Chevron Classroom

Chevron is all the rage these days! And I cannot get enough!

I also love that it's not totally a "theme" and so I can add what "theme" to it.

Can't wait to show you what we've chosen to go alongside this chevron for our classrooms.

Have I mentioned that we're teaching across the hall from each other?! How cool is that? Be expecting to hear a lot more from us!

This set is so bright and colorful and fun! I've got most of it printed and can't wait to get it hung!

Off to create more for our TPT site!

Click the first picture to get there!

We Speak for the Trees!

Amber here! I know it's been forever! This week we learned about "going green" in celebration of Earth Day...errr week?! We celebrated learned all week!

I had to share these stinkin' drawings because they are SO darn cute.

We watched The Lorax and talked about what he did to protect the planet. 

Then we did a directed drawing from You Tube. Seriously don't know how I stumbled upon this video, but it was great! The kids loved it! They wanted to watch it again and again!

And I love the way they turned out. They're great! Next time I think we'll add some Truffulla trees in the background.

And we did a LOT of this unit from The First Grade Parade! I LOVED it!

What are you teaching next week? We are learning about our home, OklaHOMEa! Unit coming soon!

An Apple for the Teacher

Ok, I apologize for our LONG absence!

I found out about this since our last post and so I’ve been a little distracted. As for my sister, I have no excuses for her, she’s just busy!

But we’re back and ready to post away! So here is a little idea I came up with for Meet the Teacher & Parent Night!

I always try to have out a wish list at parent events because they always want to know how they can help! (I am fortunate to be at a school where parents are overly generous and that’s a blessing). When I inherited got to my classroom there were bags and bags of these apples and I just wasn’t sure what to do with them besides hang them on a Christmas tree (since they are ornaments and all).

So it occurred to me that I should put my Christmas tree to use for a parent wish list! I just used small labels (60 to a sheet) and typed out things we could use for our classroom that are not on our supply list. I let parents take the apples from the tree and because I have a billion several dozen of them I didn’t care if they send them home, broke them, etc.

I just added a little note at the top to explain, plugged in the tree and the wish list was complete! It’s super easy and I just moved it to my closet after Parent Night and will bring it back out at conferences.

Does anyone else have a cute way they display their wish list?

Green Giants, Spring Break, and Leprechauns OH MY!

It’s Spring Break!! But I wanted to share a few more things my class did this week! We had a four day week and a field trip one day so I don’t feel like we got much accomplished. But we did lots of green activities this week for St. Patty’s Day!

I loved this poem for Mental Images on Deanna’s blog so we listened then drew.

I love how they are so unique. I definitely would want to encounter the second guy because he looks mean! And I love the way they had to figure out how to show his socks and his shoes. They were so puzzled by that!

We also wrote about how to catch a leprechaun. The first one says “using a magnifying glass” and the next one says “keeping an eye on it.” They got really creative with tweezers and special boxes and nets to snatch him up!

Their writing inspired me to create another document to help with sequencing so here it is! I hope this works, I’m still experimenting with Google Docs.

Anyone have any fun Spring Break plans?!? I’m afraid I’ll be spending some of it at school. I’ve got to get prepared for when they come back!

More on Weather

We are finishing up weather. It goes perfectly into St. Patrick’s day as we begin with rainbows! (You know it works…)

Here is what our completed nonfiction writing about clouds looked like.

We made windsocks after learning about the wind and boy has it been perfect windy weather in Oklahoma for these!

We also read Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and did a little self to text connection. Love these writings and drawings!

We also wanted to link up here because we would love to help these teachers in any way we can!

We live in the land of tornadoes and have seen much devastation in towns pretty close to home. We can’t imagine what it would be like trying to rebuild everything. Teachers spend so much of their time and resources on their classrooms, it would be so hard not have that anymore. Click on the picture to read more about what we can do!

Have a great week ya’ll! It’s almost Spring Break! Anyone else excited for a little relaxation?!

Weather and Worms

It’s Amber! We are full swing into our weather week, but I don’t feel like we’ve gotten much accomplished! It’s been crazy busy!

Tuesday was conference day and today we had an unexpected fire alarm set off, “Worms to the Wise” presentation, and STOMP came to perform! Holy cow! How can you get anything done with days like that? (I’m not complaining, it’s just flat wild on days like these). Especially when it’s early release too! Whew! Tomorrow is picture day and Library. I’m hoping we get a little further into weather than we have so far this week.

We did learn about the water cycle and did a little paper plate drawing to show it. I just love when you give them instructions and see what they create. SO stinkin’ adorable!

Worms to the wise is a program through OSU Master Gardeners. They come twice a year to our school-once to teach about seeds and another time to teach about worms. The kids LOVE getting to play with real worms. We rushed out to lunch right after the program and didn’t get to talk about it much. So I typed up this little sheet to review what we learned!

Anyone else having a CRAZY week?!

Be on the look out our “Lucky” St. Patty’s day unit is coming tomorrow!!

 

Nonfiction Writing

Amber here! With the new Common Core standards we are all feeling a big writing push! I was really not quite sure how to do it in a way that was developmentally appropriate for five and sixes. I LOVED Deanna Jump's post here! It really was an eye opener and made SO much sense! So with that in mind I made some activities to use for responding to nonfiction literature.

 It is SO important that they don't just hear it, but that they use it too!

We are studying weather this week so we will read nonfiction books about wind, clouds, rain, and sun. I made a response for meteorologist and one for clouds. My kiddos LOVE writing together on the carpet! And it's so good for them and they don't even know it ;).

You can download them by clicking on the pictures below. It will take you to our new Teachers Pay Teachers store!  While you're there be sure to check out the Rainy Day Centers! It's going to be a fun and busy week!

Enjoy!