Favorite Things Linky Party...and Give-A-Way!!

Jodi at Fun in First Grade is having a favorite things Linky Party!  So I figured I had to get in on the action.  Here are a few of the things I remember when the bees sting and I am feeling sad :(....



First off,  I LOVE FREE STUFF.  Well, free stuff that is awesome.  Cara at The First Grade Parade is having a great give-a-way.  To  enter, visit her blog and check it out.

 Fav thing # 2.   My iPhone.  Enough said.  :)

#3-  My Kindle.  I love to read.  I got a Kindle for Christmas it quickly became a favorite. 

#4-  My laptop.  I barely ever leave home without.  I guess I should also put in my laptop bag. 

#5-  I know this is a place, but I just LOVE it.  I don't even dare to say what my favorite section is.  I just can't decide. 

#6-  After I spend my money in Hobby Lobby, sometimes I get to use another one of my favorite things, my GLUE GUN.  And in the thought of adhesives and sticky things, I LOVE duct tape too! 

#7- Painters Brand Paint Pens- I love to paint and craft and these are just a lot easier to use when writing than regular paintbrush and paint. 

#8- McDonald's Sweet Tea-  Occasionally I drink coffee on a cold morn, but usually I start my day with one of these!

#9- My clear plastic Fossil watch-  My skin is very sensitive to metals so I wear a plastic watch.  I use to wear Toy Watches.  They are pretty expensive and the 2 that I had broke about a year after I bought it.  My new watch, from Fossil is by far my fav plastic watch. 

#10-  Yellowbox Flip flops-  The biggest reason I am glad it is warming up is Yellowbox Flipflops.  Today was the first day of 2011 that I go to wear them to school   I'm in Texas!

What are your favorite things?   Join up with the Fun in First Grade Linky party, and tell us about them!

Dental Health Month Wrap-Up

       We had the best end to Dental Health Month ever!  Dr. Roberto Loar came and shared his book and other dental health tips with us.  His book is wonderful.  It was the talk of the school.  It is rhyming and explains how cavities come about perfectly.  If you click the book cover above, you can get it on Amazon. 

       Later in the day we brainstormed "Tooth Words" and then the students used them to complete healthy teeth writings.   The students' writings turned out so cute.   My kids just brighten my day!

Not all the writings would fit in my big mouth :) so I printed off a tooth fairy to hang with those.

Click the image to get the tooth writing mat.

Persuading with Dr. Seuss

     When I sat down with my friend CScope to do lesson plans for this coming week, I saw that we were to be studying various tactics that are used in Media for ELAR.  Since we're devoting next week to Dr. Seuss, I must integrate!  The first writing will be done after we read The Cat in the Hat.  Students design a new hat and then persuade The Cat to buy it.

     The next, I made to resemble a magazine advertisement, where the picture is on one side and the write up is on the other.  I guess it is kind of like those medication ads :).  This one will be done after reading Green Eggs and Ham.

Click the images to get the printable file, and start persuading with Dr. Seuss!

Dr. Seuss Give-a-way!

Erica Bohrer and Donna at Kinderglynn  are giving away one of Donna's Dr. Seuss Math and Literacy Units.  For a chance to win, click on the image below!

Yucky Word Building Center

      I was typing this post last night, when all of the sudden I started feeling very yucky.  I am feeling a little better but not much.  Any way,  when teaching these sounds, I have always told my students that sometimes these four vowel digraphs (ou, ew, oo, and ue) say "EWWWW,"  like when you see something really gross.  So to help them remember this, I made this Yucky Word Building spelling Center.   The teacher would first cut out the pictures and put them in an empty tissue box. In the center students use boogies and tissues (the pictures the teacher cut out) from the box to build words.  If you click on the image above, you can download the whole center.  I suggest printing it on card stock so it will hold up better. 

     I also made a contractions spelling center to go with Green Eggs and Ham for our Dr.  Seuss unit next week.  Someone else posted something similar, but I cannot remember or find who that was.  I want to give credit to the person that inspired me when I post it.  If you know who I am talking about, please tell me! :)

Me... Stylish??? HAHA! THANKS!

OH MY GOODNESS!  I have been called many things but I don't think that stylish is one of them.  Thanks to the wonderful ladies at The Kindergarten Corral for deeming me "A Stylish Blogger!"

Here are the rules for receiving this award:

1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you this award
2. Share 7 things about yourself
3. Award 5 recently discovered great bloggers
4. Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award

7 Random Things...

1.  I am an only child.  No brothers.  No sisters.  Tons and tons of cousins, so I never got the grands to myself, but I did mom and dad. 

2.  I LOVE the X-FILES.  I have watched all 9 seasons 4 times.  That doesn't count the episodes that I have watched on TV.  If it is ever on I MUST watch it!. 

3.  I met my best friend while waiting outside of the D-Hall room when I was in 10th grade.  We were both big talkers!  She still is... I quietened down with age :).  

4.  One of my aunts, one of my cousins, and I all share the same birthday, January 12th.  

5. All but 2 papers I have written as a Graduate student has been used, by my professors, to teach other students.  I am super proud of that!  :)

6. At one time I had 5 dogs, 8 ducks, 1 hamster, 2 fish, and  a cat.  Yeah.  I'm an animal lover. 

7. I have read The Twilight Series 4 times. I though I loved it until I found The Hunger Games Trilogy.  I've already read it twice and have created a map of what I think Panem would look like.  HAHA!  I am such a dork.  

 

 

Now, here are 5 super stylish bloggers.  

 

Mrs. Bell @ A Place Called Kindergarten 

The ladies @ The Kindergarten Corral

Mrs. Saylor @ Mrs. Saylor's Log

Mrs. Parker @ Learning with Mrs. Parker 

Mrs. Adcock @ The Joy of First Grade

Erica Bohrer's Book Give-A-Way!

Erica Bohrer is giving away a signed copy of her book!  To find out how you can win, click the picture of her book to visit her super cute blog! 

The Moon #4

Moon Craters 

         After snow days, and 100 days, and Valentine's Day, we were finally able to finish our moon unit.  Our last moon project was to make our own moon craters.  First, we made moon sand with craft sand, cornstarch, and water.

 

         Then the students used "space rocks," "asteroids," or "space debris" to hit their moon and create craters.   (Like our leftover plates from our party?:))

They drew pictures of what the craters looked like after they threw the different objects.  Click the picture below to get the recording sheet.  

    The one thing that we did not get done that I had hoped to was a moon writing.  Here is the writing mat I made.  I guess I will have it for next year. 

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!: Read Across America Linky Party

Mrs. Parker is having a Linky Party for Read Across America, AKA Dr. Seuss' Birthday.  I love this day.  The first grade at our school always party it up for our favorite author's birthday.
We always start out March 2nd by reading Happy Birthday to You! By: Dr. Seuss.  Then, we use lined chart paper to create a list of materials we would need to put together the best birthday party ever.  

      Next we usually read the The Cat and the Hat Comes Back since we have already read The Cat in the Hat earlier in the year. After reading about the Cat in the Hat, then the students make a hat. Click to get the "Cat in the Hat" hat pattern.   There are several variations of the hat.  Students can use red construction paper to create a patter, just color the hat, or write different -at words in each section of the hat.  The way my students usually do the hat is to just color it, write their name on the "brim," and glue it to a sentence strip they have written a number of rhyming words on.

   One idea to celebrate Dr. Seuss' Birthday is to do a class writing based on one of his classics.  My class has done a rewrite of Green Eggs and Ham before (check it out).  When typing about using The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, it gave me the idea to talk about sequels and what happens to characters after the story ends.  So the Dr. Seuss book we will rewrite this time will be Wacky Wednesday.  Our title will be "Tricky Thursday."  If you are familiar with this book, a big part of it is the illustrations showing the topsy-turvey things that happen on "Wacky Wednesday."  The students will draw pictures to illustrate the scenes in the new writing.   Another good thing about this book is that Dr. Seuss wrote it under the name Theo. LeSieg, so you can use this as a way to introduce his real name.

Math

Click the picture to download a few Seuss math activities I made.   The students use the pictures to work out the problems.

   It is a tradition at our school that we end March 2nd with a cake.  I buy an undecorated cake from Wal-Mart or Albertson's (They just stick together better than one I make at home).  Then I cut the sides to give it the "Hat" shape and decorate it with red, white, and chocolate icing.

This isn't the best picture but you get the gist. 

Fabulous in First Give-A-Way

Michelle at Fabulous in First is having a BIG Give-A-Way from her TPT store! 

http://fabulousinfirst.blogspot.com

 For a chance to win, click the above link, go to her blog and see what you have to do!

Measurement with Jack and the Beanstalk- part 2

             I posted a few days ago about how I used Jack and the Beanstalk to get a better understanding of the students' background knowledge of measurement.  Keeping with the Jack and the Beanstalk theme, the students worked in groups to create a giant using non-standard units of measure, their feet.  Each group was responsible for making a different body part for the giant.  Since each group used a different student's feet to measure, the body parts came out different lengths.

Marking the starting point.

Measuring in "feet"

Drawing the body parts.

           Before we put the parts all together, we compared the 2 arms to each other and the 2 legs to each other.  Students who were not in the arm groups measured the arms with their feet, and, of course, they came up with different measurements.
     By the end of the discussion we had come to the conclusion that the parts were all different sizes because they were all measured with different feet.  If we want the parts to be the same length, we have to measure them with "the same feet," as one student said.

   This is absolutely one of my favorite lessons!  Coming up next, making a giant with "the same feet."  :)

100 Days with Love!

       Thanks to the lovely winter weather he have had, we are just now celebrating the 100th day of school.  Normally at this time of the year my school babies would have done a couple of Valentine's writings and would have made a cute little decoration or two.  This year, when the 100th day of school comes closer to the middle of February instead of at the beginning, I decided to try and merge the 100th day with V-Day.

Here we have 10 Lovebugs made from 100 hearts....

10 Flutterbys made from 100 hearts....

If I had 100 pieces of chocolates...  

This is will be a full "box of chocolates."  Right now it's half eaten :).

If I had 100 pieces of chocolate, I would eat it all up.  I love chocolate.  I might share with my sister. (HAHA!  I love this one.  I think that it is my favorite.... Don't tell the other kids:))

If I had 100 Pieces of Chocolate, I would share them with my friend, and my family, and my brother.   We would eat them together because we love each other.  (SO SWEET!!!!)

If I had 100 pieces of chocolate, I would share them with a friend, and I would share them with my family.  Because this is too much to eat.  (I was thinking 'Speak for yourself!'  Just kidding! :))

100 ways to say "I Love You!"

This is still a work in progress.  I think we still have 75 ways to go!

Give them something they need. 

Make a chocolate heart.

Group hug!  (LOVE IT!)

It wasn't  the 100 days that I normally do and it's not the normal Valentine decorations, but the 100th day was celebrated and we're now decked out in hearts.  I think that this on one of my favorite 100 Days Celebrations.  

Dental Health Month- Egg Experiment

        Just in case you didn't know, along with everything else that February has to offer, it is also Dental Health Month.  To show the students what effect different drinks have on our teeth, my class does this neat little week long experiment.
       At home I boil three eggs.  The first day of the experiment we record what each egg looks like and then place one in coke, one in red Kool-Aid, and one in lemonade.  Each day we take the eggs out and describe what we saw on a recording sheet.  On Friday, we take the eggs out of the liquids and brush one of them with a toothbrush and toothpaste.

The Moon # 3

Phases of the Moon

        After learning that we can only see the part of the Moon that the Sun is shining on, the students created models of the Moon's Phases.
     The first model we did was a guided activity using black construction paper and white circles.

Instructions for guided moon phases activity.


            The second model the students did was done in groups of two with very little guidance from me.  They had to draw the Earth in the middle of their plate and then make Oreos look like the different phases of the Moon and put them in the correct order around the Earth.  As the students completed the models  they had to tell me about them.  I graded them according to a rubric.