Resource Rewind: February & Five for Friday

Check out my favorite February resources!

Valentine's Day
I HEART<3 this writing activity from What I Have Learned. The reason why I love it is because children brainstorm and write positive affirmations about themselves.

We used this hug bug craft made by From the Pond on the front of a Valentine Card for our parents. On the inside of the card we wrote a note telling the special person how much we love hugs from him/her. 

President's Day/Lincoln/Washington
There are a ton of great President's Day resources on TpT, but my favorite is probably the mini book in this resource from Teacher to the Core.

Now it's time for...

I rearranged my classroom! First, I got a bit of Spring Cleaning Fever. Then, I was thinking about how my room is cute, but could definately be more functional. I decided that next school year I definately needed more floor space at the front of the room because I teach "from the floor" with the kids all sitting on the carpet at front of the room. When you put 20 bodies, even little bodies, down there at the same time it is cramped! We didn't have very much room for math games or a large circle either, so I decided I had to fix it. Then, I thougth, "What am I waiting for?!" Why try a new arrangement on a new group of kids, when you can try it now on a group that already knows the rules and expectations? So I did. I arranged the desks around the outer edge of the room and moved the storage shelves to the center of the room. We are loving the larger space we have at the front of the room. It's A-W-E-S-O-M-E. I'll have to edit this post with a pic. 

You gotta see the portraits we painted of Abe Lincoln! This month we learned about President's Day, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. We read books, created anchor charts, made a venn diagram, and did some crafts. We did a guided drawing of Lincoln and then used water colors to paint him. These two crafts will part of our patriotic Open House diplay.

Here are some other crafts I'm considering for Open House. We will read and write about the eagle and the White House before we complete each craftivity, of course!

Both of these were Pinterest finds, but here are the links to Mrs. Jump's Class and Adventures in Mrs. Martin's Room where the pins originated from.

Today we built a little 32 square foot raised garden in our back yard. My four year old is so excited to grow strawberries, tomatoes, and peppers. I can't wait until we can actually see a fruit growing on a vine! I hope I have a green thumb.

This week we learned about air in science. On Friday I hosted the Balloon Olympics.

 We competed to see who keep their balloon in the air the longest.

Students used coffee straws and their own air to blow styrofoam balls  across the finish line. Check out the kiddo laying down. He said he laying like a seal!

In my favorite game students blow bubbles then pick one and try to blow it across the room and through a hula hoop.

Did I mention I visited Phoenix and Sedona recently? Well, I did. It was beautiful. My husband had a conference in Phoenix, so I went along for the weekend to do a little sight seeing. Here I am "hanging around".

Resource Rewind: January

Hiya friends,
I'm back. I'm a BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD BLOGGER! I know. I think about blogging often, but I don't actually sit down and do it. But, I resolve to be better. And, fingers crossed, I'm going to take some pictures that I can use on my blog....errr...for next time :-)

I was thinking about all of the wonderful resources that I buy or download for FREE from Teachers Pay Teachers. TpT is my go-to resource when I need/want to supplement the district resources that I am given. My district has really awesome reading and math resources, but I often supplement writing and social studies resources. I thought it would be a cool idea to showcase the resources that I used and really, really liked and may use again next year. Actually, this could be a really cool linky party too! What do you think?

Resource Rewind: show & tell the resources created by other teachers that are proven winners in your classroom.

Here are some of my January faves and the links so you can find them easily.

MLK Bingo by Jasmine McClain

This make-your-own BINGO board was a huge hit with my firsties! After reading a book about MLK Jr. and brainstorming some adjectives to describe the civil rights leader, we talked about some of the adjectives students could cut out and paste onto their BINGO board. Then, the following day we BINGOed til we were blue in the face. The kids just didn't want to stop! When I called out a word, I would use it in a sentence to help make a connection to our story. For example, "Equality. Martin wanted equality for people of every color." Some of the words are difficult for first graders, so I projected the words as I called them out loud. Winners got a mini tub of playdough. Students begged me to play again the following day during social studies.

What the Teacher Wants

Another resource that I really liked was this 3 sounds of -ed resource from What the Teacher Wants. In my district, very detailed and scripted lesson plans are provided for reading/language arts. The plans focus on reading strategies and reading comprehension more than phonics. But, when one of my guided reading groups is having trouble reading words that a quick phonics lesson will fix right up, I teach it. My kiddies reading at a level D/6 were having a tough time with word endings, especially -ed. They had no problem with "wait" or "skip" or "smell" but they struggled with "waited" and "skipped" and "smelled". I did a quick mini lesson whole group using these anchor charts and the word cards. Then, when I met with the guided reading group, I had the kiddos look through their books for words that ended with -ed. We discussed the root word and which sound of -ed the word made. It really helped! I struck gold with this resource.

All About Snowman Writing by Primary Paradise

We've been working on All About...writing for the past few weeks. The kids did some cross curricular writing, "All About My Rock", when they described the attributes of the rocks they brought from home for our science unit. Then, we painted and pasted and hot glued to create pet rocks and wrote, "All About My Pet Rock" during Work on Writing. My class had a blast creating and writing about their pet rocks, and I didn't think I'd be able to come up with something else they would enjoy writing about as much as those rocks. But, we had a couple of snow days, well...ice and sleet days, recently and we are reviewing weather in science, so I decided to work with that. I found this snowman glyph writing craftivity from Primary Paradise and the kids loved creating a snowman to write about. This resource has a variety of hats, scarfs, buttons, etc. to choose from so each child's snowman is unique. We are in the middle of this little project, but I plan to display the snowmen without the writing attached. Then, students will share their writing with the class to see if their friends can figure out whose snowman is whose. We are working on adding details to create a mental picture for the reader. If I remember to take some pics, I'll update this post with some pictures of the snowmen later on.

It just so happens that each of these resources are FREE!

Stay warm,