Six for Saturday

Hello, Hello. I seem to be blogging monthly lately, so here we go! Grad school has been taking up most of my time as well as I am trying to create lots for my TPT store. Here is a quick Six for Saturday list, since I obviously missed Friday. I have a good excuse though, I have been on SPRING BREAK! That much needed week that all of us teachers secretly count down for! 

1. My mom, aunt, bro, sis & most adorable niece loaded up the car and headed to NC to see my amazing almost 84 year old grandmother. She is incredible and we all loved getting to see her for a couple of days. We also got to teach her how to use her new IPHONE 5C. Yes, I know, my grandmother is cooler than yours. She is learning how to Skype and FaceTime and loving every minute of getting to catch up with us. 

2. February - this month was full of fun activities but we saved the best for the 14th. My kids decorated cereal boxes at home for their treats, check out the Lego one, isn't it adorable. I handed out hand made "Valentine, I think you're a Star(burst)!" valentines and we made a pie graph using MnMs. We also wrote about someone/something we love.

- I LOVE GOD, because he gave me everything I needed. 

- I love Miss A because she is nice. 

- I love my FAMILY! I love my mom because she lets me help cleaning the house. I love my Dad because he's funny!

2. We had an E-day(students work online) on President's Day so we made these fun George Washington faces when we came back. Most of them have the fact about him glued to the back. We LOVED learning about his teeth since it was also Dental Health Month. By the way, did you know George was an AUBURN fan?? WAR EAGLE! (2nd pic)

3. We had a visit from our friend, LeRoy the Leprechaun this March. We spent the morning graphing the marshmallows out of Lucky Charms and then LeRoy left us a scavenger hunt in the afternoon! A lot of my kids were giving up candy for lent, so LeRoy was kind enough to leave us green bouncy balls for a treat! 

4. We studied US Symbols a few weeks back. My school's high school team was in the state championship game, so I had a day where about 5 of mine checked out. I decided to let them choose a symbol and make a poster about it.  The only direction they had was to name the symbol and put somewhere what it represented. I think they did a fabulous job, don't you?!

5. Like I mentioned earlier, I am working hard to get my TPT store going. I spent this winter creating long vowel worksheets for our interactive notebooks. We started these notebooks in January as a fun way to cover the skills we were working on in a fun way! My kids have loved the activities, maybe yours will too! 

Long Vowel Interactive Notebook Pages

6. We are headed back to the Philippines in 3 short months! I will be spending a month there and can not wait to see my sweet PI friends again! Please pray that God will open the hearts of the people we come into contact with this summer! 

~Rachel 

Five for Friday 2.3

Happy Friday to all! We have made it past Valentines Day! This next part of the year is such a great time in first grade. We get a good long stretch without any interruptions and last year my firsties really took off. 

Well, let's get to it! Teaming up with Kacey on this fabulous linky. 

1. We learned about comparative endings this week and along came this lovely anchor chart. Pardon my birds, I'll practice my drawing skills at some point. I found this great comparative ending go-fish game and my friends really enjoyed it. I love teaching this because I always enjoy being the "TALLEST" in my room. This is one of the many reasons I teach 1st and not 5th, I'm the tallest. Haha

2. We did lots of fun Valentine activities. I gave out highlighters for our next Math unit and sweethearts for treats on Thursday. One of my student's mom made these adorable SMORE treats and I got the best Valentine treat.

"I was 'soapin' you'd be my Valentine!"

 One activity involved our favorite character, JUNIE B. We read this:

 

and then practiced using details that we remembered to summarize each chapter. We loved finding out who Junie B's secret admirer was!!

3. I found a great adjective lesson that also allowed us to eat some candy hearts. We had a page of adjectives on one side and then a Valentine's mad gab story on the other. You drop the candy heart on the mat and whatever adjective it landed on we would record it on the next blank. My firsties created the funniest stories and giggled forever at their silliness. We ended the lesson by getting to describe Miss A using adjectives. You should try it out, its a great comic relief and confidence boost ha. I was described with these adjectives:

~funny teacher

~beautiful hair

~craziest teacher

~tall boots (I told you I like to be tall)

~shiny eyes

4. My necklace got caught on something this week and broke at the clasp, but have no fear, the teacher was here. It is currently being held together with a trusty PAPERCLIP. 

5. Funny school stories:

My kids are still talking about Punxsutawney Phil, they loved him and this week one of our books mentioned him again. 

BC asked the funniest questions: "So is he the only groundhog that gets our vote on spring or winter?" then he came back later and asked "So what happens if he gets killed or dies can we look that up?" 

We were playing a math game for Go-Math and one problem required the student to take some peppers off the scale. KE was having trouble with moving them on the SMARTboard and yelled "Get out of here, you peppers!" I wish you were there it was so funny in the moment.

Today I got asked: "Do you spelling going to "gowingto" 

I had to explain to him that it was actually two words not one!

~Happy Valentines Day yesterday!

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