of the Johnny Appleseed writing and art project we finished this week.

We have read several Johnny Appleseed books over the last two weeks and so we created a bubble map and circle map to show what we have learned. (Our school-wide focus this year is Thinking Maps)

Students used a red crayon to circle two adjectives on their circle map and then two facts from their bubble map. We took that information and used the sentence frame: 

Johnny Appleseeed was (adjective) and (adjective). He __________ and ______________. 

I created the little craft template to display their writing and it made the cutest bulletin board! 

I love looking at this bulletin board because it reminds me that cooler temperatures are on the way! I LOVE FALL! 

 

Seriously! Happy Fall Y'All :)

Grandparent's Day

Sunday is National Grandparents Day so today we took a little time to celebrate our Grandparents! I don't have a ton of extra time so we had to keep it simple. These adorable printables are from Cara Carroll. It is from her Precious Parents Packet.

We began whole-group by creating a Bubble Map with adjectives describing our Grandma's. We have just begun learning about adjectives and my kiddos did an amazing job! I really loved the word "generous" :) When we were finished brainstorming, I had the kids choose a crayon and circle three adjectives that describe their grandma.

We then flipped our paper over to make a circle map of things that we like to do with our grandma. (Sorry it's not fancy) The kids then circled two things that they like to do with their grandma. 

(I have two colors because many of my students have 2 Grandmas so we made 2 different cards) 

(This is my paper, don't judge, I spelled shopping wrong. The best part of teaching first grade is that no one in class calls you out on it!)

We used the following sentence frames.

Dear Grandma,

You are _____, ______ and _______. I like when we ______ and ______. I love you. 

Seriously these cards are the cutest thing EVER and I know that their Grandparents are going to just treasure these beautiful cards. 

You Will LOVE Beeing in First Grade!

It is so hard to believe that we have only 7 days left of school! This year has truly gone by SO quickly. I have a great group of kids and parents this year and I am going to be so sad to see them go. As we spend our final days together, I like to challenge students to really reflect of the growth they have made this year. One way I do this is by asking my current students write a little note for my future class and we display their notes on a bulletin board during Meet Your Teacher Night. 

 Here is a little peek at our completed bulletin board. 

Here are a few closeups:

I asked the kids to write two things that future students are going to be excited about and two rules that they must learn in first grade. 

I love having student work displayed and these letters are perfect for Meet Your Teacher Night because they really showcase for parents where we are headed with our writing. Students love looking at them since so many of them know the former students who wrote them and they get a little peek into first grade.

If you are interested in this project click here to check it out. The packet includes the poster, writing page and Bee Craftivity. 

Note: I printed the poster at Staples. During the month of May, they are having a great sale where posters are 50% off! So I only paid $10 for this cute poster. 

AND...

Don't forget to enter my Horrible Harry giveaway! A winner will be chosen on May 28th. Simply click on the picture below to enter the giveaway. Good luck! 

I am so looking forward to this week, on Tuesday my class and I will be smashing pies into my principals face and if that is not a reason to get out of bed, I don't know what is! Of course I will share pictures :) Have a wonderful week everyone! 

Mother's Day

IT IS ALMOST MAY! The end of the school year is quickly approaching , YAY! But first we need to show our amazing moms some love. Here is a quick look at our Mother's Day books and Treat bags. I had MANY laughs reading what they wrote about their moms! I know that moms treasure these books forever, and I was so proud of what my students created for them. 

Here is a little peek at what our Mother's Day book looks like!

We did a guided drawing lesson to create the art for the front cover of our book. Here are a few samples of what that looks like.

The first page is titled "Meet My Mom"

 I put four blank writing pages in our book this year and we wrote the following prompts:

1. My mom likes to....

2. The best thing about my mom is...

3. My mom is happy when... My mom gets mad when...

4. My mom and I like to...

Then we finished our book up with a coupon page (I love getting these coupons!) and a treat bag full of Hershey Hugs and Kisses because what mom doesn't LOVE chocolate? 

 

I hope this little project can help you in your class! Happy Mother's Day to all the mommies out there!

100th Day of School

Today was our 100th day of School and WHEW  - I have survived! I truly feel like a superhero when I make it to the 100th day of school. With the daily craziness that comes with being a primary teacher it is very easy to become overwhelmed, the enormous pressure to make HUGE changes in the lives of our students with very limited resources and support is daunting. So my teammates and I like to pause on the 100th day and have a little fun because that is what first grade should be about!

So...here is what we did today!

 My first grade team of teachers dressed up like 100 year old ladies today! WOW! We are stunning, right?! HA!  The kids were so excited when they saw us shuffling out to pick them up together this morning, they were LOVING it!

 I work with an amazing first grade team of teachers and and we frequently have the students rotate through classrooms for holidays or special events. The teacher stays in their own room and our students visits the other teachers, they are in each class for about 20 minutes. Here is a little run-down of what we are planning for each classroom:

Classroom 1: 100th Day Mystery Picture from First Grade A La Carte (This is FREE!) Great activity to practice even and odd. 

Classroom 2: 100th Day Dice Toss from Made for First Grade only $1!

Classroom 3: 100th Day Snack - I created this FREEBIE, click here to get it! 

Classroom 4: 100th day books (here are a few of my favorites)

Classroom 5: 100th day Glasses (sorry don't have the link for these but there are TONS on TpT)

I also got the idea from EduKate and Inspire to create 100 year old pictures. This app is called AgingBooth and it is only $1! This is a little before and after of my beautiful daughter.  

Too cute right? 

I printed my kiddos picture onto this template so they can write about life as a 100 Year Old. 

To help them, I provided them with the template:

When I am 100 years old, I am going to be _______ and _______. My favorite thing to do will be _______________________ and _______________________. 

You can grab this free page here if you want it :) 

That is all I was able to fit in for the 100th day of school because we are crazy busy preparing for Science Night next week. I will be back this weekend to share a few of our MLK activities. 

Write Like A Rockstar!

Hi All! Just wanted to quickly stop by tonight to let you know that I have uploaded a new Writing Unit! I have had many requests for themes and tonight I created a "Writing Like a Rockstar!" unit. 

I posted my BEEutiful Writing Packet in a prior post and many teachers have reached out asking me to create themes to match their classrooms. (click on the link to check out the original post) I am also working on a zebra theme that should be posted early this week. Also on my list are frog, ocean and owl theme. Keep watching my blog they will be posted soon!

Here is a look at my BEE theme and Circus theme!