Five for Friday 3.3

It's finally SPRING BREAK for this 1st grade teacher!

1. We are on chapter 9 of Go-Math which is all about Measurement and my kids have LOVED it. I made them each a measurement bag (10 cm cubes, 10 paperclips, 15 unifix cubes) that they use during the day and take home to complete homework. We measured everything in our room from the length of our desk to the height of our loft and the width of our room. Here are some friends using their tools. 

2. As mentioned last week, I went to Nashville over the weekend and had a great time with great friends celebrating St. Patty's day. 

 3. I LOVE 1st grade! I came back in on Tuesday only to find 20 amazing notes about how much I was missed. I felt like a celebrity when my kids came in as well because they acted like they had not seen me in years!

4. I forgot to mention this last week but if you remember my funny story about buying 6 boxes of Lucky Charms you will be happy to know that we used them! We graphed the marshmallows last Friday and then got to eat them during our Friday movie time! We loved "tasting the rainbow"

5. This week we studied flowers and so we watched how colored water moved through celery like it moves through flower stems and made these fun label projects. 

After Spring Break we are making "bunny contractions" and band-aids for our "ow" words. 

Well I am off to my long, much needed break! Happy Friday!

~Rachel 

Five for Friday 3.2

Welcome to the Weekend! It's time to recap the week!

 1. We reviewed our vowel teams this week, adding on this week's skill of 'ie' and 'igh'. However, the next day some sneaky little leprechaun feet found their way onto our chart. Lucky the Leprechaun later poured green glitter all over our desks and turn all of our chairs upside down. My kids spent most of their early finisher time 'thinking they heard him knocking on the loft floor' and searching the room for our wee little friend.  They were precious!

 2. We reviewed how to write a friendly letter; I will be out on Monday and they will be writing one so we made this fun anchor chart. I drew it out in black and white and then let my friends color it as a prize for having good behavior! 

 3. We have fallen in LOVE with Jack and Annie from the Magic Tree House series. Last week we made this story plot chart and then this week we are comparing it to "Leprechaun in late Winter." 

4. I have a little boy who came up to me twice this week and just sat there. I asked him what was going on and LN said "Nothing is going on, I just like you" (How precious!) and then gave me flowers he had picked outside. The next time he said " I just like you Miss A, I want to be on your team." I kept talking and found out that he wanted to be on my team for earning points. 

We use the Whole Brain Teaching incentive system where my class earns points when they do great things and then I earn points if we are talking too loud or not following directions. The one at the end of the day with the most wins. The class normally chooses extra center time or a movie and then I normally choose a writing activity if I win. We have a big talk before where I explain them that my activity will always be something that helps us grow smarter but may not always be as fun as a movie. 

Later in the day LN went and added his name "N" to the Miss A column. #firstiefunnies

 5. So this whole year I have been struggling with one little girl who has some behavioral/emotional issues. I've gone through it all but I don't want to go into that. I was encouraged this week by her journal though! She is listening to me!!! I tell her every time she acts up, that I love her and that is the reason that I care about her making better choices. 

"My favorite peopel(person) is Miss A because she is nice. She is a good drawer. I love Miss A because she loves me too. She is 24. She is a good teacher." 

5.1 We started our chapter on measurement this week and started by comparing length and ordering it using the terms longest and shortest. I took this picture mid project. After they cut the string and put them in order they labeled the longest one and the shortest one. Then they had to write a sentence such as "The brown string is the longest. or The tan string is longer than the pink string." They did very well and loved getting to cut their own string and decide its length. 

Happy Weekend, I'm off to Nashville for a much needed weekend with some friends. 

~Rachel 

 

Five for Friday 3.2

Welcome back and happy weekend!

It's Five for Friday time!

1. We spent the beginning of the week writing our first book report on our favorite Dr. Seuss book. They did pretty well and our computer teacher let us type them up and add pictures today! We ended our Dr. Seuss unit with making Thing 1 word families.

2. On Wednesday we got to pick any object in our room to describe using adjectives: size, shape, color, number, what kind. They were so cute while they observed their object. The loft was a HUGE hit!

3. We finished Chapter 8 in our math series and spent the last two days reviewing with this unit. Find it here. 

4. My mom and I are booking our flight back to Manila, PI this weekend! I am super excited to see what the Lord has in store for us this summer!

5. I tutor some of our ESL students two days after school and on Thursday I had a fabulous conversation with one of them about the Lord. I asked her if she needed to do her 20 minutes of reading, and she said that she does that at home when she reads the Bible. She was currently reading Psalms, Proverbs, & Luke. WOW! This young girl(5th grade) then told me about how her mother took them to church and how she loved it, but how they only could go to church on the weekends her father went away golfing. She told me that she heard her parents fight because her mother wanted the kids to know about the Lord. She was worried for her grandmothers too because "they believe Buddha" as she said. I told her that I would pray for her dad and family with a hope that they accept the Lord's love for them soon. Please pray with me for this sweet young girl's family. 

Happy Friday!

~Rachel 

2-digit addition St. Patty's Day Stations

So I was thinking...

I got a great deal on Lucky Charms this weekend at the grocery store. Two large boxes for $5.00! So I grabbed some for some teachers I know! We will be graphing them next Friday for our St. Patrick's Day celebration.

My school adopted the Go-Math series this year, and I am really liking the material. Chapter 8 is a tough one though. Two-digit addition and subtraction! We finished up the chapter today but we are going to spend the next couple of days playing with our Math tubs to review all of the skills. I created these cards and forms to help us review.

There are four games included:

1. 2-digit addition story problems

2. Adding & Subtracting tens

3. 2-digit addition using a 120 chart

4. 2-digit addition(focusing on place value & making a ten)

You can find it here on TPT! Also, the first person to comment with their favorite St. Patrick's Day book with get a free copy!

Happy Tuesday,
Rachel

America's favorite cookie & Psalms

So I was thinking... 

that Oreos are my favorite cookie. My dad fostered my love of this cookie when I was little. It was/is my favorite bedtime snack: Oreos and milk. It might have just been a sneaky way to get my siblings and I to drink more milk, but good job mom & dad, because it worked!

This past weekend I went with about 10 of the girls in my Sunday School class to the lake for a girls' retreat. We had a fabulous time playing Mexican train domino's, making crafts out of clay and just hanging out together with the Lord. We studied Psalm 139.

Here are some of my favorite parts:

vs 1-4

O Lord, you have searched me & know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 

vs. 15-16

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

vs. 23-24

Search me, O God and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. 

(NIV)

Didn't the Lord give David just the perfect words to show His love for us?!

Also at this retreat we had tons of FOOD. I signed up to bring a dessert(typical) and went off to google to find a fun dessert to bring. I found this recipe from Bakegirl and when I saw that the only 3 ingredients were Oreos, marshmallows, and butter; well how could you go wrong!

Chewy No-Bake Cookies and Cream Treats (Oreo Bars)

1 package of Oreos

1 bag of large marshmallows

4 tbsp butter

Bakegirl's recipe says to heat the marshmallows in the microwave, but I was a little weary of putting the whole bag inside; not wanting to clean up a huge mess later, so I opted for heating them on the stove like you do with Rice- Krispie treats. 

1. Crush the Oreos either in a food processor or by beating them with a rolling pin.  

2. Melt the butter in a pot on Med-High heat

3. Pour in the 1/3 of the marshmallows. Constantly stir until melting has occurred. Continue this step until the whole bag is melted. 

4. Take the marshmallows off the stove and immediately pour in the crumbled Oreos. Stir together and pour into a 8x8 pan. Make sure the pan is lined with aluminum foil that has been sprayed with cooking spray for best results.

5. Let set for about 30 minutes to an hour, then cut and serve! 

Happy Baking!
Rachel

Five for Friday 3.1

Thanks to Kacey for linking us up each week!

1. Our assistant principal sent this out us this week after our Accreditation team left town! Isn't Dr. Seuss the best! My kids absolutely LOVE him, we have been laughing all week long as we read. 

2. We have been writing about Dr. Seuss's books this week using our Cat in the Hat booklets. 

             

Their challenge this week was to read one of these books to me by themselves. If you haven't noticed Dr. S's books are rather long but my firsties were up to the challenge and even my slower readers were really pumped. They received 10 free computer minutes as a PRIZE!!

In other Dr. Seuss news, we wrote about the Cat in the Hat on Monday using adjectives(our monthly grammar skill) and my friend and I created this fun bulletin board with a little help from pinterest. 

We also did a tally/graphing exercise with the book One Fish, Two Fish... using colorful goldfish.

3. Today, the first grade teachers along with our Reading coaches did literacy rotations. My rotation was teaching the kids how to draw The Cat in the Hat! It was really fun and interesting to see some of their pictures! But fun was had by all!

4. This past weekend, some of the girls in my Sunday School class went to the lake for a girls' retreat. I made these delicious Oreo bars. Come back this weekend to get the recipe! They were a HUGE hit!

5. We read The Dot this week. What a fun story! I found a fun activity called Dot Duo. Each child created their own dot, then you cut them in half and switch your half with a partner. You glue the two halves together on a sheet of paper and create your masterpiece! 

I also have a freebie for you, we played these fun Connect 4 games with our weekly skills: 'ea' and inflected endings. I also created the games for next week: 'oa' and three letter blends. I put the boards in page protectors and we used dry erase markers to try and make 4 in a row. 

Here is the link!

Thanks for stopping by! Happy Birthday to Dr. Seuss tomorrow!!