Memories Made in First: Teacher of the Year Sale + Paul Bunyan

This past week we tried to cram five days of learning into four days! We didn't quite get everything I wanted to done, but between meeting our new student teacher, spring pictures, my observation, and the middle of the year assessment window closing, we gave it our best shot.

We wrapped up our unit on traditional literature with a tall tale about Paul Bunyan. Last year I bought this unit from Rachel Lamb. It's a really awesome resource!

I had some of the graphic organizers printed poster size and laminated last year. It sure was nice to be able to pull them out of the cabinet ready to go this year.

We started off the week reading the story of Paul Bunyan. Next we discussed what larger than life abilities means. We brainstormed what some of our abilities are and then changed them into larger than life abilities. I can't recall what we came up with, but if a student said, "I can read fast.", we changed that to "I can read a 1000 books in one day."

The next day we focused on what an exaggeration is and how stories get exaggerated. We worked in Peanut Butter & Jelly pairs to determine which of two sticky notes could really happen and which one must be an exaggeration. You can read more about PB&J pairs in this post.

Fast forward to Friday and we made this Pinterest inspired Paul Bunyan craft.

I linked the PIN, but I have no idea who created this awesomely cute craft to begin with. I just looked at the picture and then free handed my own tracers to make something similar.

I really wish we had had more time to read other tall tales and make some text to text connections, but it just didn't happen.

In other news, I was voted campus Teacher of the Year! To celebrate I'm throwing a sale in my little store.

This week I'm attending the SDE Conference for Texas First Grade Teachers on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday is an early release day. I'm so excited, but exhausted just thinking about it!