From Adjective to Washington

I should really rename this segment to the Two Week Review, because I always feel like I am catching up on two weeks, but anyway, here we go! Last Friday we had our last Historian Friday before we move back into SCI-FRI: in honor of President's day my lab student presented some information on George Washington. She showed us a Powerpoint while we jotted down important facts on post-its. After, the students were able to take a post-it from the board and write down Washington facts. Then they got to create their own George! 

 Aren't they cute!

Today we read about "Honest Abe" and since it was rainy and we couldn't go out for recess, we got to have Movie Time and watch a movie about our friend Abe. 

Here is a writing about George. 

 Last week our grammar skill was reviewing contractions. I took this fabulous idea from Cara and added a fun spin to put it on my bulletin board. We took our contraction and wrote about them and drew a picture. 

Dr. Apostrophe is ready for surgery!

They loved this one!

I was so impressed with their drawings!

 "I preformed surgery on ___ & ___. After surgery the two words became ____. " 

We have been learning about penguins the last two weeks and for one of our stations did an ABC word order game. My kids LOVE penguins and loved waddling around. 

This week our grammar skill was adjectives, which was a little tough for us: good thing we have two more weeks to prefect our skill. We read this book:

and then we used the activity at the back to make Acrostic Name Adjectives. 

I loved the B is for big with the picture of just a set of legs! 

Well I'm off to prepare for Read Across America Week with some fun Dr. Seuss activities, catch you up next week! 

~Miss Anderson 

the purpose of teaching and a little valentine's day

So I was thinking...today was a hard day. I am having trouble with one of my friends but I know with some more prayer and love they'll turn it around. But today ended on a good note from one of my special little boys in my room. One of my boys went to read with our reading coach (he came to me reading 5 wpm and now we are at 55!!) at the end of the day so I popped in to listen when I dropped my kids off at PE. After hearing him read and our reading coach and I gushing over how great of a reader he is this special gift was given to us. We were talking about something else and he began writing this note, totally unprompted.

"I am a good reader and my teecher think I am a good reader. 

and I Love my teecher and I love miss planz" 

Needless to say I left the room with tears filling my eyes. After a long day it was just what I needed to be reminded that I am making a difference. This little boy who came to me not know all of his sounds is now reading and BELIEVING IN HIMSELF! I am so proud that all of his hard work has paid off, he truly loves reading to anyone who will let him read! Now I know the words are spelled wrong and they aren't perfect sentences, but those are not the important things in life. Yes, I am a teacher saying that, but its because I believe believing in yourself can take you far in life!

Now before I start crying again, let's talk about Valentine's Day.

A great part of being a teacher: having 20 Valentines!

 They loved the crayons!

 Valentine bags to hold all of our loot!

 cake pops made a great Valentine treat! 

(for a how to look over at the sis's blog)

 ~sugar high~

 The class beside me made these! How cute, definitely going to try these 

out next year, or in our ladybug unit!

 We rounded the day out by doing a Candy Heart probability worksheet I found in blogland. 

Thanks for reading!

~Miss Anderson

Valentine's Day gifts for the Firsties!

As many of my ideas do, I took this idea from Pinterest and added my own twist!

You make life colorful Valentine!

We have been collecting broken crayons in my room since the beginning of the year, so over the weekend I snuck them out of the room for our little gift!

Let the peeling begin.

A few years ago, I found this silicone heart muffin pan. The hearts were bigger than the example but with the bigger the better in First grade!

 I broke the crayons and added them into the hearts and then the baking began. 

230 degrees for 15 minutes. 

(Remember to put the silicone sheet on a baking sheet before putting them in the oven)

After melting down I popped the pan into the freezer for about 7 minutes to quick freeze the crayons. 

Then came the presentation. I had some leftover heart di-cuts from another project so I brought those home and glued them together. 

Put a dab of hot glue on the paper heart and attach the crayon. This is important because if you try to put the hot glue on the crayon it will begin to melt again.

Add your saying!

Happy Valentine's Day! 

~Miss Anderson 

Blast from the Past: Homemade Oatmeal Cream Pies

So I was thinking... how much I love snack cakes. They always remind me of my softball games because after the game, the parents would always supply a snack and drink. While browsing around on Pinterest I happened upon this great recipe for Oatmeal Cream Pies. So I pinned it and started baking.

Oatmeal Cream Pies

For The Cookies: 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened * 1 cup packed brown sugar * 1/2 cup granulated sugar * 

2 eggs * 1 teaspoon vanilla * 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour * 1 teaspoon baking soda * 1 teaspoon cinnamon*

1/2 teaspoon salt * 1 cup raisins * 3 cups Quaker Oats, old fashioned, uncooked*

For The Filling: 8 oz. mascarpone cheese * 4 oz. cream cheese, softened *

 3-4 Tablespoons honey * 1/2 cup powdered sugar, sifted

1. Mix together your sugars with the butter. Then add eggs and vanilla.

2. Slowly add in the dry materials, beat together. Stir in the oats. 

3. Bake in the oven at 350 for about 15-20 minutes. 

4. Mix together the filling, I did not have mascarpone cheese so I made my own with the help of a Google search. Honestly, I wasn't a big fan of this filling, next time I might just make a cream cheese frosting. 

5. Take two cookies and adding a big spoonful of filling. Refrigerate overnight to help solidify and soften the cookies. Take out in the morning before serving. 

Enjoy your bite down memory lane!

~Rachel 

Why I Teach...

So I was thinking... that I truly love my job, and how blessed am I that I can say that and mean it. I have been teaching first grade for 111 days. No I don't know that because I am counting down the days, I know it because my class counts them everyday! I know its been a while since I have posted and I apologize, I have been forgetting my camera alot lately, but something happened Friday that I wanted to share.

With encouragement from some other blogs I have been doing special Science and Social Studies lessons; in first grade these subjects are mostly taught through reading, but loving these subjects I wanted to find a way to teacher it better; so every Friday we either have SCI-FRI(taken from Cara) or Historian Fridays, where we dig deep into history with our detective caps on!

This Friday we had a historian Friday as we dug deep into the history of African American inventors. (Side note: Did you know that the mailbox, ironing board, mop, traffic signal, incandescent lightbulb and POTATO chips were made by African American inventors...my kids loved that one!) After learning about these inventors we had the chance to be inventors ourselves. My kids were really creative coming up with some great inventions from random craft items that I had in my classroom!

One of my little boys was having trouble deciding what to invent and knowing that he played football this year we decided on a field goal and football to play table football. He loved it and got started writing his patent to invent it!
However; once his was made the football(two stryofoam cups taped together) got stepped on. His face sank as well as my heart. After lunch we were sharing our inventions and he didn't want to share, all he could do was hold his football in his hands. I had to think of something fast, so loving football myself (I broke my arm playing with the boys in the 6th grade) I turned on my announcer voice and set the scene hoping I could cheer him up enough to present. "Three seconds left in the last game of the season, and it all comes down to this one field goal" I grabbed the popscicle stick field goal and lined up with him (the whole class is laughing at me at this point, even my lab student) but I didn't break a sweat because the next moment, the BIGGEST smile came to his face and he shot the football right through the uprights and my class cheered! It was great!

I'm tearing up just thinking about it, because this is why I love my job. I get to act silly, dance around and love on kids everyday while teaching them about life and learning. I am blessed to have the opportunity to help a sad little boy smile the biggest smile because I made his invention special. I am truly blessed.

Here is a recap in pictures of our adventures:(taken w/ the phone, sorry if blurry)

<-- SCI-FRI We learned about our bodies and got to trace ourselves on the carpet with chalk! Then we played a simon says type game with body parts.

--> Paper plate clocks to learn time to the hour and half hour.

 We celebrated the 100th day of school with funfetti cookies, counting 100 things, and doing things 100 times like jumping, clapping and stepping!

SCI-FRI! Study of clouds: cumulus, cirrus, ans stratus cotton ball craft!

 For Groundhog's day this week, we made cute little groundhogs (All of the shapes are hearts!) and wrote about what our burrow would look like and discovered what animals are true hibernators and which ones are just light sleepers! Did you know that a bear is only a light sleeper, and groundhogs slow their breathing down to one breath every five minutes when they hibernate.

 Post-it note bar graph!

 Historian Friday: Invention- the soft guitar, he let me borrow it to rock out my air-guitar!

 The pillow purse, complete with a pom pom on the other side that clasps it shut:)

The violin complete with a pipe clean and yarn bow. Let me tell you it's pricy though, her patent says that it costs $209! 

Happy Saturday! Football tomorrow!!!
~Rachel